Episode 1442 Scott Adams: Blue Origin, Pandemic Persuasion, and is Fox News Killing People
My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a
Find my "extra" content on Locals: https://ScottAdams.Locals.com
Content:
Ben Zobrist's ex...worst wife ever
Were elections EVER fair and fraud free?
CNN & MSNBC want to be your doctor?
Do COVID vaccines contain microchips?
The simulation, gravity and quarks
What is gravity?
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Go. Hello, northern Colorado.
Good to have you in the house.
Well, as you know, I have sometimes had some issues with my audio on these live streams, and somebody was nice enough to send me a sign that I could hold up so that it wouldn't slow down my flow.
But before I show you the sign, I have to give you a warning.
The sign has some offensive words on it.
And offensive concept, too.
So if you would be offended by some words that are pretty offensive, you don't want to watch this next part.
So I'm going to show you the sign, but I'm not going to read it out loud.
So if you're home, you'll just have to guess.
If you're listening and not watching, you're going to have to guess what it says.
Well, I'll probably tell you. All right, so here's the sign, but...
We're going to modify it a little bit.
Okay. Do you think this is funny?
How many think this is funny?
All right. It's very offensive, right?
So what we're going to do is we're going to have to modify it a little bit.
So this is very, very bad.
So we're gonna cover it up a little bit.
Just some of the bad parts so I can use it.
And I think we're almost there.
Get rid of these parts.
And I think this is going to work.
Get rid of that.
And if you're at home listening to this, you must be so disappointed.
Because visually, it's stunning.
Well, there you go.
So now I've turned it into a Yoda version.
So it says, Jesus, King, is.
The audio is fine.
That's right. Jesus, King, is.
Now, before I modified it with the sticky notes, for those of you who are just listening at home, it did say something about the Lord and his name being taken in vain, and, you know, that's inappropriate.
So if anybody has problems with the audio, remember, Jesus King is, the audio is fine.
Okay. Taking care of that little business, let's move on.
Have you all seen the launch of Jeff Bezos' rocket?
The Blue Origin.
Now, I don't know if you've seen a picture of the rocket.
Have you seen a picture of the rocket?
Because the picture of the rocket...
I don't know this to be true, but I think it's a fair assumption.
That it was designed based on Stormy Daniel's description of Trump's penis.
Now, that doesn't sound funny until you see the rocket itself.
Trust me on this.
Stormy Daniel's description of Trump's penis.
There's your rocket. There's your rocket right there.
Now, I... I tweeted cleverly, I thought, that all it needs is a scrotum, otherwise it's on model.
But I was one-upped in my witticism when I noted it doesn't have a scrotum, as Dr.
Sexy on Twitter said, and I quote, that's because the nuts are on the inside.
Dr. Sexy, not often do I get bested, In humor on my own topic.
I'm a professional.
But this time, I've got to admit, the nuts are on the inside.
Pretty good. Pretty good.
All right. Now, here's a question for you.
If you were trying to race into space and you were a billionaire, and the billionaire who beat you into space was in a rocket called Virgin...
How would you design your rocket to one-up a Virgin?
Well, you could make it shaped like a gigantic penis.
Because maybe the Virgin got there first.
But I think the Blue Horizon may have penetrated space a little faster, if you know what I mean.
And it puts a lot of pressure on Elon Musk to design his next rocket to look like a giant baby bottle, really just to keep the theme alive.
You know, the virgin, then the giant penis, then maybe the baby bottle.
Give the whole space thing maybe a narrative, a meta-narrative.
Well, here's a story about the worst wife ever.
Now, you might think to yourself...
That you have marital problems?
Maybe your spouse is not perfect.
But I'd like to read a story to you about somebody who's got it worse than you do.
Ex-MLB star Ben Zobrist.
He's got a little issue.
It's reported in the paper that his wife had an affair with their pastor.
Now, if you have an affair with your family pastor...
Pretty bad. Right?
I don't know if that would be the worst wife ever, because people have affairs.
But to cap it off, apparently the wife, while she was having the affair with the pastor, threw him a retirement party, which cost her husband $30,000.
The husband didn't know which account it came out of, so he didn't realize how much it cost.
And while they were giving the The retirement party for the pastor, who the wife was having an affair with, she danced suggestively with the pastor in front of all the guests.
Not an ideal wife, really.
And now, she's suing her husband for millions of dollars...
So her contribution to his life will be to pester him because he quit, because he wasn't making enough money, having an affair with the pastor, using his $30,000 to throw a party for the pastor that she was having the affair with, and dancing suggestively with him in front of all their friends.
Then, taking millions of his dollars and leaving him a shell of a man.
I'm only telling you this story so you feel better about your own life.
Do you feel better now?
You know, your spouse is maybe not putting the top on the toothpaste.
Right? Doesn't seem so big now, does it?
Yeah. Your spouse gambled, lost some money.
Doesn't seem like such a big deal.
No, does it? Bought a boat without asking?
Not such a big deal.
You're welcome. Well, the Huffington Post has some fake news and it's reporting, fakely.
Fakely but truly, strangely enough.
Sometimes the news is true and fake at the same time.
How is that possible?
Well, it can be true, but because the context is manipulated, it could give you a false story.
And that's happening here. The Huffington Post is reporting that Texas, or at least maybe it's one county or something, wants to ban the teaching that the Ku Klux Klan is morally wrong.
Does that sound like real news?
It's in the Huffington Post.
So it must be real, right?
The Huffington Post wouldn't try to fool you and tell you a story like that Texans are trying to not teach that the KKK was morally wrong.
They wouldn't say that, would they?
Yeah, the whole story is bullshit.
So here's what really happened.
What really happened is that there was some changes to how history was taught, and a bunch of things were removed, including the way they were teaching about slavery and eugenics and Ku Klux Klan and stuff like that.
But does that mean that they're not going to teach that stuff?
Or is they're just removing the lesson the way it was?
Let me ask you this.
If your children are old enough...
To learn about the KKK, because, you know, you're not going to teach a two-year-old about the Klan.
But if your kid is old enough to learn about the Ku Klux Klan, aren't they already old enough to know it's wrong?
Is anybody sending their kids to school and they see a lesson about the Ku Klux Klan, and is that kid sitting there and thinking, well, that looks pretty good.
Where'd all that go? We need some more of that.
If your kid is having those thoughts, maybe the problem isn't Texas.
Maybe it's not the school system.
I'm just wondering, when World War II and the Holocaust is being taught in schools, do they specifically add the lesson that the Holocaust was morally wrong, or do they kind of make the assumption that you'd figure that out on your own?
Was there a time in American history where you had to tell kids that the KKK was wrong?
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, there was. A horrible time in history where you actually had to explain that that was wrong.
But today? Today?
Do you have to explain to a kid today in 2021 that the KKK is not your ideals organization?
I don't think so. So I'm going to call this fake news.
I don't think anybody needs to tell anybody that the KKK is a bad deal.
And it was just part of a larger lesson that got readjusted, I guess.
All right, there's a fascinating compilation clip.
No, not that kind, you dirtbags.
A compilation clip on politics this time.
And it shows a bunch of Democrats, Jack Posobiec was tweeting this, in 2018 talking about the lack of security in voting, specifically with voting machines, electronic ones.
Now, is it persuasive to see the same people who are saying the elections are fine just a few years ago complaining that they're totally not fine?
Does hypocrisy persuade anybody?
Nope. It's the weirdest thing.
That pointing out hypocrisy has ever changed anybody's mind.
I've never seen it happen.
Have you ever had an argument where you say, well, yeah, your side says X, but last week they were saying Y, so now change your mind.
Has that ever worked?
No, no, in the history of the world, pointing out hypocrisy has never changed anybody's mind.
I don't think. I mean, I've never seen it.
Maybe, somewhere. I can't say zero people have changed their mind, but I've never seen it.
So it's great to look at that, but it doesn't really...
it doesn't penetrate.
So there's your persuasion lesson for the day, is that you are sure hypocrisy would change minds, if you can point it out how starkly it is, but it doesn't.
It just doesn't change anybody's minds.
And the reason is that nobody formed their opinion based on facts.
If they had ever made their opinion based on facts and reason, maybe they would change their opinion if you showed them something changed or there was hypocrisy.
But since it's not a legitimate opinion in the first place, nobody's going to change it.
Rasmussen reports that they asked this question of likely voters.
Are we facing the most significant test of our democracy since the Civil War?
And... 56% agree.
That's the most significant test of our democracy since the Civil War.
What is? What exactly?
Which part is the test of the democracy?
Is it that the vote wasn't trusted?
Is that the test?
Is it the way the social media companies are manipulating communication?
Is it the news telling us fake news?
What exactly is it?
Oh, is it the insurrection with the guy with the hat?
The Viking hat?
So how do 56% of the public think that we're having the most significant test of our democracy since the Civil War?
Based on what?
Based on what? To me, everything looks sort of the way it's always looked.
Oh, oh, you're thinking that elections used to be fair, and then now they're not.
I don't think that's the case.
Do you think that elections are less fair now than they were around the Civil War?
Check out some history.
Our elections have been pretty sketchy for a long time, right?
The Kennedy election being a classic one.
So I have to say that the number of people who think that things are the worst since the Civil War for our democracy are just being persuaded by the press, by social media.
I just don't think the evidence is suggesting that at all.
How many people think election reform is needed?
61% agreed.
But what do I tell you about the 25%?
On almost any kind of poll question...
25% will have the dumbest answer you could ever have.
You could ask people, is oxygen good?
25% will say, no, no, oxygen's bad.
We don't want that. So 25% strongly disagreed with the idea that election reform is needed.
What? How could you possibly think that election reform is not needed?
Even if you believe the election was perfectly fair, can you not at least observe that half of the country isn't so sure?
Wouldn't a better system be one that you could audit easily and right away?
Why is it we can count the votes in a day or two, but you can't audit it for months?
Don't you think you need a little election reform So that you can audit it more easily.
At the very least, make it more auditable so people's complaints go away.
But 25% of the public says, nah, nah, we don't need that.
25%. It's so consistent.
All right, um... So we're seeing a new cottage industry by CNN and MSNBC which is misinterpreting Fox hosts to make them look worse than they are.
Now, of course, that's the game they all play because they're in competition.
But the current move is to say that Fox News is killing its viewers by giving them misinformation about vaccinations and whatnot.
But... What exactly is that misinformation?
Because if you actually look for an example, it's not really there.
So you'll see Tucker Carlson asking questions.
For example, he said, how do we know the vaccines work if a person who's fully vaccinated can get it and give it to somebody else who's fully vaccinated?
Is that saying the vaccines work?
Well, it does keep the men in the hospital, so I would say it works.
But the question is a reasonable question.
Now, if somebody asks reasonable questions, but the viewer comes to a wrong conclusion about those questions, what they mean and how important they are, is that Fox News?
Is that on them?
Because here's the thing.
Is Fox News your doctor?
CNN and MSNBC have decided they're your fucking doctor and that you should get your information on medical stuff from them.
From watching CNN, you should make medical decisions.
Literally. That's what CNN's telling you.
Watch our show, and then make a medical decision based on that.
Not just what CNN is giving you as facts, but also their opinion.
That CNN's opinions should form your medical advice.
And MSNBC, the same thing.
Now, Fox News, I would say...
It's a little bit more transparent about saying we're going to look at all the questions, even if that maybe influences you a different way.
Because it's up to you to decide whether you get vaccinated.
It's not up to Fox News.
They're not trying to be your doctor.
So CNN and MSNBC are trying to be your doctor, giving you actual advice on what to do.
Fox News isn't doing that.
Does that mean that Fox News is the bad one?
I suppose that's more of an opinion than a fact, right?
Because I do think you could make the argument that maybe the way Fox News treats these topics might influence people to get fewer vaccinations than otherwise.
Would that make a difference to how many people live and die?
It might. It might.
But is it Fox News' job to be your doctor, right?
Or could they just say, hey, we've got a question about this, a question about that.
Here's a skeptic who has an opposite view of this.
And then you talk to your doctor and make up your own mind.
It's an interesting ethical and moral question.
I don't think we would ever ask this question, except in the context of a pandemic where the stakes are so high.
But... Just ask yourself, is your news source trying to substitute for your doctor?
Now, one of the things I find most interesting about this whole pandemic is that the two worlds interpretation is going to survive long after the pandemic.
And what I mean by that is that some people are living through a non-pandemic, meaning that as far as they are concerned, there was never a real pandemic.
Over 600,000 people reportedly died in the United States alone, but there are going to be a lot of people who lived through all of that and said, nah, it was basically just the flu.
Oh, it was a bad flu, but it was basically the flu.
And other people will say it was a pandemic.
And then, of course, there will be people who say masks worked, people who say it didn't, people who say vaccinations worked, people who say it didn't.
And there's no data, no facts whatsoever.
No news that will come out of this that will change the fact that we're all going to live through this thing, or most of us will live through this thing, and we won't even agree on what it was we lived through.
It's not like a war where at least you agree you all went through the same war.
Some people are going to say there wasn't even a pandemic.
It was just a pretend pandemic.
And it's amazing to me That I can predict this so far in advance and be entirely confident that that's what's going to happen.
So how many of you have checked your predictions since the beginning of COVID? I'm going to run through some of mine just so you can see how well I'm doing.
And if I forgot some, you'll remind me.
Because I was just running from memory.
I'm sure I predicted a lot more things than this.
Probably forgetting the ones I got wrong.
Which would be normal. So I remember people saying that it wasn't going to be worse than the regular flu, but now we have 600,000 or more Americans who died from it, allegedly.
Now, even if you took off 25% for miscounting, let's say you were super conservative and said, I think 25% of these are BS, you still got a lot, right?
So I would say I was right that it was a real pandemic.
I've always been on the side that says it was at least possibly engineered.
So I would say I was right on that, because at the moment the experts still say, well, it's possible, but we don't know for sure.
I told you early on, and notably, that we would not run out of food and that the economy would not completely crash and that we'd be fine.
And we are. I would guess that maybe was my best prediction, that we wouldn't run out of food, because it was the most important one.
It's the one that would contribute the most to reducing the panic.
I predicted very early on that our medical health science people would not only rise to the challenge, but would impress you at how quickly they did it.
In other words, I predict that therapeutics would come on fast.
I was less sure that vaccinations would eradicate the problem, but I thought they, too, would come on faster than normal.
So my prediction that we would be surprised on the upside, that our science would do so well with the therapeutics, etc., I would say that was right, wouldn't you say?
I said early on that genetics would matter.
We know that now. I said vitamin D is probably a big variable.
We know that to be true.
I said that when the experts said masks don't work, I said they do.
You still think they don't, and that will never change.
We will never settle whether masks work or don't.
I'm very comfortable knowing that it's almost certain that they do.
But There are no guarantees in this world.
Hydroxychloroquine, I was open to it working, and if you watched, you saw that I dropped my percentage of likelihood that it worked every day that we didn't have confirmation of it working, and now it's basically zero, or close to zero.
And so far, I have not been proven wrong about that, but I could be.
I said that America would surprise the world by performing better by the end, but not until the end where we'd see it, than it did at the start.
Because you could say we had a bad start, but I think you could say that we're doing well now, because the vaccinations are going well compared to other countries.
And I was never for full lockdowns as long as they lasted.
I thought it was worth a try for a few weeks, but that didn't work.
And I think I was most wrong about how long anything would last.
I didn't think it would last two years.
So I was wrong on that.
All right. I said, show me the under-70-year-old celebrity death rate.
Yes, that's right. And so far, none, right?
There's nobody who died of COVID who's a celebrity.
I think I used different years.
I might have said under 65.
But I don't think there's been one.
Has there? All right.
So here's some fake news.
So there's fake news that says that Fox News is now requiring vaccine passports when their hosts rail against them.
Is that real news or fake news?
That Fox News is requiring vaccine passports for their own employees and At the same time that their hosts are talking against having vaccine passports.
And the answer is fake news because it's just an option.
So now if people are vaccinated at Fox News, then they don't have to go through the other protocols.
But if they're unvaccinated, they go through the other protocols.
So basically just fake news.
So let's see what else we got.
Question. Can a vaccinated person give the virus to another fully vaccinated person?
Now, the technical answer is yes, because vaccinated people can get it, and vaccinated people can spread it.
But how often has it ever happened?
Because you've got two factors here.
One is that if you're vaccinated, it's hard to get it.
But the other is it's really hard to give it.
Those are two hard things, and if you put them together...
How often does one give it to the other?
Now, I saw an anecdote in which there was a wedding in which a bunch of vaccinated people still got infected, which would suggest that the vaccinations are not as effective as maybe you hoped.
But when you read in the article, there was a guest who came from India, had been vaccinated with one of the Indian whatever they were using in India, maybe not as effective as the Moderna and Pfizer, for example.
So do we have any example?
I'd like one example of a Moderna vaccinated person giving it to another Moderna vaccinated person.
Now, probably we can't really know.
It would just be hard to know for sure if that's where somebody got it from.
Maybe you have some good guesses.
Because have you noticed that whenever we talk about the weakness in the vaccination or we need a booster or whatever, it feels like it's never the Moderna shot.
Am I right about that?
That every time we hear about the Moderna shot, it's a positive?
Have I missed any stories?
Because we've heard about the Pfizer shot and some questions.
We've heard about J&J and having some questions on that.
As far as I know, I've not seen a negative Moderna story.
Yeah. So I wonder about that.
And just keep an eye on that.
Now, let me give you some...
Let me give you some vaccination persuasion.
If I were the news business, let's say I were CNN or MSNBC, and I thought it was my job to convince people to get vaccinated.
Now, you could argue whether they should do that or not, but let's say you thought you should.
How would you modify your news reporting to get the best vaccination result?
Well, here's what I wouldn't do.
258 people on average in the United States are dying from COVID every day.
So that's what's reported in the news.
258 people dying of coronavirus every day.
Therefore, you should go get a vaccination.
Is that persuasive? 258 people every day...
In the United States of 370 million people, whatever, does that make you want to get a vaccination?
Probably not, right?
Not by itself.
Because that's actually not very many people compared to 370 million.
And then, of course, in your mind you're saying, yes, but they're 100 years old and they're obese and that's not me.
Right? So I would say that when they report it this way, they're not really encouraging people to get vaccinated at all.
Now, here's an alternative way to report the news.
Two statistics.
Number of unvaccinated people who died today and number of vaccinated people who died.
Because the number of vaccinated people who died is close to zero.
At least the number of vaccinated people who were even in hospitals in L.A. and San Francisco, at least the other day, was zero.
There weren't any. Now, imagine...
Imagine those two numbers being reported every time by every entity.
Now keep in mind, I would also say you should report any vaccination side effects.
Because that's part of the story, right?
You can't leave it out. Now, you might not know your number about side effects is accurate, but you could put a range on it, you know, maybe modify the reporting a little bit and say, well, we don't know, but it looks like these are some questions.
So you don't want to leave out the side effects.
You don't want to leave out the risk of the vaccinations.
But if I were trying to persuade, I would not report the total number of people dying per day ever again.
Let me say that again. If I wanted people to get vaccinated, I would never again report the number of people dying from COVID. I would only report the number of vaccinated people dying per day and the number of unvaccinated people dying per day.
Don't do the whole year.
Doesn't make sense.
Just per day. Just those two numbers and just let it go.
Because if you see the news every day and it's like 300 unvaccinated people and one vaccinated person died, it's going to wear you down.
It's going to wear you down.
But it wouldn't be fair persuasion unless you also showed the risks.
As best you could.
49% of people in the U.S. are fully vaccinated.
At least two shots for the two-shotters.
And I don't know.
Is that good? 49%?
It isn't bad. It's not as good as it could be.
The YouGov Economist poll, and I think the Press Secretary Psaki mentioned this, apparently 20% of the voting public, or not the voting public, but 20% of whoever they talk to in the United States 20% think it's definitely or probably true that there's really a microchip in the shots and that the government is trying to chip you, put a microchip in you via the shots.
20%. Almost, yeah, there's the 25% rule, right?
So I've told you before that somewhere in the neighborhood of 25%, you know, ranging from, say, 20% to 30%, somewhere in that range...
We'll have the dumbest opinion on every question.
It's very consistent.
It makes me wonder if it's the same 25%.
Is it true that a quarter of the country gets every question wrong?
Or is it just no matter what the question is, you always have a quarter of the people who are on the wrong answer?
Isn't it weird how often that 25%-ish thing comes up for dumb people?
Well... I don't know for sure whether there's a chip in the vaccinations or not.
But if I had to make a guess and bet my life on it, bet not.
I think the safe money says no microchip in the vaccination.
And if you're not convinced because of me saying it, ask yourself this.
Do you think you could get exactly one chip into each vaccination?
What happens if you get two shots?
Do you get two chips?
Somebody says, that's just the chip talking, Scott.
Yes, the chip is running my voice.
I can't make my own decisions anymore because the microchip is in my body.
Two of them. How do you know you don't get hundreds of microchips?
How many of them do they put in each shot?
There are no microchips in your vaccine.
If there's anybody listening to this who thinks there's a microchip in their vaccination, maybe you need to watch something else.
Because there are no microchips in your vaccination.
They're really not. All right, I'm going to change the topic here.
Well, actually, before I do that, it's reported that the people who watch the most conservative news Also have the lowest rate of vaccinations.
So does that mean that watching conservative news causes you to be less likely to be vaccinated?
It might. But it also probably means that people who are the most conservative are the least likely to trust the government putting a chemical in their body.
So I'm not sure that watching the news makes you less likely to get the vaccination or that it's just people who are less likely to get the vaccination are watching the most right-leaning news.
So you trust the news?
Somebody says. Well, I don't.
All right. Another topic.
Who can tell me what an atom is made out of?
A-T-O-M, not Scott Adams.
You already know I made it.
I'm full of shit, so that was an easy question.
But what is an atom made of?
Well, it's made of neutrons and protons and electrons.
What's an electron made of?
Well, I believe it's a fundamental element, which means it's not made of anything except itself.
Neutrons and protons are made of what?
Quarks. Right.
So the atom is made of these three things, and two of these three things are made of quarks.
What are quarks made of?
So if the atoms are made up of quarks, what the hell is a quark?
Somebody says the quark is made of God.
Well... Strings.
Good answer. Whoever said strings, you've been following your news.
Well, even if it's made of strings, what are the strings made of?
So my point is, if you keep going down and down, what is everything made of?
And I've got a feeling that the answer has got to be ones and zeros.
As Sour Patch Rash is saying in the comments here, it's got to be ones and zeros.
Because what if you drilled all the way down to the lowest level of reality and found out it was all the same?
What if it's all the same?
And how can there be, let's say, different kinds of quarks?
Because you've got your charms and your up quarks and your down quarks.
But what are they made of?
What's a quark made of?
And if they're fundamental, how could there be more than one kind?
If whatever a quark is made of is itself, you can't have multiple different quarks, could you?
Well, now, of course, I'm way into territory that I don't understand.
But my point is that you reach a point in physics where they replace understanding with just words.
And the words are just placeholders because we have no idea what's happening down there.
Just no idea.
Somebody's...
I'm seeing a comment about vaccinations and Pfizer.
Israel used Pfizer exclusively, and it isn't keeping vax people in the hospital.
Well, but I think it's eliminated their deaths, right?
I think the death rate is basically close to zero.
So anyway, my point is...
How could anything move or how could there be any energy in the world if you went down to the lowest level of material and it was all the same?
It wouldn't do anything.
It would just sit there. The only way that things happen is if things that aren't the same are near each other.
Right? Now, let me ask you, is that simplification too much?
No. I'll say it again.
The only way anything moves in this world is if different things are near each other, such as wind and a sail.
If you got down to the lowest level, it would just be things that are exactly the same sitting next to each other.
It wouldn't have any effect, would they?
Except gravitational pull.
So my point is that the more we know about the nature of reality, the more likely we are going to get close to the idea that we are a simulation.
There's now a big project going on to map the entire universe.
So to get these big telescopes that can look at stars so far away, you can find out what the universe looked like 11 billion years ago.
And apparently they'll be able to actually create a three-dimensional map of the actual universe.
Not only where it is now, but apparently how it started.
What do you think is going to happen when we can map the whole universe...
I think we're going to find out we're a simulation.
I think all of this ends in the same place.
I think every mystery in physics, every mystery in the cosmos just ends in the same place, that we're obviously a simulation.
But somebody says the universe is currently collapsing.
Untrue. Not only is the universe expanding, but the rate of expansion is increasing.
Do you know why the rate of expansion is increasing?
Because that's how you program gravity.
I said this years ago.
Probably nothing has gotten me more trouble.
So here's a little mental thing for you.
Imagine there are only two things in the universe.
Let's say this yellow sticky pad and this stylus.
And they're touching it.
And then let's say the stylus jumps, jumps up, but everything in the universe is getting bigger at the same time.
What would be the impression of the stylus that it jumped up off of this yellow sticky pad if both the stylus and the thing got bigger at the same time?
They would touch again.
Because the two objects would grow in size until the distance that it jumped had closed.
And it would look a lot like gravity.
Wouldn't it? So, one way to create gravity that nobody can identify, like you can't get a handful of gravity, you can't block gravity.
Did you know that? There's nothing you can put between the earth and an object that would make the gravity lessened.
So what the hell is gravity if you can't block it?
It's probably just an impression.
It could be that everything is just getting larger programmatically, and that's what causes you to have the impression of gravity.
Now you say to yourself, but wait a minute, Scott.
Here are all my exceptions where your model doesn't work.
To which I say, just like a software program.
You catch the exceptions, and then you just deal with them programmatically.
So yeah, you could have some exceptions where it wouldn't work, That just making everything bigger gives you the same result as gravity.
By the way, there are real people, physicists, who have done the math and found out that if you model the universe as everything expanding, you get a very similar output to if you imagine there's gravity.
Now, yeah, the exceptions are now bugs.
Exactly. Eventually it will stop expanding and collapse.
Will it? I'm going to say it'll never stop expanding.
Because if it never stopped expanding, the illusion of gravity might disappear.
All right. So all that's just for fun.
Don't take any of it too seriously.
If you haven't noticed, my grasp of science is less than complete.
And is there anything that I missed today?
That would make volume more important than mass.
That is exactly the correct thing to note.
However, you could correct for that programmatically.
And most things do have...
Most things, the mass and the volume at least have some correlation.
All right. Would I do a simulation live stream for locals only?
Well, I've done a few topics on the simulation.
Oh, the audit...
Well, every day that we go without hearing some real, real audit issues, as opposed to issues that apparently can be explained away pretty easily, the less I would think that you're going to find anything.
So I'm still open-minded, but every day that goes by, the odds that we find something goes down.
Comment on the rise of de-economics in the National Review.
Don't know what that means exactly.
Why do you mind if others are vaccinated?
Well, you know, I'm not the one who minds that.
All right. Stock market.
Stock market always goes up and always goes down.
If you have cash on the sidelines...
A good time to buy, and this is not investment advice.
Don't get your investment advice from me.
But as a general statement, if you can identify times when the market is going down irrationally, with emphasis on irrationally, that's a good time to buy.
Now, so the question is, is the market going down irrationally because of the delta variance?
To which I say, good chance.
Don't know for sure, because maybe the Delta variant is the thing that recrashes the economies.
But I don't think so.
I feel as if our learning curve and our vaccinations and everything are going to head that off.
It'll be a big problem, but I don't know that it would change your investment decisions.
So I feel as if this is a buying opportunity, but don't get any investment advice from cartoonists.
You talk about it as if you do care.
Oh, let me explain that.
So people saying, if it feels as if I'm persuading anybody about vaccinations, let me clarify.
When I talk about what is good persuasion versus bad, that's to teach you.
That doesn't mean anybody has to use it, right?
So the government need not use any of my suggestions.
I'm just teaching you how to persuade, and I'm using the headline topics to do it.
The other thing is I think everybody should have the best thinking and data to go into their decision about vaccinations.
So, you know, whenever I can help clarify the thinking, I'll do that.
But whether you get a vaccination, I'm vaccinated.
I don't care. You know, if you're not affecting my economy and I can still use my hospital if I need it, do what you want to do.
Um... All right.
What is the simulation use of COVID? It feels like a reboot.
It feels like almost a system upgrade, the whole COVID thing.
Because the COVID changed so many things in our reality.
It just feels like a major software upgrade with lots of feature changes.
So maybe it's just that.
All right. How did the simulation get made?
By somebody who lived before.
That still begs the question, how did the first person get here?
