Episode 1460 Scott Adams: I Admit I Was Wrong About the Pandemic
My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a
Find my "extra" content on Locals: https://ScottAdams.Locals.com
Content:
Admitting I was wrong, with examples
Studies find masks are safe?
Long COVID decreases IQ?
Cola in your COVID test
Clever dementia concealment
Showing COVID needles and injections
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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.
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So I took the good equipment out of the mix, and if you're on YouTube, your sound will be bad.
If you're on Locals, your sound might be good.
I don't know. We'll find out.
Hey, even your video is bad on YouTube.
All right. Well, today's going to be one of the best days you've ever had.
And it's going to start with a little something I call the simultaneous sip.
And all you need is a cup or a mug or a glass, a tank or a chalice or a stein, a canteen, a jug, a flask, a basil, a vatic eye, fill it with your favorite liquid.
I like coffee. And join me now for the best.
The best thing that's ever happened to you today.
It's called the simultaneous sip.
It happens now.
Go.
Well, which of my faulty equipment would you like to see me throw out a window?
I've got one of these I can throw out the window.
I've got one of these.
I've got two printers that aren't working.
So I think I'm just going to have one day Or I just take all my broken technology and just throw it out a window just for entertainment.
And if you don't think that's serious, well, you don't know me.
Because, yeah. So I was going to read this yesterday, but it's still news.
There were big headlines yesterday that Bill Gates says he regrets the time spent with Jeffrey Epstein.
He says, quote, Now, there are some kinds of stories that you can write without research.
This would be one of them.
Could you imagine the person who was assigned to this story?
Can you give us a story about Bill Gates?
Ask him if he has any regrets about spending time with the most famous sexual predator of all time.
What do you think he'll say?
I don't know. Somebody's going to have to ask him.
Because maybe, maybe he would say it was the best idea he ever had.
Could surprise you.
Could be news.
But you send out your reporter and say, Bill Gates, what do you think about spending time with the most famous sexual predator of all times?
And it turns out he regrets it.
I know that comes as a big surprise to all of us.
But, yeah, he probably got together with his advisors and said, how do we handle this?
Should we just say, you know, we really like the time we spent with him, and it was awesome, I'd do it again.
What do you think?
How do you want to play this?
But he played it a huge mistake.
That was probably the right way to go.
So, are you waiting for the part where I admit I'm wrong about the pandemic?
Thank you.
Does anybody want to see me?
Eat crow? Tell you how wrong I was?
Here it comes. I was very wrong about the pandemic in a particular way.
So one of my friendlier critics explained this to me today.
He said, Scott, when you talk about the statistics that don't agree with you, You say that they are low quality and you point out how unreliable data is and how unreliable our professional sources are.
Do I do that?
First of all, if something doesn't agree with me, if I see a statistic, do I tell you that the statistics are bad?
I do. If you see statistics from me that coincidentally agree with my point of view, do I tell you those statistics might be wrong?
What do you say? What do you say in the comments?
Do I, as often, tell you to be skeptical of stuff I disagree with as stuff I agree with?
Huh? Huh?
Well, a lot of it depends on which window you're looking in.
Because people don't consume my content the same way.
Some people watch every day.
Some people just dip in and they'll see a certain story.
And so... Watch carefully as I admit that I was wrong.
Because later you'll say, I've never done it.
And by the way, I don't know if anybody's ever admitted they're wrong more often than I have in public.
Literally wrote a fucking book about it.
A whole book of stuff that were mistakes and things I did wrong.
A whole book. And the most common claim?
You never admit you're wrong.
All right, here it comes. Here's me admitting I'm wrong.
I'm reasonably sure that I don't question the things that agree with me, the statistics, as often as the things that don't agree with me.
I feel like that's actually a valid statement.
Now, the reason I don't do it is that I tell you all the time that half of all data is incorrect, don't trust anything, and I figure that covers it.
But if I also say that the things that don't agree with me are sketchy, but I don't mention that when the other things are, that can be misleading.
So, I'll give you some examples.
Let's see. Here's one.
Experts say masks are safe to wear.
That was the big trending thing on Twitter today.
A bunch of sources saying that they did a bunch of studies and found out that masks don't Make you short of oxygen.
They don't give you any problems.
Now, does that point of view agree with my point of view or disagree?
Well, I'm anti-mask at the moment for freedom reasons and because I think the risk is a certain size.
But my earlier statements that masks work and would be better on than not, not sure how much they work, but that they work, Would be supported by these stories.
So this is the sort of story that my critics would say, Scott, I don't think you're critical enough about these statements that they don't have any negative effects.
So, let me say, I don't believe this, do you?
I mean, I don't believe it's false that masks have no negative impact, but I don't believe that the data is credible or reliable.
Now, here's one of my little tricks for knowing what is BS. Look for when the science says one thing, but your personal observation is different.
That doesn't mean you're right.
It could mean that science is right and your personal observation is wacky.
But if they're out of whack, that should be at least a little flag that says dig a little deeper.
I wear a mask, and I have asthma.
There's no fucking way I can breathe the same with a mask on.
No fucking way.
Now, I saw all the doctors putting the oxygen meter on, and then they put the masks on.
One of them put like six masks on, and was still able to breathe.
And his oxygen meter still set 100%.
So you saw a bunch of doctors do that, right?
Put on the mask, oxygen meter was fine.
Therefore, breathing's just the same with the mask on.
Are you convinced they did it right in front of you?
No. Because when I put the mask on, I can't fucking breathe.
Does anybody have a different experience?
You know, I have asthma, so I've got a little extra going on there.
But does anybody have the experience that you can breathe the same with a fucking mask on?
No. No.
This is obviously fake news.
It happens to agree with my viewpoint, but it's also fake.
Right? So here's an example where something agrees with my general view of life, but it's obviously fake.
Now, here's what's probably going on.
I don't know this for sure, so this is speculation hypothesis.
We know, for example, that people who have COVID and their lungs are degraded Don't know it often.
Do you know why they don't know it?
Because they compensate.
They breathe harder. But they don't kind of realize it.
So they're getting enough, but not each breath.
But then they don't realize it.
Do you think that people who wear the masks have the same breathing pattern as someone who doesn't?
In other words, if you went for a run with a mask on, would you have to work harder to get the oxygen you need?
Probably. But it wouldn't be a problem of you not getting the oxygen.
It would be a problem of you having to work harder to get it.
Exercise would be kind of degraded.
So I would say that that's not credible information.
But I also don't have any reason to think that masks do hurt you.
So I have no reason to think that masks are dangerous, at least in terms of science, but also no reason to think that they're safe just because this recent information says so.
How about this one? The CDC estimated a one-year decline in life expectancy in 2020.
A one-year decline, that would be gigantic.
It would also agree with my worldview.
Because I say the pandemic was real.
We may have miscounted by 20% or something, but that wouldn't change the big picture.
So I say the deaths are real, and it's a real pandemic, and it's not like a regular flu.
That's my worldview. So this should agree with me, right?
The CDC estimating there's a one-year decline in life expectancy.
That's exactly what I'd expect.
Except it's bullshit. They just calculated it wrong.
So Peter Bach goes through it in a publication, basically saying that they just made a bad assumption and it's just all bullshit.
They just didn't know how to calculate it right.
So here's an example of something that agrees with me.
Well, two examples. Two data points that agree with me that I tell you I don't think either of them are credible.
They just happen to agree with me.
So I don't think that I can keep this up, meaning that I doubt I will be as good as I was today and tell you the things that agree with me are also wrong, but I'll try to do better.
So I'm going to say that the criticism that I haven't done that enough in the past is probably valid.
So here I am admitting to an error.
Well, actually, here's another example.
There was a study, 80,000 people, I think, in the UK, and it said that long COVID, or just COVID, if you get COVID, your IQ will be lowered on average.
And it's quite measurable.
It's like a few points.
Now, does that agree with my worldview?
It does. If this were true, that getting COVID lowers your IQ, that would be right on point with my worldview, which says that the long COVID, you know, the risk of getting COVID, is bad not just because you might die, but that the long-term consequences.
So it agrees with my worldview, but is it accurate?
Well, it took all of about a minute to For somebody who's good at looking at stuff, Donald Luskin, a practicing economist, looked at it and said, you know those 81,000 people you studied?
They looked at 81,000 people and eliminated almost all of them from the study because there wasn't any previous IQ information about them.
So they could only find hundreds of people In the 81,000 that were even worth studying.
So when the headline says 81,000 people were studied, that's just bullshit.
They started with 81,000 and then threw out almost all of them.
Because the only ones they could use were the ones where they had a fairly recent IQ test so that they could measure any difference.
The whole story is just bullshit.
It just happens to agree with me.
So would I have been harsh to it, had it, you know, before this conversation?
I don't know. You have to wonder.
But here was a comment that I'm sorry I missed, but one of my...
I think somebody who follows me said this on Twitter.
That's a little too on the nose, right?
Isn't it convenient that, you know, the...
The powers that be want you to get vaccinated.
And then, conveniently, there's a study that says if you don't, your IQ is going to go down.
Now, would you know if your IQ went down two points?
Because it's sort of in that range, two, three points.
Would you know? No, you'd think you did, right?
Talk to somebody who's had COVID. Tell them that there's a study that says your IQ goes down two points.
And then ask them, having primed them for the question...
Now you've biased them.
Hey, there's a study that says your IQ goes down.
Have you felt any difference since you got the virus?
What are people going to say?
Two points? Yeah, I feel like I feel that.
Got a little brain fog.
It was that time I tried to calculate a tip on the restaurant and I didn't get it on the first try.
You're right! My IQ did go down!
Right? Yeah, and in the comments somebody says, with age.
Doesn't your IQ go down with age anyway?
I had the same question. So if you studied people who, let's say, took an IQ test 10 years ago, isn't their IQ lower?
You know, depending on which age group is getting the most COVID, if they tend to be skewing older.
If you look at a 60-year-old compared to a 50-year-old, same IQ? I don't think so.
I think it goes down a couple of points, I think, but I'm not sure.
So I don't believe the story that COVID lowers your IQ. There were only a few hundred people tested, and I don't think any of this sounds credible to me.
It just happened to agree with my worldview.
There's a story that kids, teens, are beating COVID tests, well, in the opposite way.
They're giving it a false positive intentionally by putting cola, and I guess some fruit drinks, Into the test, and it makes it seem as if you have COVID, and then you can get out of school.
So you get two weeks off of school by putting some soda in your COVID test.
Now, I don't know if that's true.
Just like every other story?
I don't know. Is that true?
Do you think so? Somebody says, I'm not a psychiatrist, but I can bet Scott as a narcissist.
You don't have to bet. I can confirm it.
The thing people don't understand about narcissists is that there are two different kinds.
One kind likes to get its supply, as it were, its supply of praise and feeling of worth from doing good things for other people.
Is that a problem to you?
Is it a problem to you that I would like to get my feeling of self-worth and any praise that society wants to give me, that I would like to get that by doing good things for other people to earn that praise?
Is that a mental condition?
Do you think I'd need hospitalization for that?
Because that's one kind of narcissist.
There's another kind that just, and they overlap, of course, but there's another kind who just thinks they're a little bit better, or a lot better, Than they really are.
I'm also one of those.
Intentionally. I always set my expectations of what I can accomplish.
I set it higher than reasonable.
Because it gives me something to shoot for.
And it lets me perform better.
So you don't have to wonder if I'm a narcissist.
I can confirm it.
Absolutely. I mean, 100%.
Everything about me fits those categories.
But you may not know that there's more than one kind.
The malignant narcissist is just a whole different deal.
And I may be one of those.
If I am, I wouldn't know it.
You know, I certainly have the other kinds, for sure.
But am I also malignant?
I don't know. Could be.
I'm not the one who would be able to know.
Anyway, Here's what I was going to say.
So, COLA causes false positives on tests.
And it makes me wonder this.
Are you ready for some deep conspiracy theorizing?
I know you are. You love conspiracy theories.
Admit it. Admit it.
You love them. Here's one.
What if...
Wait for it.
What if...
A lot of the COVID positive tests...
We're people who just had a diet Coke and read a Dilbert comic and snorted Coke out of their nose.
Yeah, if you laugh Coke out of your nose and then do a COVID test, aren't they going to get a little Coca-Cola on their swab?
It's going to look like a false positive?
Now wait, wait, there's more.
What if? What if?
There's a high correlation between the people who would drink...
A cola drink, not exactly a health food, and the people who would be unhealthy and have comorbidities are likely to die anyway.
What if it's a soda pandemic?
What if the false positives are soda in the nose, and the people dying were going to die sooner than other people anyway because they have unhealthy diets, as indicated by their soda consumption?
Now, I don't think any of that's true, but wouldn't it be easy to start that rumor?
None of that's true. Don't take any of that seriously, okay?
But I do wonder if it's true that these types of drinks can cause a false positive.
Are you telling me that never, that never a person who just had a soda tested positive with a swab?
Because if you've got the soda in your mouth, doesn't at least the, I don't know, the fumes from the soda get in your nose or something?
No, just a question. Here's a question.
Do vaccines work?
Today there's information that the people who have the Delta infection, you can get the same amount of virus regardless of vaccination status, early analysis suggests.
What do you think of that?
Now, those of you who believe that the vaccinations are not credible, Did this information agree with what you already thought?
It was pretty convincing, wasn't it?
Because you already thought it was true.
If you think that the vaccinations are sketchy and you don't trust them, you almost certainly believe that it didn't change the level of infection for Delta variant.
But is it true?
Well, even the people who did this study say don't believe us.
Let me say that again.
Even the people who did the study say, in clear language, don't believe this is true.
Until it's confirmed. Because they didn't do the kind of study that they are confident you can conclude it would be reproducible.
So the first thing is, even the people who did it don't say you should believe it.
So should you believe it?
Well, if they say don't believe it, should you?
Now, they do say there's enough of an indication that it's a real worry.
Should you be worried?
Of course. You should be worried.
Somebody says, what about anal swabs?
That is a good question.
Because wouldn't that pick up some Coca-Cola?
Good question. So...
So listen to the exact language.
Delta infections may produce similar virus levels regardless of vaccination status.
They may produce it.
What does that tell you?
Doesn't that tell you that it's like that with some people but not with others?
And didn't you already know that?
Did you not already know that some people...
Can get a vaccination and get just as much COVID as if they had no vaccination at all.
You all knew that, right? Because for some people, for whatever reason, the vaccination just doesn't work.
They have some weird situation with their immunity.
So, is it telling us that everybody has the same virus level and that it lasts the same amount of time?
We don't know. So we don't know anything.
Because what if you do have the same virus level, but only during this shorter period, and then it goes away fast?
Do we know that having the same amount of virus in you makes you just as transmissible?
We don't. Because what if you're not coughing?
What if you're vaccinated so you're not getting symptoms, so you're just not coughing?
And you're not breathing extra hard...
Which is what happens when your lungs are degraded.
Do you think that vaccinated people transmitted as much?
Don't know. That's worth studying.
But we do know that at some point, some of them might have a lot of virus in them, which I think we already knew.
But it's being presented like new information.
So if you don't get sick...
And by the way, I think we all agree that these are not vaccinations in the classic sense of preventing.
They're more like therapeutics that come in a needle.
Which is good. Which is good.
Alright. I'm seeing some charts go up on the locals platform.
Somebody's making an argument with charts.
Let me tell you what you should believe when somebody puts a chart on the internet.
Nothing. Nothing.
If somebody gives you a really convincing chart, even with sources, On the internet, what should you say to yourself?
You should say, I have seen no information here.
Nothing. Because you probably don't know the context.
Blah, blah, blah. Alright.
Rasmussen has a poll asking people if Cuomo should resign, Governor Cuomo, because of the report saying he had a number of highly credible sexual improprieties in the workplace.
73% said he should resign.
Huh. 73% think he should resign.
So, roughly, 25% of the public thinks that a guy who is a serial sexual abuser should keep his job as a leader of the state.
What have I told you about 25% of the public?
On every poll.
It's not every poll, but it's so consistent it's hilarious.
25% of the public, and I hope it's a different 25% every time, are idiots on every question.
It's just so consistent.
But here's the weird part.
77% of conservatives think Cuomo should go, but only 69% of moderates and 73% of liberals.
So in other words, conservatives...
Are more Me Too on this than liberals.
Or they just don't want a Democrat to be governor.
So, of course, that's in there, too.
So, in this particular case, one could interpret this as conservatives believe women, and liberals, not as much.
But, of course, it's the politics that's pushing those numbers, not anything else.
How many of you know internet user Zuby?
Who is a, do you say hip-hop star or rapper?
I'm not sure because I'm not young and I'm not cool.
I don't know if I know the right words for that.
But many of you follow him.
He's a great follow, great guy.
And a lot of fun, very talented.
Talented in a number of areas.
He's a classic talent stack kind of a guy.
That if you looked at any one talent, you'd say, oh, that's...
That's good. That's not the best one in the world.
But he's got a whole bunch of them.
Like everything from fitness to media to marketing to music to just a whole bunch of shit.
So Zuby is pretty impressive as a human being.
But he's got one very provocative belief.
I'm going to dig into it a little bit.
Which is that the pandemic wasn't a real pandemic.
We just... We just got too excited about it.
And that, yeah, people are dying, but it's closer to a flu-level problem, and we should not have changed the world for it.
Now, here's the question.
Can you...
And I guess part of this belief was that the total number of deaths from COVID are not real, that they're more about comorbidities and stuff.
But here's my question.
Can't we know for sure by just looking at excess...
Excess deaths compared to the trend line for the last few years and say, well, where did all those people die from?
It wasn't the lockdown.
I mean, I don't know too many people who died from the lockdown.
There are more suicides, so maybe that counts.
More people drinking themselves to death, more opioids.
That probably counts. But it doesn't explain all of it.
So here's the most basic question I asked.
If you're trying to trust numbers.
Number one, well, let's give some context.
We've seen some reports lately that COVID deaths have been over-counted in hospitals.
Everybody agrees with that, right?
There's nobody here who thinks that COVID counts are accurate, right?
Nobody believes that.
But how accurate they are is a subjective dispute.
My sense of it is, they're probably with it, it's probably 80% accurate.
Which would give you the same strategies for everything as if they're 100% accurate.
But suppose they were only 10% accurate.
Well, then all your policies would be wrong, probably.
Right? But how do you tell?
How do you know if you're 80% accurate or 20% accurate?
Well, one way is to look at the total deaths.
Because there's no other explanation for the total deaths After you've taken out the suicides and the overdoses, the things that clearly are more related to that lockdown than the pandemic.
If you do that comparison, shouldn't you know for sure if your COVID estimates are at least within the ballpark, right?
And have people done that?
Well, so when I ask that question, what do you think happens?
When I ask the question, have we compared...
COVID deaths, the way we count them, to the overall mortality.
And the answer is, you will be sent many graphs on Twitter.
If you'd like to know the answer to that, look at my tweet and you'll see that people have sent you a lot of graphs.
Now, what is the credibility of a graph on Twitter, regardless of the source?
Zero. None.
So, believe it or not, it's the simplest question in the world, or it feels like it, and it can't be answered, because we don't have any credible sources of anything.
It's just all bullshit on bullshit on bullshit.
Now, some people said, but Scott, it has been studied.
Here's my graph. No.
No. It hasn't been studied.
Because if you haven't studied next year, you don't know what the fuck happened.
Because if next year, if deaths are way down, then you would know that all you did was push some deaths into a prior year, and that the total number of deaths maybe is the same as if no pandemic had happened at all, if you looked at two or three years on average.
So no, we don't know the answer to this question because we don't know the future.
We don't know what the measurement will be next year.
And if you don't know that, you don't know what happened this year.
It can't be known.
In my opinion, it can't be known.
So, is Zuby right that the pandemic is fake and when it's all said and done, we won't see the excess deaths that could be attributed to it?
Only excess deaths, or mostly excess deaths.
I don't want to be an absolute about somebody else's opinion.
But mostly excess deaths from other means, the lockdown.
Don't know. We actually don't know.
The biggest question in the world, we actually don't know.
But I do think that the data shows that the excess deaths are hard to explain any other way.
But we'll know in a year or two.
Why is it that when humans are accused of something, we say they're innocent until proven guilty, but Should we say that about an election?
It makes sense to say a human is innocent until proven guilty, even when we know that's not true.
It's just the way we want to manage the way we live with each other, is that until it's proven, you're not guilty according to the law.
That makes sense. But what about an election?
An election is not a person, right?
You can't hurt his feelings.
You can't put an election in jail.
Should an election be innocent until proven guilty?
Because that's the approach we've taken.
We've taken the approach that the 2020 election had to be fair, or at least this is the mainstream narrative.
It had to be fair because there's no evidence it's guilty.
That only makes sense for people.
It doesn't make sense for a system.
For a system, you should look at The whole situation and then decide if it's innocent or guilty.
So here's my take.
If you have an election that's designed in a way that prevents audits from happening, and I think that's the case, our election seems to be designed in a way that at least part of it, the electronic part, is not auditable in the classic sense.
So if you design a system that's not auditable, you know you've done that, right?
During the design phase, you would certainly know if you had designed it to be auditable.
You have to assume it's fraudulent, don't you?
Doesn't that reverse the burden of proof?
I would say if a system is designed so it can't be audited, you've also designed a system that guarantees fraud.
You just don't know when.
That's the only question.
It's guaranteed by the design, because they're hiding places.
Whenever they're hiding places, parts you can't audit, you always get fraud.
You just have to wait long enough, right?
It doesn't mean it happened today, and it doesn't mean it happened in 2020.
But it'll happen.
It's guaranteed. It's built into the system.
It's literally designed to guarantee fraud.
So shouldn't our default assumption be that it was fraudulent?
Because remember, the election, you can't hurt its feelings.
It's not a person. You can't put it in jail.
You can't give it any legal rights.
It's just a system.
And if a system is designed to guarantee fraud, that should be your default assumption.
Even if you're wrong, it should be your starting assumption.
All right. Or to put it more cleanly, you get what you design.
You get... What you designed.
We designed a system that you can't check.
That's what we've got. Alright, let's talk about persuasion again.
It was pointed out, Mark Schneider said this, and some other people were weighing in on this on Twitter, that showing pictures of people getting the actual needle is anti-persuasive.
Because there are enough people who have a needle phobia, That just the picture of it is such a turn-off that you don't want to get the vaccination.
Number one, is that true?
I would say that's probably true.
You have to test this stuff to really know.
But you don't even have to be experienced in persuasion to know this is true.
That if you show the scariest thing and you show it in a visual form, you've made visual a concept.
What happens when you make visual?
Something scary. It gets worse.
Right? It gets worse.
Showing all these celebrities who are not afraid of the needle getting a needle is the worst thing you could do.
That's a good observation.
And I didn't make it myself, and I'm embarrassed because I should have seen this.
So, what should you do instead?
Let's say you wanted to persuade.
Stop. Stop.
I'm not persuading you because I don't...
I don't try to persuade you to make medical decisions.
That would be unethical of me.
So I don't do it.
But talking about persuasion is what I do do, and so we'll talk about it in this context.
If you wanted people to get the vaccination knowing that a lot of them have needle phobia, how would you do it?
Here's how I'd do it.
I would show somebody who's getting a vaccination, but I would just show them the face.
So look at me in the camera, if you can see this.
So if you can see my big old head, and you can see me worrying about getting the shot, and then I get the shot, and then I say, when are you going to give me the shot?
And they say, you just got it?
And then I go, oh, I just got it?
I didn't even feel it. And then you show another one.
And you just do a compilation clip.
I've just faces of people saying, was that it?
Did I get to the shot? And you have them looking away, because this is what I do.
I don't have a needle phobia, but I don't like seeing it either.
So I have never looked in the direction of the person who gives me the shot.
I sit on the chair and I go like that.
I look to the left, or right, because I usually get a shot in the other arm.
So I usually look that way, and I just keep looking that way the entire time.
Because the last thing I want to see is the fucking needle.
I don't want to see it.
No! No!
If you showed people getting open heart surgery, I think fewer people would get it.
You don't want to see it.
You want to see the happy face of the person who recovered from the surgery.
So show me faces.
Faces are the most persuasive.
So visual and faces.
And you show people being surprised that they could barely feel it.
That's it. That's your persuasion.
And if you show enough people, the more you show, the more persuasive it gets.
Here's an interesting thought.
Getting the COVID shot will cure you of being afraid of needles.
Because a number of people have said this, that for whatever reason, the COVID shot, you barely feel it compared to other vaccinations you may have experienced.
I don't know if it's because the needle is thinner, it doesn't go in as far, it doesn't catch a vein, I don't know what.
But if you compare it to anything like having your blood drawn, it's not even close.
You just barely feel it.
You hardly know it's even happening.
So... I would go right at this, and I'd say that getting a COVID shot will fix two problems.
You'll be vaccinated, and it will help you with your fear of needles, because you're not even going to feel this freaking thing.
Now, is that true? We're talking only about persuasion, so it doesn't need to be true in this context.
All right. That is largely what I wanted to talk about today.
Damn news is straight up boring now.
Yeah. Yeah.
Did you see the...
So Biden was answering a question about Ron DeSantis today.
Did you see it? And somebody said, what about Ron DeSantis?
Yeah, I'm paraphrasing. He says he's going to block your rules or whatever, your federal rules.
And here was Biden's...
Biden looks at the reporter and he goes, Governor who?
And he laughs and walks away.
Governor who? Now, it's kind of genius.
It's kind of genius.
Biden's strategy of not engaging sometimes is just brilliant.
Because whatever he said would be a headline, right?
Because it's the president versus the governor.
And instead of engaging with it, he just blows it off.
But here's the best part.
When... When Biden jokes that he can't remember something, it starts creating this context where the next time he can't remember something legitimately, he can joke about it.
He's creating a context in which he can hide his dementia.
It's really clever.
Now, is he doing it intentionally?
I don't know. Could be.
But it's having that effect.
All right. Let me...
Let me pause here. I'm seeing in the comments a picture of somebody who had an adverse effect from a vaccination.
Do we all agree that there are adverse effects from vaccinations?
Nobody says they're not, right?
So how many individual examples would you need to see to convince you one way or the other that you should get a shot?
Well, here's the last thing you should do if you want to be helpful.
Show people pictures like this of people who had a bad effect.
That's almost criminal.
It's almost criminal.
If, well, let me make an assumption.
If the vaccinations are good overall, and I'll allow that some of you are not convinced of that, but if the vaccinations are, as the experts say, the only way we can get past this, then showing an individual picture, because remember, pictures are very persuasive, A picture of somebody with a bad outcome from a vaccination, which we know happens.
Statistically, we know this for sure.
It's just the worst thing you could do.
Now, if you're convinced that vaccinations are definitely worse than not getting vaccinated, well, then you're persuading exactly the way you want to.
But man, you better be right.
I would say that if you take the risk of showing a picture of somebody with a bad outcome from vaccinations, you better fucking be right that vaccinations are worse than not getting vaccinated.
Because you're taking that responsibility.
When you persuade that hard...
Because most of us are just chattering on Twitter, right?
It's not terribly persuasive.
Oh, there's a tweet with some words in it.
But as soon as you take that to the next level...
And show me the picture of somebody with a bad outcome, and you can really see it.
You're a doctor.
You've sort of crossed the line.
You've crossed the line into making medical recommendations, and you're not a doctor.
It's one thing when we talk about the doctors, and we question them, and we're skeptical.
That's all good, to be skeptical.
But once you show that picture of the person with a bad outcome, you're a doctor.
Because you're really telling people what to do with their medical situation at that point.
That's not just talk.
So just be careful of it.
I don't mean to come down on a subscriber, Daniel, because I know that you're trying to be useful here and let people know what the risks are.
And I appreciate that.
So I believe the intention is all good.
No doubt about that.
I don't question the intention. So good intentions...
But just be careful. When you go visual, especially scary visual, fear and visual persuasion are the two strongest things.
That's what we were just talking about with showing people getting vaccinated.
It changes behavior.
A scary picture changes behavior.
I would argue that the video of Wuhan with people collapsing in the streets had a lot to do with behavior.
And that was probably not even true.
Alright. Dr.
Johnson says, Scott, don't want to upset your big pharma bosses, sheep.
Well, Dr. Johnson...
Let me speak to you directly.
Fuck you. Fuck you for imagining that I would take money from pharma and give people medical advice based on being paid for it.
Fuck you and everybody in your family.
Fuck you, your dog.
Fuck your house. Fuck your car.
Fuck your bank account.
Fuck your stupid fucking ugly head.
Fuck everybody you've ever talked to, anybody who likes you.
Fuck you completely.
No, I don't take money from pharma.
I don't take any secret money from anybody you're not aware of, right?
I take subscriptions from individuals who would like extra content that's a little too edgy for the public.
I definitely do that.
But if you imagine that I'm taking money from anybody, especially pharma, I fucking hate big pharma, just like most of you, right?
I think pharma is largely a criminal organization that also does good things, like the food industry.
The food industry is, at least the grocery store industry, it's a criminal organization, if you've ever dealt with it.
They're just fucking criminals.
But we also need food, so there's a good side to it.
Anne-Marie says, Dr.
Johnson has a PhD in social work.
Well, maybe that's why you're so fucking stupid, Dr.
Johnson. Dr.
Johnson, you are one of these smart idiots I keep hearing about.
Like, why would you even really think that I would take money from pharma to sell a drug?
I can't even think of anything less ethical than that.
Can you? Think of something less ethical than that.
I can't. I can't think of anything that would be worse than that.
And by the way, I'm saying this so clearly that my life would be completely over if somehow later information came out, and it always does, right?
You always get caught. If information came out later that I'd been paid by somebody to do something, I'd get caught.
There'd have to be somebody else who knew about it who'd want to talk about it later.
So no, it would be a stupid risk.
Only an idiot would do that.
And you'd have to be a really unethical idiot...
Who wants to just have no credibility whatsoever in their life.
So, Dr. Johnson, fuck you and everybody who looks like you, and please never consume any of my content again.
All right. You and Bill Gates are buddies.
And locals, somebody saying, no, I've never met Bill Gates.
I always wanted to, but now it would be too dangerous.
I always thought it would be fun to meet Bill Gates.
At the moment, not the right time.
So probably won't be following up on that.
Let's see.
People trying to reconcile how they agreed with you on Trump and not on the vaccines.
Yeah, you know, there's a strange phenomenon where people can think that I was reasonable and smart on one topic that's in the news that has the same information we're all looking at, right? I don't have special information, usually.
And that I'll be all smart and rational on that topic.
And then the very next topic, like, I'll lose my mind.
And the only way you can explain it is that I must be bought off by a big pharma company.
It's like, there's only one way to explain it.
Do you ever consider the alternative explanation?
That I'm right twice?
Is that... I mean, the people...
The people who are sure I was right before, but now I'm wrong, do you ever even consider the possibility that I was just right twice and that maybe you were wrong?
Some people suffer from a lack of imagination yet.
I often say that if you can't think of any other reason for why you see something...
That's a lack of imagination.
It doesn't mean you've determined that there's only one possibility.
Because the possibility is that you're just wrong.
Or you're experiencing cognitive dissonance.
Or somebody says you're not right about everything.
So here's somebody who's joining us late who's accusing me of pretending I'm right about everything.
When the entire theme of my show was how wrong I am.
See the problem. 90% are moderate and 10% chasing a joke.
I'm not sure I get that.
Dr. Johnson says we have an intervention plan for you.
I'm talking to Christina about it now.
Yeah, maybe I do need an intervention.
But Dr. Johnson, fuck off.
I don't like you.
You're not a good person.
And that is my show for the day.
Let me ask you something. I know that you hate the COVID content.
I do, too. Like, I really want to talk about other stuff, like politics and world events and stuff.
But the news industry has decided we can only care about one thing, and so there's not much else to talk about.
When there is, I'll be talking about it, and then things will get back to normal.
But my God, can this pandemic ever get over?
It doesn't look like it.
Nor do we have a strategy to get past it.
If there's one thing that bothers me the most about the way the government is handling this, it's that they're not telling us the truth.
They're not telling us the truth.
That at our current rate of vaccinations, we're not going to get there.
And we have to just figure out what life looks like without getting there.
