Episode 1477 Scott Adams: Persuasion Lessons Plucked From the Headlines. And Coffee.
My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a
Find my "extra" content on Locals: https://ScottAdams.Locals.com
Content:
Germany's failed green energy efforts
Backdooring Kamala Harris to Presidency
Michael Hayden's "our Taliban" tweet
Afghanistan, an engineered failure
How do vaccinations increase variants?
Darrell Issa's perfect handling of Jim Acosta
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It's time for Coffee with Scott Adams, the best time of the whole day.
Every single time and all you need to make this special, like really special, like better than usual, is a cup or mug or a glass of tank or chalice or stye in a canteen jug or flask, a vessel of any kind.
Fill it with your favorite liquid.
I like coffee. And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure of the dopamine the other day, the thing that makes everything better.
It's called the simultaneous sip.
Go. Oh, my troll is here.
Dr. Johnson. We don't know your first name, but there is speculation that it's Richard.
So Richard is here.
We're going to call you Dick, even if you're not.
So, tales from the simulation.
Are you ready? One of the ways you know that this reality is a simulation and not a real one is all the coincidences.
As Twitter user Donald Luskin pointed out, we've already got a military general named Millie.
He's the military guy named Millie.
And then we have a chief negotiator of the State Department named Blinken.
He's negotiating for us, and he's Blinken.
But it gets worse, as I pointed out.
When you've got a placekeeper president who's just there until Harris takes over, he's kind of biding his time.
Yeah, yeah, the president is biding his time until Harris takes over.
So that's how you know you live in the simulation.
All right. Fake news of the day.
Fake news of the day.
This is a special category in which you could argue it's not fake news, or it's 50% fake news.
It's actually a two-movies-on-one-screen situation where at least one of those movies is wrong.
The other one might be right, but it's two movies, and here it goes.
Emerald Robinson tweeted this.
Noted that CDC Director Walensky just told the world in a recent interview that, quote, there's an increased risk of severe disease amongst those who are vaccinated early.
Uh-oh. That sounds pretty bad.
The people who got vaccinated early had an increased risk of severe disease.
Which movie are you seeing now?
How do you interpret that?
People who got vaccinated early, according to the CDC director, have an increased risk of severe disease.
Do you see the two movies?
Two movies.
One movie says that what that means is that the vaccinations themselves make you sicker.
That's one interpretation. Do you think the CDC was saying that the people who got the vaccination early are getting sicker than if they hadn't gotten vaccinated at all?
Is that what they're saying?
Because that's how it's being interpreted.
Well, I don't think they're saying that.
I think what they're saying is that the increased risk of severe disease is compared to when they first got vaccinated.
In other words, prior to vaccination, they had a high risk of disease.
The vaccination lowered it substantially, but now they're watching that risk increase as the vaccinations wear off and you need a booster.
Is that a problem?
Well, I mean, if the booster itself is dangerous, it's a problem.
But it's not being interpreted quite exactly right.
So it's 50% fake news.
Except you don't know which is the 50%.
I'm pretty sure the 50% that's fake is the idea that the vaccination somehow makes you sicker.
Now, how bad is the communication from our government when the director of the CDC says something and you don't know if it means vaccinations kill you or vaccinations save you?
Because that just happened.
The director of the CDC said something so ambiguous, just the way she worded it, That you can't tell if she's saying the vaccination will kill you or save you.
How could it be worse?
There are legitimate people who watch the news, well-informed, news-watching people, who believe the directive of the CDC just told you the vaccinations will kill you.
That didn't happen.
I'm pretty sure that didn't happen.
But they're so bad at communicating that people think it happened.
All right. I blame the CDC for that.
That's a little unclear. But some of it might be just taken out of context stuff.
So I think I said this yesterday.
I had an idea for dealing with the fentanyl coming in from China.
It's killing tens of thousands of people in this country every year.
And China doesn't want to do anything about it, even though they could easily shut it down.
They know exactly who's sending it to us.
We know that China knows who's sending it to the United States because we know.
It's public. We know the names of the people in China who are sending the fentanyl.
Can you believe that?
That we actually know the name and address, presumably, of the head drug dealer in China who's sending the fentanyl.
There's probably more than one, but there's one big one.
And he's still alive.
What? Why didn't we kill that guy yet?
Are you telling me that our intelligence people can't get to one guy in China?
He should be dead.
He should be very, very dead by now.
But as far as I know, he's not.
I mean, I suppose he could be, and I wouldn't know it.
But what's up with that?
Isn't that a gigantic failure of our intelligence agencies that we haven't assassinated this guy yet?
It's obvious. He's obvious.
You kill that guy, and then you worry about China later.
Do you think that we would care if China got really, really mad that we killed one of their nationals?
Yeah, they would get really, really mad, and then we would say, well, we gave you a chance to kill him.
This is how I'd do it if I were Trump.
Because Biden's not going to do it, right?
But let's say it's Trump, second term.
I would say this.
I'll give you 60 days to kill that guy.
And if you don't, we're going to go kill him on your territory.
One way or another. We're going to drop a drone on him.
We're going to poison him. We're going to do something.
But we're going to kill that guy in 60 days on your territory.
Unless you do. Now, it would be one thing...
To kill a guy in Chinese territory without telling them in advance.
That would be pretty effed up, and then they would probably retaliate and kill some American that they've got a beef with on our territory.
You don't want that.
That's why you tell them in advance.
You do it overtly.
You don't do it secretly.
You say, this guy's going to be dead in 60 days.
Here's why. He's killed 200,000 Americans.
You've got 60 days.
We're going to kill him in country, one way or another.
You'll figure it out. One way or another, we're going to get him.
But you've got to kill him in 60 days, or we will.
What would China do then?
Well, they'd probably pretend they put him in jail or something, I suppose.
They'd have some kind of clever trick.
But I think we have to say, it's not an option that he's still alive in 60 days.
That's just not an option.
We can't be that country.
So let's get a little tougher on that.
Here's the interesting thing.
When I suggested that we have legislation to deport one Chinese college student for every fentanyl death, I got zero pushback on this that I saw.
Maybe I missed something?
But have you ever seen anybody make a recommendation for anything substantial that nobody disagreed with?
This is the one case that this is the most bipartisan thing in the country.
Seriously. Name one thing that's more bipartisan than making China stop sending us fentanyl.
There's nobody on the other side of that.
Nobody. So, I mean, some people are saying, well, it's our own damn fault and stuff, but we'd still prefer they didn't send it to us.
Right? So, the interesting thing about this is that now this idea is out there, And, you know, I included Tom Cotton on the tweet.
I hope he's seen it by now.
But once the idea is out there and zero people think it's a bad idea, what would stop it from becoming legislation?
Maybe there's some legal reason?
I don't know. But let's see if anything happens with that.
You may have already heard that the Pfizer vaccination is going to get full FDA approval, every smart person says.
Maybe as soon as today, but probably this week.
And so I asked a little highly unscientific poll on Twitter for the unvaccinated to see if that would change their minds.
Now, the people who did not get vaccinated, what is the number one thing That they say when they discuss their hesitancy to get vaccinated, what's the number one thing they say?
It's not approved by the FDA, right?
Now, I'm not imagining that, right?
If you've had enough conversations, it's the number one reason is that it's not approved by the FDA. So the FDA is going to fix that by approving it.
So what percentage of all the unvaccinated people will change their mind because the data changed, right?
Make a prediction. Predict how many people will change their minds because there was one thing that was holding them back and then the data says, oh, it's okay now because the FDA approved it.
Close to zero.
Yeah, close to zero. I got 4.3% said they would likely get the vaccination now that it's approved.
4.3%.
Now, this is of only the unvaccinated people.
It's not vaccinated plus unvaccinated.
4% of the unvaccinated people, that's it, who were persuaded by the new data, presumably.
New data. So, who could have predicted this?
Right? If you studied persuasion...
You should have predicted this.
Tell me why.
What is the persuasion term that predicts that people won't change their mind when the data changes, even when they said that's what would change their mind?
The fake because?
I see why you're saying that. Confirmation bias?
No, not confirmation bias.
Consistency. There you go.
Yeah, the consistency bias.
People don't like to change their minds.
But don't they like to change their minds when the data changes?
Nope. Here's the problem.
People who got vaccinated are going to be able to claim that they were right.
So people went early and said, yeah, I got the Pfizer.
It wasn't FDA approved, but I was pretty sure they saw enough data that if there was a problem, probably would have known it early.
So I took a calculated risk before the FDA approved it, and now the FDA has approved it, so it seems that my calculated risk was correct, so that would make me the smart one, and if you didn't get it, hmm...
Yeah, I see why you were afraid, but I guess you made the wrong decision.
Right? Nobody wants to be on the other end of what I just handed you.
Nobody wants to be told they made the wrong decision before.
Because the change in the data makes it appear that you made the wrong decision.
Nobody can accept that.
Nobody believes they've made the wrong decision.
When I say nobody, well, maybe 4% can.
But basically, people aren't going to say I was wrong all along.
Now, let me defend the people who did not get vaccinated.
Let me defend them.
Just because things didn't go the way they could have, in other words, just because the people who did get vaccinated early...
Their decision appears to be validated by the FDA now.
Does that mean they were the smart ones?
If the FDA... Let's say, you know, enough years go by that the people who got vaccinated early clearly appear to be the ones who made the right decision.
Could you go back in time and say, yes, they made the right decision?
No. Because it was statistical.
There was no right or wrong.
It was an unknown.
If you look into the unknown and you make a choice and it doesn't go well, did you make the wrong decision?
No. Probably not.
You might have made the right decision because you didn't have any information that could help you.
So you might have done the best you could.
Decision-making. It just didn't work out for you.
So one of the problems we have is that people will look correct or look incorrect...
Even as data is changing, right?
So nobody wants to look like they were wrong all along.
So I think that's why people dig in.
They want to be consistent and right, and it doesn't let them do that.
Michael Schellenberger tweeted today, and by the way, you should all be following Michael Schellenberger.
If you're not following him on Twitter, he's one of the, I would say, one of the top ten most productive, useful tweeters in the United States, I would say.
On a variety of topics.
Green energy and homelessness and fentanyl being among them.
So those would be areas of expertise.
And I'm hoping that Larry Elder is already talking to Michael.
But here's what Michael tweeted this morning.
He said that Germany...
It is at risk of blackouts from lack of reliable energy.
So here are some Germany stats.
The prices of energy in Germany rose 60% in 2021.
What? The energy price went up 60%?
In one year? Well, they're doing something wrong, and I guess it's all the green energy stuff that's not working out.
Their supply margin of energy is shrinking from 26% to 3% by 2023, so they won't have any margin.
And I guess Angela Merkel admits her government got it wrong.
So Germany is actually saying, yeah, we effed up, and we screwed up our whole supply chain situation.
And despite that, as Michael points out, they're still planning to close their last nuclear plant in 2022.
Completely an unscientific way to go.
So Germany is being completely unscientific, at least in terms of their nuclear energy stuff.
Now, who could have predicted that Germany's plans would not work out?
And what would you use to predict it?
Now, we're all geniuses in hindsight, right?
So it seems pretty smart for anybody who said, hey, this green energy stuff isn't going to work out the way you hope.
It's got a lot of downsides and reliability, etc.
So I think a lot of people could have predicted this, wouldn't you say?
Because we didn't really see, even when they had the plan, you couldn't even see how it would work exactly.
Because you're saying, wait, you're going to get rid of all your reliable energy, replace it with unreliable energy, and that'll work out?
Like, even when you hear it, it doesn't make sense that it possibly could have worked out.
It sounded like wishful thinking more than a plan.
But what would be another way you could predict if things work out?
Economics. I tell you many times that people who study economics can see around corners.
Because if things don't work out economically, they're not going to happen in the long run.
In the short run, anything can happen.
In the long run, things that are economical happen.
Things that are uneconomical end up dying.
So here's what you could have predicted if you understood economics.
That whatever was best for the economics of the energy industry would get them to lowest risk in every way.
Let me say that again.
Whatever was the best economic plan for energy would also necessarily be the best for reducing energy consumption in the long run.
Now, if you don't understand that, I'm seeing people who understand economics saying exactly, right?
Everybody who understands economics knows exactly what I just said.
And here's the reason. We have tons of history in which getting the economy right fixes everything, right?
Why is it we have good health care in the United States?
It's because the economy's good.
That's it. Why do we have a good military in the United States?
The economy's good.
That's it. Right?
You get the economy good, and then everything works.
Why is it that the United States surpassed its...
What was it?
The Paris Climate Accord numbers without trying.
Without trying.
We had withdrawn from the Paris Agreement, and we still beat our numbers.
Why? Because we pursued economics.
Why? And I think it was natural gas that made the difference.
Why did we pursue natural gas?
It was economical.
Right? And you will find consistently that if you're predicting the long term, it doesn't work in the short term, but if you're predicting the long term, the economics always gets you to the best place.
Now, who knew this better than any leader?
Trump. Trump is the one president who knew this more than any other leader.
Get the economics right, everything else works out.
You get the economics right, your army is so big nobody will attack you.
You get the economics right, you've got more energy than you can handle.
And then you've got enough money to figure out how to clean things and invest in green energy and mitigate climate change problems, etc.
It's the economy. Basically it's the Bill Clinton, it's the economy, stupid.
You've got to get the economy right.
And then everything else will work out.
But if you do it in the other order, you've got the Afghanistan withdrawal.
Germany's energy policy is Biden's Afghanistan withdrawal.
They withdrew from nuclear before they had a plan.
Same thing, right?
Same problem. They just did things in the wrong order.
Get the economy right, and then you can work on that other stuff.
Well, apparently Biden's even looking crazy to the Brits.
So the ministers over in London are saying, basically they're saying out loud now.
They don't seem to even be embarrassed that the president looks gaga or dulali.
So apparently if you're looking crazy over in Great Britain, somebody's going to say you look gaga or possibly dulali.
So Biden's looking kind of doolally lately, and I think it has everything to do with Afghanistan.
It finally reached a point where you just couldn't ignore it anymore.
It was kind of funny watching the world try to ignore the obvious decline in Biden's capabilities, and they were doing such a good job.
I mean, they were literally ignoring the hell out of it, but This made it impossible to ignore.
Afghanistan did. Well, it looks to me like the backdoor plan to make Kamala Harris president early is not working out.
Meaning that Joe Biden is declining faster, his mental state is declining faster than any of our intel sources warned us.
Yeah, the intel told us that Biden's mental faculties would last another six months at least before they failed, and that would be plenty of time to get Harris up to speed, get her some wins, and put her in position to be the next president.
But it turns out that Biden is declining faster than any of our intel told us was going to happen.
Didn't see it coming. And then the Taliban is...
Oh, I'm sorry. I'm in the wrong story.
I just mixed stories there for a minute.
I forgot where I was. So...
Yeah, Biden's declined faster than he could, but at the same time, Harris's reputation is as bad as it could possibly be.
I mean, she's looking totally incompetent on a number of issues.
So, as I tweeted cleverly, I said, is it time for a prominent Democrat to confess that...
The plan to backdoor Kamala Harrison to the presidency has shit the bed so hard it damaged the box springs.
I think that's their problem, isn't it?
And I haven't seen anybody say it yet out loud.
I think the plan was always to get Kamala Harrison the backdoor, but that plan just fell apart faster than Afghanistan's military.
You know what I mean? So now they have no first choice because Biden has fallen apart, and they don't really have a second choice, right?
Certainly for the presidency.
But who the hell are they even going to run for president in the next election?
I mean, it's not going to be Biden.
Can we all agree? There's nobody here who thinks Biden's going to run for a second term, I don't think.
Who is it? Yeah, it's not going to be Gavin Newsom, right?
I don't think. He's got some problems.
So name one person who could get elected president as a Democrat.
Mark Cuban, maybe.
And Cuban could get elected as a Democrat because he's not identified as one.
You don't naturally just think he's a Democrat.
You just think he's an entrepreneur who may lean one direction or another depending on the topic.
But I think you need somebody who's almost not a Democrat to run as a Democrat, the same way Trump was sort of not a Republican, really, who ran as a Republican and then made Republicans like him, you know, similar to him, I mean.
Well, you know, you heard this story the other day that the FBI was finding little evidence, meaning no evidence, that the January 6th attack was coordinated by supporters of Trump or right-wing groups.
Have you heard the word insurrection lately?
Huh. It seems to me that that word insurrection is used a little bit less now that the FBI has found out there was nothing to it.
So... At what point does CNN say, oh, now that the FBI has confirmed there was no insurrection, we'd like to correct all of our reporting and punditry for the past many months.
It was all fake.
There was no insurrection.
It was a protest. Got in hand.
There was violence. But no, nope, nope.
There was no insurrection.
And we got it wrong. Have you seen that story yet?
Nope. Nope.
Former CIA director, General Michael Hayden, he decided unwisely to tweet pictures of the Taliban juxtaposed with Trump-supporting pickup trucks with American flags and said, Trump 2020, on it.
And he captioned that, Our Taliban.
This guy was the head of the CIA, the propaganda unit, if you will.
And he's telling you in pictures and images and scary persuasion that Trump supporters are similar to the Taliban.
It's weird that that's not illegal.
Of course, freedom of speech, so he can say that if he wants.
But, you know, we always say things are...
Everything's Hitler and Nazi and it just sounds crazy because, you know, it's always hyperbole.
It's so over the top.
And I realize this is just a meme and a joke and, you know, I can easily imagine if it's going the other way, somebody saying it about the other team as well.
But he was the head of the CIA. He was the head of the CIA. He shouldn't be calling American citizens Taliban, like identifiable groups.
This is Nazi shit.
Am I wrong to say that's a Nazi thing to do?
Is that hyperbole?
Calling out a specific member of the public for essentially death.
Because if the Taliban really were in the United States...
We'd be advocating killing them.
So if it's somebody that you advocate killing and you're saying that some group of Americans with a political preference are similar to a group that you would kill if they got in this country, that feels like Nazi propaganda.
Doesn't it? I mean, I probably have argued more hours than just about anybody about the Nazi and Hitler analogies being always inappropriate.
And... This one just sort of tickles that area a little too hard for me.
I'm wondering, where's Carl Bernstein lately?
Because CNN usually calls him on whenever there's a big problem to say that this problem is worse than Watergate.
And now we're watching the Afghanistan withdrawal, and I'm saying to myself, if ever there was something that was going to be worse than Watergate, hmm, what would it be?
It might be this, but...
Is Carl Bernstein on summer vacation?
Where is he? So...
Anyway, we need the worse-than-water gay guy.
There's at least some people who think that Biden's withdrawal from Afghanistan might end up not being a political problem.
Think about that.
How could it be...
What argument could you make that Biden's withdrawal from Afghanistan is not going to hurt him politically?
It turns out there is an argument.
And the argument goes like this.
It turns out nobody cares about Afghanistan.
Nobody cares. The only thing anybody cares about is that we get out.
That's it. Meaning the military.
I don't think Americans care about Americans who chose to live in Afghanistan and didn't get out when it was obvious you should get out months ago.
I have a little bit of a problem feeling empathy for people who knew what they should have done and then didn't do it.
Right? Now, you can have human empathy, but how much is your responsibility...
To help people who won't help themselves.
What the hell are these people still doing in Afghanistan?
Right? Why are they there?
And why should that be my problem?
Why should I pay for it?
Yeah. Yeah, we can care because they're Americans, so let me not say that's my opinion, but rather I would say that there are going to be plenty of Americans who say, I don't care about Afghanistan, I don't care that you messed it up, because I just don't care.
I just don't care at all.
So Biden might be able to skate on that, weirdly enough.
The only problem is it makes him look like he has dementia.
Here's another fake news thing.
So you know how our military told us that there was no intel that the Afghan army would fall so fast.
So no intelligence said that.
That is fake news.
Now, I'm not saying that the intelligence people did tell them that.
What's the fake news part?
So here's the part that you have to understand.
We built this Afghan military into a service that requires air support to work.
And then we disabled all their air support before we left.
Do you need an intelligence agency to tell you that if you disable the most important part of the military, the military will collapse?
Did you need intel?
No. Did you?
Because if you knew that...
You know, if you were the head general over there, and you knew that you had disabled the most critical part of the Afghan army's ability to defend itself, air support, you knew it was going to collapse.
You knew it because you engineered it.
You don't need intelligence to tell you you're going to get what you engineer.
They engineered the failure...
By taking a variable out of it that was necessary to success.
That wasn't done accidentally.
That was done intentionally.
If you intentionally destroy the army, how much intelligence do you need, like intel, to tell you it's not going to work out?
And it'll probably collapse faster than you wanted.
I mean, really? When these assholes tell us that they didn't have intel, well, maybe that's technically fucking true.
You should be fired for saying that.
Austin and Millie should be fired for telling us this bullshit.
That they didn't have intel?
Yeah, that's technically true, you fuckers.
You didn't have intel because you didn't need it.
You degraded the Afghan army before you left, and you did that first, you motherfuckers.
So stop telling us that there was no intel.
Yeah, you lying pieces of shit.
There is no intel.
tell.
We didn't need any.
That's what it looks like.
So what time is it?
I've got to make sure I'm...
Okay, still got time.
The Taliban says they will not accept an extension of our August 31st deadline for getting the Westerners out.
To which I say, why is it up to them?
Why are we letting the Taliban give us yet another humiliation?
Now, I suppose Biden wants to not piss them off more than we need to while we're trying to get people out.
That makes sense. But talk about a humiliation.
They're holding us to an arbitrary deadline?
It's arbitrary. There's nothing about that deadline that has any physical part to it.
You would think even the Taliban would want us to get people out, even if it took a few extra weeks.
So that's just fucking with us at this point.
They're just messing with us to humiliate us.
But this is what Trump would say if he were president.
We're going to get all our people out.
That's it. Taliban says the deadline is August 31st, and our president says the deadline is when we get our people out.
No negotiating, no comment, no pushback, no nothing.
It's not a negotiation.
Acting like this is a negotiation would be crazy.
We're going to put as much strength as it takes to get those people out, period.
I mean, that's got to be the position.
I asked people to explain to me why the vaccinations might make more variants.
And I've not seen that explanation.
I have seen people explain to me by forwarding an article that doesn't explain it.
But people think they've seen the explanations.
And when they try to explain it, watch how it falls apart.
Selective pressure. So let me walk you through it.
Let's say you've got a vaccinated person who that vaccination will stop some of the virus, but not the variants.
Let's say that's the situation.
How does that create more variants?
Because the variant was there.
The vaccine didn't create the variant.
The variant was going to be there.
And the vaccine didn't stop it.
But whether or not you get vaccinated or not vaccinated...
That variant was still going to get out, wasn't it?
Now, you might say to yourself, well, yes, the variant would have gotten out, but so would the regular COVID. Is it the regular COVID that's getting out to make you more resistant against the variant?
Is that what's happening?
And if you don't let enough of the real COVID out, the variant will run wild?
I don't believe there's any mechanism for...
The argument that fewer infections, which is what you get when you have more vaccinations, I don't see how fewer infections in the country creates more variants.
And watch what happens when you try to explain it.
I think all variants spread equally, but the vaccine suppresses the old strains.
And... But you see what's missing, right?
Every time somebody tries to explain it, it's like walking over a bridge and they get halfway and there's no more bridge.
And they say, there you go.
And I say, there's nothing happened.
You didn't actually explain anything.
Just take this basic assumption...
I'm seeing a lot of people say ADE, like that means something to me.
Try to put that in a sentence, because I think it's useful, I just don't know what ADE is.
Smells like BS, yeah.
We know the vaccines work on the variants as well, at least so far.
The vaccine does not suppress the virus, it suppresses the symptoms.
But suppressing the symptoms reduces the number of people who will get it, because if you don't have symptoms, you're less likely to spread it.
So, here's my bottom line.
Bottom line is, I think that the more infections there are, the more variants.
Period. So that's my idiot view.
My non-expert idiot view is that the more virus there is in the world, the more variants you're going to get.
Period. Now, if somebody can tell me why that's wrong without using words like, well, it filters, that doesn't mean anything.
That just means there's less of it than there would have been, but it's less of everything than there would have been.
It's not just less of one thing.
So I feel as though the argument that the vaccination causes things to get worse is either completely false or it's weird that people can't explain it.
But look at people trying to explain it in the comments and failing.
And I'm not making fun of you.
I don't think it can be explained.
Variants happen due to error correction at the RNA level.
Okay, what's that mean? And how does that address my question?
Let's see. Anybody try to explain it in the comments?
Don't think it's true?
Spread the virus?
Okay. Variants will be ineffective?
Usually, yeah. If you don't know what ADE is, stop talking and go learn.
Bob, fuck you.
I asked you what it is.
We're not all born with full knowledge.
Go do your own research.
Fuck you. Goodbye.
Asshole. Alright, so...
You can only catch it from a sick person...
What's this? The spike protein.
Yeah, so I see a number of people trying to explain it with little technical terms, but they don't actually make sense as sentences.
So here's something I believe.
I believe that our CDC has two gigantic communication problems.
Number one I talked about, which is they're acting as though they communicate so poorly, they're making it sound like getting vaccinated makes you sicker.
You've got to fix that.
That's just wrong.
And the second thing is people believe that the vaccinations are causing variants.
And I'm pretty sure that's not true, but I'm not convinced.
Pretty sure the vaccinations are not making more variants.
But most of you believe it, right?
Wouldn't you say most of you believe that the vaccinations do cause variants?
You believe that, right? I need to see any explanation of how that could possibly be true in a math, logical way.
All right, all you fuckers.
Here we go. We'll look it up while you're here.
It's like, this is why you shouldn't do your own research, right?
Everybody's saying, look up ADE. If you look up ADE, you'll know everything.
All right, so let me look it up and watch how this doesn't make any fucking difference.
All right. Antibody-dependent enhancements and vaccines.
Let's read what this is.
All right. Immune responses to pathogens involve many cells and blah, blah, blah.
Early during an infection, those responses are nonspecific, meaning that although they are directed to the pathogens, they are not specific to it.
Okay. Okay. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
What is ADE? ADE occurs when the antibody is generated during an immune response, recognized and bind to a pathogen.
Okay, is there anything that's going to be telling me anything useful here, no matter how far I read?
But they are unable to prevent infections, blah, blah, blah.
Trojan horrors, allowing the patient to get into cells, blah, blah.
Is it caused by disease?
Most diseases do not cause it.
Is it caused by vaccines?
Okay. On a few occasions, ADE has resulted from vaccines.
Okay. And this has nothing to do with my question.
I was talking about variance.
So here, as I predicted, looking at ADE would have nothing to do with the question, and apparently it doesn't.
It has nothing to do with the question of the variance.
So I didn't have to look that up to know that that was bullshit.
All right. All right, somebody's sending me this.
I see you over at Locals are sending me an article.
Oh.
I don't know what that article is supposed to be telling me.
I'm going to go to the next one.
ADE causes variance.
So...
Why couldn't you explain that?
It took like half an hour for somebody to say that the vaccinations in some cases could cause this ADA response that triggers variants.
What took you so long to say that?
Now, presumably, the experts don't think that's happening, right?
Is that right? Mike says, Scott is getting nervous, LOL. We'll get rid of you, Mike, for being an asshole, reading my mind.
All right. Let me inform you again that being shown wrong on this podcast is good news, not bad news.
If I could be completely turned around on something I was pretty sure was true and did it live, that would be cool.
Because what we do here is talk about blind spots and persuasion and how people don't use data to make decisions.
So this is the only place that I'm free to make a complete 180.
Other people paint themselves in a corner by trying to be right all the time.
I wrote a book about how wrong I am.
And I tell you when I'm wrong as much as possible.
Because being wrong is a pretty useful part of the process if you understand why you were wrong in the past.
So I'm the only person who would love to tell you I was wrong.
You just have to give me a little bit better.
So I'll tell you what I'll do.
The people who think they can do their own research and they learned all about ADE, you can't do your own research.
You will never get up to speed enough to know enough context to really do that.
At least, not better than the experts.
Maybe the experts can do that.
So anyway, so that's your argument, is that the vaccinations cause that effect, which produces variants.
Can anybody tell me if the CDC believes that's happening?
Does the CDC believe that that is happening, that the ADE is causing variants?
Because I haven't heard it. So I think that that's a theoretical risk, not one that we observe.
Is that true? So find out if that's true for me and get back to me.
So CNN's going after Larry Elder and it's kind of hilarious watching them.
So Jim Acosta was interviewing Daryl Issa from California and asked about Larry Elder's, quote, disparaging comments about women.
And Jim Acosta quoted one of Larry Elder's, quote, disparaging comments about women.
And it was, I guess it had something to do with the Women's March, whenever that was.
And Larry said wittily that Trump got more obese women exercising in that march than Michelle Obama ever did.
Now, is that a comment about women?
It's not even a comment about women, is it?
It's a comment about obesity.
Now, you could argue that a comment about obesity is inappropriate.
You could make that argument.
But there's no way that isn't funny.
But here's the best part.
The way Daryl Issa handled it?
Perfectly. You want to see how to handle something perfectly?
Remember I've told you that if you can disable somebody's best argument, you don't need to talk about the rest of them?
Just say, what's your best argument?
And then I'll dismiss it, and then we'll be done.
Because if that's your best argument, and I can dismiss it, I don't really need to listen to the rest of them.
That was your best argument.
So here's what Darrell Isis says.
He says, after he hears this joke, he says, you know, that was in the context of entertainment.
And he says, basically, if that's the best you have, that's it.
The best you have against Larry Elder, the best you have is that he made a joke about the women's march got obese women marching.
That's it. That's the best you have.
That's perfect. If you ever get a chance to dismantle somebody's best argument by sweeping it away as just ridiculous, do it.
So Daryl Issa handled it as well as you can handle it.
And then Jim Acosta said, oh, but we have lots more.
Oh, yeah. This isn't it.
I mean, I'm not saying this is our best stuff.
No, no. Oh, we got wheelbarrows full of them.
Binders. I've got a warehouse full of this stuff.
Why'd you start with that one?
If you've got so much material, why'd you start with that one?
It's because it was the best one.
That's why. Daryl Issa totally dismissed this guy by just basically laughing it off and making him look like an idiot for his best evidence was nothing.
So, I don't know.
If that's all they've got against Larry Elder is that he noticed a lot of the people marching were overweight, that's what we all noticed.
It's just America.
America looks like a big overweight parade.
It has nothing to do with women in that case.
And then there's new news.
California officials opened investigation into whether Larry Elder failed to disclose income sources.
Well, isn't that convenient?
That they opened an investigation on a vague thing that they don't even have a specific allegation for right before the election.
Do you think any Democrats are involved in this open investigation?
Yeah. Yeah.
I don't think you have to read the details to know there might be a Democrat or two involved in this investigation.
And it doesn't even make a claim.
It just asks a question.
Like, well, did he?
Did you? I'd like to open an investigation into any of you whether you claimed all your income.
Because I don't have any evidence that any of you are hiding income, but I think we need to do an investigation.
Just to find out.
Just to find out.
All right, well, those are the topics I needed to cover today.
I think you feel smarter for it.
And the whiteboard, actually, I'm preparing for a micro lesson on how to create something from nothing.
So that'll be on the subscription service locals for people who want to get smarter and better skilled.
So the micro lessons are to give you in just a few minutes, just two to four minutes usually, some kind of a life skill that...
Oh, this is the best advice.
Thank you. I got $5 of advice to remember that Weinstein rhymes with Einstein.
So it's Weinstein?
Is that right? Well, I don't believe that's right.
Is it? It's not Weinstein?
It's Weinstein? No, that can't be right.
Anyway, but thank you for making that suggestion, but I'm not sure I believe it.
Scott, why are you calling these therapeutics vaccines?
It's called common usage.
Common usage. Common usage in the sense that that's what everybody's calling them, not that it's accurate.
I have said a number of times that I didn't think vaccinations were even possible for coronavirus.
Turns out they're not.
It really is a therapeutic that's delivered like a vaccine.
All right. Colloquially, yes, that would be the good word.
It is a colloquial use of the word.
Scott, can you ask either of these experts about the variant issue?
No. No, I can't.
Here's my problem with stuff like that.
If it can't be explained easily, it's not real.
If you have to go to the expert to explain it to you, it's probably not real.
There's a rule of determining bullshit that if somebody can't explain it easily, they don't understand it, or it's not real.
So you should be able to say to me, there are three examples of vaccines like this that cause more variants.
This is one of those, and so we expect it to go the way the other ones went.
Now, would that not be a simple explanation that a layperson could understand?
And why is the CDC not telling us?
Why is it not on the news?
Why is it only the rogue doctor who's saying it?
So let me say this.
I don't believe any of the rogue doctors.
Doesn't matter who it is.
Doesn't matter if they're pushing ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine or variants or anything else.
Some of them are probably going to be right.
Statistically speaking, there's going to be a rogue doctor somewhere who's right.
But usually, not.
If I had to put a number on it, 95% of the time, the rogue doctor is wrong.
So if you saw the rogue doctor, the only one speaking out against the system, might be right, but only 5% chance.
So just keep it in context.
Now, someday, if the Dr.
Malone or other rogue doctors, if they turn out to be right, are you going to come to me and say, Scott, it was obvious, I told you.
Well, you're still wrong, because statistically, it's not a good bet.
