Episode 1517 Scott Adams: Headlines and Coffee Go Together Perfectly. Come Join Us.
My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a
Find my "extra" content on Locals: https://ScottAdams.Locals.com
Content:
CA mandates COViD vaccines for kids, not teachers?
NYC George Floyd, Brianna Taylor, John Lewis busts
Fentanyl dealers are mass murderers
Replacement Theory in the news
Rand Paul and natural immunity + vaccination
Myocarditis after vaccination
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Well, today, with any luck, we will feature Boo the cat, who is below my desk and licking herself in a most disgraceful way.
Well, appreciate all the cat pictures there coming in the comments over on the Locals platform.
And good morning, YouTube, too.
So, how would you like today to be great?
Yeah, you would like that, I know.
Have you noticed that I talk to you as if you're answering and I can hear you?
You do? Yeah.
I thought you'd notice that.
And you notice if I ask you a question, it doesn't even matter what you say?
Because my answer is going to be the same anyway?
Right. Exactly.
All right. Well, let's enjoy ourselves.
To the maximum extent.
And all you need is a cup or mug or a glass.
A tank or gels or stein.
A canteen jug or flask.
A vessel of any kind.
Fill it with your favorite liquid.
I like coffee.
Wait, you like what? Oh, okay.
Well, that's good, too. And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure.
The dopamine here of the day.
The thing that makes everything better.
It's called the simultaneous sip.
It happens now.
Go.
Yes, I have been called the Mr. Rush.
Rogers of the Internet or something.
I have been called that.
All right, well, let's talk about the news.
A special shout-out to Wolf Blitzer, who, despite having a first name Wolf, has never been accused of sexual harassment as far as we know.
I say that only because over at CNN, Don Lemon has some accusations he's dealing with, and Chris Cuomo has some accusations he's dealing with.
I just think it's funny that the only guy named Wolf, he's cool.
Is that his real name?
Somebody says he made up that name.
Maybe. But, yeah, good for Wolf Blitzer for staying out of trouble for all these years.
Well, Kamala Harris gets the Charlottesville hoax treatment by CNN and some others in the network world, and it couldn't have happened to a nicer person.
And what I mean by that is you probably saw the story in which she was talking...
Harris was talking to a classroom, and one of the students asked a question in which she referred to Israel as being involved in, quote, ethnic genocide.
Now... Harris did not push back on that thought.
And the thinking was that the lack of pushing back kind of like is almost as good as applauding it.
But what she did say, if you listen to it carefully, is she basically applauded the fact that this young woman could have an opinion that might be different from the mainstream and that she could express her opinion and that that was her truth.
What did people hear? They heard that she was agreeing that Israel was involved in ethnic genocide, which most people would say they're not.
So I feel like Harris is getting the Charlottesville fine people hoax treatment.
Not that she doesn't deserve it.
I mean, she's done enough to do her own hoaxes.
But if I'm being objective...
It didn't look to me like she was agreeing with the idea.
Now, she didn't push back.
She didn't push back, and that's true.
And if you were Israel, I think you'd have something to say about that, right?
Because you want to remind people for the next time?
You know the next time this comes up?
You know what would be cool? You just push back on that a little bit.
We wouldn't mind that at all.
But the letting it go, we don't like that.
Now, did she let it go?
Yeah, she did let it go.
But she let it go with a specific statement in favor of freedom of speech of unpopular ideas.
I'm going to give her a pass on that.
Now, I don't think that she was saying anything about Israel.
I think she was just trying to be, you know...
I think trying to be flexible and maybe teach a lesson to the young people, but I didn't hear what the news is reporting.
I listened to the whole thing twice.
I didn't hear her doing anything wrong.
And I did not hear her agreeing with the comment about ethnic genocide.
I definitely didn't hear that.
Hit the like button, you grifter.
I don't know what that's about.
Gavin Newsom has announced that California will be the first to require vaccinations for all children going to school.
He points out that our schools already have vaccines for measles, mumps, and more.
So why would this be different?
Well, isn't the reason that this is different that it hasn't been around as long?
And that's the whole problem, right?
Now, don't you say, oh, but those other vaccinations, they've been around forever, so it's safer.
But was that true when they were new?
Can somebody give me a little history lesson?
Give me a fact check on this.
Yeah, it's very different.
So the fact that it's different is meaningful, right?
You can't say this is like everything else.
It's different. But is it different in the important way?
Is it different in the sense that...
Were these other vaccinations, have they been around and tested for, let's say, five years before the first time the public was required to get them?
Maybe. I mean, I'm not doubting it.
I just don't know the history.
They've had studies.
Right. They've had studies by now.
So I understand the point that if you're talking about today...
Vaccines that have been around a long time look safer than one that's new.
Everybody's on the same page with that, right?
Everybody would agree with the general statement that any kind of medicine that's been around for a long time is safer.
You know, just in terms of unknown risks, it's safer.
It might not be safer, but in terms of unknown risks, there are fewer of them.
We all agree with that.
But the question is, when those other vaccinations were brand new, how long did they wait for Before the public got them, and how long did we wait before they were mandatory for kids, before they could go to school?
Yeah, so the other question is whether they were required when new.
Yeah, that's a good question, too.
Were the other vaccinations required when they were new?
So I'd just like a history lesson, if somebody could give me one, or point to a link.
Because Newsom's argument sort of depends on that, doesn't it?
It depends on you knowing that history.
And I feel like it's a little weaselish because we don't.
Exactly. So I'm seeing one comment that says mandatory vaccinations were usually about 15 years later.
Now, I don't know if they waited for a reason or they just wasn't being demanded in schools yet.
FDA didn't approve.
What do you mean? Oh, FDA didn't approve.
Well, I don't know.
I think the FDA didn't approve is not exactly as true as it should be.
Because I think they did approve it, they just did it on a quicker basis and with less information, maybe.
But it's definitely approved.
You know, saying it's not approved, I don't think that's factually true.
It might be approved with less information.
Now, that would be true, I think.
So what do you think about that?
Mandatory vaccinations for kids.
Everybody happy about that?
I've got a feeling that this audience is not too happy about that.
Yeah. Well, it's going to happen anyway.
What happens when we have mandatory vaccinations for teachers?
Because that's already true in New York City, right?
Is it mandatory in New York City?
I think mandatory vaccinations for teachers...
It has to happen, right?
So here's an interesting question.
I don't think Newsom can get away with mandatory vaccinations for kids, but not the teachers and the staff.
What am I missing here?
Am I missing something?
Did Newsom already say the teachers need vaccinations?
I don't think so, right?
Or did he? Maybe that's the part I'm missing.
Well, what happens when the teachers' unions in California learn that they're going to have to have mandatory vaccinations too?
Are they going to get them?
So it looks like maybe the governor and the people and the teachers' unions are going to have a little issue here, aren't they?
Right? Or is there something I'm missing?
Wow, I'm hearing from a doctor over on Locals, I just missed getting a bad polio vaccine that gave 50% of the people polio.
Was that true back in the early polio vaccine days?
Was there a bad version?
I've never heard that story, but if it's true...
I mean, it's coming from a doctor, so I'm guessing it is true.
I'm seeing a lot of yeses.
Okay. Well, you can't really even compare that day and age to today, I don't think.
I don't think that would be a fair comparison.
Because, you know, here's my guess.
My guess, and I could use a fact check on this too, is that our ability to predict what kinds of things are going to be a problem in the future is probably better, right?
Because we've seen enough things in the past.
We're like, oh, it's like that thing in the past.
Better watch out for that one.
So I don't think you can compare 30 or 50 years ago medicine to today.
I just don't think that's apples and oranges anymore.
Anyway, that's happening.
What else is happening?
In New York City, there's a George Floyd statue that just went up, along with two others.
Also, Breonna Taylor and John Lewis.
Civil rights hero John Lewis.
Now, let me ask you this.
Let's say you're the family of John Lewis.
Do you all know John Lewis?
Died last year.
Was it within last year he died?
And widely considered a hero of the civil rights movement.
Right? Pretty much...
Left, right, center, everybody considers John Lewis a hero, American hero.
His bust was just put up with George Floyd's.
So now they're treated about the same in terms of historically important, similar, similar.
Does that feel good to you?
Let me say this.
As many of you know, the rules about who you identify with or what your identity is is up to you.
Everybody agrees with that so far, right?
You can identify any way you want.
You can be gay or straight or non-binary.
You can be whatever ethnicity you want if you identify that way.
And I like that rule because I've decided that I will identify as a white...
I'm sorry. No, forget the white part.
As a heterosexual black man.
So I identify as a heterosexual black man because I've lost several jobs to racial discrimination.
If you don't know that story, I'm not going to get into it now.
But two corporate jobs I lost...
Because my boss, in each case, told me directly, can't promote you because you're white and male.
And one TV show because I was white.
So I've been massively discriminated against, economically, for being white.
So I feel like I have a lived experience of a person who lives in a world in which they're continuously discriminated against.
So I've just decided to identify as black.
One, because I can.
Apparently the rules allow that.
And I'm just following the rules.
And since I have, like, some connection, some affinity with that part of the country, and I also like being on a winning team.
That might be the most offensive part of what I'm saying.
I like being on the winning team.
And I feel like black America is sort of on a winning streak at the moment.
I mean, things are still terrible in so many ways, which is why it's worth being active in that area, because things are so bad.
Maybe you can help. But definitely black America is doing better than in the past.
Although you could argue in the 60s they had more homeownership, so I think there's a little ambiguity on that.
But let me give some advice to the group that I associate with.
I don't feel...
Like you're doing what you hope to accomplish by putting up statues of George Floyd.
I just don't feel that's the hero that you want.
And I don't have to get into the details, right?
You know, the Floyd family, they don't need that.
But it feels like a gigantic mistake in terms of branding.
So I'll just put that out there.
There's room for disagreement on this, right?
Now, we do have a history that victims are sometimes remembered.
And it's important.
It is important to remember victims.
But I don't know if you want to pair the victim with the hero.
Does that feel right?
Because John Lewis is like one of the...
Most impressive heroes that America's ever produced.
And putting him in the same event with George Floyd, who was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, doing the wrong stuff.
I mean, the cops were doing the wrong stuff, too.
But that just feels like a mistake to me.
So I say that as an insider.
As a proud heterosexual black man, I feel like that did not help our cause.
There was a massive fentanyl ring bust.
Like 800 dealers got rounded up.
So good job for the DEA. Was it the DEA? Yeah.
I think they did a great job.
I guess they've been surveilling this network for a long time and they just rolled up a whole bunch of them.
So it sounds like amazing work.
Congratulations on that.
But I tweeted that fentanyl dealers should get the death penalty because they are mass murderers.
They just do it statistically.
Right? It's not less of a murder if you don't know the name of the person who's going to get killed.
I like to use my example of the Las Vegas mass murder, the guy who shot from the window of the hotel.
He didn't know the names of who he was killing or even which people in the crowd.
Statistically, he murdered people.
Definitely. He murdered a bunch of people.
He didn't know who they were and didn't even know which body he was aiming at exactly.
He was just sort of spraying the crap.
So is he not guilty of murder because he didn't know who he was murdering?
No. No, he's guilty of murder.
He's just dead, so we can't do anything about it.
Likewise, if you're a fentanyl dealer, if you were, let's say, a small dealer and you gave some pills to your friends, well, probably that's not exactly like Murdering people.
That's taking a bad risk with your friends, and that's probably bad.
But suppose it's your job.
You're a big old fentanyl dealer, and you're just moving lots of it.
And maybe hundreds of people are involved with your network at that point.
If you've given a fentanyl product to hundreds of people, you've killed people.
You're a murderer. You're a murderer.
Statistically speaking, if you give fentanyl in pills to hundreds of people, some of them die.
And you know that.
It's not even a chance.
Some of them are going to die.
So, to me, that's just murder.
It just is being done in a statistical sense.
Now, what was the pushback I got from that on Twitter?
Scott, Scott, Scott, people said.
Now, what about people...
Who give you sugar? Sugar's killing you, right?
How about the fast food companies?
They're killing you, statistically speaking.
That's a good point, right?
Statistically speaking, McDonald's is murdering tens of thousands of people a year.
Statistically. They don't know the names of their victims.
But they're part of the problem.
So do you treat them the same?
McDonald's and a fentanyl dealer?
This is what people were saying to me on Twitter.
To which I say, you know, it does matter if it's legal, right?
McDonald's is legal.
Maybe you could argue it shouldn't be, but it is.
It's legal. So, you know, alcohol, cigarettes, you could argue they shouldn't be legal, and I would listen to that as a separate argument.
But they are legal.
You don't put people to death for doing legal things.
You'd have to, at the very minimum, you'd have to make it illegal, and then we could have the conversation of whether they're statistical murderers.
But if the state has already said, you can do this, and then they do what the state says they can do...
Even if it does kill people, it looks different to me.
To me, that looks different.
But I can see how you might disagree.
Today, CNN reported nothing is actually something.
So how do you turn nothing into something?
Well, let me tell you.
Let me tell you. It's about the infrastructure bill.
And I guess Biden went and talked to the Democrats...
To try to loosen things up because it's all constipated and they can't agree on this infrastructure bill.
And literally nothing happened.
So Biden talked to the Democrats.
Nothing happened.
How did CNN report?
Nothing. Here's the exact sentence.
White House officials think the president accomplished what he went to do on Capitol Hill.
Oh, good. Okay, so here they're going to explain what it was he wanted to accomplish, and we'll see that he did it.
It says, quote, remind Democrats of what is at stake while relieving some of the pressure that had built up over the last several days and reiterating his commitment to passing both pieces of legislation.
With that done, officials believe negotiators have a better environment to be able to push toward a deal.
Am I wrong that that's nothing?
And they use words to make it sound like it was something?
Now listen to this again.
There's nothing here.
He was supposed to remind Democrats of what is at stake.
Which Democrats didn't know what was at stake with the infrastructure bill?
Not only with the bill itself, but with what that does with the future and whether failing at it is good or bad.
They all understood that.
That's the most nothing I've ever seen in the news.
He reminded people of what everybody obviously knows.
But he did more than that, according to CNN. He also relieved some of the pressure that had built up.
How do you measure that?
Is there like a pressure gauge on the side of the building of Congress?
You're like, ooh, we're up to 80% pressure.
We're going to need to send Biden over here, lower that pressure.
This is not a thing.
These are just words that were put in a sentence that were put in a paragraph.
Literally nothing happened.
All right. And also reminded them of his, quote, commitment to passing both pieces of legislation.
What does it mean to say the president is committed to something?
There's no information here.
No information at all.
All right. Let's talk about replacement theory that's in the news.
The news likes to say that replacement theory, which I'll explain if you don't know what it is, is being pushed by some Fox News hosts like Tucker Carlson, and that it's all crazy conspiracy theory stuff.
Now, replacement theory is the idea...
That immigration is really about bringing in a lot of people from other countries to replace the European-biased culture in this country and get more Democrats and make it a different country.
Now, how many of you think that there's somebody who has a plan...
Like, actually, oh, if we bring in lots of people, we'll replace all these white people and we'll get more Democrat votes.
In the comments, how many people think that's literally what's happening?
No, I'm not talking about what's happening so much as the intention.
So I'm only talking about the intention.
Are there people who are actually talking, out loud, but privately, about...
Replacing all the white people and making this a different country via immigration.
In the comments, I'm seeing both yeses and noes.
Lots of yeses. This is actually written in books, Vlad says.
It's actually written in books, people saying, let's replace all the white people.
So are the people doing it reading those books and taking that opinion?
I'm sure that the idea of it is in books.
I wouldn't doubt that.
But is that why people are doing it?
Is Nancy Pelosi...
Do you think that Nancy Pelosi has meetings with people and they're like, all right, don't tell anybody.
But what we're trying to do is to get fewer people like me, Nancy Pelosi...
That's the goal. We want fewer people like me and my family.
Is Nancy Pelosi having that conversation?
Because the country would be better if there were fewer people like me.
Is she saying that?
I'm seeing a lot of yeses.
I'm not saying she is or not.
I'm just looking at your comments.
A lot of people think that Nancy Pelosi wants to replace herself and her family with other people, in addition to replacing all the other white people.
So that's why a lot of people think that's literally what's happening.
AOC. Somebody says AOC wants to replace white people with more brown people.
Well, here's my advice.
We never really know what people's intentions are.
We think we do.
I don't want to say never.
That's too absolute. But we're often wrong about that.
Probably more often wrong than right when it comes to these edge cases.
And here's what I think.
To me, it looks like politicians are too short-term thinkers.
In order to believe replacement theory, you'd have to believe that our politicians are long-term thinkers.
Do you believe that?
Do you believe that our politicians are thinking past the next election or two?
I don't see evidence of that.
To me, it just looks like politicians are doing what their current constituents want them to do, because they think that will win votes.
Do you need to be more complicated than the fact that immigration is popular with Democrats?
And so Democratic leaders want to give their people what they're asking for?
Because there are a lot of Hispanic Democrats...
Who would like immigration to get their family in, et cetera, and there are enough people who sympathize with that point of view, that isn't it just normal leadership to give people what they want?
And do you think the voters are thinking that?
Do you think the Hispanic Americans or the Latinx or whatever name you want to put on it today, do you think that they're thinking, oh, if you let my relatives in...
I get to replace some more white people.
I kind of doubt it.
I feel like it's being driven by the public, not by the politicians.
And the politicians are simply responding to the public being favorable about immigration.
To me, that's all it looks like.
Now, is there anybody who would say out loud on the Democrat side that there might be a side effect or a benefit, which is it changes the voting patterns, especially in, say, Texas, and especially in Florida?
Probably they're happy about that, to have more voters, but I feel that that's a little too long-term for them to really be making decisions on it.
I think that that's just a side benefit that they get along with making their voters happy at the moment.
So that's my take.
My take is that they only care about the next election-ish, but they don't mind that it might have a long-term benefit.
But I don't think that's the intention so much as something they don't mind, you know, that does work in their favour.
I saw an argument on the CNN opinion piece that the worst thing that could happen to the people afraid of replacement theory is to get what they want.
You know, you've heard the be afraid of getting what you want.
You know, that could be a problem.
And if there are a bunch of white people who are afraid of replacement theory, suppose they got their way.
Suppose we just stopped immigration and they got their way.
First of all, the white majority would disappear anyway because the demographics are going to make that happen.
So it would just take longer.
The replacement would still happen.
It would just take a little longer. And this is the only way to get young people Because the white population is not having as many children.
So the only way you could have a country that works in the long run, as far as we know, I mean, maybe robots and AI will change everything, but at the moment, the only way we know to have a prosperous country in the long run is to have more young people.
How do you get the young people unless you bring them in?
Because the older white people are just not having babies.
So... The second thing you have to look at is the degree of, let's say, mixing.
Now, I don't know if you see as much of it as I do, because I live in California.
So California is, you know, not counting New York City, maybe, is just one of the most melting, pottiest places you could ever be.
There's a little of everything. If you go to a house party in California, there's just every combination of everybody.
Simply virtue signaling?
Yeah, maybe. Maybe it is just virtue signaling.
But here's, you know, what movie was it?
Bull Durham or something? That the thought was everybody would just have sex until everybody was brown?
It'll all take care of itself in the long run?
Something like that's kind of going to happen in the long run.
You know, the number of kids in California who are some mixture of whatever is pretty high.
You know, You have...
If your kids have their friends over, you've got a little of everything, right?
It's just a little bit of everything.
So we might just have sex to the point where the whole racial thing just doesn't make as much sense anymore.
Oh, Bulworth. Bulworth, sorry.
Not Bull Durham. The movie was Bulworth.
Thank you. All right, worldwide, the COVID deaths...
I've reached 5 million, it is being reported.
Do you believe that? Do you believe that 5 million people have died worldwide from COVID? And that half of them, I think half of them, came in the United States?
What's wrong with that?
What's wrong with these two statistics?
5 million deaths, and half of them were in the United States.
Does that make sense to you?
You don't think half of them were in India?
Maybe? Well, you know, if it's true that India is undercounting their deaths by a factor of 5 or 10, or God knows, I've got a feeling that 5 million reported deaths is really 20 million.
Give me a guess what you think.
If the official reported number is 5 million deaths worldwide...
What do you think? Just your intuition or your skepticism or your distrust.
Just your hunch. What do you think is a real number?
I'm seeing a lot of people going lower.
One million. One million.
So you would be the people who would say, it's not so much the COVID, it was the comorbidities and the way we're counting it and we're throwing everything in that category.
Well, I would say that at the very least, the different countries are not counting it the same.
And some can't count it at all because they just don't have the good enough records.
So my intuition tells me that if everybody counted the way we did, it would be closer to 20 million.
But if we counted the way other countries do, it might be closer to a million.
So I think it has to do with how you count it, right?
I don't think it's a million or 20 million.
It's just how you count it. I think you can get to either number.
Alright, so we don't trust much about statistics, and we should not.
Here's a little story about my own confirmation bias.
Now, confirmation bias, as you know, is when you see something that agrees with you and you're like, oh, that looks accurate.
That is totally accurate, because it happens to agree with you.
That's the reason you think it's accurate.
Here's mine. The story is that there's a new study that is looking at the correlation between vitamin D3 and mortality from COVID. And the thinking is that the more vitamin D3 you have, the less chance of dying up to the point of maybe close to zero.
That you could actually bring the death rate close to zero if everybody had enough D3. Now, here's what seems to be new.
And by the way, this is not yet a reliable study.
So what I'm going to say next should not be deemed as reliable.
Hasn't gone through peer review, blah, blah, blah, blah.
But it's new information, and I certainly doubt that you could have enough vitamin D to bring the death rate to zero.
That doesn't sound...
We don't really live in a world where that's possible.
You can't bring anything to zero.
But... I guess what they added was some extra analysis to support the idea that the D3 is the cause of the better outcomes or worse, as opposed to just a correlation.
Because the problem is that people who are sick almost always have low vitamin D3. And the people who die of COVID are the people who already have some comorbidities.
So it's guaranteed...
Just based on the fact that, you know, those two facts, it's guaranteed that a lot of people with COVID would also have low vitamin D. But it could be a coincidence because they were sick from other things.
What this study purports to find is that it is causal and not, hey, say hi to Boo.
She's looking around.
By the way, could I give you some good news?
It's good news for me.
But I'm hoping that you've followed along enough to feel some goodness in it.
Yesterday, for the first time in two weeks, Bue ate solid food.
Now the feeding tube's still in, because just to give medicines and stuff, it's just a little convenience, so I'll leave it in a little bit longer.
But just yesterday, yesterday late afternoon, she took some bites of food, and then a little bit later as well.
And in my little life, that's a really big deal.
It's a really big deal.
Now, she's not out of the woods.
She's got some extra tests.
They have to still rule out some nasty stuff.
That's still possible. But they're trying to rule that out.
But at the moment...
Let me bring her over here for a...
I think she's coming this way.
Boo wants to say hi. Boo, come here.
Come here. There we go.
So here's her little feeding tube.
It goes into a hole that they put in her neck, and it goes through the neck, and it goes to the top of the stomach.
So she doesn't really feel the food going in, except she knows it's happening.
So she's lost a lot of weight.
She's a little skinny now, but she knows where her food is.
We're going to make sure she has some as soon as we're done.
Alright, I think I was talking about something else besides my cat.
Oh yeah, confirmation bias.
Well, so the reason this vitamin D3 thing is confirmation bias is because early in the pandemic...
I was one of a number of people.
I'm not the only person who said this.
But I was kind of out in front of the vitamin D3 thing saying, why does it look to me like there's a correlation between the countries that have the best vitamin D and the people who have the best vitamin D and the best outcomes?
Of course, that was probably just correlation, not causation.
But... Because I was saying that publicly and early, I see a study like this, and what do I say?
Oh, that's probably true, right?
Because you see a study that agrees with what you put yourself out on the line as saying?
You're going to believe that.
So what I'm trying to put across is that I'm biased to believe this is true.
But I'm also aware of the fact that my bias might be the only reason I think it's true.
Because if this were a pre-print study on anything else, what would I be telling you?
Don't believe it. If it was on any other topic, but just happens to agree with me, so in my mind it looks a little bit better.
All right, here's the most provocative point of the day.
So lately you've seen a bunch of rogue doctors, that's my name for it, rogue doctors, who are doing videos and you see them in memes and stuff in which they're doubting the mainstream opinion.
Here's my general question.
How likely, in general, not just talking about COVID, but talking about all things you've ever seen, how often is the rogue doctor right?
Going against the mainstream.
In the comments, how often?
If the only thing you know is that there's a doctor saying, hey, people, you're getting it wrong, everything's wrong, how often do they end up being right?
In your experience.
Now, this is just the feel of it, the experience.
I'll read down some of your numbers.
I'm seeing everything from 1% to 75%, 50-50.
You're all over the board.
100%. You rarely hear a follow-up from the rogue doctors.
Good point. Somebody says they're right about ivermectin.
That's what somebody says here.
All right, I'll tell you my...
I'll tell you my view of it.
I think the rogue doctor is right maybe 5% of the time...
Now that says nothing about any specific rogue doctor you're looking at, right?
Maybe my cat is making a bed out of my papers here, so it's going to get a little crinkly.
Now I know what you're thinking.
You're already sending me the names of specific doctors and specific cases.
So here's a check on your thinking.
If during this conversation you said to yourself, yeah, yeah, I get your point, but not this specific doctor, check your thinking.
Or if you said, yeah, yeah, yeah, Scott, I get your point as a general statement, but certainly not with ivermectin.
If you said that, just check your thinking.
Doesn't mean you're wrong.
You could be right. The rogues are sometimes right, right?
All right. 100% of pioneers are rogue.
Thank you. That was exactly the point I'm going to make next.
How do you square the fact that the rogue doctors, in some sense, seem wrong a lot, whatever you think is a lot, but it's the same token, by the same token, every single thing that ever changed from wrong to right in science probably started with one person, a rogue scientist, a rogue doctor, right?
Right. Does that change my point?
So does that change the statistics of how often the rogue doctor is right?
No. Not even a little bit.
Well, maybe a little bit, but not enough to matter.
Both are true. Both can be true and they don't conflict.
It is only the rogue doctor...
Who changes the big things in science that go from wrong to right?
Somebody goes first.
And when they do, they're the rogue.
Einstein was a rogue scientist, right?
He said things that others weren't on board with until they were.
But it's really rare.
Right? The reason that Einstein...
The reason that Newton, Isaac Newton, is famous...
Very rare...
Very rare. So I'm not saying that the rogue doctor is always wrong.
As soon as you imagine it as an absolute, it's just nonsense, of course.
All absolutes...
I almost said all absolutes are nonsense.
I won't even finish that sentence.
You know what I mean.
So yeah, you can have all of your breakthroughs come from the rogue doctor.
At the same time, only 1% of rogue doctors turn out to be right.
Do you get that? That's just that one point.
Everybody on board can be true that every breakthrough is a rogue doctor and also true that only 1% of it ever works.
Right? I'm not saying those are the percentages.
I'm just saying they could be true.
There would be no conflict between that data.
So I would say this.
Every time you see a rogue doctor doubting science, your first impulse should be probably not true.
Now, keep an eye on it, because it's going to be one of these rogue doctors who gets it right, right?
Probably. There's got to be at least one rogue doctor who's getting it right.
I'm not saying they're all wrong by any means.
I'm saying that your first instinct should be probably wrong.
And then maybe you look into it, maybe you modify your opinion after you've looked into it.
But you should start with probably wrong.
That's your best defense against being taken in by very persuasive people.
Now, why is it that the rogue doctors are so persuasive?
Tell me, why are rogue doctors so persuasive in the comments?
Tell me why. What is it about them that makes them persuasive?
And it's not just one thing.
It's a few things. Confirmation bias?
Thank you. That is one of the things I'm looking for.
If you believed what the rogue doctor is saying, you were susceptible to thinking, oh, it's confirmed now.
But it's just confirmation bias.
So that's the first thing.
That your confirmation bias will work just the way mine did with vitamin D3. I want it to be true so I can be right.
So you hear the rogue doctor and he says exactly what you were suspecting.
Boom. He must be right because he said exactly what I suspected.
Well, your suspicions don't really have much credibility.
And neither does the rogue doctor.
Somebody says they're reasoning.
Good. That's exactly what I was looking for.
The rogue doctors are persuasive because they have excellent reasoning and credible data.
Right? Everybody agree with that?
The reason that they're persuasive is they have what looks like credible data.
You don't know if it's right, but it's credible.
And real good explanations that make sense to you.
So that's why they're persuasive.
Do you know who else is persuasive in that way?
Everybody who's wrong.
Everybody who's wrong.
They're persuasive in exactly the same way.
Because if you only hear one side of an argument and then somebody's smart, doctors are pretty smart, it'll sound persuasive.
It has nothing to do with how true it is.
The level of persuasiveness of one person talking and making their point without the counterpoint...
Should be zero. The level of credibility you should give any person when you haven't heard the counterpoint is zero.
If you give them higher than zero, you're really doing it wrong.
Again, it doesn't mean they're wrong.
That doctor could turn out to be the right one.
But on moment one...
The first exposure to it, doctor saying something that other people are not saying, and no counterpoint shown at the same time, no pushback shown, give that zero credibility.
Keep an open mind and maybe look into it more and keep watching the topic.
But at the start, it should be zero.
I'll bet a lot of you start at 100%.
Am I right?
Do a lot of you start at 100%?
You hear him and he's like convincing as hell.
You say, damn it, that agrees with just what I suspected.
Done. Convinced.
I think you're starting at 100% when you start at 0%.
Now, the real number might be somewhere in between in terms of credibility.
But don't start at 100 and try to move backwards.
Start at 0 and see if you can move up.
That would be good hygiene for keeping yourself out of trouble, right?
All right. Rogue doctors.
Here's something that Erica said.
Erica, you watching? Good morning, Erica.
Erica said on Twitter, a little pushback to this point.
It's a good pushback, and watch my response to it.
She says, oh...
I forgot a part. I added the following rule.
That if you know the name of the rogue doctor, they're almost certainly not right.
Doesn't mean they're always wrong.
Remember, there are no absolutes here.
But statistically speaking, if you can think of the name of the doctor...
I'm going to say that doctor will be proven wrong.
Why? Why?
Give me in the comments why I'm saying that.
This will be a good test, because this is a callback to a principle that I've talked about a few times.
Why does the fact that you as a consumer, knowing the name of the doctor, why does that make it the least likely it's true?
Because it's a weird name?
No. Court cases won?
No. More interested in being famous than right?
I hadn't thought of that, but maybe.
That's not a bad comment.
That's not where I was going.
Because of their egos, maybe?
Might be part of it. That's not where I'm going.
All right. None of you got it.
Looks like none of you got it.
It's the theory about what makes news.
What makes news?
What is it that makes news?
Things that aren't true.
Things that aren't true is what get your attention.
Things that are true don't stick in your mind.
They're just, well, that's true.
Just, phew, it's gone.
But things that are outrageous and crazy and also not true stick in your mind.
Does anybody forget that President Trump once suggested people drink bleach?
You all remember that, don't you?
Is there anybody who follows politics who doesn't know that story?
Why do you know it?
Why do you know that story?
Because it's not true.
It's the not true part that makes you remember it.
Because there's something about the story that doesn't make sense.
You're like, really?
You did that? I mean, it feels like they have evidence and people are saying it, but it doesn't make sense.
This principle will blow your mind if you haven't heard it before.
The thing that makes a thing news is also the thing that makes it not true.
Those are so paired that what makes it news is that it's not true.
Think of all the things that were news.
Russian collusion, The Russians paying the Taliban to kill Americans.
Your hair's on fire, right?
Charlottesville, find people hoax.
These are the ones you remember.
And it's because it's dog bites man stories.
I'm sorry, it's man bites dog stories.
If you hear that a dog bites a person, you're like, eh, you don't even remember it because it's normal.
But if you hear a man bites a dog...
Remember that? That's unusual.
So it's the unusualness and the provocative nature of the claim that makes you know the name of the doctor.
Because it becomes news, because the news and especially social media say, man, this is good stuff.
This is good stuff.
We're going to put this in the headline.
So... It doesn't guarantee that the person is wrong.
So I'm not saying that.
I'm not saying that if you know the doctor's name, that means they're wrong.
Classic examples could be a doctor that you already knew from another reason.
Dr. Drew. You knew Dr.
Drew from other reasons, so this has nothing to do with this example.
But if the only reason you heard of a doctor is because of their rogue, contrarian views, just start at zero.
Then try to work your way up from zero by being aware that it's an issue and maybe look into it.
But start at zero. All right.
Erica said, a little pushback about the fact that if you know the name of the doctor, they're probably wrong.
Erica says, my guess would come from watching Rand Paul be right in the long run.
Only time will tell us if the mandate crumbles and blah, blah.
Do you believe that? Has Rand Paul been proven right?
Or has Rand Paul been proven wrong?
Now, I would say that he's more like Dr.
Drew, because we know Rand Paul from other reasons, right?
So he's famous not for his rogue opinions, but let's just talk about him for a moment, because it's an interesting comment.
And thank you for that, Erica.
I think that was additive.
Is Rand Paul right that if you have natural immunity, you don't need a vaccination?
That's sort of his main thing, right?
Is he right? He's a rogue...
Doctor. And he's saying that if you have the vaccination, you don't need...
I'm sorry, if you have natural immunity, you don't need the vaccination.
Is he right? Nope.
He's not. He's not.
Because every...
As far as I know, every study has shown that if you get the vaccination on top of natural immunity, you have the best immunity of all.
And the best immunity is better than average immunity, isn't it?
Give me a fact check in real time here.
I need a fact check. Here's my claim.
Now remember, this is not exactly what Rand Paul is saying.
If I interpret Rand Paul correctly, he's saying that natural immunity should be good enough to have your full rights the same way a vaccinated person does.
That's a different argument. If Rand Paul is arguing the political, philosophical nature of things, then I agree with him completely.
Hear this clearly.
Rand Paul, as a politician...
Arguing that natural immunity should be seen as good as vaccination, totally agree.
Totally agree with him.
Good point, and he makes it well.
But, medically speaking, medically speaking, we do know that a person with natural immunity will have more immunity with a vaccination.
Did you know that?
How many of you were aware of that, that your antibodies would be way better than If you had natural immunity plus one vaccination shot.
I'm saying not true.
Those of you saying not true, go Google it when we're done.
I think you'll find that it's accepted as true now.
And look at Ian Martisis.
He did a study on it.
You can follow him on Twitter as well.
And that's what I believe that his results showed the same.
I don't think there's any study that says if you get a vaccination on top of natural immunity that it doesn't help.
If you can find that, send it to me.
But I don't think that exists.
So, is Rand Paul right or is he wrong?
Is he fighting the right fight?
Again, If he's fighting it for political, philosophical reasons, absolutely he's right, in my opinion, because really it's just an opinion.
But I agree with him completely that the people with natural immunity need their freedom.
Do we all agree with that?
Can I get 100% agreement that from a social, legal perspective...
What's right about freedom in America?
That if you've got natural immunity, and maybe you have to prove it with a test, but if you've got it, that you should have all of your freedom.
All of your freedom.
No exceptions in terms of the virus.
So he's 100% right.
But medically, I think he's leaving out a fact.
Medically, he's leaving out, I think, a fact that you'd be a little bit more protected with the shot.
Now, what if you've got natural immunity and you don't want to take a risk of a shot?
Should you have the right to not take the extra risk, no matter how small it is, it's your body, do you have the right to not get that extra protection?
I say yes, you do have that right.
And I think you'll all agree, really.
All right, here's another...
Little data point that I was not aware of.
So every time I find out something important that I wasn't aware of, I'd like to pass that along because I figure other people may be in the same boat.
You've heard, of course, about the problem of myocarditis in teens.
And there have been, let's see, like 9 million teens have been vaccinated so far, something like that.
So let's say there are 9 million teens have been vaccinated.
How many have died...
From the myocarditis.
Now, carditis?
Myocarditis? How many teens in the United States have died from myocarditis?
In the comments.
Some say it doesn't matter.
It's a good question. It doesn't matter.
I'm seeing three, one, zero.
Zero? Who says zero?
It's like the biggest story in the country.
You think zero people have died from it and we're making it the biggest story in the country.
300, somebody says?
All right, let me tell you how many people got myocarditis out of the nine million.
It was like 400-something.
All right, so knowing that 400 people got the symptoms, how many of the 400 died?
The answer is zero. Zero.
The answer is zero. And that basically every one of them is better in a day because they know how to treat it.
They're better in a day.
He says, I know somebody who died.
Were they a teen of myocarditis?
So, yeah, we always have to question the statistics.
But at the moment, it looks like it hasn't killed anybody.
Now... None were fatal.
Now, that doesn't mean that they weren't damaged, right?
I'm not saying you shouldn't worry about it.
Trust me, if I get myocarditis after a vaccination, I'm going to be pretty fucking pissed.
I'm sorry. I'm going to be pretty mad.
And I'm going to wish I hadn't and all that.
So, yeah, it's a big deal.
But keep it in context.
Right? It's a big deal, but maybe not as big as you thought.
Still important. All right.
That is just about everything I wanted to talk about today.
Scott, you might be dead.
It's nasty stuff.
Maybe. Yeah, at my age, it would probably be a lot more dangerous, huh?
Yeah. That's exactly what Scott's saying.
He's trying to backpedal right now.
Watch him why and watch his hands.
See, Ellen, what am I backpedaling on?
You know, most of the criticism that I get on this topic and others falls into the category of somebody imagined I used to say something different and now I'm changing my mind.
You have a natural instinct for Bayes' theorem, okay?
Scott, how much fentanyl does your iPhone subsidize?
So you're going only after those Chinese companies.
You're not a shareholder.
So I've answered this question, and I'll answer it again.
It's a fair question. So as you know, I'd like to decouple our business from China, and I would like us to buy the fewest amount of Chinese-made goods that we can.
But I have an iPhone, and, you know...
Pretty much half of my environment is Chinese goods.
So how do I explain that?
And the way I explain it is quite easily.
You do practical things, and you don't do impractical things.
That's it. Who would disagree with the following statement?
You should do things that are practical and also good, but you should not do things that are impractical, even if hypothetically they were practical, they'd be good.
It is practical to prevent new business from going to China.
Very practical. It is not practical to uproot companies that are gigantic parts of the American economy, and at the moment, they require, you know, let's say, assembly in China.
So I don't judge Apple and Tesla by the same standard.
I would judge some company that decided to open a new factory there tomorrow.
So I've never put them in the same category.
So no matter how many times you ask me, am I comfortable with my iPhone, I'm always going to give you the same answer.
No. No, I'm not comfortable with it one bit.
But it isn't practical to change it quickly.
It might be practical in the long run, and I hope, and I trust.
I trust Apple's actually doing that, by the way.
I trust that they're looking at their options and trying to figure out what to do.
But You know, the way to build it in the United States is probably with robots, not people.
So it's not like it's going to boost employment if they move it over here.
But it will at least get it out of China.
I'm being a little too nice to Apple and Tesla.
Well, nice isn't really an operative thing here.
And by the way, I should say, as I've said before, I do own stock in both Apple and Tesla.
Now, one of the reasons I own stock with them is that they're just monsters.
They're both just monsters.
And when I invest in things, it's not because I love them.
I don't invest in things I love.
I invest in things that look like they can't possibly lose money because they've got some kind of monopoly-like control of things or they're doing something right.
So investment is not about what is right or wrong.
Nice means gullible.
Well, what exactly would be the example of what I'm gullible about?
Do you think it's practical for them to just pull out?
You wouldn't have a phone.
Do I own a Dilbert desk calendar?
Same problem. Even my products, the Dilbert desk calendars, are printed in China.
Now, am I happy about that?
Nope. Do you know where the other places you can print a Dilbert calendar are, you know, economically?
Neither do I. I have no idea.
I have no idea where we go.
But it's also by preference and by contract, I don't make those decisions.
So the decisions on where the publisher prints is out of my company's control.
Coinbase HR policy is better than...
Okay, I don't know what that means.
Try India? I wonder why India doesn't have more manufacturing.
Actually, can somebody answer that question?
Why is it that India, with massive amounts of potential employment and pretty good education system and all that, Somebody says they do textiles.
But why isn't India just massively competing with China?
Because wouldn't you give all of your business to India?
If you had a choice, same price, Indian manufacturer or Chinese, you would take Indian every time, wouldn't you?
Because they're an ally, in a way.
The electric grid. Somebody says they can't do manufacturing because of their electric grid.
I don't know. That's an interesting point, but I don't know.
I mean, China's got problems with their electric grid, and they do it.
Lack of natural resources.
I don't know.
They could do assembly.
So assembly would still work.
Vlad says, Scott, so much basic stuff you don't know.
Just like in the case of narcissists.
How can I send information to you?
Well, Vlad, you are a narcissist.
So I don't want to hear a fucking thing from you, actually.
You sound like a jerk.
Now, if you could find a way to, like, be less of a flaming jerk, then I'm always interested in seeing things that don't agree with my opinions.
Would India have been better off had they stayed part of the British Empire?
No.
That's not a fair question.
People need their freedom, too.
How do you value that?
Tata makes more cars than any other.
Is that true? Tata is bigger than GM. That's an Indian car company.
I didn't know that. Well, then it...
India has really low quality and their regulations are insane.
Are you telling me that China doesn't have insane regulations?
It doesn't seem like anything they can't solve.
Why not come down on Mexico for fentanyl?
Are you kidding? I'm being asked why I don't come down on Mexico for the fentanyl?
Apparently you've not watched me for very long.
I'm in favor of droning the cartels.
Can I be any harder than that?
I'm in favor of killing the top fentanyl dealer in China, where he lives in China, and even telling China we did it.
I wouldn't even keep it a secret.
Now, we probably couldn't use a drone in China, but if we could find out some way to kill that guy and just say, look, China, we gave you a year.
We gave you his name, his address, all the evidence of the crime, and we gave you a year to fix it.
And then we kill them. And we'll do it again.
We shouldn't have any apology for that.
Likewise, with the cartels, if we decide to just drone the cartels because of the drug business, I'm okay with that.
Is that hard enough?
Is murdering them where they stand not strong enough for you?
All right. Drone attacked the CEO of McDonald's.
Well, again, they're illegal products.
You think Trump was angling toward India as a replacement for China?
Well, yes. Certainly in a strategic sense.
Why doesn't America have quick detection COVID strips?
I'm afraid to tell you the answer to that question because I think I know it.
It's corruption. I don't know the details.
But I would place a large bet that if you dug down into the approval process of quick COVID tests, you would eventually find somebody with a pharmaceutical connection that's a problem.
So that's all I'm going to say.
Because we don't have any explanation for why we haven't done it.
Right? Right? Because you would hear an alternate explanation, unless it was corruption.
You would hear an alternate explanation, oh, these rapid test strips, they have a problem, or we'd love to make them, but we can't get the precursors, or we'd love to make them, but we don't have the manufacturing capacity, or we'd love to make them, but it's not as good as you think, or we'd love to make them, but they're not as safe, or it caused some other problem.
Have you heard anything like that?
No. Nope.
You haven't. And if you haven't heard any reasonable counterargument, and you haven't, you've heard no counterargument, it's got to be corruption.
Process of elimination.
If you know it's a good thing, it's public, the public knows it's a good thing.
I mean, a lot of us do. It's been promoted.
There's been testimony to Congress.
People have told them exactly why it's good.
There's zero argument on the other side, and it doesn't happen.
It's got to be corruption. There's no explanation left.
And has the media looked into it?
Have you seen any stories by a major media entity saying, we looked into why the U.S. doesn't have rapid tests and here's what we found?
If you've seen that, send it to me.
Because I don't think I've seen it.
You know the dog that's not barking?
The dog that's not barking is a story about why we don't have those test strips.
Now, I know that in the beginning we had some crappy regular tests, PCR tests or whatever, but that's a different story, that those tests have nothing to do with what we're talking about, the rapid tests.
The reason we don't have those and other countries do, it's not money, it's not resources, it's not intelligence, it's not data, it's not policy.
It's nothing. Literally, we have not been told why we didn't do it.
And are still not doing it at a scale that would make sense.
It's got to be corruption.
Do you have another theory?
Because if it's not corruption, they would tell us the other reason.
Right? Anyway, I think we have to assume corruption to force the government to communicate correctly.
If the only problem is they haven't communicated their objection, well, that's a big problem, right?
They need to communicate that objection so we can know we have some trust in our government.
Right now, you have to assume no trust, and you have to assume corruption.
That's got to be the default assumption, and I'd love to be talked out of it.
