Episode 1518 Scott Adams: Start Your Day Right With the Simultaneous Sip
My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a
Find my "extra" content on Locals: https://ScottAdams.Locals.com
Content:
Let's Go Brandon!
Keith Olbermann's vaccine video spittle
Football games new traditional chant
The battle for Taiwan
Spot the CNN Fake News that's 100% true
Persuasion by anecdote
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If you would like to enjoy this same content plus bonus content from Scott Adams, including micro-lessons on lots of useful topics to build your talent stack, please see scottadams.locals.com for full access to that secret treasure.
---
Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/scott-adams00/support
Today is going to be, well, it's going to be a good day.
Maybe not for every one of you, but statistically speaking, 99.99% of you are going to have a good day.
But, you know, some people, not so much.
But you? You're going to be good.
And why? Well, because you were wise enough, smart enough, and good-looking enough to arrive on time to watch the what?
That's right, the simultaneous sip.
I know! It's almost too good to believe.
Imagine your luck. I mean, if the rest of your day goes as well as this has gone so far, wow, the things you can get done today could be a good one.
There's something that you've been thinking about doing.
I'm talking to you right now.
Look at me. Look at me.
I know you're doing other things.
You're exercising. You're taking a walk.
You're doing some housework. But look at me.
Look at me. There's something that you were planning to do, or wanted to do, that you're hesitant about.
And you're thinking to yourself, I don't even know why I don't want to do it.
Like, I sort of have reasons, but I don't know why exactly I don't want to do that thing.
I should make that phone call.
I should invite that friend.
I should ask that person out.
I should apply for that job.
Do it. Just do it today.
Do it today because I said today's a good day to do it.
You don't need a better reason.
Today's a good day to do it.
Just do it. You'll be fine.
Will you be embarrassed?
Eh, maybe. Get a good story out of it.
Will you succeed?
I don't know. Does it matter?
Nope. Nope.
Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter if you succeed.
Do you know what matters? That you tried.
That's it. That's your system.
The system is you try.
So do that today.
We'll get to the simultaneous sip, but I wanted to leave you that.
Today's the day. There's that thing that you've been putting off.
You know you need to do it.
Just do it. Just do it today.
And watch what happens.
And now... All you need to enjoy this morning to the maximum extent is a cup or a mug or a glass of tankard, chalice or stein, a canteen jug or a flask, a vessel of any kind.
Fill it with your favorite liquid. I like coffee.
And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure.
The dopamine of the day, the thing that makes everything better.
It's called the simultaneous sip, and it happens now.
Go. Ah, yeah.
Now you feel the fortification you needed.
That little extra push to do that thing.
All right, I missed a comment.
I'm going to look here from Marusha.
You often argue that X isn't bad because we already do some version of X, but this ignores the possibility that, yes, the thing we're already doing is also bad and should be gotten rid...
That's a little too generic, Marusha.
I understand your point, but you need to connect that to a specific topic, and then I can deal with it more effectively.
But I understand the point.
Alyssa Milano was part of the, I guess, the marches.
A lot of women and a lot of men, too.
Marched because they're worried about their so-called abortion rights.
And they don't want to lose them in the Supreme Court, because I guess there are some cases that are coming up that will challenge Roe v.
Wade. Oh, somebody's got...
Very cool. Somebody's watching me in a 3D world.
That's very cool. Anyway, so Alyssa Milano was the speaker.
Now, you may not be on her team...
You know, she identifies with the left.
Maybe you're on the right.
You're saying to yourself, I don't like that Alyssa Milano.
But I've got to tell you, she's good at what she does.
And again, I like to compliment people I disagree with.
I'm not saying I disagree with her.
I'm just saying I'm going to give her a compliment in this case.
I've disagreed with her on other stuff.
But here's her argument.
And she said this, and I quote in a speech, I can't believe how a handful of men...
Talking about the Supreme Court.
I can't believe how a handful of men are successfully taking 50 years of rights away from women and how our Supreme Court, packed with abusers, is just going to sit by and let it all happen.
Now, forget about whether you agree with her, right?
I know you don't agree with her in many cases, right?
Most of you probably don't. If you're watching this, you probably don't.
Maybe you do. But just look at the persuasion.
Here's the argument that doesn't work.
We have a right to abortion.
Does that argument move anybody?
We've got a right.
It's our right. Not really.
How about even it's our bodies?
Better. It's better because everybody responds to that, right?
Oh, it's our bodies. But...
We also know that the government does control our bodies, and we like it that way.
We do. The government controls your body, always has, and we like it that way.
So it's never your body, your choice.
You don't live in that world.
The government decides if you go to war.
The government decides if you're free or you're in jail.
Because they make the laws, and if you don't follow them, they decided you're in jail.
And then they put you in jail.
You don't have control over your body.
You want control over your body.
Maybe. But you don't have it.
Not even close. Although the argument can be persuasive, it doesn't make any sense.
Because we gave away our rights to our body when we decided to have a government, basically.
If they can draft you, If they can draft you, they control your body.
Now, I agree with you that you'd like less of it.
Are we all on the same page?
We'd all like less of that, right?
There's nobody who's arguing, give the government more control over my body?
No, nobody's on that side.
I'm just saying that you're already there.
So the argument intellectually kind of fails, but persuasively I think it does work.
It just doesn't work as well as...
What Alyssa Milano did.
What Alyssa Milano did, that really works.
This is the best argument against the current situation.
So she's arguing that it's men taking things away from women.
Now, do you know how the psychology of humans works?
When they have, let's say, if you were to compare these two things, which is the stronger psychological impulse?
The impulse to not lose something you think you have, or the desire to guess something that you want.
Which is the stronger of the two?
Not wanting to lose something you already have, versus, hey, I'd like a new thing, that'd be great.
Yeah. The not losing something is the stronger one.
So notice how she puts...
She phrases this in terms of a bunch of men taking things away from women.
That's not bad.
Persuasion-wise. I'm not taking a stand on abortion.
Can everybody understand that?
You're not going to hear my opinion on abortion because my opinion...
Agrees with part of what she said.
Not the ultimate decision.
But the part where she says, why are men involved in deciding what women do with their bodies?
That's pretty strong.
That's the argument that I use for staying out of the whole thing.
If Melissa Alano says to me, hey, Scott Adams, this is unlikely, but if she were to say to me, Scott Adams, why are you even involved in this question?
I would say...
Good point. Good point.
Why am I even involved in this question?
It's much more credible if women make the decision.
Doesn't mean it's right. Doesn't mean it's wrong.
And it doesn't take away your right to participate.
I don't want to take your right to participate in any question.
I'm just saying if you want the most credible outcome, it would be women deciding what women do with their bodies.
Even if there were lots of disagreement on that, it would be the most credible outcome.
So that's a good attack vector, I think.
I don't know if she'll be successful or what's going to happen in the Supreme Court, but that's good persuasion.
It's good persuasion. Here's a tip for you.
Ignore the absolutists.
This will be one of the most useful tips you'll ever hear.
Ignore the absolutists.
What's an absolutist?
That's somebody who argues that things just are or they are not.
And there's nothing about risk or maybe.
There's no ambiguity.
There's no uncertainty about data.
Anybody who's got an absolute point of view, just ignore them.
They're not even humans, basically.
They're just NPCs.
They're just programmed to walk around and say, yes...
No. Yeah, that's all they got.
Let me give you an example.
And sorry, locals.
There's somebody on Locals who did this and don't mean to insult you personally, although that's probably going to happen.
So I'm probably going to lose one subscriber on Locals today, maybe more.
It goes like this.
I just saw a meme that says the vaccines don't stop infections, therefore what good are they?
Vaccines don't stop infections.
Therefore, what good are they?
That's an absolute.
Do you believe that vaccines don't reduce any infections?
Because that's not the case.
We know that pretty definitively, that people who are vaccinated are way less likely to get infected.
They do get infected, though. So it doesn't work as a statement of fact that getting vaccinated protects you from infection.
But if you treat that as it was an absolute...
Yeah, I'm seeing the meme again.
I'll read you the meme.
It's a tweet from Anthony Brian Logan.
He says, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky says that the vaccine cannot prevent transmission.
So why are all these pro-vaxxers saying it can't?
Huh? Huh? If the CDC director says that the vaccines cannot prevent Prevent infections.
Why take it? Well, that's the absolutist view.
There's nothing you do because it's absolute.
You wear your seabull because the odds are better with it than without it.
Does anybody think that a seabull has never killed anybody?
I'm sure it has.
It's just not as common.
So as soon as you're dealing with somebody who says, oh, if the vaccine doesn't stop every transmission...
It has no value. You can't talk to people like that.
Don't talk to people who talk in absolutes.
There's nothing you can do with that.
Just walk away. I'm not even sure that they're real people.
You know, if we're a simulation, they seem to be the ones that are non-player characters, if you know what I mean.
Keith Olbermann has a video out.
He's trying to get more people vaccinated.
If you don't know Keith Olbermann...
Let's just say that his entertainment value is extreme.
He's not the most rational person I've ever seen, but his entertainment value, pretty high.
And in his new video, he's saying that we...
That we should stop saying that people are vaccine-hesitant because that's too kind to them, says Keith Olbermann.
He says instead we should call them morons, snowflakes, and that they're afraid.
They're afraid. That's why they don't get the vaccine.
They're afraid. They're afraid.
What's wrong with that?
What's wrong with it is that every decision about the vaccine or not vaccine is because people are afraid.
That's the only reason you get it.
Right? I mean, you might not be very afraid, but let's say at least concerned.
Because whether you get vaccinated or don't get vaccinated, it's all based on fear.
The fear is the only thing that's making any of it happen.
He thinks one side is operating on fear?
That's everybody. Right?
That's Keith Olbermann. He's literally afraid that other people won't get vaccinated.
It's all fear. There's no non-fear opinion involved in any of this.
Now, you might not have much fear, but if you had zero fear, you wouldn't even be involved in the conversation.
Anyway, the most important question about his video, and I think Twitter user Angela pointed this out.
What we'd like to know is whether the spittle that Keith Olbermann was producing in this rant, was it foaming?
Was it just straight spittle?
Or was it a little rabid foaming?
I think that's the important question.
All right, well, most of you probably saw this story, which is the funny story of the day, that apparently at sporting events all over the country, a lot of the spectators are starting a chant.
What's the chant? I think you already know the chant.
It's F. Joe Biden, except they use the full word.
And I guess there was a NASCAR race in Alabama's Talladega Speedway.
And the winner was a fellow named Brandon Brown.
He was being interviewed afterwards, and the chants broke out, F. Joe Biden, F. Joe Biden.
And the interviewer, and I still don't know yet if the interviewer was completely aware of what the real chant was, but the interviewer very cleverly, because it was live TV, said, look, they're chanting, Go Brandon! - No, wait, what is it?
It was, Let's Go Brandon!
So, let's go, Brandon.
Now, that's hilarious, because, you know, we've all had that Lonnie and...
Laurel and Yanni experience.
So, when you first hear that, you think to yourself, maybe it was.
Maybe that is what they're saying, because I've been fooled by all these other audio illusions.
Maybe that's what they're saying.
But... I'm going to say, because I don't know the answer yet, maybe somebody here knows the answer to the question of whether the interviewer knew exactly what they were doing, or did the interviewer actually think that the chant was something about the race car driver?
Does anybody know? I haven't seen...
Oh, she laughed. Oh, the interviewer is laughing?
Well, okay, maybe that's the giveaway.
But here's the part I love about this story.
What makes this spread?
What makes this spread is if Fox News reports it, right?
If Fox News keeps reporting every time there's a stadium that erupts in this chant, and they do, they do report it every time.
Does CNN report it every time?
Eh, I don't think so. How about MSNBC? Do they report that every time?
No, probably not.
So what happens when Fox News reports it every time?
It guarantees it's going to happen, right?
Is it really news?
Is it newsworthy that people are chanting this?
Well, the first time. Maybe even the second time.
And it might be newsworthy, you know, if it's some specific kind of event.
But watching Fox News make this happen and pretend that they're just covering the news...
No, they're making the news.
Fox News is making this happen.
And then they're reporting on it.
It's a great circular kind of business model.
Let's make something happen, and then we'll report on it.
And we don't even have to spend money researching.
We'll just listen to the video and say, oh, there's a report.
Got another report there.
Got another article out of that.
All right, so...
And I'm not even criticizing Fox News.
I just think it's funny. I think it's hilarious that they're doing it.
In the slightly more serious news, the battle for Taiwan has started.
Here's the report. So it's not unusual for China to send aircraft into Taiwan's airspace just to sort of keep them on notice that China says, we own you.
But the number that they sent has just skyrocketed.
So China sent 20 aircraft into Taiwan space, I guess yesterday, and then later a bunch more.
So nearly 80 planes, including fighter jets and bombers, 80 Chinese aircraft, including fighter jets and bombers, 80 in one day.
Violated the Taiwan airspace, according to Taiwan.
What do you make of that?
Now, obviously, it's because of Biden's weakness.
Does anybody disagree with that?
It's somewhat obviously because of Biden's weakness.
They have to probe it.
So is it smart for China to, you know, probe for weakness?
Yeah, it is smart.
I mean, given that their goal is to, you know, get Taiwan under their control eventually, it's very smart.
But be careful what you wish for.
Be careful what you wish for.
Have all of you heard the phrase a Pyrrhic victory?
P-Y-R-R-H-I-C. How many of you have heard the phrase a Pyrrhic victory?
So this is a pretty well-informed crowd, especially over on Locals.
On Locals, it's every one of you saying yes.
Really? Holy cow.
Oh, even on YouTube.
Wow. I don't know, does this mean that I have a more educated audience than the average?
I can't believe that this would be mostly yeses with a generic audience.
Can you? Am I being surprised for no reason, or is this actually surprising?
It's almost all yeses on two different platforms.
Maybe the no people aren't weighing in, but I'll be damned.
I really thought that that was going to be closer to like 20% of you would know what that meant.
All right, well, surprising, but also good news.
It's good news that you all know that.
So a Pyrrhic victory, if there's one person who doesn't know, it means that you might win the battle, but you've degraded your army so much in winning the battle that you're going to lose the war because you don't have enough left after the battle to maintain and keep things.
And imagine, if you will, China militarily taking over Taiwan.
Let's just game this out in our heads.
Imagine that China militarily attacks Taiwan.
What's the United States do?
What do we do? Well, I'm sure we'd arrange our assets, our military assets, but would we fire at mainland China?
I don't think so.
I don't think that we would get into a shooting war with China because there's just no way you could win.
There's nothing like winning that would look like that.
I think what we would do is just take out China's economy for 100 years.
I think China's economy would suffer for 100 years if they take Taiwan.
Now, that might be worth it.
They might say, you know, we think in terms of thousands of years.
So 100 years to get Taiwan back under our control?
Yeah, let's do it.
Maybe.
I mean, I can't get into the minds of the Chinese leadership.
But I think that it would be impossible for an American business to do any business with China if they were militarily taking over Taiwan.
Who disagrees?
Who disagrees?
So just that statement, that the moment that China actually fired on Taiwan militarily, and it was actually war from that moment on, and for the next 100 years, you couldn't be an American company going to do business in China.
So just that statement, that the moment that China actually fired on Taiwan militarily, and it was actually war from that moment on, and for the next hundred years, you couldn't be an American company going to do business in China.
And even the ones that are there would have to pull out then.
They'd have to.
Now, your iPhone is going to suffer for a long time because they won't be able to assemble it.
So that's the first thing that China has to worry about.
It would guarantee crashing their economy.
Does anybody think it wouldn't guarantee a crash of China's economy because the rest of the world would just turn on them?
Does anybody think that's wrong?
Disagree with me if you have a reason.
Because you don't think we would just keep doing business, do you?
Just business as usual?
Well, we lost Taiwan.
I sure wish that hadn't happened.
Yeah, China's economy is already fragile.
But I think this is the further guarantee that China is unsafe for business.
Imagine considering doing business in China when you know that they send 80 warplanes into Taiwan airspace.
You're the CEO of some big company and you're trying to decide whether to move into China to do manufacturing.
You can't do it.
Just the fact that they're threatening at this level means that China is a potential war zone, at least economically.
And then, you know, if it's economically, you can't really move anything there.
They won't be able to get any parts and everything will fall apart, no energy, etc.
So... As I've told you many times, the economy turns on one thing primarily.
As long as you have enough resources, there's one thing that makes the economy run.
What is it? What is the one thing that makes an economy work as long as you have enough resources?
Expectations. Psychology.
Confidence. Yeah. It's the mental part.
China has lost the base requirement...
For a good economy.
The base requirement, and there's no exception to this, is some level of trust.
You've got to have some trust, some certainty, some confidence.
It's all gone.
China has burned all of their business capital.
They're psychological capital.
It's all gone now. There's nobody who is a reasonable person who follows world events who thinks it wouldn't be too risky to go into China and do business there because it's way too risky now.
Maybe not so much 20 years ago, but right now, way too risky.
And that psychological problem is just getting bigger.
And what is the one thing that the United States would need...
To guarantee that we take China's economy down without firing a shot.
Which president would get you that result?
Which president gets you not a single shot fired and China is just dismantled?
Only one person on earth, probably.
Probably only one person on earth could get that done.
If China makes a stronger move for Taiwan, Trump's your next president.
I mean, I don't know how you could...
That's it. It's over.
If China wants to make Trump, you know, get a second term, just fire a real missile into Taiwan.
Just one. And he's president.
And he's going to come for you.
He's coming for you.
And this time...
He's going to have the whole country behind him.
At least in terms of China.
He'll be as divisive as ever in general.
But when it comes to China, the whole country's going to be behind him.
And what happens if the generals say, I don't think you should do this economic warfare.
It might turn into something bad.
Nope. Now, would it be a Pyrrhic victory for the United States?
No. Maybe.
That's the risk.
So that's why you need a Trump to manage what would be kind of a delicate process, which is how do you get our economy to still work if China's economy is going down?
We're kind of connected, right?
So how do you do that?
Let me throw out an idea.
Are you ready for a wild brainstorming idea?
You ready? I'm going to tie a couple things together.
I don't know if this is practical.
This is just brainstorming, so don't be too critical.
Take this as what I call the bad idea, or the bad version.
The bad version just makes you maybe think of a better version, right?
So I'm just stimulating your thinking process.
It goes like this. How could we manufacture things in the United States cheaply enough that we could compete with whatever was happening in China?
Two ways. Number one, as I see over in the Locals platform, we're well educated on this.
Robots. You can build with robots just as cheaply in America as you can in China.
Do you know why? Because a robot costs the same.
If China buys a robot, it costs the same as if we buy a robot.
And the robot works all night.
And it makes you your stuff. So you get kind of close to the same cost, and you also eliminate the shipping.
You eliminate all the time problems and the shipping, because it's made locally now.
So robots is part of it.
What I'd like to see is more of that.
But we don't want to robotize too quickly, do we?
You don't want to go full robot because that would wipe out American jobs as well.
Yeah, unions are going to have a problem with it.
So robots are part of the answer, but they're...
Oh, stop getting ahead of me, Mike.
Damn you. Over on YouTube, Mike, getting way ahead of me.
All right, that's where I'm going.
We've got a million immigrants coming in.
If we took those million immigrants and said, you can come into the United States, but only, only into these following zones, their manufacturing zones.
And in these special manufacturing zones where you're welcome, we'd like to know who you are and know who we're getting.
We don't want the criminals. But we're going to be...
We've got a lot of immigrants that are not Americans, and we're not going to hold them to the same...
Minimum wage. You can come live here and you can even stay in factory housing.
Because it's better than whatever you had going when you left.
And maybe you can take some English classes.
Maybe you can work your way up to some kind of a plan where you could become a citizen.
Or maybe your kids can become citizens or something.
So somebody says it would be like slave owners.
No. You want to do this as humanely as possible.
And you want to give them a path in which they solve our problem while we solve their problem.
Do you know what our problem is?
China. Our problem is China.
If we can solve China, and what it brings us is a million immigrants who work and produce things for Americans at low cost, and so they solve our biggest geopolitical problem, they bring youth into the country, because we need it for the long run.
You've got to bring lots of young people in.
They bring in workers who...
Within their special zones, don't have any minimum wage, but they could still live a decent life while they're learning English and maybe preparing for some more substantial job.
Now, the key would be that they could do this legally, but they couldn't leave the zone.
So you'd have to have some control over that.
But you'd want to make it work well enough that people didn't want to leave.
Because if they leave the zone, they're just going to get a low-paying job somewhere else.
So if you had a good, safe area with maybe even some health care from the companies, not from the government, from the companies.
Somebody says that's a modern plantation.
Compare it to the alternative.
So what you're saying is, gosh, you would be building a system that sounds...
Like the company store.
Historically, this has been a bad model.
Am I right? Historically, what I'm explaining would have been a bad idea.
Do we all agree with that?
That historically, what I'm suggesting would have always been a bad idea.
It would have just turned into sweatshops and slave labor.
But what's different about 2021?
You just put cameras everywhere.
Yeah. Yeah. You just say, okay, if you're a company and you're going to hire these immigrants at less than minimum wage, you have a responsibility to really be monitored in this.
And that would be different.
In 2021, we can guarantee that these companies are watched very carefully.
To make sure that they don't become a place where, you know, people are stuck forever and, you know, they owe money, it's a ghetto, any of that stuff.
So the companies would have to make sure that the living spaces are well maintained, albeit inexpensive.
They'd have to make sure that the working conditions are human and that they get paid enough that they're not trapped there forever.
You know, they have some way out.
Somebody says, here comes the deplatforming.
So I'm looking at your comments, and I see lots of no.
Lots of no. They'll want reparations.
Sounds like Dubai.
I doubt it, because I don't think Dubai is worried too much about the working conditions of the immigrants.
Scott, this sounds like something that would not take human motivation into account.
I believe the opposite of that.
I believe that this model relies on human motivation being exactly what it is.
In other words, the only way to make this work is to make it more advantageous for immigrants to go through this process than to avoid it.
Right? That's the key.
You'd have to design the process so that the people who are subject to it say, yeah, I'd prefer it.
It's way better than the alternative.
Because the alternative, I don't know what's going to happen to me.
But here I've got a definite job.
That's better. We are past that point?
Yeah. Now, if you think that I think this is practical and we could start this up tomorrow and stuff, not so much.
No, it's not like the Uyghur camp.
I guess people would be able to leave and go home anytime they wanted.
They just couldn't leave and come into the country.
All right. Here's CNN giving you some fake news with numbers.
I'm going to read you what CNN said and see if you can tell me what's the fake news part of this.
All right? Here's the test.
CNN says, quote, Suggested that people that got COVID-19 in 2020 and didn't get a vaccine were more than twice as likely to be reinfected to get COVID a second time in May or June of 2021.
Compared with people who were fully vaccinated.
So, you can get COVID if you're vaccinated.
Alright? You can get COVID if you're vaccinated.
Alright? Everybody knows that, right?
We all know that the vaccine doesn't completely stop it.
It reduces the odds way, way down.
So the odds of getting it if you're vaccinated are way down.
Most of you don't know that.
Most of you think that the odds of getting it is about the same if you're vaccinated or unvaccinated.
It's not even close.
Did you know that? How many of you didn't know that?
Is there anybody here who thought...
That the odds of getting it were about the same if you're vaccinated or not vaccinated?
Yeah, you'll see people telling me I'm wrong.
Go research that.
I won't argue it here.
Just go research that.
And watch that the other people in the feed are telling you that you're wrong.
See, the thing that makes you think I'm wrong is a statistic that's misleading.
And there's a statistic that says that in some places, more vaccinated people are coming in with infection than unvaccinated, right?
So that's what you're thinking.
There are these places that more vaccinated people have it than unvaccinated.
That's not the statistic you should be looking at.
That's misleading. And here's why.
I'll give you the simple explanation.
Once everybody is vaccinated, let's say in a town...
Just look at a town. Everybody gets vaccinated.
What percentage of the people who get COVID are vaccinated?
All of them. Yeah, 100% of the people who get COVID would also be vaccinated because everybody's vaccinated.
So the more vaccinations you have, you're guaranteed, given that you can still get it, you're guaranteed that most people who get it will be vaccinated.
But that doesn't change the statistic.
That your odds of getting it at all are way, way lower if you're vaccinated.
Now, maybe not in the long term.
In the long term, maybe we're all going to get it, right?
Well, you'd rather be vaccinated if you do.
Well, maybe you don't.
I won't say that you'd rather.
I'll say that the scientists are telling you you'd be better off that way.
but you make your own decision.
Crawley says, you can't know that They aren't tracking vaccinated cases.
Yes, they are. Yeah.
They're not tracking everybody who got vaccinated.
But they're definitely surveying vaccinated and unvaccinated people.
That's definitely happening.
They're just not counting every single person.
But statistically, they just do a sample, and that's all they need.
All right. So, the fake news is this.
Being twice as likely to get reinfected.
So they've compared if you had natural immunity, you've already been infected, compared to only vaccinated, but you've never had it.
So those are the comparisons.
Natural immunity to vaccinated.
And the claim here on CNN is that you're more than twice as likely to get reinfected If you've only been infected as opposed to been vaccinated.
Is that real news or fake news?
That's fake news that's true.
It's fake news that's 100% true.
Is that a possibility?
Can you have fake news that's 100% true at the same time?
Because I believe the statistics are true.
But why is it fake?
The way it's presented. Let's say you're at risk of getting a deadly disease, something besides COVID. God, my nose always itches when I'm in public.
This is like a psychological thing.
Half the time when I'm doing this, it's not because of my allergies.
It's because I get this psychological itch on my nose when I'm in public.
Here's why it's fake news.
Let's say, take the example of your risk of being killed by a terrorist.
Let's say your personal risk of being killed by a terrorist is 1 in 10 billion.
That's not right.
Let's say it's 1 in 100 million.
I don't know what the real number is.
But let's say it's 1 in 100 million.
That's your risk. And then you double it.
You double it. Is that a story?
Your risk of being killed by a terrorist just doubled.
It's not a story.
Because your risk was so low that doubling it didn't make really any difference at all.
So when CNN says your risk of getting reinfected if you've got natural immunity, how many people is that?
And how big of a difference is that?
Is this really a difference we have to care about?
Because when they report doubled, if you hear that something involving your health has a double risk, you should act upon that immediately, right?
You don't want to double your risk of anything.
So immediately take action.
But what if the doubling didn't make any difference?
Like it still rounds to zero.
Then... Take action, and the other doesn't.
And they're both true. If the risk is so small, doubling doesn't matter, so you don't take action.
So they're trying to make you take action by reporting the doubling without telling you what the absolute difference is.
That's fake news.
That just happens to be completely accurate.
Just fake. Apparently there's some big healthcare shortage, a healthcare worker shortage, that's not directly related to COVID. Did you know that?
This came as a surprise to me.
So apparently even before the pandemic, there was this sort of a crisis for healthcare employees.
And at least based on the reporting, it's not clear why.
We don't know exactly why.
We've had nursing shortages for ages, yeah.
And here's what I don't understand about it.
Nursing's a pretty good job, isn't it?
Did that change?
I always thought that these healthcare jobs were good jobs.
Somebody says OnlyFans pays better.
Working conditions.
Here's my guess.
I believe that there's a culture within the medical community for self-abuse, which turns into systemic abuse for all health care workers.
Am I wrong? Now, I'm not directly involved in that world, but what I observe is the hours are just crazy.
I mean, lots of you work long hours.
I do that myself.
But I feel like the health care workers are in a whole different level.
And I think that abuse comes from, you know, having a lot of doctors in charge who are used to the crazy hours, and if I did it, you have to do it.
Let me tell you a conversation I had years ago with a chef for my restaurant.
So I had a restaurant years ago, and the chef was just a bastard.
He was just a jerk to all the other employees.
Just a serious, serious, bad, bad personality.
And made everybody want to quit.
So I had lunch with him and I said, why are you acting like the biggest jerk in the world when obviously you could just not do it?
Like, what is motivating you?
And he told me this.
It was intentional and It wasn't baked into his personality at birth or anything.
He was intentionally being the worst person he could be on the job.
Why? Why?
Why did the chef tell me directly, I'm not reading between the lines, told me directly why he was a jerk and a horrible person to all the employees?
Why? Why? I'm looking at your comments.
Weed out the weak, unites the employees to make them work harder, motivate them.
None of this is right, by the way, because they're immigrants.
He's racist.
He was black, by the way, so he wasn't racist.
Well, I mean, not in the usual way, anyway.
He wouldn't be asked to help them move.
That's the best answer.
He was a jerk to the employees so he wouldn't be asked to help them move someday.
Maintaining pressure. Boom!
Somebody got it. Not very stacked.
Somebody got it. The answer is, that's how he learned it.
He was brought up by chefs that abused him.
And then he said, so that's why I do it.
And then I said, but you know, it's not a good idea.
You don't think it's a good idea, do you?
You don't think it works.
So if you know it doesn't work, why would you do it?
And he said, because that's how we learned.
And then I said again, yeah, I'm hearing you.
I'm hearing you about the part that that's what you learned.
But as of today, you can quite clearly see this is a bad idea.
People are quitting. I'm having this lunch with you.
Everything's going to shit.
And it's all because of your personality.
Now, you see that, right?
And given that it's not your natural personality, it's a put-on personality that you're doing intentionally, wouldn't you consider changing that?
Maybe doing it differently?
And he said, it's not the way I was taught.
That's not the way I was taught.
He didn't have any reason for it.
He was just taught that way. So, now let's get back to the doctors.
Do you think the doctors, who often become administrators, or at least have a big influence on the culture of the workplace, do you think a doctor who got terribly abused when they were going through their whatever, do you think that doctor is saying to this, you know...
Those long hours were so bad for me in so many ways and really unhealthy.
And I am a health worker and that was unhealthy.
Clearly, lack of sleep is unhealthy.
Everybody understands that. So, because I know I went through it and it's bad, I will now correct this as best I can and make sure all of my employees get enough sleep.
Do you think that's happening?
I'll bet not. I'll bet what's happening is, hey, I went through this so you're going to go through this.
I'll bet that's the problem. Now, it's speculation, right?
I'm only speculating, so I can easily be wrong.
I'm not committed to this opinion.
But it's kind of the only thing that people wouldn't talk about, necessarily.
Yeah. I think it's the culture.
Just a guess. All right, um...
Apparently, climate change, there's a big change in public opinion.
According to a new poll, for the first time, a majority of Americans now believe that the U.S. is facing consequences of a warming world.
Have you felt that change?
Actually, I thought, I didn't know the percentage until today, but this is the first time that a majority of Americans believe climate change is real.
Does that feel right? Did you know this is the first time a majority thought that?
Now that's different than thinking it's a problem that you need to solve.
So it's slightly different to say that we should solve it or what resources you should put in to solve it, but just that it's a problem.
Now remember that people like Bjorn Lomborg and Michael Schellenberger will teach you That the warming world might help more than it hurts, and we just don't know.
Definitely a risk, because we don't know.
But there's no reason to think it'll be worse.
The most reasonable take is probably it's going to be better than it was.
Right? I don't know what that meme was supposed to apply to, but over on Locals, somebody just posted a meme that says, Dick is everywhere, chemistry isn't.
I'm like, I think that was relevant to the conversation.
So I'm not going to tell you whether you should believe or not believe in climate change, but it's interesting that the world does.
Now, what was it that convinced people?
What changed recently?
What changed recently? Let me tell you what changed.
Do you remember that...
I forget how we heard it, but I think it was CNN's head saying that they were going to push climate change like crazy and that they were intentionally going to brainwash the public into making climate change their big issue.
The news industry told you that directly.
We're going to go persuade the public on climate change.
Then it happened. This poll says it worked.
This poll says that the news successfully convinced a big part of the public to switch over into worrying.
What was it that made them switch?
What persuasion got them to switch?
Was it the data?
Did people switch sides because of the data?
Was it the argument, the facts?
Was it the facts and argument and the logic and the science?
Was it Greta? Nope.
Nope. It was the anecdotes.
It was all the stories in the news about there's this place with a drought, there's this place with a record this or a record that, and they convinced you with anecdotes.
What do anecdotes prove about climate change?
Like what does a specific storm or a specific hurricane or a specific drought, what does that tell you about climate change?
Nothing. Nothing.
So you got persuaded when they stopped using facts and they stopped using science.
Then you got persuaded.
Not you, but the public.
So what is it that I've been saying for a while?
Maybe some of you can confirm this.
Have I not been saying that whoever is doing the persuasion on climate change isn't doing a good job?
They just started doing a good job.
Do you know how they moved from doing a bad job to a good job?
Trump. They took Trump's technique.
They took the anecdote and sold it to the public because the public buys anecdotes.
That's why they're selling you the anecdotal guy didn't get the vaccination and he died.
Because the news has finally learned that facts and reason don't move the public.
And they're in the job of manipulating the public.
They're not in the job of informing.
And so they made that adjustment.
And so you're going to see more and more anecdote because that persuades.
Science and facts, even if it's right, doesn't persuade.
So watching this happen in real time, because remember, you know the old story of Babe Ruth, a baseball player, who famously pointed to the fence he was going to hit the home run over and then hit a home run over that fence.
You know, famous kind of thing.
Larry Bird, if you watched sports, Larry Bird is one of the greatest basketball players.
And there's a famous story I was just watching on YouTube where he would tell people what he was going to do before he did it.
Like crazy stuff.
At one point, he told people that he was going to do a fadeaway three-pointer and land in the opposite team's trainer's lap.
Let me say this again.
During a game, during the game...
Larry Bird called and told the opponents where he was going to stand, how he was going to take the shot, and there was going to be a fadeaway shot where after he shoots his body goes backwards, and then he was going to land in the lap of the trainer of the other team.
He took the ball, went to that spot, drained a three-pointer, and fell into the trainer's lap.
That actually happened.
And by the way, it wasn't even a unique moment in Larry Bird's life.
You have to watch the highlight clips of all the Larry Bird greatest moments.
It is unbelievable.
It's amazing.
He would call the most crazy things.
True story, one day he told they were winning some series, and he said he was going to play at least three quarters of the next game left-handed.
Left-handed. He was a right-handed player.
He scored 27 points.
Left-handed. He called it.
He told the other team he was going to play left-handed.
They only had to guard one hand.
He made their guarding twice as easy by telling them, I'm not even going to use this hand.
For three quarters.
He scored 27 points.
Now, if you don't follow sports, that's like a lot of points.
Left-handed. Left-handed.
All right. So the news just did the same thing.
They said, we're going to change people's opinion on climate change, and we're going to do it this year.
They just did it. They just did it.
I'm seeing some comments about...
Scott says, investment isn't about right and wrong.
Is Apple and Tesla too big to fail?
What do you mean by, is Apple and Tesla too big to fail?
Nothing's too big to fail.
I don't know what the question means.
If you mean in an economic sense, no, there's nothing that's too big to fail.
You just have to look at the likelihood.
The likelihood is that they won't fail.
No time soon, anyway.
All right. Yeah, Sears failed.
Nothing lasts forever.
Until it does, I guess.
So... The climate change polls you were citing are false.
That could be. That could be.
I will take that comment in the spirit in which it's offered.
Yeah, any poll you see, except for Rasmussen, who tends to be pretty darn good.
I quote them a lot.
But yeah, just a generic poll from some entity that you're not familiar with.
Yeah. You have to be skeptical.
All right. I believe we have reached the end of our productive morning.
Does anybody feel better now?
I told you things were going to start looking up.
Have I followed the recent stories about Havana syndrome?
I don't know how recent you mean, but...
Oh, Jen Psaki brought up the bleach oak last week, and no one corrected her.
Just amazing. Amazing.
No, I'm not following if there's something new new about the Havana Syndrome.
But I assume that it's more not finding it.
Oh, I've seen some links to the Larry Bird stuff on YouTube.
You sip after I leave?
My God. You're a golden age delusion.
Is it? Let me make a quick argument for the golden age.
Number one...
Nuclear... Let's say war among superpowers, I think, is over.
Because it's unwinnable, and everybody knows it.
So I think world wars are probably over in the shooting sense.
We'll have lots of cyber stuff, but we'll get that under control.
The mRNA platform shows promise for curing all kinds of stuff, including cancer.
So because of the pandemic, here are the things that will change.
And maybe it would not have changed without the pandemic.
Commuting and working in the office.
Right? It's one of the worst things in a lot of people's life, was having to commute and working in a terrible office.
That's gone forever, in the sense that you'll at least have options.
I mean, you could work for a company that doesn't require it or a company that does, but you have an option now.
Way more than you ever had.
So I think commuting...
If you're following the electric bicycle market, it's way bigger than you think, meaning the impact on society.
So the quality of batteries and the price and power of batteries got to the point where having a battery assist on your bicycle allows you to go 100 miles on a bicycle pretty easily.
It still takes some time, but it's pretty easy.
It's going to change everything.
You don't know it yet, because we haven't organized around it.
But in 20 years, you're just going to be on an electric something.
And maybe even your car will be less useful.
I think there's going to be all kinds of changes in housing.
I think that the economy will be fine.
And I think that AI will not kill us all.
I think it will help us.
Now, there's a risk of AI killing us all.
So, I mean, that's a real risk.
We have to manage it. But I think we saw it far enough in advance.
E-bikes made in China, yeah.
Yeah, I mean, if anybody wants to call me out for buying Chinese products, you're on the wrong page.
All right? I'm not the guy telling you that you or I or anybody else has to stop buying all Chinese-made products.
I'm not telling you that. That would be bad for American companies, too.
What I'm telling you is that moving new business there is done and that's all it takes to end China.
So those are some of the things that are happening.
I would say that most of what's happening is positive even if it doesn't look that way.
Remember, the news is only going to tell you what's bad news.
So Afghanistan is over.
The Middle East looks like more peace than we've ever had because of the Abraham Accords.
Iran... Weirdly isn't making a lot of noise right now, is it?
Why is Iran so quiet?
Anybody? What's happening with Iran?
It's too quiet, right?
Almost like something's going to happen.
Like a deal, maybe.
It feels like the calm before some kind of agreement.
Newsom. Scott, love him.
So this is a comment on YouTube in all capitals.
Newsom, Scott love him.
Okay, that's not even close to true.
Yeah, Israel has said that they will unilaterally take care of Iran, which I imagine makes Iran more afraid and not less.
I've got a feeling that Iran would like a world in which the United States would talk Israel out of attacking, but apparently that's not going to happen.
Because Israel just said, okay, we're just going to do what we need to do.
That could take care of the problem.
Because I'm sure that their intelligence on Iran is pretty darn good by now.
Yeah.
Still waiting for an e-bike stream.
Well, I did an e-bike...
Yeah, I guess I should do more of an e-bike stream.
I should strap my phone to the bike and take a ride for you.
All right. Haitian caravans.
Yeah, we've talked about that.
There's more coming. Like, a lot more coming.
All right.
Just looking at your comments.
The news about the Havana Syndrome.
Well, let me check that while I'm here.
So many of you are asking me about the Savannah...
I'm sorry, Havana syndrome.
So there's some new news that involves the Biden administration.
So one hour ago...
Looking into reports, sensory attacks, they believe they're closer to understanding...
There's nothing new here, is there?
What's new? What is new on this story?
I don't see anything new on this story.
What's causing it?
Okay. Yeah, I think the government...
I don't trust the government on this, but we'll see.
All right. Let's keep an eye on that, and let's go, Brandon.
Let's go, Brandon. And by the way, it would be hilarious if in places where you couldn't be shouting F Biden, if instead you started chanting, let's go Brandon, and everybody knew what you meant.
