Episode 1525 Scott Adams: Can AI Spot Fake News For You? And What if it Could? Lots More.
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Content:
Anti-Productivity leaf blowers
Sexy senior citizen Madonna
AI model to spot fake news?
Will Mike Pompeo primary President Trump?
Jim Acosta's opinion thing on CNN
Decreasing antibody defense over time
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Well, good morning ladies and gentlemen and everything in between.
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Well, I'm wearing the swaddling blanket of comfort today.
Why? I'll tell you why, in a moment, at the proper time.
Don't rush me.
We're going to do that at the proper time.
Issue number one, most important issue possibly in the entire world, leaf blowers.
Now, here's the thing about leaf blowers.
You don't really think that's a big problem, right?
It's a minor annoyance.
Nobody likes to hear a leaf blower.
But I'm just going to tell you from my own experience, I lose an entire work day every week to leaf blowers.
One entire day of creativity and productivity every week for my whole adult life to leaf blowers.
Am I the only one?
Anybody else find you actually can't work when a leaf blower is outside?
I actually can't work.
I just have to get up and do something else.
Take a shower or something.
Yeah. And the funny thing is, I guess they're being banned in some places, but probably not banned because of productivity.
Here's what's different.
Nobody's ever liked leaf blowers, but usually it's because you're sleeping or you wanted to take a nap or you wanted to just not have any noise by your house.
But what happens when everybody's working at home?
If everybody's working at home, the leaf blower is going to take 20% of your productivity.
It basically kills the day.
Especially if you have a neighbor, so you get yours...
And then the neighbor starts in the afternoon and you've got a full day of leaf blower.
I think it's actually a gigantic problem that looks like a small one.
Because each individual who's bothered by it just feels like an annoyance and maybe you don't complain to anybody.
So you've got millions and millions of people who are losing a day of work and nobody knows that it's happening to other people.
I have a feeling...
Leaf blowers are taking something like, I don't know, 2-5% off the GDP. I mean, it could be that big.
Because you've got a lot of people working at home now, especially.
Well, Madonna is promoting some kind of documentary or something.
And if you've seen her, you know that she's bringing sexy back.
Madonna is bringing sexy back.
To senior citizens, mostly.
And... I asked myself, does there need to be an intervention?
Because the very thing that made Madonna amazing is that she didn't care what you thought and she was going to do it anyway.
Her single-minded drive and ambition and all that are really what made her special, what made her succeed.
But... You also have to know when to quit, right?
You have to know when to hold them and know when to fold them.
And I feel like Madonna has, you know, she probably has lots of room left on her career, but I'm not sure that playing the sexy senior citizen was exactly the right way to play this.
You know, I don't know who's advising Madonna, but I feel that the advice goes like this these days.
Um... You know, Madonna, if you're not too busy, I've been watching your latest promotions and I'm just a little productive...
It's a positive, really not a criticism at all.
I'm just saying that some people, not me, not me, but some people, feel as though maybe because your age and the weird way you look, I don't mean weird, I mean non-standard.
I mean better than most people, but different, different.
Some people say weird. I don't say it's weird.
Not me, but some people are saying that, and they're cruel and awful.
But I'm just wondering, just putting the idea out there that maybe you should...
I'm saying just maybe rethink a little bit.
I'm fired? And scene.
I don't feel as though Madonna has good advice.
You know what I mean? I don't feel like she has good advice.
Clearly there's nobody giving her honest opinion about what's going on here.
Like there's nobody in her circle at all who can just say, you know, like I'm the one person you'll listen to and maybe play this a little differently.
And I think what bothers me about it is I'm such a big fan.
I'm a huge fan of Madonna.
Always have been. And I think that...
She does have a second act, if you'd call it that, the second act.
Yeah, well, yeah, Cher, maybe Cher went the same way.
I think Cher did it better. But I feel like she could be as substantial as ever.
Just play it differently.
Maybe play a little more to her substance, if you know what I mean.
Well, you know, we've all been making fun of TikTok and how it's destroying the world.
But I feel like there's a positive to it.
It turns out that one of the things that TikTok does, and you could substitute Instagram and Snapchat for the same conversation.
One of the things that TikTok does is it keeps all the narcissists busy.
Now, you think I'm going to make a joke?
But watch this.
I'm not joking at all.
If you've studied narcissism, and by the way, I have a history of saying, first of all, it doesn't exist, and then becoming a complete convert.
It wasn't exactly a change of opinion, but there was a change of understanding that there's more than one thing called narcissism.
So the ones I was saying don't exist still don't exist.
So I was never wrong about what I was talking about.
What I didn't know, and this is an error on my part, is that the word narcissist is used in different senses, and there's a grandiose narcissist, and there's a vulnerable narcissist, and there's some other kinds, I guess.
But one of the characteristics of narcissists is that they damage other people.
They damage other people.
The more time you spend with a narcissist, the more chance you're going to get damaged.
Because they do that.
That's sort of built into that.
This is the vulnerable narcissist, not the grandiose.
And to the degree that TikTok absorbs all of their time so that the narcissist who would be out destroying other people ends up glued to a screen interacting with other narcissists.
To a large extent.
And I'm wondering if it actually is helping in some way.
Because it takes them out of the conversation.
Every moment that a vulnerable narcissist is on a device is a moment that they're not bothering you in person.
There's a big sick out.
Where is it? The FAA? I'm not sure where that is.
So I'm not so sure that this is a bad thing.
Maybe we've identified and isolated all the most dangerous people and we'll have them just talking to each other.
And the other great thing is that if you understand narcissists...
Somebody paid $50 to criticize me.
So I'm going to read the criticism in full.
He paid $49.99 just to have this comment be prominent.
It says, simulation theory could only ever occur to a white upper-class boomer living in a McMansion.
But please, tell us all about the vax and tell us again about that one time you didn't get the promotion because a black existed.
Does that sound like...
Anything? So let me do some fact-checking.
I don't live in the McMansion.
I live in an actual mansion.
So at least get that part.
Anyway, I guess that's a definitional thing.
Please tell us all about the vax.
Have I ever done that?
Have I ever told you to get a vaccination?
No. No. This person is hallucinating.
It's an actual hallucination.
They imagine that I'm telling them to get a vaccination, I guess.
And tell us again about that one time you didn't get the promotion because a black existed.
It was two careers, not one time.
It was two careers in which I invested a tremendous number of years and time And really it was more three.
It wasn't two.
Because I lost two corporate jobs for being white and male.
And just for your information, my bosses told me that directly.
So I'm not reading between the lines.
They told me, they called me into their offices with an actual meeting, a specific meeting just to tell me that I would never be promoted as far as I could predict because I was white and male and they needed to give us more diversity.
So, do you think I'm imagining it?
Do you think I'm making up that conversation?
Seriously. Whoever asked the question for $49, do you think I just made that up?
I've been saying it for years, and I worked with hundreds of people.
Hundreds and hundreds of people knew me, if you take the years I worked at both corporations.
Hundreds. You don't think any one of those hundreds of people by now would have come forth and said, that never happened.
There was nothing like that happening in these companies during those days.
Do you know why nobody has come forward to say that that didn't happen?
Because they all experienced it.
It was universal. It wasn't even rare.
It was the very texture of life in those days.
In San Francisco, anyway, where I was.
Now, I also lost a TV career for being a white guy.
On UPN, the Dilbert comic was running, had a successful first season, and was renewed.
But it was renewed in the season that UPN decided to primarily cater to a black audience, which was a pretty good marketing idea, I thought, because it seemed like it was an underserved population, and they weren't doing so well in general, So I thought, oh, we'll target a specific audience and that'll be good.
Hey, well.
Okay.
That was the weirdest text message I ever got while I'm live-streaming.
So, you paid $49 for the answer.
There's your answer. It's 100% real that white people of my generation were discriminated against, and directly.
We were told to our faces we couldn't be promoted.
Did you know that? And by the way, that's why I identify as black.
Number one, because I can.
I can identify as black.
Because those are the rules, right?
You can identify with whatever you feel the most connection to.
And because I've been massively racially discriminated in my life.
Massively. I mean, those are really big examples.
Two careers and a TV show.
That's a lot of discrimination.
And it's not in my mind.
These are Very direct, obvious discriminations.
And so, when I talk about maybe there is a way we can think of reparations, when I talk about improving education for the black community, when I talk about all the things Trump did for enterprise zones and other things that were good for the black community, I actually mean it. Because I do have, legitimately, a connection to that community.
Now, a million differences, obviously.
But in the most critical part, I want to swear really badly, but I'm not going to do it.
The most critical part of life, can you get a job?
We had the same experience.
We meaning anybody who was discriminated against, especially the black population.
Same experience. Couldn't get a job, or keep a career, or get promoted in my case, for your race in America.
So yeah, that's a real connection.
And I'm really mad about it.
Because nobody should have to experience that.
Now at the same time, I also think society had to do something about diversity.
Probably had to do something.
It was just bad for me.
Happened to be bad for me personally.
Alright, enough about that. Thanks for the question, anyway.
And by the way, if you're imagining that I'm promoting that you should get vaccinated, that's never happened.
So just check your assumptions.
That's never happened. I'm wondering if there will ever be a free minds movement.
You know, the way there are body hackers, you know, there are a lot of people, let's say health hackers or whatever, who are sort of organized, semi-organized, and they're testing all different things for their physical health.
You know, trying to, I don't know, fast, try to take this supplement and that.
And I'm wondering if there will be a similar thing for people trying to avoid brainwashing and persuasion.
Will there ever be a movement of free minds?
People just trying to figure out techniques, little hacks, to keep them from being brainwashed?
I think maybe so.
There might actually be an organized movement at some point of people who are using the technology that they've learned...
Technology, technique, I guess I'd say.
Maybe technique is better. For finding places that they have bias on their own and figuring out how it got there and figuring out how to get rid of it.
Maybe. Yeah, we might have free brains.
Speaking of that, there was a Gallup poll...
Talking about trusting the news, and it turns out that the Democrats, during the Trump years, their trust in the major media went way up.
Substantially higher.
More trust in the media during the Trump administration.
Meanwhile, the independents and Republicans had less trust.
Republicans had 11%, dropped to a new low, trusting the media, and independents were in between.
You know, 31%.
Now just think about this.
What was happening at the exact same years that Democrats were getting a far greater trust in the media than they ever had before?
What was happening?
Well, the fake Russia collusion hoax was mostly the news.
Fake news. The fine people hoax happened then, the drinking bleach hoax, and lots of other hoaxes.
Small act to everything else.
So during a period of unambiguously massive fake news, the kind maybe we've never seen so much in one time, during the most obvious, grotesque, overwhelming fake news period, Democrats substantially improved their trust in the media that...
Almost hard to believe the rate at which they were being lied to.
And their trust increased substantially.
At the same time, the Republicans decreased.
What happened? What happened?
Is it just they were hearing what they wanted to hear?
Eh, that's probably a lot of it, right?
A lot of the fake news went their way.
As long as the fake news went their way, they were good with it.
Love this fake news.
This is agreeing with me like crazy.
Hey, I thought Trump was crazy, and now the news says Trump is crazy.
Feeling pretty good about myself, being all right like that and everything.
But here's another factor.
What is it that makes people believe the news?
And what is it that makes something viral and makes it the news?
What is the quality of a story...
That makes it really, really big news.
The one you really pay attention to.
One quality of that story makes it the thing you can't look away from.
It's not true.
That's the primary quality that makes you watch the news.
That it's not true.
If it were true, it wouldn't be interesting.
Sorry. Reality just doesn't serve up an interesting story every day that fits into this little box.
But lies do.
You can always fill the space with a lie.
So there is a real thing, an observed effect, that the less likely it is to be true, the more attention it's going to get.
Because it's more provocative that way.
So Democrats were just...
Basically gassing themselves with their own fake news and loving every minute of it, apparently.
Do you want to hear the most disturbing story of the day?
One that you won't even know what to say.
This will be so disturbing that you'll be at a loss for words.
So that's my challenge.
Eric, I will take that advice.
um um Most disturbing story.
Dr. Eli David on Twitter, he tweets this.
I'll just read you his tweet so that I don't get anything wrong, right?
He says this week, so he works in AI, I guess, and writes about it.
He said, this week I interviewed a bright AI researcher working for one of the biggest pharmaceutical companies.
And man, do I wish I knew the name of the company.
And you will too in a moment.
So it's an AI researcher who worked for a big pharma company.
I asked him why he wants to leave his current position, so he told me the story.
His team had developed an accurate AI model predicting whether one of their expensive drugs would be effective for a patient or not.
As you know, not every drug works with every patient the same way.
You could have a genetic component, maybe some other components.
I'm not sure what the AI took into effect.
But apparently they got really accurate results, and they could tell you in advance whether you should take this drug.
Now, this is great, right? If you knew in advance a drug wouldn't work for you, you wouldn't waste months taking a drug that wasn't helping.
And then you would have maybe had a greater chance of getting onto a drug that does help, or something that helps.
So, huge development.
I mean, wow.
What a step forward in our ability to give people the right medicine.
So an AI model that can predict whether an expensive drug will work.
That's big stuff. This should have been like a world headline, right?
I mean, it's so important. So how'd it go?
Well, not the way you hope.
Not the way you hope. So he developed this model, and then the implications are dramatic.
Instead of wasting a whole year taking the pill to find out it doesn't work, AI predicts in advance the efficacy for each patient.
So how did the company react?
This is still in the tweet from Dr.
Eli David. They asked him to delete the project and never mention it to anyone.
The AI model would strip them of huge profits generated by millions who take the drug and find out it's not effective for them.
Better let them suffer and pay the company instead.
What do you even say about this?
Well, the first question you should ask is, is it true?
I just told you that fake news is a big problem.
You already knew that. Is it even true?
Is it? There is one problem with the story, right?
A little bit too on the nose.
Isn't it? Because isn't it exactly what you expect?
Right? So it's a little too on the nose.
What's the second part of the story...
This should raise a red flag.
Second part of the story that raises a red flag.
Let's see if anybody gets it.
What would raise a red flag in this story?
That he wouldn't tell anyone?
Well, he did tell someone, but he quit to do it, allegedly.
AI model that works?
That is a wonderfully cynical but accurate...
Somebody said that the strangest part of the story that should tip you off as fake is that somebody made an AI model that works.
That's not a bad comment right there.
Yeah. I'm going to endorse that one.
Yeah. Somebody made an AI model that works?
Really? I mean, I'm sure it's happened.
But, you know, right there, you're going to, I don't know.
It's kind of hard.
Yeah. Are you missing...
There you go.
You're almost there.
Somebody said rogue doctor.
Whenever there's the rogue doctor, you should put the odds of them being right at very low.
But it's not a rogue doctor.
It's an AI person. It's a little bit different.
Didn't name the pharma.
Well, probably did name the pharma company to the writer.
Anonymous? Okay. Okay.
We don't know if he's anonymous, by the way.
Yeah, we don't know that.
The tweet doesn't name him, but I don't know if he will always be anonymous.
But that is exactly the right thing you should be looking at.
Thank you. Thank you.
We got the right answer here from Bear Wires.
Disgruntled employee. Do you believe disgruntled employees?
Yes. Ever?
Do you know how often you should take what a disgruntled employee says as just fact?
You know, there's no context left out.
Boom. That's a fact.
How about never?
Never would be a good time to take a disgruntled employee's opinion.
How about never? How about not one time ever?
Now, it doesn't mean they're always wrong.
I'm just saying that in terms of credibility, it's kind of zero.
Again, it doesn't mean they're wrong.
Right or wrong is a separate question from whether it's the kind of thing you should believe when you hear it.
I'm saying it's the kind of thing you shouldn't believe when you hear it.
It has that nature.
Disgruntled employee, not named, company isn't named, an AI model that works.
A little too on the nose.
Now, if it's real, and by the way, I don't want to cast any aspersions on Dr.
Eli David. I have no reason to think that, you know, he would have the story wrong or anything like that.
So I'm sure that the person he talked to is a real person that he really talked to who really worked for a big pharma.
I'm sure he did, you know, the basic work.
So I think the basic questions are probably true.
And he, you know, he doesn't work for a big media company that maybe is bought off in some way, as far as I know.
I mean, I guess you can never know, huh?
But suppose that's true.
And how about this?
Let's take this and extend it.
Do you think it would ever be possible to write an AI, you know, create an AI, that could spot fake news for you?
What do you think? Could you ever write an AI program that would help you spot fake news for Fairly accurately, maybe not every time.
Yes. The answer is absolutely.
Just wouldn't do work every time.
How do I know that an AI could do that?
Because we just did it.
We just did it right here.
We just came up with several objective standards that an AI could just remind you of.
It's an anonymous source.
It's a disgruntled employee.
It's an unusual claim that AI works.
I'm exaggerating a little bit there.
But if this AI worked as well as reported, it would be quite a surprise to me that somebody got that done.
And then there's the question of whether it's too on-the-nose.
Could an AI identify a story that was too on-the-nose?
Not directly, but it could do it by a poll of humans.
It could ask humans, hey, does this story match pretty much your suspicions?
Or does it not match the suspicions you already had?
And if the AI finds out that a whole bunch of people go, oh yeah, that's exactly what I expected, then the AI can say, oh, I have now demonstrated it's a little bit too on the nose.
It's a little bit too exactly what you thought was going to happen, isn't it?
It could also look at the sources.
The AI could say, okay, Fox News says it's true or false, and CNN says it's true or false, and unless both of them agree on the facts, it's probably fake news.
Just an objective standard.
If the left and the right don't agree on the basic facts, don't assume it's true.
Because the stuff that is fact, like a hurricane really hit, it's the same on every news.
The ones that you know are true are the same on every news.
It's only the ones that aren't true where one news item will report it differently.
All right, so wait for that.
AI could spot fake news.
I believe it could also spot fake news by the wording of the stories.
And also the outlets that carry it.
Because it could identify which outlets have had the most fake news.
There might be some subjectivity about seeding that information, but it could watch it over time.
I'll bet it could also determine fake news from the wording of the people who talk about it.
Don't you think? Because the way people write about stuff is almost a fingerprint.
When people are writing fake news stories, I'll bet you there's a signature in there somewhere, a pattern, a way they talk about things that's different.
I'll bet. And I'll bet AI could find it.
Well, the monster is back under the bed.
You thought there was no monster under the bed?
Oh, there's a monster under the bed.
But only if you're an anti-Trumper.
Because the monster is...
Trump's back!
Well, he's been back for a while, but it's increasing.
He did a rally in Iowa.
He's not announcing, but he's sort of walking us up to the line of announcing.
We need frame checkers.
Oh, that's a good way to say it.
More than fact checkers, we need to see that the story is framed correctly.
Somebody says Tim Poole is doing something like that?
I don't know about that effort, but I've been hearing about it in the comments.
So Trump's back, and the news is happy and horrified because they've got something to talk about.
But they're horrified, I tell you, they're horrified.
And I guess Trump is doing this trick again where he's putting the blacks for Trump who are wearing the T-shirts that say blacks for Trump behind him on the stage.
I feel like it's time to get rid of that.
Now, when he was running the first time and he did that, I said, well, at least it's visual and people can see some diversity back there and that probably works in his favor.
But obviously it looked a little artificial.
Nobody thought that they just spontaneously showed up and got good seats, right?
Even though you knew it was artificial, because it was visual, it probably still worked.
That was my take.
It was obviously political and fake, but a lot of things that politicians do when they run is political and fake.
So, I mean, that's baked in.
So it was political and it was fake, but maybe it worked just because it was visual.
Whether they were paid or not, it probably still was a good look.
But not anymore.
I mean, I feel like it's just so obviously...
I don't know.
It just doesn't look genuine slightly.
And I feel like it's just maybe working against them right now.
Pandering? Or, I don't know, a little too on the nose?
Eh... I don't know.
It's a little cringy now.
There was a trending hashtag that said, Civil War is coming.
I think this was probably a Trump supporter or something.
It was one person that started trending on social media.
Let me give you a prediction.
Civil War is now coming.
Civil War is now coming.
We're not even close. There's nothing like that coming.
Yeah, lots of protesting and complaining, and we might be even more divided, but no, there's no civil war coming.
Do you know why you don't want it?
You don't need another reason.
The reason that there's no civil war coming is that not enough people want it.
If we were anywhere near a lot of people wanting it, well, then maybe.
But no, we're nowhere near it.
Don't worry about it. Mike Pompeo is making noise as if he's going to primary Trump run against him.
What do you think about that? I have two thoughts.
Thought number one.
I feel like the Republicans should run a primary.
What do you think?
I think given just the age of Trump alone and the controversy which he's created, I think he needs to be primaried.
For the good of Trump, as well as the nation.
Because I think Trump needs to beat the field again to really have that legitimacy that he had the first time.
Now, I think he could do it.
I think he would beat the field again.
But, I don't know, I think maybe the system requires it this time.
You know, if he were a less controversial character and younger...
Because age, I think, has to be factored in.
And I'd say, no, he's earned his place at the top.
And I think he's earned his place at the top, but just for the benefit of the voters, I'd like to have him stress test a little bit.
Make sure he can still deliver.
If he can, he can.
If he can, he can.
And the indication is it looks like he can.
So I would suspect he'd win a primary.
But I feel like the system requires a little push.
You need a little competition in the system.
Pompeo, I don't have a strong opinion about him one way or another.
I think Afghanistan will hang over him.
I don't know. He's smart.
He can communicate well.
I just don't think he brings a sizzle.
He's going to need a little more sizzle.
So Jim Acosta is doing this opinion-y thing on CNN now.
And here's the thing that you have to be bothered by.
When you watch Fox News, the person reading the news is obviously a news person.
And the people doing the opinion stuff are obviously opinion people.
And you really don't get them confused, right?
Nobody thinks Hannity is a hard news guy.
He's an opinion guy.
Tucker Carlson, same thing.
But CNN likes to have that a little bit more grey.
So here's Jim Acosta, famous for covering the White House under Trump.
So you think of him as the news guy.
But now he's gone full opinion, at least on this show.
That feels dangerous to me.
I don't think you should, just as a production note, if you're in the news business, I think your news people need to be walled off from your opinion people a little bit.
Having your news guy do opinion, I feel like people are going to take that as news a little bit more than they would if it were someone else.
So just something to watch for.
Not a big problem, but something to keep an eye on.
And he says things like this.
He's talking to his guest. He goes, I guess it was Yang.
And he said, Tucker Carlson, I mean, let's just say he's a bad person.
And he goes on claiming that he spouts off white nationalist talking points, which I don't think he does, by the way.
I think that's an unfair statement.
He does say things that are compatible with what other people that are controversial and you think should be condemned and I think should be condemned.
But... Just the fact that we humans have a lot in common with each other, yeah, everybody's going to have something that's in common with a group they don't like.
Don't you think that would apply to everybody?
Do you think that Biden doesn't say some things that some bad people agree with?
I'm sure he says things that bad people agree with.
Does that make Biden a bad person?
Doesn't really work that way.
Just the fact that bad people agree with you on some part of what you say, that doesn't accrue to you.
It is not your fault that people you think are bad agree with some small part of what you say.
Doesn't work that way.
All right. The American Medical Association...
It has a note about ivermectin, and it's informing doctors how to respond if their clients, their patients, ask them for ivermectin.
And it goes on to say that ivermectin is not proven, and that as an unproven drug, you know, maybe don't recommend it, but instead recommend this.
Here's the weird part. So the AMA says we don't have evidence that ivermectin works, so therefore they're not recommending that it be prescribed.
but they are saying that if your patient wants it, you should refer them to one of the ongoing ivermectin trials.
Why am I confused now?
Why?
Weren't we told that ivermectin definitely doesn't work by the medical community?
I thought we knew that, right?
Am I wrong?
Isn't the established medical community...
I know you might have different opinions, and there are rogue doctors, etc., but isn't the established view that ivermectin has been proven to not work as opposed to, you know, we don't know...
Isn't that the view? And the AMA is saying, well, if your patient wants to do it, refer them to an ivermectin trial.
What doctor who believes that we know it doesn't work should tell his patient to take it anyway for the trial if he knows it doesn't work?
Remember, it's not wondering if it works.
Don't they know it doesn't work?
Isn't that the official belief?
If the official belief is that we know it doesn't work, why are there even trials?
Who's running these trials?
Don't you think the people who are funding the trials should have said by now, oh, darn, we already found out it doesn't work.
Let's cut the expense of the trial right now and wind this up.
There's no reason to go to a result.
Because... There's no reason to get a result in the trial because all the other trials have shown it doesn't work.
There's no reason to finish.
This is another example where we're clearly being lied to.
We, the public, are clearly being lied to.
Because if these trials are happening, it does mean that people with real money, and a lot of it, because it's expensive, and people who are real professionals in this field, because who else is going to do the study?
It's going to be professionals.
If they're not sure, why do you have to be sure?
Right? If medical science itself isn't sure, why do you have to be sure?
That's a little bit inconsistent.
Now, to be clear, as far as I know, the benefit of ivermectin has not been demonstrated.
As far as I know. I'm not the expert, but I do, you know, follow the news.
As far as I know, it has not been demonstrated.
Definitely some...
There are indications.
You know, there's plenty of things that tell you maybe.
I suppose that's why they're doing the trials.
And, of course, given that the risk of it is low, it appears that we have been more brainwashed than informed on this topic.
Hey, here's something that I didn't know until today.
I'm here to inform you.
We all know that the vaccinations could wear off.
Correct? We all know that the vaccinations could wear off.
And that antibodies can diminish over time.
Right? So I think whether you got the...
If you were infected or you got vaccinated, I think your antibodies decrease over time.
But is that the problem that you think it is?
If you hear that your antibodies are decreasing over time, what does that tell you about your risk?
It tells you you have a higher risk, right?
But it's not quite as clean as that.
Turns out there are two kinds of resistance, let me call it.
I'm going to use non-medical terms here so that it's just simpler.
There are two ways that having some kind of prior antibodies help you.
Number one is keeping it from getting into your body in the first place and taking hold.
So there's sort of an initial defense that keeps you from getting in the first place, and that will decrease over time, which means that your initial defense will let it in.
You will more likely, after the immunity goes down, you will more likely catch it.
But here's the part I didn't know.
There is a second type of immunity.
Which doesn't decrease the same way.
So the first kind, which is you're going to get it, could decrease to the point where you get it.
But the other kind has much more lasting permanence.
And the other kind is the kind that keeps you from dying.
So the good kind we got, because it's keeping you from dying.
The other kind, where it's keeping you from getting it in the first place, isn't working.
Which is? Good news or bad news?
Is that good news or bad news?
Suppose you took a vaccination and your ability to catch it went down, but your ability to prevent serious illness was still solid.
Is that good or bad?
I think it's good.
Good-ish.
Because the end point is we all get vaccinated and we also get the infection.
We just get to the end point faster.
Now, you don't want it to rage, you know, out of control and crash your hospitals and stuff like that.
So you want your good news to, you know, be moderate good news.
You don't want great good news because things would happen too quickly.
So there's a rate of change that's important.
But did we luck into this?
Imagine if you could have designed this on paper.
Would you have said, let's vaccinate and then people are just good, they're just vaccinated, they won't get it?
Or would you have chosen to vaccinate people in a way that they would still get infected so that they could get the natural immunity but it won't kill them?
I'm not so sure this wasn't perfect.
Are you? Can you tell me that you know this is worse?
Because I can't tell.
Somebody says it's a bad analysis.
Do better. Do better.
Raise your game. I'm not saying I'm right.
I'm asking the question.
But your criticism needs to be better than that.
Just give me a reason, any kind of an indication.
It's all good until they're forced.
Yeah, that's a separate question. Yeah.
We can't tell if it's good news or bad news.
Isn't that weird? It's one of the most gigantic factors in our environment right now.
We don't even know if it's good news or bad news.
The vaccine is a scam, bro.
Okay. Well, that's what I learned today.
I don't know if I got that right, but look how much smart you are.
And... Let's talk teachers' unions, how we can break them and solve systemic racism.
Well, I'll tell you, if somebody wanted to run against Trump, a Republican, and they ran on trying to bring in black voters to solve systemic racism via the school system, they could win, I think.
I think a Republican could beat Trump in the primaries, By saying, I'm going to intentionally try to find where Republicans and the black population have the same interest.
Mandates is one. Mandates.
And the same interest in reducing systemic racism via the school system.
Same. Just run on that.
Just run on the stuff you agree on.
And you would beat Trump in the primaries.
You should read Brave New World.
It's dystopia created by trying to make everyone safe and happy.
Yeah, I mean, if his writing was better, I'd read it.
Or if it wasn't so sad, I'd read it, I guess.
Yeah, I don't read depressing books.
That is correct. How did I get the black nail?
This was a tragic...
This one's a little black, too.
A tragic accident involving a window.
No, I didn't close my...
Fingers in a window.
It was more indirect than that, but let's just say a window was involved and keep it there.
Well, I think Trump is running against mandates, but he's not full-throated on it.
All right. Yes, let's go, Brandon.
I tried to read 1984, but it was too sad and terrible, and I bailed out.
Jill says that she's sure ivermectin does work.
Jill, you know you don't know that, right?
Because it can't be known.
We don't have data that says it works.
If you know some anecdotes of somebody who got better in two days, that's most of the people who get COVID. Most people just get better right away.
So there should be lots of stories of people who ate a cookie and within 24 hours their COVID had subsided.
How many people, let's say, stubbed their toe and within 24 hours their COVID was totally under control?
A lot. How many people took hydroxychloroquine and within 24 hours their COVID was all fine?
Lots. Millions probably.
How many people ate a peanut and within 24 hours their COVID was all better?
Millions. How many people had a bowl of rice and within 24 hours their COVID was all cleared up?
A billion? I don't know, 100 million maybe?
So I don't care how many people you know who took a drug and it cleared up within 24 hours.
It means exactly zero.
The exception would be...
The monoclonals.
I think the monoclonal antibodies, I've heard people just feel it.
You can actually feel yourself getting better while you're taking it.
So I think that's a different case.
Yeah, how many people took ivermectin and their problems did not clear up in 24 hours?
We don't know. Yeah, and none of those in vitro studies means anything at all.
Somebody says it worked for Joe Rogan.
Can I see in the comments how many people think this is a true statement?
Ivermectin worked for Joe Rogan.
How many think that's a true statement?
Well, one that you can confirm is true.
Yeah, unknown is the correct answer.
But... Just look at the comments.
No. We don't know which of the many things that Joe Rogan did made a difference.
We don't know if any of it made a difference on one person.
I mean, look at Joe Rogan.
Doesn't he look healthy? He looks like he could beat COVID without drugs.
Now, it would be silly to try under a current condition, but if you could pick anybody in the world...
Who could beat COVID without drugs, I mean, he'd be on the top of my list.
I mean, I suppose he could be younger.
But, I mean, he's about as healthy as you can possibly get.
Yeah, so anybody who thinks that ivermectin cured Joe Rogan or anybody else, I can't rule it out.
But it would be the worst take of all time because...
There's no evidence it worked, and there's lots of evidence that the other stuff does work, like the monoclonals, for example.
Somebody says, I have some ivermectin, and we'll definitely take it if infected.
Personal choice. Personal choice.
I would neither talk you into that or out of that.
I would just say, I don't have any evidence that it would help you, but I don't have any evidence that it'll hurt you.
Personal choice. Less than 1% of those that catch COVID will be hospitalized.
That is a shitty data point.
Here's the data you should never give anybody if you want to be credible.
Only 1% of people are getting hospitalized.
Or less than 1%.
The number is probably right, but there's a pretty big difference between a 12-year-old and an 80-year-old.
And if you average the 80-year-old's risk of hospitalization with a 12-year-old's risk of hospitalization, and you get a number that's under 1%, you have misled people.
So don't do that.
That under 1% is a propaganda number.
It's not a useful number.
Anybody who tells you the odds of hospitalization are under 1%, They're part of the propaganda process, not part of the information process.
It's true, but you've averaged things together that only an idiot would average together.
Like, what's the average age of a frog plus an elephant?
And then we'll come up with the average age of creatures.
It's not a thing.
It's not useful.
You don't average things like that and think you learned something.
So don't give me the average of people who go to the hospital.
That's a misleading propaganda number.
If you want to tell me the kids have almost no chance, true.
And if you want to tell me the people over 80 better watch out, true.
But if you average those two together, you're not part of the real conversation.
You're just propaganda.
All right. Kids with obesity, maybe.
But I'm not even sure kids with obesity.
Well, yeah, I guess, anecdotally, there's enough to worry about there.
Yeah, 1% is about 4 million extra people getting hospitalized.
