Episode 1526 Scott Adams: Dave Chapelle, Nobel Prize Craziness, and More Surprises
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Content:
Groups of people who don't like being pushed around
Southwest Airline employees
Dave Chappelle's latest on Netflix
Travel and women
Nobel prize for economics shoulda been me
Fake News Identifier Filter
https://tinyurl.com/2esjzm23
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Come on in. It's time for Coffee with Scott Adams.
Once again, as always, what?
Yes, the best thing in the universe.
The known universe.
I will allow that there's a possibility that outside the known universe there might be something better than this, but I kind of doubt it, frankly.
You know...
Probably what you're thinking is, how can I take it up another notch?
Because that's the kind of people you are.
If you watch Coffee with Scott Adams, you're not satisfied with the status quo.
No, no, no, you're much better than that.
You know that continuous improvement is where it's at, and to continuously improve this morning, you're going to have a simultaneous sip, and it's going to be marvelous.
Oh, no, I know some of you are still holdouts.
Yeah, no, I know that.
I see you. Yeah, I see you.
I'm looking at you. You're saying to yourself, there's no way in hell he is going to cause me to sip at the same time as he am.
I will not fall for that brainwashing and mind control.
No? No?
You won't? We'll see about that.
And from the rest of you who have discovered the unbridled joy of the simultaneous sip, the rest of you can sit there in sadness and silence while we have an amazing experience.
And all you need is a cup or a mug or a glass, a tank or a chelsea, a canteen, a glass vessel of any kind, filling with your favorite liquid.
I like coffee. And join me now, all the amazing, smart, and sexy people, for the unparalleled pleasure, the dopamine to the day, the thing that makes everything better.
Go! Go! I saw somebody on YouTube said that all you have left in your cup is the backwash.
Well, if you think that's not good enough, you have not experienced a simultaneous sip.
Yeah. It'll make the backwash taste divine.
Well, let's talk about all the news.
I retweeted a TikTok parody in which there was a woman making fun of the TikTokers who dance goofy and...
And she was doing a science thing saying you should have controlled trials, etc.
The funny thing about it was how many people couldn't tell it was a parody.
Now, her point was not a parody.
She was trying to make a point about using science instead of just an anecdote.
Fair enough. But it was an ordinary-looking woman.
And here, this is not an insult, right?
She looked like the people you see in ordinary life as opposed to The TikTok Instagram stars that look a little too perfect.
And she does an incredibly awkward dance that is just close enough to the people who actually do it on TikTok that you're not entirely sure she's joking, which is what makes it brilliant.
It's the funniest thing I've seen in a month.
Yeah, I can't do the imitation book.
She does the goofy dancing.
I think I watched it ten times.
Anyway, it's in my Twitter feed today if you want to see that for a laugh.
And the laugh is knowing that other people don't know that she's just doing a parody.
They can't tell. Remember I predicted a while ago that reality and parody would merge?
We just wouldn't know the difference.
They would just look the same.
This is one of those examples.
Well, because you have prodded me and poked me and told me, damn it, Scott, you've got to watch the Dave Chappelle comedy special on Netflix, the new one, and give us your opinion on, did he insult the trans community or the LGBTQ community or anybody else?
And so I watched it last night, and I have the following review.
First of all, on the dimension of art.
If we just judge it for its art, A+. A+. Just about one of the, I don't know, maybe the second best stand-up I've ever seen.
The first was Dave Chappelle's last special.
I think this is about as good.
It's brilliantly constructed because unlike other comedians who get up and tell a bunch of jokes, he builds a structure...
He builds a whole structure, and the structure doesn't come together until the end of the show.
Now, watching that level of art, on top of really, really funny stuff, and the type of humor that he makes me laugh at, I've never even seen.
I've never even seen.
If you watch most comedians, or even name-brand comedians, you see the formula.
You know what I mean? You see the formula in each joke?
You're like, that's one of those.
Oh, it's one of the jokes where he says, what if people were like babies?
Oh, yeah, yeah, because if people were like babies, then when they asked the food, they'd cry.
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
That's like 90% of all comic acts are the, what if this was like this?
But Chappelle makes me laugh because As sentences that I can't even tell why they're funny.
Somebody in the comments is a little bit ahead of me.
Norm Macdonald is the same thing.
Different. Let's say in the same general field.
They're not that similar.
But Norm Macdonald's act is about him making you uncomfortable.
And if you don't get that, you don't get his act.
This was Norm MacDonald. Likewise, Dave Chappelle came right in and told the audience directly he was going to make them uncomfortable and that he was going to go farther than they would feel comfortable.
And then he did it.
Amazingly. Like, just the level of intelligence and art...
What he brings to his act is really impressive.
It's really impressive. I don't even think you can put him in the same category as other humorists, really.
He's operating on two levels, and who else is doing that right now?
It's kind of rare. So on the artistic level, A+. Best in the game.
Everything about it was good, including the fact he said it was his last comedy special, at least for a while.
So what do you do when you're going to do a show that's going to get you cancelled?
And you know it. How do you handle that?
Well, the way he did it was saying it was his last special.
Which is kind of brilliant.
It's also the third level.
So the first level is jokes.
The second level is that he's designing a package that you don't fully see until the end of the show.
And then the third level is reality.
He's playing three games at once.
Who the hell does that?
I mean, seriously, who the hell does that?
I mean, it's George Carlin, you could argue, but I think Carlin was really more about the jokes...
Although he was also playing with the audience's response.
But I think Chappelle just takes it to a whole new level.
Now, did he insult the LGBT community?
I don't know. How would I know?
I mean, I just watched it.
I don't know how anybody else feels about it.
I can't feel what they feel.
But did I see it?
No. No, I didn't.
I didn't see a trace of it.
Not a trace. And I don't want to give away the act because there's a reason I say I didn't see a trace of it.
And the reveal of why I feel that way would be giving away too much, so I'm not going to tell you that.
But do I think that the criticisms are valid?
No. No, not even a little bit.
Not even a little bit. Not even a trace, not a whiff, not a vapor, not a sniff.
Nothing. One small, small criticism.
And it's really small.
But I feel like it's worth noting.
So part of his defense, and I don't think this is giving away too much, is that he was a good friend and supporter of a specific transgender individual.
And the story was compelling, and I won't tell you any more about it.
But... It rang a little bit like, I've got a black friend, so I'm not a racist.
Anybody else get that?
Anybody else? Anybody else feel like, yeah, I have this one friend who is trans.
It felt a little bit like, I've got one black friend, so I'm not a racist.
A little bit. Now, at the same time, that's a very unfair criticism.
Very unfair criticism.
But so is the other one.
So is the other one.
It reminded me of that other criticism, but I think they're both unfair.
And I've said this a number of times, but what is the right response to somebody saying, let's say, a typical white person talking to a typical black American, and says, I can't be racist.
My best friend is black.
Or my good friend is black.
And then the black person says, oh, you got that one black friend thing?
Weak. Weak argument.
It might be. But here's the better way to treat it.
It's like, oh, that's great.
Maybe you'll have two black friends soon.
That's the only way to treat that, right?
Treating it as a criticism, I think, is completely...
The wrong direction. Because you're basically talking people out of the one good thing they did.
If you did one good thing, you made friends with one black person.
How about encouraging that?
Hey, that's great. Actually, it's good to know you have a black friend.
I hope he introduces you to some other people, and we get something going here.
So... I'll just tell you I was reminded of that criticism, but it's not a fair criticism.
So let me apply this to Dave Chappelle.
He had one close trans friend.
It's more than you have.
Okay, not all of you.
Not all of you, I know that.
But let's say 90% of you.
It's more than you have.
So one is more than you have.
It's more than I have. I don't have a trans friend.
I wouldn't have any objection to it, but I just don't have one.
And I feel like he should be complimented for that, even though it makes me think of that other thing.
All right, Southwest Airlines having a bunch of cancelled flights.
I think they tried to play that off as weather-related.
Apparently it's not.
And it looked like the pilots were doing some kind of a sick out or taking their personal days or something.
But here's a little bit more on that story.
A couple of facts that are relevant.
Number one. Apparently a lot of the pilots have personal days built up.
And if you quit a job and you've got a bunch of personal days, you just lose them.
So a lot of the pilots are probably thinking to themselves, I might quit because of the forced vaccination rule.
That's the problem.
I might quit, so I better take all my personal days now.
So some of this is being accelerated by people getting ahead of maybe quitting by taking all their personal days because you might as well get paid for them.
And on top of that...
I saw an estimate.
This is not an official estimate.
Just somebody who was observing.
Believes that something like 80% of pilots are ex-military.
Didn't see that coming, did you?
Now, I can confirm from my wife's experience flying that there are a tremendous number of ex-military people who are pilots.
Because they learn in the military.
It's very expensive to learn to be a pilot.
So learning as a private citizen is almost prohibitive.
Especially if you have a job.
But learning in the military is required, and so they've got that skill, and then they take it into the civilian world.
So 80% of pilots are ex-military.
Some of them are still fighting for the country.
Some of them are still patriots.
Maybe all of them. But apparently this is a group of people that doesn't like to get pushed around.
Sorry. Turns out that the ex-military doesn't like to get pushed around.
Who saw that coming?
Well, here's the problem.
The problem is not that society is sort of distributed evenly across many industries.
Some areas of society have concentrations of people, and this is one of them.
They have a high concentration of people who don't want to be pushed around.
And they also control a vital resource in the country, flying.
And apparently enough of them have decided they're just going to not put up with it.
And... I'm not going to say I agree with them or disagree.
So I'm not going to take their position or talk against it.
I'm still very much the view you all have to make up your own decisions about getting vaccinated or what you do about it.
But... Despite being neutral on their decisions, I'm not neutral on my own decisions, but I'm neutral on your decisions.
You make your own. Despite being neutral about it, I am inspired by it.
Are you not inspired by this?
That the people that joined the military, one way or the other, looks like they got another mission.
Didn't ask for it, but there it is.
So that's one place that there is a large concentration of people who aren't going to get pushed around.
It's not the only one.
There are some other groups of people.
One of them I understand, which I just learned, and I won't tell you my source.
He's probably watching right now.
But... It turns out that in the South, a lot of the major industries are populated to a large degree by black people.
One of them is like shipbuilding, military shipbuilding.
So the military shipbuilding business just ground to a halt because there aren't enough vaccinated employees.
They have a large black workforce.
So you're going to see some places where people who don't want to get pushed around for different reasons.
You know, they have their own reasons, and I don't agree or disagree.
But the black population of this country, what do they have in common in this particular case with the pilots and ex-military people?
These are two groups of people you don't want to fuck with.
Sorry. I slipped.
I didn't mean to use that. It's two groups of people who don't want to be pushed around.
It just doesn't work.
You just can't push them around.
They're just not going to take it.
So I'm not saying that they're right or wrong.
I'm just saying that they can't be pushed.
And if there are concentrations of people who can't be pushed and they have control over vital resources in this country, don't believe the government's in charge.
Never has been. Not in this country.
The government's in charge when it's convenient to you.
The government's in charge when most of us agree with what they're doing.
The government's in charge when it's about collecting the garbage and you didn't want to do it yourself.
The government's in charge when the country gets attacked, because we like it that way.
We want a good, you know, integrated, centralized defense.
Do you know when the government isn't in charge?
When you don't need them to be and you don't want them to be and most of the public is fed up.
As soon as the public wants this stuff to end, it's over.
And it might be led by groups that just don't like to get pushed around.
And good for them. We need them.
Even when they're wrong, we need them.
Because you need citizens who won't take it.
Just won't put up with it.
So, maybe good news coming, but we might have to go through some deprivation for a while.
Vaccination mandates are probably going to make life kind of tough on the economy for a little while.
It's okay with me.
I call that legitimate protest.
Totally legitimate, whether I agree with them or not.
And by the way, I'm anti-mandate, so I guess I do agree with them.
But at the same time, I did get vaccinated.
I asked this question on Twitter.
I asked people what they learned during the pandemic, meaning what kind of skill they acquired.
And you need to look at the answers.
Talk about motivating or really almost exhilarating.
There are two kinds of people, and I don't know to what extent people can turn into the other kind.
But have you noticed the whole country got fat?
Anybody notice that?
Yeah. The weight gain of the whole country is outrageous.
Now, what would be the best response for a country that has a deadly virus that targets primarily overweight people?
You know, older and overweight.
Those are the two big risks.
What would the country do to respond to such a threat?
Well, this country got fatter.
The country got fatter by a lot, right?
On average. I know a lot of you didn't.
So I asked this question of people who follow me, you know, what benefits did you get?
Tons of people who follow me lost weight.
I'll bet, if you looked at the average person who follows my content, especially because I talk about exactly this sort of stuff, and I was telling you early in the pandemic, my God, you're never going to get a chance like this again.
In all likelihood, this will be the time you can reboot.
This is the time you can figure out how to get your fitness under control.
This is the time to diet.
This is the time to start a new business.
This is the time to learn a language, acquire some skills.
And I've been saying that for people who follow me since the beginning, and then I've been tracking it.
And, of course, my book, That Have Failed Almost Everything and Still Went Big, is about building what I call a talent stack.
And you need to read the comments.
Look what happened to the people who took that point of view versus the people who probably just took some kind of pessimistic, ah, might as well eat.
And you'll see in the comments, too, you see a lot of people are already commenting of the things they learned and the weight they lost and stuff like that.
I also got in great shape.
So I'm in great shape.
I think I probably acquired...
Five to seven skills that are directly related to my job.
Yeah. So I would argue that there are two kinds of people in the world, and we just discovered who they are.
The people who took advantage of the crisis and the people who just treated it like a crisis and lost.
So there we go.
Somebody says they expanded their business partly thanks to me.
A number of people have been thanking me this morning for exactly that, for the inspiration to start a business or to lose weight or something.
And it makes me feel good.
I feel like I did something useful.
You know, the meaning of life.
If you're looking for the meaning of life, it's almost always what you did for other people.
And when I hear people say, oh, there was something you said or something in your book that caused me to succeed in some way, and I literally hear that every day, it really makes me feel good.
It's the largest reason I do this, is that I get that feedback, and it gives me meaning.
I mean, it would be really easy, you know it, it would be real easy for me to just stop working.
Just lay on the beach.
Go lay on the beach all day.
But why? It seems like a terrible thing to do.
Sounds like an awful life.
The part that is meaning to me is people saying, oh, you helped me in some way.
There was a study, I think it was in February, I don't know, it was a while ago, but I didn't see it.
It said basically the super spreaders are older, obese people.
By a lot. By a lot.
So it's not like they're 10% worse.
They're like four or five times worse in terms of spreading if you're both large and older.
Now, I think you heard that from me before you heard it from science.
Am I right? Can somebody give me a confirmation on that?
I think I was telling you there's no way...
That a five-foot woman is putting out as much COVID as a 300-pound man.
There's just no way that that could be true.
And sure enough, it's exactly what you think.
The bigger the person and the older they are, which they tend to get sicker and then have more virus to expel, those two things are telling you most of what you need to know to stay away from.
I will tell you that there was a time recently that I entered a smallish indoor space and there was a large older man there and I got out of there right away.
I immediately left.
Because I'm not going to spend any time in a small enclosed space with a large older person.
This is not going to happen.
Because... If I take that out of my life, which is pretty easy, right?
There's not many situations where you'd have to be there.
If I take that one risk out of my life, I've reduced my risk of catching it by, what, like 500% or something.
It's some gigantic number.
If the only people I hang around with are people who are not large, really large, elderly people, I'm probably fine.
It doesn't remove all your risk, but, I mean, a lot of it.
On Twitter, David Rehoboy, I hope I'm pronouncing it right.
It's either Rehoboy or Rehoboy.
He had this tweet that really hit me in the, like, hit me in the center of my existence.
He said, 95% of women you meet can't wait to travel somewhere with you, alone, with friends, etc.
Do they really enjoy it?
Or is it something they think they should enjoy?
Now, I can't tell you how many times this question has been on my mind.
Now, I'm sort of the stay home and build an exciting life where I'm already at.
I've designed my house to have all the toys I need and The people in it or the people I wanted to be in it.
I do this.
So I have this amazingly deep, kind of meaningful life without leaving this chair.
I mean, I do more in this chair, literally this chair, than people can do in years in terms of stimulation and interesting things to do.
So I don't need travel.
Like other people do. Now, I don't know what other factors there are.
But I was looking at this speculation people had about...
And first of all, do you agree with that?
Do you agree that women seem to be obsessed with travel in a way that men are not, even if you like travel?
Women have, like, got to travel.
It's almost like they have to.
I'm seeing confirmation of that.
So a lot of people are saying the same.
I thought it was just me.
I thought that there was some weird coincidence in my life that whenever I met a female, the only thing that can make them happy is travel.
Let me say it again. It's the only thing that can make them happy.
And they'll tell you that in exactly those words.
Only one thing can make me happy.
Lots of travel.
Have you heard that? On whose dime, exactly.
So, I mean, it's easier to travel if somebody else is paying for it.
All right. So here are the reasons that...
And I don't understand why, exactly.
But here are the speculations, mostly from men.
All right. So here are sexist...
Opinions. So these are men speculating.
I think they're mostly men. I might be wrong about that.
I think they're mostly men speculating about women, why women like to travel.
Are you ready for some super sexist opinion here?
All right. One is, somebody said that women like to travel because, quote, it costs a lot of money.
In the comments, I want to see if you agree or disagree.
Now, there's not one reason, right?
There's going to be a variety of reasons.
But does that one fit into any of your model?
That women like to travel because it costs a lot of money.
See, mostly no's.
No's. Nobody?
Nobody wants to go with that one?
I see one yes, a few yeses.
All right, let me put a little more me on that, all right?
Somebody else used this phrase.
It's signaling on social media.
It's a way to signal some kind of success or freedom or something.
Now, you're saying yes to that one, right?
Is the social signaling different from what the first person said?
It costs a lot of money.
Kind of related, aren't they?
Because I got most of you to say yes, that it's about signaling your success or something on social media, but yet you weren't willing to say that they do it because it costs a lot of money.
What is it about these vacations that they show on social media makes them worth showing on social media?
Is it because the pictures are attractive?
That's part of it. It's because it costs a lot of money, right?
Right? I think it's signaling resources or signaling that somebody in their life was willing to spend a lot of money to take them somewhere.
So definitely the fact that it's exclusive and expensive, got to be part of it, right?
Another theory is that, I don't remember if this was a man or a woman who said this, but that the home is where the women do their work, Sexist.
Statistically, there's something to it.
But sexist, right?
No reason it's the woman who's staying home.
In many cases, it's the other way.
But what do you think? Statistically, probably more women are staying home than men still.
So do you think that's it?
The home is where the women do their work, so they've just got to get out of the office, basically, and the only way you can do that is to go on vacation.
I'm seeing some yeses.
I say yeses.
I'm saying correct.
I prefer the kitchen.
True. Yes. Okay.
But let me give you the counter argument.
Let's say it's what you call the classic 50s family.
Where the man is working all day and the mom is being a mom.
And I know that doesn't describe the world anymore, but let's just take that for our example to talk it through.
So the man works all day, gets up at 5 or whatever, travels, works all day, at least in the old world.
Maybe he's working at home now.
Gets home after work, and then the man, luckily, doesn't have to do any more work.
So luckily, when the man is at home, no work.
What?
Why are you arguing with me in the comments?
That's the way it works, isn't it?
Doesn't the man work all day, and then when he comes home, no more work.
It's vacation time.
Good times. No!
No, not in the real world.
In the real world, the man works all day and then comes home and starts working again.
He just works at home.
Like, it's his turn to watch the kids, it's his turn to drive, etc.
Now, of course, there are other cases I'm seeing in the comments.
Somebody's saying, your husband works and she does everything else.
I can see that. Are you saying that when your husband comes home after work...
You don't ask him to do anything?
So if something's broken, you get out the tools and you fix it?
And your husband's on the couch?
Is that working at your house?
All right, and then the other thing is a change of scenery, but I would think that men would need a change of scenery as much as women, but I don't know.
I will tell you that my pet peeve is the two-stop trip.
The two-stop trip.
As a man, let me tell you the women, and I want to see if any men agree with me, because for the women, this might be the first time you hear this.
2% vaxxed in Africa.
Lots of times there will be like a social trip, so it could be something local where you're going to a friend's house, and then you'll have this evening planned.
Oh, we're all going to go to this restaurant, or we're going to go to this friend's house.
Somebody who's part of the plan will always say, oh yeah, but before that, why don't you come over here for some drinks at my house, or maybe after that, why don't we go to this other place, you know, a club or a bar or something.
I hate the two-stop night.
One stop, one destination, one thing.
I can enjoy that completely.
But no, do not try to organize people to go to two places.
Everything falls apart.
If you go to the appetizer house first, then you drink alcohol and you have to drive.
Bad enough. You know, to a second place.
And then you're full because they serve you appetizers and you feel like you have to eat them.
I mean, it ruins the whole night.
And on vacation?
Oh, my God.
I hate the traveling part.
Most of you would agree.
The traveling part where you're actually moving to the new place is hell for me.
It's just hell for me.
And it's common for whoever I'm with at the moment, Christina, will plan a trip and it'll be like, hey, let's go to, let's say, a different country.
And I'll be like, grudgingly, because I never love to travel, but I can get talked into it and then enjoy it.
So I enjoy it after I go.
It's just hard to talk me into it.
Somewhere in that plan, almost every time, there'll be, oh, and we'll take two days to visit this other country out of our week.
Whole vacation is ruined for me.
You add that second trip, whole thing's ruined.
Anybody? Anybody else?
Is there anybody else who agreed with my statement that adding a second trip to anything ruins the whole experience?
Yeah, I'm seeing some no's, but lots of yes's.
So, women, any women watching this, If you're adding that second place, somebody in your car isn't happy with you but may not tell you.
Just know it. All right, here's the question.
Should we all have the same stuff and the same access to things or the same amount of happiness?
Which is fair?
That we have the same amount of stuff and the same amount of access and rights and stuff or the same amount of happiness?
Which should we manage to?
I'm seeing somebody say access.
Should we manage to that because we can?
All right, how about forget access?
Because, yeah, you're right, you have to manage access.
But how about success?
Should we manage to get everybody the same amount of success and money or the same amount of happiness?
The goal of life is happiness, right?
Right? Right? If you did a poll and found out that everybody was about the same amount of happiness, you're done, are you?
And I think if you did a poll, you'd find out people are about the same amount of happiness.
I'm not sure, but I think that would be the case.
People are about roughly the same.
So why are we trying to fix everything?
There's nothing to fix.
Everybody's just about as happy as they're going to get.
And if you gave people more stuff, it wouldn't make them happier.
I mean, beyond the minimum.
Once you get the minimum.
But you've got to get the minimum.
I think that's worth doing. All right.
I heard somebody say that we're going to have more fake vaccine identification cards because people will try to beat the system.
But it can't be long before facial recognition is how you check your vaccine status, right?
Correct me if I'm wrong.
Is there not a database...
Or databases somewhere in government control in which they have your name and your social security number and when you got vaccinated and by what.
Am I wrong that that exists?
Isn't everybody who gives vaccinations required to report it?
Somebody says no social security number.
Really? But they do have identification because you have to show ID. All right, so here's the thought.
I believe that there will be facial recognition apps that can just grab your face and immediately see if you're vaccinated.
And if not, we could have that easily.
So I don't think the problem of fake vaccination cards is going to last forever.
Even fake IDs is going to go away.
I would imagine that it won't be long before...
You know, let's say a club doesn't have to ask for your ID. They'll just look at your face and they'll know your age from other databases.
Anyway, that's coming. I'm not saying it's good or bad.
It's just coming. So the Nobel Prize in Economics has been awarded.
Oh, stop it.
Stop it. Let me say it again.
Don't say what you just said again, okay?
So the Nobel Prize in Economics has been awarded.
No, stop it.
I know what you're saying.
Some of you are saying there's no such thing as the Nobel Prize in Economics.
You pedantic mofos.
What you're saying is that really what I mean is the Severa Regis Ricks Bank Prize in Economics, Sciences, and Memory of Alfred Nobel Prize.
That's what it is. It's not the Nobel Prize.
You fool! You fool!
Calling it a Nobel Prize in Economics.
So dumb. When it's really this.
Rick's Bank Prize in Economic Sciences in memory of Alfred Nobel.
Sometimes informally called the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences because you have to have that memorial part in there because there might be some people who still think Alfred Nobel is alive.
So you've got to, you know, let him know he's gone.
So you throw in the memorial part.
All right, so this is what they won the Nobel Prize for in economics.
I'm still going to call it that.
They won that for saying that you need a control group to study something.
What? What?
Let me give you the example.
Apparently, before the 90s, it was common to study things by saying, OK, let's say New York City just put in a new, you know, broken windows or stop-and-frisk policy, whatever it is.
And the objective is to lower crime.
And so they put in the policy, and then they measure the amount of crime from the time the policy went in until they're measuring it.
And these two economists said, wait a minute.
You can't just measure the change because there might be a whole bunch of other things happening, such as maybe crime is just going down everywhere.
Right? So they said the only way to do this is to compare a like place that didn't do what you're doing.
So you'd have two similar places, let's say a county here and a county here, and the counties are very similar in the important ways.
One of them does a change, One of them does not.
And then you see how the difference is later.
So one acts as a control group for the one that makes the change.
Now here's the thing.
People didn't know that in 1990?
What? And apparently they didn't.
Apparently they didn't.
It was very common...
To simply measure that something changed and call it a day.
Even though it's a complex system with all kinds of things changing and crime was falling everywhere no matter what you were doing.
It was completely useless analysis that was popularly being done.
Now, I'm not aware of any time we didn't know to do that.
Are you? Now, I have a degree in economics, so maybe I was closer to the question.
But I don't remember any time in my life...
That I thought I didn't need a control group.
They got a Nobel Prize for that?
For duh? Well, not only did they get a Nobel Prize for duh, it's worse than that.
They weren't even right.
I should have gotten this Nobel Prize.
Let me just put that out there.
This Nobel Prize should have gone to me.
Because... I have improved on their line of thinking.
And their line of thinking is completely obsolete.
And here is how I should get the Nobel Prize.
And it goes like this. You can't compare two complex systems.
You can't. You can't compare one county to another.
Do you know why? Because you have no idea what else is different.
You're guessing. You're guessing that the things that you can see are the ones that matter.
Oh, wait. Same number of Democrats to Republicans in these two places.
I guess we're done. Looks about the same.
No. What have I been telling you since the pandemic began?
I told you that every comparison of a country to another country would be wrong.
No matter how closely you thought the two countries were similar in lots of other ways, that every comparison of a country to a country would be misleading.
Because there's too much different and you'll never know what.
So let's say you're this rational economist and you decide to study, let's say, what Sweden did.
So you say to yourself, well, I need whatever's the closest to a Sweden.
Let's say, just for a kick, you pick Norway.
Now, forget about whether they're really similar, right?
This is just an example. So you pick Norway.
You say, okay, on the things that seem to matter, Norway and Sweden look similar, so we'll just check the thing that changed, and then we'll know something.
Do you see what's wrong with that?
How do you know you found all the things that mattered?
How could you possibly know that?
That's completely irrational.
It is completely irrational, 100% irrational, to say that Norway is enough the same because the few things that you looked at in Norway and the few things that you looked at in Sweden, they do look about the same.
You don't know what else is going on.
You couldn't know. And there's no way to know that what else is going on is meaningful or not meaningful.
It is completely unknowable.
That is why I told you that no comparison of country to country will ever turn out to be a good idea in the long run.
Like we'll figure out that it didn't work.
Have I been right so far?
Have I? Have I been right so far that every comparison of one country to another...
Only raised more questions and didn't answer anything.
Am I right? Yes, I'm frickin' right.
And it will never be useful because complex systems can't be compared.
You are only guessing that you have controlled the variables.
And guessing is the opposite of fucking science!
Now, will you give me that one?
Will you give me that F word?
Anybody? I think that was an appropriate use of the F word right there.
Not too much.
Kind of came as a surprise.
Nice seasoning. I think that was appropriate use.
So, and by the way, I'm not kidding a bit.
I'm not kidding a bit that the Nobel Prize should have gone to me.
Because my research, which is just watching the news, is superior to their entire Nobel Prize winning work.
What else have I done to earn the Nobel Prize?
Oh, plenty. Plenty.
Do you know that I created the word Confusopoly?
How many people know that?
You can Google it.
It's on Wikipedia now.
It's a standard economic go-to phrase.
I actually created an economic theory that's part of the literature now.
Now, the Confusopoly idea goes like this.
In the old days, we used to say that if two industries were competing and they had similar products, that they would end up having to compete on price.
And that eventually, since the only thing they could compete on was price, otherwise the product is the same, that it would drive the profit down to nothing, and eventually those companies would go out of business.
Because they couldn't make profits, everybody else would compete with them with the same products.
Did that happen? No.
So the most basic economic belief doesn't happen.
And the explanation for that is the confusopoly.
My economic theory.
Which is that every industry that knows it would go out of business if it competed on price makes their product intentionally confusing so that you can't compare them.
Take insurance. Can you compare two insurance policies?
No. It's too hard.
Can you really tell if you've got the right cell phone plan?
Not so much.
No. So look for this all over the place.
Wherever... Yeah, mattresses, everything.
Wherever there are products that should be competing purely on price, the company has complicated them unnecessarily to the point you can't tell.
You can't tell if one is better than the other.
I would say that's a valuable contribution to the field, because it predicts.
It predicts what will happen with the industry, and it predicts it right every time.
If your theory predicts, it's a good one.
It seems like a pretty good one to me.
I have also added the Adams law of slow-moving disasters, somewhat economic in nature, meaning that if we have enough time, we basically fix every problem.
I think that's a valuable contribution because it predicts.
If you can do an economic idea that predicts, you've beaten just about everybody in economics.
Because you know what economics doesn't do very well?
Predict. It doesn't do that very well.
I mean, I guess the basic stuff.
But it can't tell you where the economy is going to be next year.
How about my entire Dilbert body of work?
In which I've completely decimated the management consulting industry and effectively eliminated them by mocking them out of existence.
I feel like that was a valuable economic contribution.
How about the idea that I developed on talent stacks?
The idea that you can get the best economic gain by combining non-special traits in a useful way.
Not traits, but skills.
So that was new.
How many of your lives were changed by just hearing the talent stack idea or the systems over goals?
Those are economic theories.
And quite honestly, if you tell me I haven't contributed more to economics than the guys who just won the Nobel Prize in economics, I don't believe you.
Literally. That's not even a joke.
I think I've actually contributed more.
Now, I don't think I really deserve a Nobel Prize, right?
Because they need to do the math and do the papers and do the other stuff, and I haven't done any of that.
But I have contributed more than most of the winners.
Remember I mentioned the idea of special economic zones for immigrants?
And I said, hey, why don't we have a place where the immigrants can come in and they would just maybe work for less than minimum wage, but it's a special zone.
But they would be treated nicely.
They wouldn't be treated as slaves.
And they'd have maybe some path to something.
Don't give them the same rules as the rest of the country, but give them some opportunity.
And a lot of you said, no, bad idea, bad idea.
Turns out they exist.
They exist.
There are other places in the world where this exact idea is being used successfully.
There will be more on this coming up.
There's going to be a lot more on this topic, which I've been introduced to.
I've got a preview.
So there's more on this topic.
It could be a big, big deal.
It might turn out that there's a solution to immigration that doesn't involve closing the border and makes everybody happier.
How cool is that?
Now, yeah, you can turn everything into a work camp and you can turn it into ghettos and Uyghurs, but obviously there's a good way to do things in a bad way.
There's a good way and there's a bad way.
Don't assume it's the bad way.
Well, breaking news. Merck is asking for FDA emergency use for their pill for COVID. So if you've got mild to moderate symptoms, you pop one of these pills, a molonupiravir, And it stops the virus from making copies of itself.
Now, apparently it reduces your risk of a serious event by half.
That's pretty good. To which I ask this question.
How many times have we reduced the risk by half?
And how many times do we have to reduce the risk by half before there's not enough risk to change society the way it's been changed?
Like... Aren't we there?
Because it seems to me that adding the monoclonals dropped the risk of dying.
Taking people off of ventilators dropped the risk, and knowing how to do that ventilation thing better.
Whoops. So, anyway...
I'm just putting that out there.
How many times do we have to drop it?
All right, here's my idea that I tweeted out.
I built a fake news identifier.
This is just a spreadsheet.
And I tweeted the link just before I got on here.
And here's what it is.
Just a spreadsheet. It has a bunch of questions, and you just answer them.
Here, I've put in this column...
And I'll tell you what the questions are in a moment.
In this column, I put my weights.
This is me personally saying how much you should weight each of these factors.
That's my opinion. Based on living.
Other people could put their filter here.
So, for example, you might say, oh, I identify fake news differently.
Here's the question I ask, or here's the weight I would put on this.
So you might have other people's filters, too.
But you would be able to use my filter, my weights that I put on things, and my questions.
To decide if something is fake news.
So let me read the questions.
And then for your specific project, you would say, OK, that one doesn't apply.
It doesn't apply. Oh, but that one does.
I know you can't see it.
Here's the first question.
Is the source anonymous?
Now, my weights are on a 1 to 10.
I give that a 9.
If your source is anonymous, that's a 9 and a 10 for likely fake news.
Is the source a disgruntled current or ex-employee?
I'd give that a 5. Sometimes the ex-employees are right.
Sometimes they're just disgruntled.
I'd give it a 5. Is only one of either CNN or Fox News confirming that it's true?
That's a nine. If only one of them says it's even true, that's a nine.
Is it too on the nose to be perfect?
You know, the story is just too close to the narrative?
It's exactly what Republicans expect?
Or exactly what the Democrats expect?
Probably not. So I gave that one a seven.
Is it still in the fog of war phase?
In other words, do you know things are going to be changing?
I give that an eight. Is it too man bites dog?
Meaning that the story itself is too unbelievable.
Like, wow, could that happen?
That's so surprising. If you hear a story like that, it's probably not true.
That's like an eight. Is it only covered by secondary news sources?
I didn't define that. But I would call that anything that's not a national platform.
You know, one of the blog-like news sites that often get tweeted.
If they're the only ones covering it and it hasn't made it to, you know, New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, probably not true.
Probably not true. And does the journalist have a grudge against the subject?
I give that a five, because sometimes the grudge is a reasonable grudge.
They have a grudge for a good reason.
So, this is not complete.
It's a first draft.
It's simply a way for people who are not as, let's say, experienced in determining fake news.
It's a way for them to at least get close to it.
Now, this is on a link to a Google Sheets, so I think you can all see it.
I haven't used Google Sheets before.
So... I don't know if that is a step in the right direction.
But I put it out there just to, you know, deepen the conversation.
I have to run right now, so I can't stay around, even for locals.
But thank you for coming.
I think you'll agree it's the very best thing you've ever seen.
The only one of CNN would claim Hunter Biden laptop's top story is false.
No. CNN more just doesn't cover it.
That's different. CNN did not say the laptop is fake as of now.
I mean, originally they did.
That was the Fog of War. But at the moment, they both say it's true.
