Episode 1533 Scott Adams: I'll Tell You About the Time I Met Colin Powell and More
My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a
Find my "extra" content on Locals: https://ScottAdams.Locals.com
Content:
Vitamin D and COVID study
No vaxation without representation
Cognition tests for aging leaders
Christopher Steele on the alleged pee tape
My Colin Powell story
Average antibodies from natural immunity
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now. Welcome to the best thing that's ever happened to anybody, anywhere.
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With talent, on loan from God, I know what you're thinking.
You're thinking, I stole that from Rush Limbaugh.
No, no.
When God loans talent, and then the person using it doesn't need it anymore, it goes back to God, and then God's like, well, I got all this talent.
Gotta give it to somebody.
I think I'll lend it out again.
So I sensed an opportunity and I said to myself, where can I get all that Rush Limbaugh talent that he was borrowing from God?
So I went to God directly, made a deal, because I'm kind of a deal maker, and now I'm a talent on loan for God until he takes it back.
Which could be any moment.
How would you like to make this moment even more special than it is?
I mean, really, how could it be?
But watch this.
We can take this to another level.
Yeah. You think you're having a good time now?
You haven't seen anything.
This gets so much better.
Watch this. All you need is a cup or a mug, a glass, a tanker, a salad, a canteen drink, a glass, a vessel of any kind, filled with your favorite liquid.
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Chills, right?
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And it's the dopamine hit of the day.
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Go. Ooh, ooh, what's happening?
Oh, ah.
I got such a surge of antibodies there for a moment, it was disconcerting.
I didn't know what was going on.
But now, ooh, I can feel it now.
Oh, those antibodies coming online.
Ooh. I'll tell you, science has proven that if you get three vaccination shots plus a cup of coffee, it's very unlikely you'll die from COVID. Have you heard that?
This is the newest science.
If you have three vaccination shots...
Or natural immunity, plus vaccinations, and a cup of coffee.
Your odds of dying from COVID? So small, I wouldn't even worry about it.
Yeah, that's how good it is.
I just saw that there's a company called Framery selling a product that the world needs desperately.
It's a cubicle for your house.
It's actually like an enlarged phone booth, a silent chamber, so you can make your phone calls without having to hear the rest of the family, I guess, do your Zoom calls in there, too.
That's right. It's about time somebody made a cubicle for your house, because the only thing good about working at home, well, actually, there's lots of things good about working at home, but it does get you out of the cubicle until you buy a cubicle for your home and put yourself back in it.
Oh, I can't stand being outside of the cubicle.
I need one for my home.
I have to admit, I kind of liked how it looked.
Thinking of getting one.
Because for all those phone calls you make that you don't want anybody to hear, pretty good.
Pretty good idea. Well, China launched a hypersonic nuclear missile into low orbit, I guess.
Or did they?
Or did they? Well, we have two versions of the story.
One is that they were testing a nuclear missile that would go into space and it would be hard to track and hard to thwart if you're the opponent.
But when asked about it, China said, that's no weapon.
That's just a rocket.
We're just testing a spacecraft.
So what was it?
Was it a nuclear weapon they were testing?
No. Or were they just doing some space testing?
Testing on a spacecraft?
Or is it really the same thing?
Is it the same thing?
Because it seems to me that if you got really good at sending a spacecraft into low Earth orbit, you could send something else into low Earth orbit, couldn't you?
Couldn't you? So I'm not so sure that the either-or of it's a spacecraft versus it's a weapon...
Not so different. Now remember I told you that we can't possibly have any hope of having some power in space unless we have a robust nuclear energy program domestically.
Because you would need that skill set to build nuclear engines that power space and you're not going to have, you know, it's not going to be wind power in space, etc.
It's going to be nuclear.
So once Congress heard...
Let me ask you this. One of the things I tried to add to the nuclear energy conversation is the notion that you had to do it for defense purposes.
For military purposes, you absolutely had to have a strong nuclear energy program domestically, because you had to build that skill set to take it into space, and if you give up space, you've given up everything in the long run.
Was there ever a chance that we would not go as strong for nuclear energy domestically?
The answer is there wasn't.
It was always going to go in this direction, but it would require that the stuff that Elon Musk is doing and Jeff Bezos is doing and Richard Branson, it would require that activity to make us hyper-aware that space is important strategically.
So that happened, right?
So we had so much attention about these low-Earth, you know, low-orbit stuff, that now we're all thinking about going to Mars and everything.
And that's all Musk.
That's all Bezos. That's all Richard Branson.
Mostly Musk, I think.
So once you knew that we would be thinking about really colonizing space and not just dicking around a little bit there, but getting serious about having a space presence, once that was a given...
It was guaranteed that we would have to have a domestic nuclear program that was quite robust and it would have to be reinvigorated.
Because the military requirement is an open and shut discussion.
As soon as you take somebody who knows what they're talking about, and I'll bet this happened, by the way, I'll bet you somewhere in Congress there was a general...
Who said this to Congress?
Probably in direct language, some version of we need to have a domestic energy program for nuclear or just give up.
Because the alternative is you just give up being a superpower.
That's it. It's binary.
You either have that capability or you just stop being a superpower and 20 years out or whenever it happens.
So there was no chance it was going to go any other way, but I hope that those advocating for it made it happen faster.
I'm going to have a little recorded interview with Bjorn Lomborg this week.
I'll release it probably pretty quickly after I make it.
And he also is one of the first people talking about climate change and the economics of it.
So that'll be interesting, sort of related to this.
I understand that our intelligence agencies were completely surprised that China had the capability to launch this hypersonic spacecraft and or missile.
That seems like a pretty big thing to miss, doesn't it?
Really? Our intelligence agencies really didn't know that this was on the board?
But maybe they did, and they just can't tell us that they knew.
Because if China knew that we knew, maybe that would give up our sources somehow.
I'm not sure we're surprised, but the public was.
Well, Jon Stewart is making news.
He's got a new show. So he's been promoting it, I guess, talking to a lot of people.
Is it my imagination or is Jon Stewart...
Didn't he just push Bill Maher off the page for the first weekend?
You know how every weekend the headlines would be, well, Bill Maher said on Friday, Bill Maher said this.
But this week it's all about Jon Stewart...
It's Jon Stewart. I feel like Bill Maher is like the poor man's Jon Stewart.
And now Jon Stewart is back?
And it just pushed Bill Maher off the page?
Because in some ways they have something in common, which is they're both independent thinkers, who you imagine lean left, but they're willing to criticize the left as well as the right.
So they are very productive people that way.
But apparently Jon Stewart made some news because...
He was unwilling to say that Biden's doing a good job.
He basically said nobody's doing a good job, including Biden.
So if Jon Stewart is lost to the left, or as it's reported, he pointedly declined to endorse President Joe Biden for doing an effective job, and he said, quote, I don't think anybody is.
So that's a pretty fair statement.
But he's got a lot of smart things to say, and it seemed to me that there was a giant opening for a Jon Stewart, don't you think?
Do you think he's going to run for office?
What do you think? I feel as if Jon Stewart might be angling toward running for office.
He's well-informed, he's popular, he can do the communication part.
The right isn't going to hate him.
I don't think the right hates him, right?
They might not agree with him on stuff.
But he generally follows the data.
Doesn't he? I mean, when he's doing his act, you know, if he's doing the act, that's different.
That's supposed to be biased.
But I feel like he has a weird ability to appeal to both sides if he wanted to.
He could be dangerous.
Dangerous in the sense that he could win if he ran for office.
I think he has exactly the right skill set.
Exactly the right skill set.
Could be interesting. Keep an eye on that.
I saw a suggestion that we should call the vaccinations, the ones for COVID, shots, not vaccines.
What do you think of that? Now, we could call it the jab or the shot.
But what do you think of that as a compromise for those who say, no, stop calling it a vaccination because it doesn't completely vaccinate?
Let's just call it the shot.
Now, doesn't that work for everybody?
Because there's nobody who would argue that it's delivered by a shot.
But then you get out of the hole, did we promise you it would be 100% or not?
Well, it looks like everybody likes that idea.
That might be the best idea I've ever suggested here.
It wasn't my idea, by the way.
This came from me from a gentleman on Twitter just moments ago.
All right, let's call it the shot.
Let's call it the shot.
Yes, not my idea.
That is correct. That was somebody else's idea.
But I like it. I was alerted to a 2020 study, so it's been around a while.
It's a preprint, meaning it hasn't been peer-reviewed.
There's no randomized control trial here.
But interesting nonetheless.
Nonetheless. And I want to give you, like, a long wind-up before I tell you this.
Because it's about a vitamin D study.
Here's the long wind-up.
I'm pretty sure that intelligence is mostly pattern recognition, which is why I'm also sure that we can build artificial intelligence that really seems like humans, because all we are is pattern recognition, but we're not very good at it.
And when we do it poorly, we become bigots and racists and misogynists and misenvious and whatever, yes, you want to think about.
So we have to use pattern recognition because that's what our brain is.
It's like a lawnmower has to mow lawns.
Your lawnmower can't wash dishes.
It's just not made for that.
Your brain is just a pattern recognition machine, and it doesn't know how to turn off.
It can't not do it.
It can do it poorly, It can do it very poorly, especially when it's about judging people.
But it can't turn off.
Now let me give you a story that makes me sound good, so it will make you really disgusted pretty soon.
But if you can't handle that, you probably shouldn't be watching any of my content.
So let this be a warning to you.
If you can't handle somebody saying, I'm good at this thing, but I'm bad at this other thing, if they're both true, if you can't handle that because it requires that somebody says they're good at something, at the same time they're saying they're bad at something else, if you can't handle that, this is not the content for you.
So just leave now. Alright, so years ago, and I may have told this story before somewhere, I was working for the phone company.
And they were really good at training employees in a whole variety of skills.
One of the best experiences you'll ever have.
Weirdly, I was working for the phone company when I did.
They would train you in everything from marketing to listening skills to reasoning skills, all kinds of stuff.
Really good, too. And one of the things that they brought in was a class we were required to take on critical thinking and decision-making in complexity.
Decision-making in complexity.
So we were taught a rigorous process where you'd make a matrix and you'd put down all the variables and you'd systematically rule out things.
You're like, well, if you imagine this was true, we can rule that out because of this fact.
So it was about ruling out things in complicated situations until you narrowed it down to what mattered.
So then we broke into teams, and we were going to work on a specific question, like a task that each team would have to work on.
And it was based on a real-life event that I'd not heard of at the time.
Maybe you hadn't either. There was an airline that was trying to solve a mystery that some but not all of their flight attendants were getting rashes, like a red rash on their chest.
And they would get it near the beginning of flights, And they were trying to figure out what was causing it.
And it was just totally bedeviling them because every time they thought they knew what was causing it, they could rule that out.
And so we were given the task of figuring out, just the way the airline did, what was causing it.
And what we were supposed to do is listen to this complicated story with lots of variables, put it in our framework that they had taught us, the matrix, and work for an hour or so.
And we were warned that a lot of people would never get the right answer.
It was actually designed to be complicated enough that the instructor said, some of you are just never going to get it.
But some of you might, and then you'll learn something.
So we go into our breakout rooms and we read the study.
And the study says lots of stuff, but among the stuff it said, it said that the rash was affecting women but not men.
So that's one clue.
It was affecting some flights but not others.
So it was only women.
It was only at the beginning of the flight.
And it was only some flights.
Other flights never happened.
They would have zero cases on some flights, even with the same flight attendant.
So what was it? So we were supposed to look through all of the options, except I read it and I said to myself, wait a minute, all of the flights in which it happens go over water, oceans.
All the flights where it doesn't happen are not over water, which is something I noticed as a pattern.
Now, they didn't call this pattern out.
It was just something I saw. It's like, huh, seems like the ones that go over water have the problem.
The second one is it was only women.
What's the difference between women and men besides all of their biology?
The clothes they wear.
They wear different clothes.
Specifically, women wear a top which might be a little bit open at the top.
In other words, the part that got the so-called rash was exposed on women, but not on men, because men have their shirts closed.
So that was the most obvious thing.
One was exposed and one wasn't.
One was over water and one wasn't.
Thank you. Of course, I'm leading you right to the answer, so it's easier the way I led you to it.
Yes. So the answer was that the new life vests, because they got new life vests, when they were demonstrated, and they only demonstrated them when they were going over water, the women would put them on, and it would touch against their open chest area, and they would just rub off.
So it wasn't a real rash. It was actually just the color coming off of the preservers.
Now, here's the story.
We were supposed to spend an hour putting this into a matrix and working through this process.
But I read the story, and I said, huh, looks like it's probably the life preservers.
I mean, I just read the story and looked at it and said, looks like probably life preservers are the problem.
So when the rest of the team heard that, they said, huh...
Let's see if that would make sense.
And it made sense with all the facts.
So we said, well, let's just take it back to the instructor and see if this is the right answer.
So about five minutes into the process, we go back and say, we think this is the answer.
It's the life preservers. And the instructor looks at me and he said, you cheated.
Because nobody's ever solved this before.
At least quickly. I think some people got the right answer.
But nobody had ever solved it quickly.
Usually you had to work on it for an hour or so.
And he actually accused me of cheating.
He said, you've read this story in the news, haven't you?
And I hadn't. I'd never heard of it.
And so, how often does this happen to you?
The only things you get in trouble for are the things you didn't really do.
I almost got fired.
It actually became sort of like a risky situation because it looked like I'd done something pretty sketchy, which I hadn't.
I just read it and it looks like it's the life preservers to me.
Now, take this story.
This is just a priming story.
It has nothing directly to do with what I'm going to talk about next, except for the priming part.
When the pandemic struck...
And I think many of you can be my witness for this, right?
So I need a witness for this, because without a witness, you're never going to believe it.
At the very beginning of the pandemic, I looked at where it was happening and who was getting hit the hardest, and said to myself, this looks a lot like a vitamin D problem.
Because it looks like all the places that have vitamin D shortages are getting hit.
And that would include places with lots of pollution.
Like Wuhan and like Iran, Tehran, for example.
And then when you looked at places like, at the time, we thought Sweden was doing better.
That's questionable. But at the time, people said, hey, but what about Sweden?
You know, where's their vitamin D? It should be low because of their latitude, right?
But it turns out they supplement.
The Swedes all supplement because they have low vitamin D. So the outcome is that they probably have pretty good vitamin D because they supplement.
And so others noticed the same, right?
I think others maybe made the same observation.
But apparently it's...
There's at least this one preprint study.
So remember, preprint study is the lowest level of credibility.
Everybody got that? It's the lowest level of credibility, the highest level being the randomized controlled trials, which was not this.
So a study looked at, this was in 2020, and it looked at a bunch of stuff and did find almost a perfect correlation between latitude and vitamin D levels and outcomes.
One that's so strong that it would be hard to imagine it was anything else.
Now, what we don't know is the causation, right?
Because it could be correlation without causation.
But there is some newer information that does suggest that causation is suggested.
So we'll see. I would say that's still unconfirmed, but in terms of pattern recognition, the vitamin D thing looked exactly like the life preserver thing.
You just look at it and you go, I don't know, I feel like I see a pattern here.
I can't say it's right yet.
Now, take that same pattern recognition and apply it to a few other things.
Do you remember, as I've bragged too often, that I predicted that there was no sonic weapon with the Havana syndrome?
What was the basis of my prediction?
That there was no secret weapon with the Havana Syndrome story.
The basis was pattern recognition.
It was pattern recognition.
Because I've seen that pattern.
And if you studied mass hysteria, they're kind of easy to spot.
It's just a pattern.
So I just spotted it easily.
Do you remember when I had the weird prediction that the Las Vegas shooter...
It was not ISIS. When the news was saying, you know, this sort of looks like an ISIS attack.
And then ISIS, they claimed responsibility for it.
ISIS actually said it was us.
And what did I say?
No, it isn't. That was after ISIS said it was them.
They claimed credit, and they just don't do that.
ISIS is not a group that typically, typically, they don't claim credit.
But what pattern did I see?
The pattern I saw is they don't do that kind of attack.
It just didn't look like an ISIS attack.
It was just pattern recognition.
And so I stuck with my pattern recognition, turned out to be right.
So I'm pretty sure we can make an artificial intelligence that can do pattern recognition at least as well as people, because we're just not very good at it.
Yeah, and Bradley is saying ISIS in Vegas.
What were the odds that these highly religious people would pick Las Vegas to go spend some time and then do a murder?
I mean, it just didn't have any ISIS pattern to it whatsoever.
All right, so look for your patterns.
I say, no vaxation without representation.
I'm just so proud of that.
If you don't mind, can I have permission to pat myself on the back?
No vaxation without representation.
I'll talk about it in a minute. Come on.
Come on. That's good.
No vaxation without representation.
All right.
Here's the context.
One of our leaders, Senator Bill Cassidy, a Republican, he's a physician, so it's important that you know he's not only a senator but a physician.
And he did an interview and said he favors cognition tests for aging leaders in all three branches of government.
Dr. Bill Cassidy, a physician...
Recommends cognitive tests for aging leaders in all three branches of government as a basic system, you know, to do it on a regular basis.
To which I say, standing ovation.
Standing ovation. For Bill Cassidy, Republican senator, saying and doing the right stuff.
Thank you. Thank you, Bill Cassidy.
And further, I would like to say, if we don't know if our leaders are competent, and we don't, do we?
Because they're really old.
Pelosi, you know, etc.
If you don't know that your representatives are competent, can you say you're represented?
Right? Are you really represented if your representatives are not competent, or at least you can't tell?
Not really. So they're going to give us a vax mandate.
So these people who are so old, we can't even tell if their brains work.
That's how old they are.
They're going to force us to get a medical procedure.
Well, how about no vaxation without representation, motherfuckers?
Yeah, I know I try not to swear, but sometimes you just have to.
You just have to.
Come on. You just have to sometimes.
Yeah, I think it's completely fair.
In the context of the government asking you to get a vaccination mandate, a mandate.
How about them getting a little mandated medical procedure?
A little mandated cognitive test.
How about that? Yeah.
Yeah. No vaxation without representation.
And until you've taken the cognitive test, we don't even know if we're represented.
Because it doesn't look like it.
It doesn't look like it.
How well has your government explained the whole natural immunity versus vaccinated immunity?
Have they explained that well?
So the public says, oh, okay.
I might like it, might not, but at least I understand it.
No. No, they appear to be lying to us.
By omission, lying by bias, maybe not directly, but lying in effect.
Is that representation?
Did you elect your leaders to lie to you?
No, no, that's not representing you.
That's representing the pharma companies or something.
Representing themselves? I don't know.
But they're not representing you.
So no vaxation without representation.
And by the way, I'm not anti-vax.
And I'm not Provax.
I'm just saying you can't have a system where a bunch of brain-dead motherfuckers are making you get a vaccination and you can't make them get a cognitive test.
Let me remind you, who has the power in this country?
It's not the government.
And it never will be.
It's not the government.
And if you let the government act as if they have the power, then they do, I guess, for all practical power, all practical purposes.
But I think we need to demand these cognitive tests.
I think we've got to put down a marker and say, I hear you about the mandates.
Because I hope you would agree with the following statement.
You could be against mandates, you could be for them.
But it's a fair question.
It's a fair question, right?
I think serious people are trying to do their best when it comes to this whole mandate or no mandate situation.
And there are genuine differences of opinions about the importance of your personal freedom versus how much you can affect other people's risks, etc.
Those are fair questions.
Fair questions. But...
We can't even get to that question until we have representation.
And we do not have confirmed representation because of the cognitive abilities of our leaders.
And they have demonstrated a level of competence which does suggest that we need to check this.
Right? Would you say that everything's working so well that you're like, well, you know, nothing's going wrong.
So, you know, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
It doesn't look like that, does it?
It looks like some things are pretty broken.
At least in the communication of how things are going.
If not the, you know, the data.
So, no vexation without representation.
We need brain audits.
The funniest story of the day?
Maybe. Although, lots of competition.
Andy Ngo reports that Antifa in Australia just had a protest demanding stronger government restrictions.
What? Do I have chocolate on me?
Yeah, I think I do.
Yeah, Antifa...
Because that's what Antifa is all about.
Antifa wants strong government to tell the people what to do.
Don't they? Or is that literally the opposite of what Antifa is?
And it makes me wonder, did somebody prank them?
This looks like a prank.
Doesn't it? Doesn't it look like somebody who was mischievous...
Tried to figure out, how can we get Antifa to protest in favor of fascism?
And they figured out, I think we can get them to be on a side.
Because they side more with the left.
And if the left is pro-mandate, I think we can fool Antifa into protesting in favor of greater government control of our lives.
The opposite of their stated purpose.
So, I can't tell you it's a prank, but it looks like one.
And as I've told you before, parody and reality have merged.
You really can't tell a parody anymore.
If you think you can, just wait a few weeks and see how many times there was somebody kidding that you thought was real.
Watch how many times you see it.
It's kind of shocking. All right.
I guess the Bidens went to a restaurant last night and didn't wear their masks.
So they were the only ones in the restaurant who entered and left the restaurant without masks.
Now, do I think that they caused a risk to anybody?
No. No.
Do I think everybody should wear a mask walking into a restaurant and then just sit down and take it off?
No. So I don't think that what the Bidens did was, you know, Bad in a health sense.
But his only job is setting a role model example, right?
It's like the main thing he does.
So the main thing that sells Biden, he didn't do, which has set a good example.
So it looks pretty hypocritical.
People say, I don't like the hypocrite stories because they're too boring and too numerous, really.
But I think this was notable.
So Christopher Steele, the author of the infamous Russia collusion dossier, he's in the news today and he says of the alleged pee tape, the one that says that Trump allegedly watched prostitutes urinate on a mattress that had once been slept on by Obama.
And when asked if he thought it was true...
Christopher Steele said he thinks it probably exists.
It probably exists.
What is up with this guy?
Who's paying him?
Is this just part of the long-term project of making sure that Trump gets stopped at the starting gate?
Because they don't want him running again.
So it looks like it's just a Trump suppression act, right?
Because I can't believe that Christopher Steele, without being paid for it, would go in public and say the P-tape probably exists.
Do you think he would bother saying that unless he was getting some kind of benefit or he was working for somebody in some way?
It doesn't feel like the sort of thing you would say unless you were getting paid.
Does it? Well, here's the funniest thing about that allegation.
You know Trump is a germaphobe, right?
Trump is a germaphobe.
He only recently started shaking hands because he had to, because he was president.
But he's not big on shaking hands.
Now, do you think that a germaphobe said to himself, I'd sure like to be in a room with prostitutes urinating on a mattress?
That's exactly the kind of fun I'm looking for.
No. Now let me ask you another question.
Is that the sort of thing that anybody would do unless they were drunk or on some kind of drug?
No. No.
If you got me drunk enough, I would definitely watch prostitutes peeing on a mattress that Obama slept on.
There is some amount of alcohol that would get me in that room.
Marijuana? Probably not.
Alcohol? Yeah.
I'll watch some mattress trashing.
Give me three martinis and I'm in.
But Trump doesn't drink.
Trump doesn't take drugs.
How do you get a germaphobe who doesn't drink and doesn't take drugs to be in a room with prostitutes urinating on mattresses?
Could there be anything less likely than that?
Could they have ever come up with an allegation that is less likely than that one?
That is literally the least likely thing I've ever heard in my life.
I suppose nothing's impossible, but the least likely.
All right. So that's pretty interesting.
I noticed yesterday that my grocery store is totally gaslighting me.
And it really bothered me yesterday.
So I think I reported the other day that it seemed to me that only the items I was shopping for, personally, were the ones that were missing.
Because I would look at the shelves, and the shelves are full, except there would be this little hole on this entire aisle, and that little hole would be just the product I was looking for.
And I thought, is this a simulation?
What's going on? And then I realized what the trick is.
My grocery store has full shelves, and they're out of almost everything.
Except they seem to have lots of fresh food, so that seems fine.
But the package stuff, do you know what they did?
Instead of piling things behind things, they put them sideways.
So they filled the shelf with the same product.
And I didn't notice the first time I went.
But this next time I went and I noticed, wait a minute, if you take a product, there's nothing behind it.
There's nothing behind it.
Usually the shelves are, you know, several deep, right?
But they took the few products they have and they just spread them out sideways to fill the shelves.
My store's half empty.
And I didn't even notice it.
So he says, you just noticed?
I know. I know.
Dumb, right? I wasn't really paying attention.
I'm the guy who can't go into the refrigerator and find the ketchup, so that's no surprise.
And it's weird that I see other patterns.
It's weird that I can see another pattern, but I can't find something in the grocery store.
You won't catch it unless you stock shelves for a living once.
Yeah. But keep an eye out for that.
There is something happening that's bigger.
Now, JPMorgan's Chase CEO, Jamie Dimon, who I would say is pretty credible for economic predictions, said that he's not worried about the supply chain in the long run.
He says next year it'll all work out, etc.
But you know what else is weird?
I didn't see any hoarding.
Did you? Notice how different this is.
When the pandemic started, there was hoarding like crazy.
Hoard, hoard, hoard, everything.
But at the moment, I didn't see anybody doing anything that looked remotely like hoarding.
Why are people playing it cool this time?
Is it because this doesn't seem permanent?
Because it's not like a pandemic, it's just a supply chain thing?
Yeah, wait a few weeks, right?
So we may be on the verge of hoarding.
Maybe. But I would say this is...
I'm going to agree completely with Jamie Dimon, which is prices might go up, but I don't think we're going to run out of stuff.
Because I think at some price point, everything gets solved.
And I would also like to put out the idea that I think Trump could have solved this.
Don't you think Trump could have solved the shortage of truck drivers?
Because what is it that causes a shortage of truck drivers?
Regulations, probably.
Some kind of regulations, which he's good at getting rid of.
Might be money. How did he make Project Warp Speed happen?
He gave a ton of money to the pharma companies and said, don't worry about the money, just make this work.
How would Trump have solved the trucking shortage?
Well, one of the biggest problems is they don't pay the truckers enough.
He could have said, well, in the short run, we're going to subsidize something or do something.
You know, maybe give, I don't know, free health care to truckers so it's like a raise.
Something like that. But you can imagine some kind of executive order that Trump could have done that maybe Biden doesn't have the wherewithal or is too much of a Democrat to do or something.
Somebody says it's the trucker mandates.
Yeah, maybe that's part of it, and maybe Trump would have gotten rid of those.
But it does feel to me that this is...
I've said this often.
There's no such thing as a good president or a bad one.
Now, I'm being a little bit extreme there.
Obviously, there could be. But in general...
You have presidents that tend to be suited for some kinds of tasks and less suited for others.
This is the kind of problem that I think Biden is less suited for and Trump probably a lot more suited for, in part because he takes more risks.
So I think he might say, yeah, you know, it would be risky to have truckers who have failed the, I don't know, let's say the marijuana drug test, if there is one.
I assume there is. But you can imagine Trump saying, all right, at least for the short run, You can fail the marijuana drug test and still be a trucker.
I'm just, you know, brainstorming that there could be things that Trump could fix with just a sweep of a pen, and would, whereas Biden might not like the risk involved or just wouldn't have that point of view that you can go in and fix this stuff by getting rid of regulations.
Somebody says there aren't drivers due to the driving schools being closed.
How hard would it be for Trump to fix that?
Right? Yeah, I mean, I feel like you could spring up a bunch of driving schools, because what do you need besides trucks?
How hard is it to have a driving school?
Don't you just need a truck and maybe a classroom?
So this is like the most solvable problem in the world.
It just takes a little bit of time to work through the details.
Somebody says it's about gasoline price.
Well, that can be solved by raising the price of the...
or charging more.
So inflation is a problem that we don't have an immediate solution for, but you can certainly solve this stuff, the supply chains.
Let me tell you a Colin Powell story.
As you know, Colin Powell passed away.
And, of course, the big headline is that he was completely vaccinated, but he died from COVID-related stuff.
He was 84 years old.
Now... And of respect for the general, I just don't feel like talking about the fact that he got infected after getting vaccinated.
That doesn't seem like the important thing.
You know, you're looking at somebody's entire life.
I don't feel like that's the part we should be focusing on.
But I do wonder how many people are waking up today and are hearing for the first time that you can die from COVID even if you're vaccinated.
This isn't new news, people.
We've known this for a long time.
Especially if you're 84.
Alright, here's my Colin Powell story.
Years ago, when Colin Powell had left...
Government work, and he started his speaking career.
I was also at the height of my own speaking career.
And sometimes he and I would get booked at the same events, because I was doing pretty big events, as was he.
And one day I was booked to speak directly after him at an industry event.
And my Speakers Bureau had booked him for the event, and they had booked me, and the Speakers Bureau person was with me backstage as I was waiting to go on, and Powell was speaking.
And the person who was with me said, hey, do you want to meet Colin Powell when he's done speaking?
Now, keep in mind that I was pretty young to the being famous game.
I hadn't been famous for very long.
So when somebody says, hey, do you want to meet Colin Powell?
I just thought, uh, no, I'm too afraid to be Colin Powell.
Because I don't have anything to say to him.
And I'm pretty sure he doesn't want to talk to me.
So why would I bother him?
Why would I bother him with my presence?
So at first I demurred a little bit.
I don't need to meet Colin Powell.
Mostly because I figured he didn't need to meet me.
So I was just being a little bit...
I guess I was being considerate and respectful of his time.
He doesn't need to meet me.
I've got nothing to offer.
There's nothing that Colin Powell needs from me.
Nothing. Why take his time?
But Colin Powell finishes his speech and he walks directly in my direction backstage.
And my, let's say, what would you call it?
Handler? My handler at the time said, hey, Colin Powell, come over here.
Introduces me to Colin Powell.
Now, if you haven't had this experience of being introduced to somebody who was really famous, you know, at the moment he was at the The peak of his fame and people were talking about him for president and stuff.
It's really intimidating.
Right? Really intimidating.
And so he's walking toward me and you're having this thought as he's walking directly toward you.
Colin Powell is walking directly toward me.
And then when you stop thinking that, you think again.
Colin Powell is still walking directly toward me.
Oh, my God! Colin Powell is looking directly in my eyes.
Oh, no! Colin Powell just put out his hand to shake my hands.
Oh, no! I'm shaking hands with Colin Powell!
Like, your brain is just doing that loop.
So, here's the story part.
I was introduced as the Dilbert author.
Turns out, Colin Powell...
Was a Dilber fan, of all things.
He was a Dilber fan.
So he was very aware of Dilber and of me, I guess.
So he knew who he was.
And he was really nice.
And very...
What would be the word?
Very... Not approachable.
But from the moment he said hi and I shook hands from him, the famous part disappeared.
Does that make sense? The moment he went personal, all of the fame just disappeared.
And in one moment, he made you feel comfortable.
But I'll tell you what you didn't miss was his charisma.
His charisma was real.
Like, even if you take the famous part away, and the charisma's still there, right?
So very charismatic.
Big smile, you know, shakes my hand, says some kind words about my work.
And it was awesome.
It was awesome. So the only thing I want to add, since he passed, is it'd be easy to, you know, throw in our...
Our criticisms of the Iraq War, etc., and those are all valid.
But I would like to say one good thing about him, which is that in person, he was awesome.
He was an awesome person in person.
He was kind. He was generous.
And he made eye contact, and he treated me like a human being.
And I'm not sure he needed to, because he was pretty famous.
So I just appreciated him on a human level in my brief interaction.
So, let's talk about natural immunity.
Do you think you understand the issue of natural immunity versus vaccination?
In the comments, how many of you feel you've got a good handle on it?
I just want to see... Do your own assessment of your own knowledge of...
And let's say it's specifically about the question of whether natural immunity should be considered as good as and give you an excuse not to get a mandated vaccination.
So that's the only question.
But how is your knowledge about that topic?
See, lots of people are quite knowledgeable, which is good.
Marginal, some people.
It's common sense, somebody said.
So itty bitty, you made the perfect comment.
Somebody said it's common sense.
Let me test that.
How many of you would say that decision boils down to common sense?
Obviously, some people say.
Some say no.
Some say no, it's not common sense.
Well, I'm on the side that says it's not common sense.
It's sort of an illusion that it is.
Meaning that it looks like a simple question that has some levels that are not obvious.
And I'll tell you about those.
And let me start with this.
Would you agree?
I guess there are a whole bunch of studies.
So Marty Makari is a professor at John Hopkins School of Medicine.
And so he's got credentials, and he's editor-in-chief of MedPage today.
So somebody who's really tapped into the scientific and medical process.
And he tells us that there are 15 studies that have demonstrated the power of immunity...
By the previously infected.
There was a 700,000-person study, pretty big, from Israel recently, that if you had a prior infection, you were 27 times less likely to get a second symptomatic infection, I guess they had to add the symptomatic part, than those who were vaccinated.
This affirmed other studies, and apparently the studies, pretty much all of them seem to be in the same direction.
That natural immunity gives you far more immunity than even vaccinations.
All right, how many of you knew that so far?
And somebody says natural is seven times better.
Yeah, I don't think it's 27 times, but that's what this says.
I feel like it's a multiple, but that 27 sounds high.
All right. So if you knew that, would you say it's common sense...
Common sense, right? If you've got one kind of immunity that's 27 times better than the other one, why do you need a vaccination?
How many of you would say that is common sense and we're done?
If it's true that on average...
I'm going to throw you in a little wrinkle here.
On average. On average, an infected person has way more antibodies...
And way more protection, on average.
So common sense says you don't need the vaccination if, on average, it's just as good.
Right? Jordan says, is Scott coming around?
What does that mean?
Coming around to what?
Well, let's find out.
Alright, so let me test your common sense.
So you all employed your common sense.
On average, natural immunity is way better than a vaccination.
I think we all agree on that.
Let's stipulate that.
Can we stipulate it? Will you allow me to say that on average that that's just settled science?
Or as settled as anything gets these days?
Okay, everybody's saying yes.
Everybody's on board with that statement.
That on average, natural immunity is way better than a vaccination.
Okay? All right, so let me give you another question that's based on also your common sense.
You ready? The people who are on the payroll of the L.A. Lakers, a basketball team, are on average 6'5".
The people who are on the payroll for all the jobs related to the L.A. Lakers are on average, let's just say the men, are on average 6'5".
How tall is the guy who cleans the sweat off the court?
He might be a water boy too, but how tall is the guy who cleans the sweat off the court?
He's also on the payroll. Is he 6'5"?
Why not?
Wait a minute. I thought common sense told you he's 6'5".
You just told me that if the average person with immunity is way more than the average person who's vaccinated, then you know something.
About whether each individual should get vaccinated.
But are you telling me that just knowing the average of how tall people are doesn't tell you anything about the individual?
Am I just learning that an average doesn't tell me anything about an individual?
Well, my common sense told me everybody was 6'5".
Or close.
You're getting really mad now, aren't you?
All right, here's the counter-argument tentatively.
What if...
On average, the natural immunity is way better.
And I think we all stipulate that that's probably true.
But what if the variability is greater?
What if the people with natural immunity, some of them have amazing immunity, but others have much lower immunity than a vaccination on average?
Is that possible?
Is it? Is it possible that...
Not all the people who get natural immunity have the same amount?
And that some have lower immunity?
Yeah, it's possible. How do you know?
What would be the practical way with our current testing, current technology, right, and our current limitations?
I know it's technically possible, but with current limitations, how would you know if your natural vaccination or your natural immunity was the good kind, the really high kind, We're not the good kind.
How would you know? You wouldn't know.
You wouldn't know if any individual on the Lakers is seven foot tall or five foot three.
You have no way of knowing.
If the only thing you know is the average, you don't know anything about the individuals.
Now, here's the question.
If you imagined, and I'm just going to make up a number now because I don't know the actual number.
Let's say... 40% of the people with natural immunity are a little bit too low, meaning that they'd be better off with more immunity, more antibodies.
What if? Would that be a reason to immunize everybody?
Because you don't know, if somebody has been previously infected, you don't know if they're in the 40%.
They're probably in the 60%, but you don't know.
And you don't have a way to test.
You can test to find out if they have antibodies, but you don't have any mass way to test, you know, instantly to find out if anybody's got good immunity.
Now, here's the second question.
Let's see if your common sense told you this.
Is it true that the more antibodies, the better?
Go. In the comments, Is it true, just always true, is it just always true that more antibodies is better than not having more?
Exactly. Some people say true.
Some people say no. Well, now, what happened to your common sense?
You told me that this was common sense.
But why are you disagreeing on such an important question?
If it's common sense, you'd all have the same answer.
Yeah... So here's the question.
If it's true that natural immunity gives you more antibodies, does it matter?
Or does everybody have enough if they've got vaccinated?
And secondly, if you've got some antibodies, but let's say it's way less than the average vaccinated person.
Let's say you've got natural immunity.
What if it could be tested?
You have fewer antibodies than a vaccinated person.
Should that person be vaccinated?
Now, I say it's a personal choice, so I'm anti-mandate.
But could a reasonable person, if they didn't know what their immunity level was...
And let's say they're 80.
Let's say you're 80 years old.
Well, actually, if you're 80 and you've already survived COVID, you're probably bulletproof.
You're probably immortal at that point.
So maybe that's a bad example.
Let's say you're 60... Let's say you're 60 and you've already been infected, but you don't have any practical way of knowing if you're one who got enough antibodies or if you're on the lower end and it's better than nothing, but you might get pretty sick anyway.
Should you get vaccinated? All right.
So here's the only thing I'm trying to add to the conversation.
Don't trust your common sense.
Because it doesn't apply here.
The things you don't know are if you're looking at the average of one thing compared to the average of another, that's not enough information.
Because if one is wildly varied...
Let me give you the extreme.
So this will be easier to...
Not everybody's good with statistics.
So I'll give you an extreme...
Just understand the math, right?
But the reality is not the extreme.
So let's say that of all the people in the world who had ever been infected, that one of those people, just one, out of the hundreds of millions who got infected, what if one of them got a zillion trillion antibodies and all the other people didn't get any?
What would be the average?
On average, it would look like natural infection is way better.
Because that one person got a million trillion antibodies.
Nobody else got any.
But when you averaged them together, it was higher than the average of vaccination.
Now, of course, I'm making up the example.
But the point is, if you had wide variability in one thing and narrow variability in another, you can't compare the average for this decision.
For other decisions, yes.
But for this decision, you can't compare averages, and that's what you all did.
Am I right? Am I right that you all compared averages and thought that you used your common sense?
And when I walked you through this, you could see that comparing averages could get you to the absolute wrong decision.
All right. But let me ask you, just bring it down to this.
Would you agree with the general statement that you can't compare the averages because it's not enough information?
Have I sold you on just that one point?
I'm not going to try to change your mind on vaccinations.
I'm not going to try to change your mind on mandates.
None of that. I'm just asking you, do you think that knowing the average of immunity from one and comparing it to the average immunity of the other tells you enough?
It doesn't. It doesn't.
Now, if you wanted to argue it tells me enough for freedom purposes, I would agree with you on that.
If you're making a medical decision, it doesn't tell you enough.
If you're making a personal freedom decision, sure.
Whatever you want is enough.
If it's your personal freedom that you're making the decision, if that's your main variable, then I don't even care how much information you have.
