Episode 1541 Scott Adams: Find Out if You Have Cognitive Dissonance on One of the Biggest Stories In the World
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Content:
Vintage revolver ignorance
CNN mocks Facebook for insufficient censorship
Doctor awareness: monoclonal antibodies treat COVID
Identifying cognitive dissonance
Ivermectin in India
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Yeah, I might be a few seconds late, but let's talk about the amazing accomplishment that you have this morning, which is that you have arrived at the best place in the world at the best time.
Nothing in any universe is better than this.
It's called Coffee with Scott Adams and the Simultaneous Sip.
And I'm pretty sure it will be the most lasting legacy of our time.
Yes, the biggest story in the world is Alec Baldwin.
That is correct. We'll talk about that.
But first, if you'd like to take this up a notch, and I know you do, all you need is a cup or a mug or a glass or a tank or a chalice or a stein, a canteen jug or a flask or a vessel of any kind.
Fill it with your favorite liquid.
I like coffee. And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure, the dopamine of the day, the thing that makes everything better.
What is it? Yeah, yeah.
It's a simultaneous sip. And it's going to really fire up your antibodies.
Watch this. Watch this.
Go. Ah!
Whoa! My antibodies just heated up so much there for a moment.
It was almost like a flash burn.
I don't know if you felt it.
But I think we're all getting healthier.
We are. It's amazing.
All right, let's talk about all the things.
So why is it we're only getting little dribs and drabs of this Alec Baldwin accidental shooting story?
It's kind of interesting to watch how the information is going to be managed.
For example, today we learned that Alec Baldwin had recently been concerned About firing off a blank on the set in a different incident because there was a child nearby.
So we have now learned through this very interesting strategic new information that Alec Baldwin is not only concerned about firearms safety.
In a different incident, he made sure that a young child was nowhere near the weapon.
So that's the kind of guy he is.
So we know that. Number two, he was apparently practicing drawing the gun.
I guess he was doing a cross-draw where you reach across yourself to the opposite side for the holster to bring it out.
And he was apparently doing a practice of that while in a church pew or something, allegedly.
Now here's what's missing in the story.
The trigger part.
If I did a story about an accidental firing in which somebody had drawn a gun from a holster, even a gun that is not a real gun, one of my top questions would be, right at the top, maybe the number one question, was your finger on the trigger?
Yeah, the question about the safety on, that's a good one too, but...
Was his finger on the trigger when he was practicing?
Isn't that really, really important?
Well, I don't know if checking the gun to see if it's empty makes sense if you've got squibs in there.
Because isn't the whole point of the squib to make it look like the gun has real bullets?
Because it's a revolver, right?
So I think that they have to put the fake bullets in there to make it look like a real gun.
Um... Single-action revolver, yeah.
Are there safeties on revolvers?
Somebody asks. Somebody who's a gun expert can tell us.
Somebody says, no, no safeties on revolvers.
Other people say revolvers generally have safeties.
Now, it could have been a period piece gun, so who knows if that had a safety?
I would think so.
Do they make guns without safeties?
No. How long have they not done that?
They do not have safeties, somebody says.
I think the people saying do not are probably more right.
If I had to guess, I don't think I've ever owned a revolver.
No safety on my revolver.
Okay, so we have people who have revolvers who say they don't have safeties.
All right, that question is asked and answered.
Here's the other question. Number one is, why don't we know if his finger was on the trigger?
Which, by the way, I'm not sure would tell us anything, necessarily, because he might not have pulled the trigger.
Because they talk about it as a misfire, don't they?
Is it a misfire if you pulled the trigger?
Can somebody tell me how a gun misfires a revolver?
How does a revolver misfire?
You can't.
It doesn't. Yeah, okay, so work with me on this.
I'm just trying to think it through.
If this scene had involved somebody pulling back the hammer, you know, if that had been the scene, then you could imagine a misfire, right?
But he was drawing the gun.
So the thing he was practicing was a quick draw and then firing.
If you're quickly drawing and firing, there's no scenario in which you're touching anything but the trigger, right?
Am I right? There are people who know a lot more about firearms than I do.
You can cock it back and drop it and it will fire, right?
But if you're practicing drawing, would it ever get accidentally cocked?
Usually by dropping the revolver.
Yeah, that's what I thought. But even if you drop the revolver, you'd have to have it cocked, right?
Yeah, it still has to be cocked.
You can't just drop it and it fires because there's nothing hitting the bullet if you just drop it on the floor.
In fact, it would be nothing safer.
It's hard to imagine anything safer than dropping a bullet that's in a gun that's not cocked, right?
Because the bullet will be protected by the gun, but it can't fire it because there's nothing touching it.
I don't know if that's true, but...
Yeah, that's probably going too far there.
All right. So here's the other question.
No video? No video.
Are you seriously telling me that on a movie set, nobody has a video camera running?
There's no... I don't know, security camera, nobody had a phone.
I could definitely believe that they wouldn't be allowed to have phones.
Can somebody confirm...
Oh, I know somebody who works on sets, I'll ask that later.
But... Would you be able to have your phone on a movie set?
Because I'm thinking maybe not.
Am I wrong? Would they have to give up their phones before they went on set?
Just so it doesn't ring, they don't use it and stuff?
I don't know. I'll ask that question.
I know somebody who knows the answer to that.
All right. Here's some fake news on CNN. Now, of course, CNN likes to dump on Fox News, just as Fox News likes to dump on CNN. But I love the fake news technique they're using today.
They're saying something that isn't a story at all, and it's obviously not a story based on the facts that they provide you.
So they're going to tell you something that's nothing, but they're going to put it in a frame as if it's something.
Watch for this. It's worded as if it's something, but there's actually nothing.
And here's what they say.
CNN's Jim McCosta and Brian Stelter.
Now, this is just a headline for a video on CNN. On CNN. It's their own video.
CNN's Jim Acosta and Brian Stelter discuss Fox News host Neil Cavuto speaking out in support of COVID-19 vaccines despite others on the network, others on Fox, doubling down on their criticism of vaccine mandates.
Gotcha. Gotcha.
Oh, wow.
Wow. It looks like CNN really got Fox News on this one.
Because here you have Neil Cavuto suggesting that people should get vaccinated.
At the same time, the other hosts are speaking out about the mandate.
So I gotcha. Except those are different topics.
It's not the same topic.
At all. At all.
Secondly, have you seen anybody on Fox News, a host, have you seen any host of Fox News suggest you should not get vaccinated?
As far as I know, they're all vaccinated.
Right? So the news, as far as I can tell, is that everybody on Fox News agrees with each other.
But they worded it like they didn't.
To me it looks like, at least the evidence, I don't know if they actually agree, but the evidence would suggest they all think that vaccinations are worthy of consideration, because I think they're all vaccinated.
They had to be. And probably every single one of them, on Fox News at least, thinks that mandates are overdone.
So everybody on Fox News agrees with themselves, and somehow CNN found a way to, gotcha, I gotcha.
See, you think this on this topic, but what about this completely unrelated topic?
How about that? Ha ha ha!
Gotcha! Gotcha!
And the thing is that this worked.
This gotcha totally worked.
Because their audience will read this and say, oh my god, Fox News, just so inconsistent and anti-science.
Nothing like that's happening.
Nothing even remotely like that's happening.
But they can write it...
Accurately, because there's nothing that's a lie here.
There's no lie in this.
It just makes you think something else because of the way they framed it.
Well, everyone hates Facebook, which is weird.
So the left hates it and the right hates it.
The left, I think CNN anyway, hates it because of competition.
So when CNN writes about Facebook, they're really writing about a competitor, just as if they were writing about Fox News, in a sense.
But CNN has an article today in which the theme of it, if I can pull out the essence, is that Facebook didn't do enough to stop the January 6th thing.
In other words, CNN is angry at Facebook for not censoring enough.
They under-censored, according to CNN. And if Facebook had done their job to destroy free speech...
Completely. Free speech within the context of a private company.
Or a public company, actually.
Let me turn off my alerts here.
So, what do you think of that?
Is that chilling?
It feels a little chilling.
The CNN is mocking Facebook for not censoring enough.
Now, of course, their purpose for wanting it to be censored is that not censoring it would cause unrest and violence.
I don't want to live in a world where they can stop unrest and violence.
Do you? Do you want to live in a world where Facebook can decide when to stop the unrest and the violence?
Isn't unrest and violence the only thing that keeps this country together?
Or the risk of it, right?
Because if the government screws with us too hard, there's going to be some unrest and some violence.
That's our promise to the government.
Our promise to you, government, is if you go too far, there's going to be some unrest, There's going to be some violence.
And guess what? We'll probably do some planning.
Might even use an online platform to do it.
So, do you want to live in a world, CNN's world, where Facebook can squash a protest?
Because they don't like it?
They don't agree with it? Not me.
So you've got the right hating Facebook for censoring too much, the left for hating them for censoring too little, Maybe it's just right.
I have to admit, when I read the whistleblower documents that came out about Facebook, and I hear their conversations, they don't sound that crazy to me.
Because it looked like they were definitely picking their shots.
It didn't look like they were just saying, right-wing stuff, get out of here.
Left-wing stuff here, okay.
It didn't look like that. It looked like they were trying to do a responsible job, but, you know, everybody's got a different opinion of what a responsible job would look like.
It didn't look to me like the Facebook employees, at least all of them, It didn't look to me like they were some horrible entity trying to just get their way or something.
It looked like they actually had a respect for free speech.
I thought. I thought I saw that.
Now, how you interpret what is going too far and what is yelling fire in a movie theatre versus what is free speech, I mean, it's pretty subjective.
But I didn't see any lack of respect for free speech.
But certainly we have to be pretty, pretty worried about what the big platforms do to free speech, as it were.
Yes, I know it's only the government, blah, blah, blah, who has free speech, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Pedantic. You don't have to tell me that.
The theater has to be crowded.
I guess so. But on the positive side, CNN had a pretty good story here that I think is true.
Apparently they did some investigation and CNN found that a lot of doctors are unaware that monoclonal antibodies can be used for early cases of COVID. What?
What? Can we share a moment?
I'm just going to read this again so you can have the same reaction I had.
So at home, I'll read it again and just say, what?
What? Wait, am I hearing that right?
What? Many doctors were not aware...
That COVID has an early treatment that really, really works well and it's available and it's approved.
And it's the monoclonal antibodies.
Regeneron, right? Now, I knew it and Ron DeSantis knows it because he's putting up all these Regeneron places in Florida.
How many of you knew that monoclonal antibodies was a thing for people with early COVID? In the comments, tell me how many of you knew it.
Because I think it's all of you.
Look at the comments.
I haven't seen a no yet.
It's all yeses.
Oh, I saw a no.
Okay, a few noes.
So I don't know what... But seriously, there are doctors who didn't know this.
And there's an anecdotal story here of one doctor who said, there's nothing you can do, go home.
But the patient thought, maybe there's something I can do, and found out monoclonal antibodies would help.
Wow. So, every time somebody tells you, well, talk to your doctor, or, hey, my doctor recommended this, How do you feel now?
How do you feel now knowing that you and your doctor worked it out?
Hey, this is between me and my doctor.
Was that your theory?
It's between you and your doctor.
But your doctor might be a dumbass.
Might be. You might have a dumbass doctor.
So maybe it'd be better if the government just told your doctor what to do.
I'm not recommending that.
I'm not recommending that.
You don't want the government to have too much control.
But if you're sure that your doctor can do a better job than, say, a standard that just requires him to act a certain way, I don't know.
It would depend on the standard, wouldn't it?
So, with your permission, I'm going to cause some trouble.
And some of you aren't going to like it.
So this will be a little difficult for some of you.
And if you want to leave because this isn't comfortable to you, I would understand.
So I won't take it personally.
But I think there's going to be something useful for you in here.
Now, I don't think there's a better skill you could learn than identifying cognitive dissonance in the wild.
And some of you think you're good at it, but you're getting a lot of big stuff wrong.
And I'm going to give you some examples, because it happened today, and I want to show you exactly how to identify it, because it's such a...
Thank you, Cassandra.
We're going to do this, because I think it's really useful for you to see how it works.
Here's the topic. The topic was ivermectin, and...
On Twitter, Adam Baldwin, actor, not Alec Baldwin, but Adam Baldwin, challenged me by saying, you know, what about the India experience with ivermectin?
So I was asked to explain why it is that I think ivermectin maybe is not proven to work.
Proven to work. I'm not saying it doesn't work.
I'm not saying it works.
I'm saying, as far as I know, it's not proven to work yet.
Maybe later. But as far as I know, not proven to work.
And so I've been challenged by many people to explain India.
Okay? Well, sure.
If you say it doesn't work, can you explain why it's working great in one region in India?
It's working great.
How do you explain that?
Here's how I explained it.
I went to Google, and I Googled it, And one of the top search results was from India Today.
And they reported that in September of this year, so just weeks ago, the Indian Council of Medical Research and the National Task Force on COVID-19, so presumably these are the top entities in India, for COVID decisions, have dropped the use of ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine from their treatment guidelines after the experts found the drugs have little to no effect on mortality or clinical recovery of patients.
Now, stop.
Stop right now. How many of you just made this mistake?
How many of you thought that the topic is, does ivermectin work?
It's not. Right?
Because I don't know. Does ivermectin work?
Why would you ask me?
Why would anybody ask me if ivermectin works?
How the hell would I know?
I know there are studies that indicate it does.
I know that the metadata...
Indicates it does. I know that the metadata looks like garbage because it's influenced by some studies that are large that we know are bad.
So if you take the large studies we know are bad out, the meta-analysis kind of falls apart, is my understanding.
But I could be wrong about that.
But that's not the topic today.
The topic is, did it work in India?
Not does it work...
But did it obviously work in India in an Indian miracle?
So, again, it's not a question of whether ivermectin worked.
We're not talking about that today.
We're only talking about, is there an obvious success story in India?
No. No, there's not.
There's no success story in India.
Because India, all of the experts, just decided to not use it.
Do you think that India has a region in which it's wildly successful, but the Indian Council of Medical Research and the National Task Force on COVID, the top entities in India, were unaware that the pandemic has been solved in India?
Because if it's been solved in one region, the other Pradesh is what it was, if it's been solved in one region...
And everybody in the United States knows it.
But why don't the top people in India know it?
Now, is this a setup for cognitive dissonance?
It is, right?
This is a perfect setup to trigger cognitive dissonance.
Not in everybody. But if you were positive and you'd been making the argument, hey, it definitely worked in India, so we're done here...
So right land bandit is starting to yell at me in all caps.
So here's your first tip on cognitive dissonance.
Tip number one for spotting it.
Somebody will yell at you with caps.
Okay? All caps.
So we're seeing that. But also they'll go after the messenger and not the point.
So here's a pushback from Right Lane Bandit, all in caps.
Scott quote, never trust experts, but also Scott quote, you are debunked.
The experts agree with me.
Is that really your response to this question?
No. It's a comment about me in general.
And have I agreed with the experts?
No. Do you see me agreeing with any experts here?
No. No, I'm reporting what the experts said.
I'm telling you, I don't know if it works or not.
I'm just telling you what they said.
And you have to explain, if you believe that India has this giant success with ivermectin, you have to explain why all of the experts in India don't know it, but you know it.
Why is that? So, let me give you...
Gelman amnesia when it comes to experts.
Now, how many of you are hallucinating right now that I'm siding with the experts?
Anybody? Who's having that hallucination right now?
Because I'm not. I'm not siding with them, and I'm not disagreeing with them.
How many think I'm siding with them, even though I just said I'm not siding with them or disagreeing with them?
Right? So that's another way to determine that you're in cognitive dissonance.
If you can't keep on the topic, the moving of the goalposts is sometimes just somebody being a weasel, and they lost their arguments, so they're trying to win.
But lots of times it's cognitive dissonance, and people don't know they moved the goalposts.
So if you get proven wrong, one thing you'll do is imagine you're in a different conversation.
So you'll actually get to watch that in real time.
You're going to see people who are arguing a different point than I am, and that's probably cognitive dissonance, but it could be just bad, you know, listening.
All right, now, some of you are saying, but, Scott, look at my graph.
I'll forward it to you.
Look at all these studies on ivermectin.
I'm not on that topic.
I'm not on that topic, right?
That's this topic. Does it work?
We could talk about that separately, but we're not on that topic.
We're only on the topic, did India have a big success that is just obvious?
Can we agree? Let me see if I can get you a degree and watch the cognitive dissonance.
So some of you are going to get triggered right now.
Here we go. Here's another, all caps.
James Jensen says, this is to me, he says, in all caps, me thinks you speaking with forked tongues.
Right? So this is cognitive dissonance.
It's all caps, and it's about me.
It has nothing to do with the point that the Indian, all the experts in India are unaware that they've solved the pandemic.
Right? Um...
Big Pharma got to the council.
So one of the examples of cognitive dissonance, but I'm not saying that you're having it.
So let's talk about the speculation that somebody says, okay, it all makes sense.
It makes sense that India completely solved their pandemic in one region, and yet, because the bribes were so successful, 100% of Indian doctors have been bribed, The ones who are close enough to know what they're talking about in this topic.
So 100% of them have been bribed.
Do you know why it's 100% of them?
How do you know that 100% of them have been bribed?
And we're talking about a lot of people, right?
Hundreds? Hundreds, maybe?
How do you know that 100% of them have been bribed?
Because any Indian doctor who knew that they were going in the wrong direction could open an anonymous account on Twitter and tell you.
And tell you. You don't think there would be one expert who didn't get a bribe or maybe wasn't influenced by a bribe?
Not one expert who could go on Twitter and say, hey, something's going on over here.
They're all getting bribed.
They're ignoring the data.
Nobody? Ask yourself that.
Because I don't think there's any explanation other than cognitive dissonance that you would imagine that Pfizer could get to every doctor in India.
I mean, really?
Not every doctor in India, but every doctor who's involved in the decision.
Now, remember, remember...
Any doctor who wanted to be a whistleblower could have it both ways.
They could say in public, oh, I totally agree with my government, even if they didn't.
Let's say they wanted to keep their job.
Oh, yeah, I totally agree with my government.
Absolutely. Whatever the government says, and I'm going to keep my job.
They can still go on Twitter, open up an anonymous account, as a number of doctors who follow me have done, right?
There are a number of American doctors who follow me with anonymous accounts.
I'm pretty sure they're really doctors, the way they talk.
But... Well, if you don't have even one, I would say there's not really much chance in the real world that India thinks it worked.
Right? Right? Here we go.
Here's another cognitive distance.
Some of these are really interesting.
So this is from Angry Maul Babies.
Trust cartoonists.
Now, assuming that's sarcastic, that's a comment about my credentials.
Are my credentials in any way relevant to the fact that India just said don't use ivermectin?
How are my credentials relevant to that?
I'm just telling you what the news says.
I haven't added anything.
I've added nothing.
It wouldn't matter what my job was.
I just read the story.
That's all I did. Now, here's some...
We're getting some pushback.
All right. There are studies showing ivermectin is effective if...
Okay, you're in cognitive dissonance, or you've consciously decided that you're in a different topic.
So everybody talking about the question of whether ivermectin works or doesn't work, you're either in cognitive dissonance, or you have willingly decided to talk about a different topic.
We're not on that topic.
We're only on the topic of whether India Is aware that one region has this amazing success, and obviously they're not.
They're not aware. Why?
Why not? All right.
So here's another one.
Oh, here's Michael on Twitter says to me about this topic.
He says, Scott, I'm curious why on certain topics you openly convey distrust in government, but when it comes to COVID, you implicitly trust every word they say.
Is that comment cognitive dissonance?
Let me read it again. Scott, I'm curious why on certain topics you openly convey distrust in government, but when it comes to COVID, you implicitly trust every word they say?
Now, does he know who he's talking to?
Suppose somebody gave you a quiz, and they said, all right, you have to pick one person on the planet Earth...
On the whole planet, any country on the planet Earth, who is the least trusting of large organizations.
Name one person on Earth who's famous, famous, for being the least trusting of organizations over the past 30 years.
Now, somebody said Alex Jones.
Very, very good. Alex Jones?
I think he's kind of new on this beat.
LAUGHTER I don't know what he was doing 30 years ago, but I was questioning all large organizations 30 years ago.
And I might be one of the most famous skeptics of anything that comes out of a large organization.
Almost everything I talk about is how you can't trust the government.
Now, sometimes you have to choose.
I mean, you've got to make decisions, so you're going to guess one way or the other.
So I guessed...
On vaccinations. Do you think I trusted the government?
Hell no!
Who trusts the government?
Really? Who trusts the government?
So anybody who imagines that, of all people, the most, I'd say, top ten, one of the most famous skeptics of all large organization decisions, this fellow imagined that I trust the government sometimes.
How about never? I would never trust the government.
I might make a decision to go along with it because maybe I don't have that many options and I just got to guess.
But trusting them would be crazy.
All right.
So that's obvious cognitive dissonance.
So let's do another one.
So I saw on Google that...
Somebody's saying again that vaccinations don't reduce the spread of COVID. So let me ask the question, and then I'll Google it right in front of you.
See what happens.
Here's the question. I want to see what your responses are.
Now keep in mind, the question I'm going to ask you is really widely reported, right?
So if you missed this fact...
You missed, like, one of the biggest things in the world.
And I don't know how you missed it.
But here's the question.
If you're vaccinated, do you have the same statistical odds of spreading the virus as if you're not vaccinated?
Go. In the comments.
Do vaccinated people spread the virus the same, just the same, as people unvaccinated?
I'm seeing a mixture of yeses and nos.
I think the nos are starting to beat down the yeses.
I see yeses. I see nos.
No way. No.
No. Don't know.
No. Not sure.
No. I see yeses.
All right, so just the yeses.
So just for a moment.
So I suspect there are more noses.
Now, my understanding, which could be wrong, that's why I'm going to Google it right in front of you, my understanding is that all of the experts agree.
At least the organizations of experts agree.
They might be rogue doctors.
But my understanding is that science is pretty well certain that vaccinated people don't spread it anywhere near, like nowhere near, not even close, to unvaccinated people.
How many want to find their worldview shattered?
All right, so just the yeses.
All right, stop commenting for a while.
Just hold off your comments for a moment.
I only want to see the comments from the people who say yes.
So just give me the yeses that you believe that they spread the same, vaccinated or not.
Just the yeses. All right.
Now let's Google it.
Maybe some of you are doing this at home.
All right. We'll go to actual Google itself so that we won't go to DuckDuckGo.
Now you might want to check my work on another search engine.
All right. Do vaccinated people spread virus as much as unvaccinated people?
Now, the reason that I picked this question is because it's like one of the most important questions, right?
All right, so Google has pasted an official answer to the top.
So that means that in Google's opinion, it's a settled question, and they're just telling you the answer.
So you don't even have to look for a source.
They're just going to tell you right at the top.
I haven't seen this before.
You see this? They just paste it right at the top.
It says, common question...
What are the chances of getting COVID after being fully...
Oh, that's different. Boop, boop, boop.
Hold on. Okay, does the COVID-19 vaccine prevent transmission?
Of course we know it doesn't prevent it, but let's see what it says.
Evidence suggests the U.S. COVID-19 vaccination program has substantially reduced the burden of disease.
So Google says yes.
Let's see what the CDC says.
For some reason, that's not coming up.
Oh, that was just the source.
That was just the CDC. So it wasn't Google.
It was saying, according to the CDC, there's much less chance of spread.
So now I looked it up.
How many of you who thought it was the same would change your opinion if you knew that it's unanimously believed by the people in charge of this stuff?
I'm saying nopes. What is the nope about?
People are just saying, nope, nope.
Suggest. Oh, let me...
Okay, I thought that would be enough to convince you, but let's say...
Do vaccinated people shed the same viral load...
All right. So the answer that I gave you was like a little off point, and I take your point on that.
So here's the CDC. Common myths and facts.
Oh, this is interesting.
This might be the opposite of what you think.
This is from the CDC. Doesn't mean it's right...
Doesn't mean it's right, right?
We're not trusting the government automatically, right?
I'm just telling you what they're saying.
It says the vaccines can help prevent new variants.
Do you believe that? Do you believe that a vaccine can prevent new variants?
It's the first time I've actually seen it from the CDC. But I assumed that was true because...
So you're not believing the CDC that vaccines can help prevent new variants?
Here's why I think it's probably true.
I won't give this a guarantee.
But here's why I think it's probably true.
The more virus there is in the world, the more variants.
Period. Period.
There's no other analysis you need.
The more virus in the world, the more variants.
Period. No expert disagrees with that.
Do you believe me?
The more virus, the more variants.
And there's no exception. Nothing about the vaccines would change the fact that more virus means more infections.
Now, do vaccines cause more or less virus?
Far less. So I know you're not convinced on that, because I don't have an argument good enough, because I think the only argument is that if variants are a statistical anomaly, then the more virus, the more variants. That's it.
There's nothing else to say, is there?
Stop talking to us like we're morons.
Dan, I have to talk to the public...
Across all intellectual planes.
So sometimes I'll talk to you like you're smarter than average, because actually I think this audience is smarter than average.
Probably a lot smarter than average.
But there are still many of you who have opinions which just don't...
Let's say they don't track.
I don't know what to do with that.
Yeah. By the way, cognitive dissonance doesn't have anything to do with intelligence.
Let's see if they've got the answer on the spreading.
Similar environments in communities.
Peace.
Let's see. I want to find a good source here.
Viral loads similar in vaccinated and unvaccinated people.
So viral loads are similar in vaccinated and unvaccinated people.
So did I debunk myself?
Anybody? So here's a source, UC Davis, and some other sources as well.
The viral loads are similar whether you're vaccinated or unvaccinated.
In the case that you...
So have I debunked myself?
So does that prove that you can spread as much virus, vaccinated or unvaccinated, because you would have similar virus loads?
No, it doesn't mean that.
It doesn't mean that. Let's say you're vaccinated and I'm not.
We have the same viral load.
So what is the risk of vaccinated people spreading it versus unvaccinated?
Well, in that case, it looks about similar, right?
If you're vaccinated and I'm not vaccinated, and we walk into the same room, and we've got the same viral load, which one of us will spread it more?
It's unknown. It probably has to do with our lung capacity, etc.
But if we had the same viral load...
On average, we would spread it about the same if we were, let's say, the same lung capacity, etc.
Stayed there the same amount of time.
Does everybody agree with that?
If you're vaccinated or unvaccinated, if you have the same viral load, and then you go do the same things, probably, probably, you spread it about the same.
Everybody okay with that so far?
Right? Now here's the second fact.
I'm about seven times more likely to have it in the first place if I'm unvaccinated.
Is everybody on board with that fact?
That to get it in the first place, it's about seven times more likely you'll get it if you're unvaccinated.
Yes? Yes or no?
Fact check me on that? You can Google it while I'm talking.
So it's like 7 or 11 times.
I think it might be 11, maybe.
But it's many times more likely.
So we don't need a specific number.
Does everybody agree that it's many times more likely you would get infected in the first place if you're unvaccinated?
Anybody? All right.
So now... Now, I'll do the same test.
Remember, the first one was we both have the same viral load, vaccinated and unvaccinated, and we walk into the same room.
Now, here's your second setup.
There's one person who's unvaccinated who walks into a room, and they've got a viral load, and there's nobody else in the room because the vaccinated person didn't get it.
All right? Are you following the example?
The first one was you're both infected and you both walk into the room with the same viral load.
You probably spread it about the same.
But since there are seven times as many people who get it unvaccinated, you have a lot of rooms where only an unvaccinated person walks in in the first place because there aren't enough vaccinated people to pair them with.
If you tried to pair every vaccinated person with an unvaccinated person with the same viral load, you could do a few.
But you would really quickly run out of vaccinated people who have that kind of viral load.
And you would have plenty of unvaccinated people, seven or 11 times more.
So those people are walking into rooms all the time.
The unvaccinated people don't exist in numbers enough to match all the unvaccinated people.
So... If you thought that because vaccinated and unvaccinated people can carry the same viral load, that vaccinations don't make any difference to spreading, you're ignoring the biggest fact of vaccinations, that it reduces the chance that you get it at all by, I don't know, 7 or 11 times.
You could say your data's wrong, that fact is wrong, anything.
The analysis is wrong, you compared the wrong thing, anything.
Just say anything. But if you're just saying I'm wrong to the facts I produce, you can Google these all.
Everything I said will come up in the top Google searches.
Now, are the experts right about that?
Are the experts right?
I don't know. Can we trust all the experts?
I'm not saying you can trust them all the time.
I'm saying that the argument that you can spread it just as much, vaccinated or not, is probably based on a misunderstanding.
Probably. It's probably based on the misunderstanding that if you could have similar viral loads...
That you would spread it the same.
And while that's true, if there are just two people in the room, you have to look at the country, and you couldn't find enough people to go in the room with the unvaccinated person.
Because the vaccinated people just don't exist.
Most of them don't have it.
All right, how many of you...
How could we have nearly enough time to study all of this?
Well, that's always a problem.
Google is a biased source, perhaps.
I mean, I'm not arguing that Google is biased, but they show lots of sources.
If you can find...
Let me say this.
Find a credible source that disagrees with me, and then send it to me, okay?
Find a credible source, and I would accept a major publication on the right or the left.
A major publication. So a major publication would be anything on the right, from Fox News to Breitbart.
Major publications.
On the left, whatever, CNN, anything else.
Just find any major publication that disagrees with what I just said.
I don't think you'll find one.
Now, that doesn't mean they're right, right?
Can everybody be wrong?
Sure. Sure.
It's happened. I'm just telling you what the evidence is.
I can't tell you that it's accurate.
That's not my job. And here's the other thing that people are blaming me for.
A lot of people are saying that my views on all of this stuff are completely...
that my views on all of this are...
Completely biased by the fact that I got the vaccination and I want to be right.
Meaning I want to be publicly right that my vaccination choice was correct.
No, I don't. I want to be healthy.
That's all I want. I want to be healthy.
I don't need to be right.
This program isn't even about being right.
I mean, there are other programs that the host is just trying to be right all the time.
But not this one. If I could be spectacularly wrong about something really important that I really thought was right, and even especially if I've been talking about it, that excites me.
That would be scary because it means I might be at risk of dying.
That's a separate question.
But no, I don't need to be right.
And let me say as powerfully as I can that I don't know if I made the right decision.
Do you? Let me ask.
How many of you are positive you made the...
Not that you made the right risk calculation, because I think that's easier.
But that you're actually, beyond just making the right risk management decision, that you're also right.
How many of you are positive you're right?
Whichever way you went, vaccinated or unvaccinated.
How many are positive you're right?
I am. I'm seeing some people positive they're right.
I am not. Yeah, I'm not going to talk about animal cruelty stuff.
I just can't do that.
All right. So here we...
I respect everybody who says they're not sure...
So if you said, I'm not going to get vaccinated and here's my reasons, but I'm not sure, it's just my best judgment, I have full respect for that.
Full respect. You might be right, might be wrong, but I totally respect it.
And likewise, if you say, you know, I've decided to get vaccinated, it might be a bad decision, it might be a good one, but I had to make a decision, I completely respect that decision.
The only people I don't respect are the people who are certain.
Because you've got some explaining to do if you're certain.
If you're positive, you've got a lot of explaining to do.
Being not sure and getting the jab is the wrong decision?
No, it isn't. No, it isn't.
There's no logical reason to support what you just said.
We're all uncertain.
One way is better than the other, and we don't know.
We really don't know.
All right, just looking at some of your comments.
Yes.
The reason I dwelled on this a little bit is that the news is boring today.
Is there any actual interesting news happening today that I missed?
