Episode 1586 Scott Adams: The News is Extra Interesting and Fun Today. Come Get Some.
My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a
Find my "extra" content on Locals: https://ScottAdams.Locals.com
Content:
Bioprinting a cultivated steak
Diffusing Ukraine tensions
Trust in a HOAX spewing government
President Putin calls Omicron "live vaccine"
Vaxxxed spreading vs. Unvaxxxed spreading
Home appraisal racism?
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If you would like to enjoy this same content plus bonus content from Scott Adams, including micro-lessons on lots of useful topics to build your talent stack, please see scottadams.locals.com for full access to that secret treasure.
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Hello everybody and welcome to Coffee with Scott Adams.
Will it be the best time you've ever had in your life?
So far, yes, it will be.
Guaranteed. Double your money back, if I disappoint.
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And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure.
The dopamine hit of the day.
The thing that makes...
Everything better. It's called the simultaneous sip, and aren't you glad you made it in time for that?
Yeah, here it comes.
Go! Well, our audio is good.
Our video is good.
You're all awake and feeling good.
Holidays are coming. Stocks are up.
I don't think things could get any better.
Well, maybe a little less inflation, but we'll get that under control, too.
So, shall we talk about the news?
It doesn't look like I'll be doing that because I hope all my notes printed.
Sorry, I have to check.
It looks like my printer ran out of paper.
Hold on. Never strap yourself to a microphone and then try to go across.
All right, I'm going to check one thing to make sure my notes printed out.
Nope, they did not.
Hold on. I know, this makes it more exciting.
Yeah, I did the sip. You missed the sip.
Yeah, it is tough with two screens.
The two iPads, I turned one upside down so that the two cameras are roughly in the same place.
And now, ladies and gentlemen, long last, ladies and gentlemen, long last, I'm going to add this to my checklist.
Check printer for paper.
All right, where was I? I'd like to start with the funniest thing I've said in a while.
You know that Don Lemon has been brought into the, shut up printer, shut up!
And my printer just decides that it suddenly needs to make noise in the middle of things.
Don Lemon is part of the Jussie Smollett story.
Maybe we'll get a verdict on that today, by the way.
But I thought that Don Lemon and Jussie Smollett should start a podcast together.
Hmm, what would we call it?
I would call it Smell It and Smollett.
Smell it and Smollett.
Okay? If you haven't read the news, that doesn't mean anything to you.
I made some money today and yesterday by betting against the fake news, which is my new technique.
Don't do what I do.
This is just gambling.
But so far, betting against fake news has worked.
So when the Omicron virus came out and it looked like, oh no, it's another variant, I bet against it.
And I said to myself, you know, the fake news likes to get us all worked up over nothing.
So I'm going to bet it's nothing.
Now, sometimes it is something, and then you lose all your money if you use this technique.
But I bet that the Omicron would be bullshit, and I bought stock in Wynn Hotels, which are up 8.5% since yesterday morning, basically.
So that's free money by betting that the news is fake.
Now, here's the trick.
Normally, if everybody has the same information, you can't make money.
I don't know if you know that, but it's sort of a basic economic financial fact.
If everybody had the same information, probably everybody would make similar decisions and then you wouldn't get any good opportunities because everything would be bid up to its right price.
But because the fake news has created this interesting situation where the big investors sort of have to follow the actual news, don't they?
Say you're a giant hedge fund or you're managing money for other people, and the news says the Omicron virus looks like it's terrible.
What do you have to do?
You sort of kind of have to pare back your position a little bit, don't you?
Because if you're a big industrial investor, you kind of have to follow the headlines, don't you?
Because if the headlines turn down to be true and you invested in the opposite direction...
You'd look terrible. But I'm not bound by that, because I'm not investing anybody else's money.
So, this is your financial little lesson of the day.
I have special information.
Really, I don't have information that's special.
It's just I can act on it.
So I can just say, well, the headlines look fake to me and just bet against it.
But a big fund manager can't do that.
So I have temporarily, probably, a little advantage.
Now, I should say that you should diversify no matter what you're doing.
So if you're putting a bunch of money in one company, it doesn't matter what your reason is.
It's a dumb idea. You should have multiple investments or don't do it at all.
Anyway, that's your financial advice of the day.
You should follow on Twitter the following account.
Saul of United.
Saul spelled S-A-U-L. Just Google that or just search it on Twitter.
And he has lots of good tech finds.
I'm going to read you a couple of them.
So here's some good news from technology world.
So an Israeli alternative meat developer...
They can print a steak now.
That's right. They can use a 3D printer to print a steak.
And they make the parts of the steak out of a scaled production of cultivated, bioprinted steak.
And so it looks, I don't know if it has the same texture, but sort of looks steak-ish.
Everybody's saying, no thanks, no thanks.
I want to eat my real animals and make them suffer.
Well, that's what a man does.
But anyway, I don't know if I would ever partake in such a thing, but I would like to point out that the Star Trek replicator is here...
This is the Star Trek replicator.
You know, on Star Trek, if they wanted to eat, they'd go over to the replicator and say, give me a hamburger, and it would just like make it out of whatever.
But now we can actually 3D print your dinner.
Now, we're starting with a steak, but how hard would it be to print mashed potatoes?
Earlier, right? I mean, easier.
It'd be easier to make mashed potatoes.
So I think the other stuff will be easier than meat.
So that's interesting.
I don't know if it's good news or bad, but it's interesting.
It might solve climate change if we're printing steak instead of slaughtering cows.
Over on CNN, Senator Thune, T-H-U-N-E. Is it Thune or Thune?
T-H-U-N-E. Thune or Thune?
Somebody? Somebody?
Somebody will tell me. It's Thune.
Oh, is it? It's actually Thune.
Oh, interesting. Okay.
That's probably a good idea for his family, because otherwise they'd be loony-thunes.
You know they would. But you can't say loony-thunes.
That doesn't make any sense.
So he's introducing a bill that would require big tech, the platforms...
To turn off their algorithms if you flip the switch to do so.
So you'd have to choose to do it, but instead of being manipulated by the big tech algorithms, which feed you what they want to feed you in terms of information, you could just turn it off and then it would just be streaming by in probably timing order, the order it came in. What do you think of that?
Good idea or bad idea?
In the comments...
Good idea or bad idea?
Yeah, this one is not from Saul of United.
I'll get to another one of those in a minute.
I feel like it's worth trying, and I don't know how hard it would be.
It doesn't feel like it would be the hardest thing in the world to program.
In fact, it might be the easiest thing.
Just put in some code that skips your algorithm, right?
Of course, I'm overstating how easy that would be.
It would actually be tremendously difficult.
But if you're not the one who has to program it, it looks easy to you.
If there's anything the Dilbert comic has taught you, is if your boss thinks it looks easy, you're not going to have much time to do it.
All right. Well, I think that's a good idea, and I would compliment CNN for running it on their website and for the senator for raising it.
At the very least, it's worth trying.
You know, we're sort of in a world where A-B testing just makes sense.
We don't really know how things work.
You know, we don't know it'll work out right, but it's a really good idea.
It's definitely worth testing.
So good for you, Senator Thune.
Thank you. Have I told you how wonderful my e-bike is?
My electric bike?
Yes, I have. In fact, I've told you so many times, you're freaking sick of it.
But it turns out that the Build Back Better plan includes a $900 tax credit for purchasing an e-bike.
What do you think of that?
A $900 tax credit for purchasing an e-bike.
Now, this would have two purposes.
Number one, for a lot of people who can't afford a car, the e-bike will allow you to go great distances without much trouble.
So you could ride your e-bike, I don't know, 10 or 15 miles to work without having a sweat.
So the first time I rode an e-bike, as I told you, I knew this was the future.
You have to try it at least once.
If you think to yourself, oh, I like regular bikes and I like the exercise, well, that's all good.
But try it. It's not about the exercise.
You will feel something on an e-bike.
Right? It's sort of the same feeling I had the first time I saw the Internet.
Before any of you had even heard the word Internet, I was playing with it at the phone company because we had it early.
And I saw people's reaction to this thing called the Internet.
They couldn't do anything. And people were all excited about it, and I thought, well, this looks like the future, sure enough.
Well, the first time you touch an e-bike, just drive it around the parking lot.
You'll never go back.
Everything's going to move this way.
Not everything, but there's going to be a tremendous, tremendous industry around electric vehicles.
Some of them fully electric, some with a little pedaling, etc.
So I'm not sure I agree or disagree with the tax credit.
I'll let the economists work that out.
But it is an indication that e-bikes are the thing.
And trust me on that. All right.
Also, Sol of United found this little tidbit, that over in Kyoto, a team of scientists in Japan have figured out how to make a face mask that will glow under a dark light when exposed to ultraviolet light.
So you've got to put it under ultraviolet light and you can see if you are infected with a virus.
Whoa! Your face mask...
We'll tell you if you're infected.
You have to put the light on it so people won't see it if you're just walking around.
But, whoa!
Isn't that pretty cool?
Now, here's the bad news.
It won't be available until maybe next year, even if everything goes well.
They've proven that it works.
So the question of whether it works, that's settled.
It works. In fact, it works so well.
And here's the funny part.
The head researcher discovered that he had COVID by just putting on his own mask.
And then he confirmed it with a test.
So I hope we're not wearing masks a year from now, but at least probably medical people probably will.
So this is pretty big.
Pretty, pretty big.
Especially if you had, like, a spouse who was infected.
It would be one more way to get an early warning.
And imagine if you could get the early warnings and get your therapeutics.
What about that?
What if you could get your therapeutics earlier because you had this early warning?
It's all good news. Well, the funniest and weirdest story is that Fox News lit a Christmas tree outside the Fox News building, and then somebody decided to set it on fire.
And the entire tree just like caught on fire and became this gigantic burning thing.
And, of course, there might be some jokes that surround this event.
I'd like to start off with, man, when Fox News lights a tree, they really light a tree.
That's just my warm-up joke.
That's just a warm-up.
You don't have to laugh at that one.
Number two, well, it looks like the war on Christmas is real.
Okay, that's still just a warm-up.
That is just a warm-up.
Okay. On the other side of the aisle, the Democrats are saying it's a sign that Satan finally accepted Fox News' deal.
Okay. Now, you don't have to take sides to know that that's funny.
It's not a side that Fox News accepted Satan's deal.
All right. Here's my own contribution to the burning Christmas tree humor.
And it goes like this.
I don't know who lit the Fox News Christmas tree on fire, but the two white guys who attacked Jussie Smollett are still out there somewhere.
Better? Was that better?
I told you the first ones were just warm-ups.
We got to the good stuff. All right.
Is math racist?
So here's a story to get everybody wagging their tongues.
Is math racist? So apparently there is a movement in various places around the country to make math more what they call inclusive.
Because the math is all racist.
Now, I remember when I heard that the SATs were racist.
Remember that? A while back, somebody said, the SAT questions are racist.
What was your first reaction to that?
No, it isn't.
Right? When you heard that the SATs were racist, you said to yourself, I don't think so.
I mean, I took the SATs.
I didn't see any racism in there.
But I heard an example.
Here's an example given.
This was way back. This is not at the moment.
But way back, somebody gave an actual example of an SAT question that when I saw it, I said, oh, yeah, that is kind of racist.
Do you think that exists?
Do you think I can give you an actual SAT question that you yourself will say, oh, yeah, that is kind of racist?
Do you think I can do that?
Challenge. Challenge me.
Challenge accepted. Damn it, don't get ahead of me, mystic, not work.
That is exactly where I'm going.
Yeah, one of the questions was to fill in the second part of a sentence.
Cup and, cup and, and one of the choices was saucer, and one of the choices was table.
If you're poor, what the fuck is a saucer?
Right? If you're a poor person, who the hell ever saw a saucer?
What's that? A flying saucer?
What the hell is a saucer?
And now, certainly poor white people might not know what a saucer is, too.
But that's actually a pretty good example.
I mean, there's certainly biases against, you know, low-income people, and that would be heavily, you know, minority populated.
So it's actually a pretty good example.
So I don't know what the examples are of math being racist in this context.
I didn't see any examples.
So I'm going to be open-minded about whether there is an example or is not because they didn't give me enough in the stories and it was behind the paywall and blah, blah.
But if you wanted to destroy a great nation, what would be a good way to do it?
You wanted to destroy a country...
Well, militarily, but we have a big military, so good luck with that.
The best way to do it would be to take the smartest people and make them stay in the class with the dumb people.
That would be the best way to destroy the whole country.
Because, as I've often said, it doesn't really matter if our average math scores don't compare favorably to the average math scores of China or anybody else.
Do you know why? Why?
Why doesn't it matter that our average math scores are as good as the average math scores in other countries?
Because almost nobody uses math.
At least the higher level math that would matter.
It's the top 2%.
They go on to STEM jobs and engineering and inventing stuff.
So math is about teaching the bottom 98% how to balance their checkbook.
And the top 2%, we're developing them to move the country forward, invent stuff, engineer things, become math teachers, I suppose.
But it's only about the top few percent.
That's what math is about.
The rest of us, we just need to be able to do the basics to get by.
So, what would happen if you take our 2% and make them sit in the same class with everybody else?
Well, if they have any money...
They're going to get the hell out of there right away.
And they're going to go home school right away.
And they're going to get tutors.
In my town, the tutoring business is gigantic.
Is it big where you live?
Is the tutoring business big where you are?
Because I think that's sort of a high-income luxury.
Yeah, it's big here.
Yeah, so kids here are asking for it, actually.
Around here, kids would say, can I have a tutor to get a little extra advantage to go to college and stuff?
Yeah, it's a big deal over here.
So if this continues, this trend where they put the smartest in the same class with everybody else, they're just going to have to get out of there.
You don't want your top one percenters in the class with everybody else.
That's just not helping anybody.
All right. Putin and Biden had effectively a Zoom call summit.
Of course, they don't use Zoom.
But they talked on video.
And here's what came out of that.
I guess Biden warned Putin that if he were to invade any further into the Ukraine, that Biden said there would be hard financial sanctions and NATO would reposition.
So that's Biden's thing.
Financial sanctions and NATO would reposition.
What exactly do we have left for financial sanctions?
Are you telling me there's a whole bunch of financial sanctions out there that we could use that we're not?
What exactly is left?
There's something missing in the story.
What the hell are we going to actually do?
You know, somebody says swift transactions or banking and stuff, but here's the thing.
If you cut Russia off from, let's say, the international banking system, I don't know, that feels pretty provocative, isn't it?
I feel like the financial stuff, we don't have a lot of wiggle room without going full war.
So we'll see what happens there.
But here's the most interesting part.
Vladimir Putin is calling for both sides to launch new talks to defuse the situation.
Putin is asking for talks to defuse Ukraine.
How does that make sense if he wants to attack?
Does that make sense?
Do you think that asking for more talks to diffuse the situation, do you think that's a clever military ploy to get us to stand down and then it'll jump in and attack?
I don't think so.
So we can't know, right?
You don't know and I don't know because it's hard to predict.
But here's what I get out of this.
This is the hypnotist in me talking.
The last thing in the world Vladimir Putin wants to do is invade Ukraine.
I feel like that's what he just told us.
Because you don't ask for talks to defuse something that you want to do, do you?
You know, even as a trick, you don't do that.
Because you know what would happen? If Putin said, hey, let's have talks to defuse it, and then attack while we're having talks, or at least they're still ongoing...
That's the end. That's a line.
I mean, that's a real, real, real, real line.
It's one thing to attack when nobody expects it.
That's bad enough. But if you attack while you're having talks, during the talks, using the talks as a decoy, no, you don't come back from that.
Am I the only one who thinks that?
I don't think you come back from that.
I think you have to end Russia at that point.
Probably financially. But you have to just end them at that point.
You can't deal with them at all again.
You could never, ever have another conversation with Russia.
You'd just remove the diplomats and crush their economy and be done with it.
There'd be some risk, but you'd just have to do it at that point.
So here's what I think.
Putin's not an idiot.
He's not a nice guy, but he's not dumb.
He's obviously using Ukraine for negotiating.
How many would agree that he's signaling that the Ukraine move is purely to negotiate for something else?
Probably to negotiate to keep them from joining NATO. Is that a reasonable request?
Is it reasonable for Russia to say, you know, we've got this line, and the line is you don't put NATO on our border?
It's a pretty reasonable request.
If Russia put some missiles into Cuba, what would we do?
You know what we'd do, right?
You know what we'd do if they put missiles in Cuba.
Because it already happened, right?
So here we are putting, maybe, NATO into Ukraine.
What the hell would we expect Putin to do?
We'd expect him to push pretty damn hard back.
So it feels to me like this is a negotiating thing.
Probably Putin wants to keep his pipelines and keep his negotiating situation.
But I'm going to go to a place that no one has gone before except me.
It's time to talk about being allies.
It's time to talk about being allies with Russia.
Because we have to.
Not because we want to, but because space, the war in space has already started.
Do you want to be one of three superpowers, or maybe four, maybe India will get up there pretty soon, or do you want to have Russia on your side?
If there's one thing I can tell you for sure, if I get in a fight, I want Russia on my side.
Anybody? Would anybody disagree with that?
If you're in a fight...
You want Russia on your team.
Right? Now, you could say that's against China or not.
Now, of course, Russia has a pretty delicate thing because they've got all kinds of Russia physical connections and trade and whatnot.
So, do you hear yourself?
Scott's still ignoring the troop buildup.
Well, I didn't mention it, but that's not ignoring it.
I thought everybody knew about the troop buildup.
Everybody knows that Putin has a troop buildup on the border, right, of Ukraine?
So my take is that that's part of the negotiating.
If he had not asked for a new round of talks, then I would have taken it seriously that it's an invasion.
But I think that it might actually be two options.
One is to talk and work it out, and one is to invade.
So he might have two options.
But I think he prefers talking.
All right, well, that's all I'm going to say about that.
My prediction is no invasion of Ukraine, and we should move toward becoming allies with Russia, militarily at least.
And we just don't have a reason for attacking each other.
All right, unless it's our oil companies that are telling us that we need Russia not to compete with our energy industry.
I worry about that.
All right, Rasmussen Pohl asked how people think Biden is handling the pandemic.
And what did we find out?
We found that 56% disapprove of how Biden is handling the pandemic, and 56% also, either mildly or very much, say that he broke his promise to end the pandemic.
Do you think those numbers would be different if we had a different president?
I don't really. I feel like Trump would have had the same numbers, because there's just so much you can do about the pandemic.
The pandemic. There's definitely a limit to what you can do.
So I would say that that sounds about right.
I mean, we're all just unhappy with the pandemic, so the leader gets the blame no matter what.
All right, here's the weirdest thing that's happening right now, but maybe it's not weird.
One of the most frequent comments I get on social media, which has something to do with the type of people who follow me, I guess, is that the pandemic isn't real.
And that if we just ignored it, that would be our best strategy.
And I asked, how many people believe that?
And of course, this is highly unscientific, and it's just the people who follow me, etc.
But 47% of the people who answered...
Said that the number of dead people dying and the virus itself is fake, basically.
Or fake-ish, meaning that it's overblown.
So these are not people who are saying there is no such thing as a coronavirus.
They're just saying that the whole thing is so overblown that if you just ignored it, you'd be fine.
47%. Now, here's my take on that.
If this had been five years ago, I would have said, this is a bunch of fucking idiots.
Five years ago. Five years ago, I would have said, this is, wow.
Wow. These are some really thick people.
Frickin' stupid idiots.
Wow. Five years ago.
Do you know what I say today?
Today I say, oh, it looks like pattern recognition.
It looks like pattern recognition.
If the fucking fake news had not brought us one hoax after another, I would say, geez, you're really untrusting.
Just look around you.
All the news, all the countries are handling it.
But once you've seen what the fake news can do to the public, not trusting it anymore is no longer irrational.
If all you did was disagree with the government every single time they said anything, your prediction rate would be not bad.
It wouldn't be 100%, but it'd probably be better than 50%.
You'd probably be clocking in at like 55% correct, just saying everything the government tells you is wrong.
Am I wrong? You would be more correct just saying everything they say is a lie, even though it's not 100%.
But I'll bet you'd get more than 50% in our current world.
I'll bet it'd be more than 55% too.
So I'm going to say I fully respect this opinion.
I disagree with it.
I disagree with it.
You know, my reading of the world is that the pandemic's completely real.
Not the way we're handling it is excellent.
You know, I would get rid of mandates, etc.
I think it's time to do that.
But I think it's real.
I think the bodies are real.
I think even if we over-counted or under-counted that there's some, you know, tremendous number of people dying.
So I think it's real, but...
The opinion that says it's not real, or at least we should treat it like it's not real because it's a better strategy, I actually respect that opinion, surprisingly.
I know that surprises you, right?
I fully respect that opinion.
Because the fake news has created this situation.
It's not our fault. It's not my fault that the news on every other topic is fake.
So if you don't believe this topic...
It's pattern recognition.
It's just pattern recognition.
It doesn't mean you're right, but it means there's a pattern.
Yeah, I think the people saying it's fake really just means it's overhyped and we should just go back to our regular life.
Now, why is it we don't trust the news?
Well, let me give you an example from today's headlines.
Why is it we don't trust the news?
Let me just read this to you.
I don't even have to add the comment.
This is just the news, okay?
Preliminary, this was on CNN, I think.
Preliminary lab studies show two doses of the Pfizer vaccine may not provide sufficient protection against the Omicron variant, but here's the good news.
Three doses are able to neutralize it.
Yeah, the two doses, they're not going to really do anything for the Omicron.
But according to Pfizer, if you get that third booster, well, your Omicron will be beaten.
Do you know what Vladimir Putin calls the Omicron virus?
Possibly a vaccine.
That's right. Putin said Omicron is overblown.
It might be closer to a vaccine.
Meanwhile, Pfizer is going to charge you extra, make a few hundred billion dollars extra by selling you that booster that's going to take care of the Omicron, which we don't need to take care of.
So if you pay extra, you can get rid of the only thing that would stop the pandemic, which is the Omicron spreading enough so that we get a natural immunity without getting really sick.
Now, let me ask you again.
Why is it that the citizens don't trust the news?
This is why. Was there anybody here who didn't know that Pfizer would find a way to create a booster, or at least tell you the booster they have, is going to take care of that new variant?
But you need the booster.
Two shots, that's not going to get it done.
You're going to need that booster.
Let me ask you another question.
Do you think that Pfizer will someday suggest an additional booster for the fourth shot?
Shut the fuck up, you asshole.
QJ. Scott's awake.
Scott's awake. Scott's awake.
Fucking idiots. You're gone.
All right. More on fake news, and this one's really interesting.
You're going to think this is about vaccinations, but it's about news bubbles and information bubbles.
This one is really, really interesting, and only the psychology of it and the fake news of it, not about the actual virus itself.
So here's a question that Kyle Becker, who is also somebody you should follow...
If you don't follow Kyle, you're missing some good stuff.
He has lots of good scoops.
So Kyle Becker, if you just search for him on Twitter, you'll find him.
So I think he used to be associated with Fox News, but he's doing his own thing now.
And a lot of his content...
I see a lot of stuff for the first time from him.
And he and I disagree on the following question.
Now here's why this is so interesting.
Kyle Becker is really well informed.
I've been following him for a while.
I would say of people who follow the news and are really paying attention, he'd be in the top 2%, at least 5%, right?
I would say I'm probably in the top 5% of people who follow the news.
Does that seem fair, that people would do this for a living?
We're probably in the top 5% of just paying attention, right?
So he and I have both been paying attention and came to completely opposite opinions on what the news was telling us.
This is really interesting to me, and I don't know the answer.
Normally I'd be telling you that he's wrong.
Right? Obviously.
But I can't tell.
All I know is that he and I are looking at the same stuff, and we're saying completely different things.
And I don't know why.
Here's the topic.
Do vaccinated people spread the virus the same as unvaccinated?
Everything I've seen says that vaccinations vastly reduce the spread.
Everything I've seen.
Everything that Kyle has seen says the opposite.
What's up with that?
Now, I know he's a legitimate guy, right?
So if you're thinking, oh, Kyle's messed up or something, no, no.
He's a smart guy who is following the news every bit as much as I am, and maybe more, probably more, because this is more of a career for him than it is for me.
But in my view, I have only seen, only, with no exceptions, seen evidence that the vaccinated people are way less likely to transmit it.
And he's seen the opposite.
Can you explain that?
So I went to Google, and I Googled it.
And I just Googled the question.
You know, I forget the exact thing, but, you know, do vaccinated people spread the virus or something?
And when I looked at Google News, every single hit on the front page agreed with me.
Every hit, everyone agreed with me.
What was Kyle looking at?
So I asked him.
I said, and again, this is a polite discussion, right?
Because Kyle's a legitimate guy.
Like, he's smart, pays attention.
How the hell do we have a different opinion on the biggest question in the world?
It's the biggest question, right?
So I went over to DuckDuckGo.
Yeah, you're ahead of me.
To see if Google was just doing a fast one on us.
Because we've seen this over and over again, right?
You go to DuckDuckGo, and you'll get a whole different search results about what's a hoax and what's not.
So I go to DuckDuckGo, and I do exactly the same search, so I made sure I used the same search term, and got the same results.
They're in a little different order, but DuckDuckGo only has, only, has stuff that agrees with me.
So what's Kyle seeing?
And what are you all seeing?
Because Kyle's opinion agrees with a whole lot of you.
I know, because I hear you all the time.
What are you seeing?
I'm completely confused.
So, I dug into it a little bit, and I have maybe a hypothesis, but I think there are some studies that would suggest that people with vaccinations are spreading it just as much.
But... They are low-quality studies or misleading.
So I guess there was one in Boston of a bunch of people who went to public gatherings, and they somehow could do a retrospective and look and see that...
And they found that 75% of the people in these mass gatherings, 75% of them who caught the virus were vaccinated, which would agree with Kyle, right?
75%. Jesus, you're clueless.
Vet Vegas. Fucking asshole.
Goodbye. Remove.
By the way, you can tell me what I got wrong.
I'm pretty open to that.
But just the personal attacks, that just means you're having trouble accepting the fact that you're wrong about something.
I mean, that's really what's going on.
Like, if you're saying, Jesus, what's wrong with this guy?
It means you're experiencing cognitive dissonance most of the time.
All right, so there's one study that did show that 75% of the people who got infected were actually vaccinated.
But... What percentage of people who went there were probably vaccinated?
Probably high. Do the vaccinated people take more or less precautions?
Far less, far fewer precautions.
And so the people who know how to look at studies say, they looked at that study and they said, this is not a good study.
So one of the things that agrees with Kyle has been labeled a poor study.
And then I think there was another one that Kyle sent about spouses, that there was an identical rate of transmission among spouses, at least in one study, when one was vaccinated and one was not, versus two vaccinated or all the other combinations.
So it looked like among spouses that it didn't matter if you were vaccinated or not.
Your spread was about the same.
Now, do you believe that?
Here's the problem. That's a mystery on top of a mystery.
Because we already had a mystery of why spouses don't catch it.
Did you know that? That I think somewhere in the neighborhood of 25% of spouses will catch it from their spouse.
How do you not catch COVID from your spouse?
I mean, what kind of marriage do you have that you're so socially distanced from your own spouse that you can't get the catchiest, you know, the most spready virus of all time, and you can't give it to your spouse?
So here's the problem with that study.
It's a mystery on top of a mystery.
Because apparently whatever is happening with spouses, we fully don't understand why they don't all give it to each other like 80% of the time.
So I would say that doesn't really prove the case because it's a mystery on a mystery.
It's not a clean situation.
So I would say that Kyle did, in fact, see some studies that would suggest exactly his view that the vaxxed and unvaxxed spread at different rates.
But if you were to Google this and look what the, let's say, the mainstream, most common opinion of the experts is, it's not even close.
The experts are completely on the same side.
98%, 99%.
There's always a rogue.
But would you agree with the following statement?
That in every major country we know of, and all the major professionals...
Which is not to say they're right.
You don't have to agree that they're correct.
I'm just saying what they say.
It is true that all the experts are very clear...
That you don't spread it as much if you're vaccinated and it's not even close.
What do you think? Yeah.
Now, of course, if you disagree with the experts, that's pretty fair in 2021.
I think that's pretty fair.
I'm just telling you what they think.
So Kyle's view that there is lots of evidence out there is supported.
It is supported. He actually came up with some studies.
But in my opinion, which I would imagine could be full of confirmation bias, if not cognitive dissonance, in my opinion, those studies were lower quality.
than the ones that show there's a big difference.
Now, I am willing to change that opinion.
Follow the money. Good point.
Follow the money. If the money would suggest that we were all being fooled by these statistics, and it could, because the people who make the vaccinations probably are behind the data in a lot of cases.
So, could we be fooled as a nation?
Yes, we could. I don't think so.
I'd bet against it.
But we could be. Alright.
So, do you know what's mandatory in a pandemic?
We keep talking about all these mandates.
The government's going to put a mandate on us.
They're going to mandate masks.
They're going to mandate vaccinations.
They're going to mandate all kinds of stuff.
Well, let me suggest this standard.
For mandates. Before you even talk about whether to put one on or not, prior to even having the discussion of mandates, the ticket to get into the discussion, forget about the decision, the ticket even to have a conversation about putting mandates on the public, let me tell you what mandate I want.
I need to know what kind of financial ties our decision makers have to big pharma.
Not just the medical experts, but the decision makers.
I want to know the FDA, every health professional in the government and out.
I want to know what their connection is to the pharma companies that have a role in any of this stuff.
And here's my mandate.
Don't fucking ask me to do anything until you show me that.
Right? That's my mandate.
Don't fucking ask the public to do any fucking thing.
Nothing. No fucking thing until you show us that.
You do that, and we'll have a conversation about mandates.
We might not want them.
We may reject them for good reasons.
But we're not going to have a fucking conversation about it until you fix this.
We need to know who is making money off of this shit or get out of our lives.
Fuck you with your fucking mandates if you can't tell us this information.
You know we need to know this.
Everybody knows we need to know this.
Everybody knows this.
Everybody knows it's the most important fucking thing we need to know.
You all know it.
They're not going to give it to you.
So fuck you and your mandates until we have this information.
That's my take. So a lot of you are like, Scott, why are you so pro-mandates?
Fuck you. Fuck your misinformation.
Fuck the mandates. Fuck everybody in the government until you tell us this.
That's it. That's my stake.
Well, back to fun.
Um... Matt Gaetz told at least one person, Alexander Nazarian, is reporting on Twitter, that Matt Gaetz told them personally that if the Republicans take the House in 2022, that Gaetz will propose making Trump Speaker of the House, which apparently is completely constitutionally appropriate.
He doesn't have to be an elected official.
Now, This is actually a thing that can be done.
You just have to have the Republicans agree.
That's it. The entire standard, the only bar you'd have to exceed is that the Republicans would say, yeah, let's do that.
That's it. And he would be Speaker of the House.
Now, could he run for President while he's Speaker of the House?
Probably. I Probably.
I mean, usually when people are running for office, they take some time off, in effect, from their day job.
But Trump wouldn't have to.
Trump could run for president just by being Speaker of the House.
Because he'd be on TV all the time.
Does he need to do a rally?
Well, they're helpful. Probably could still do some.
But he wouldn't need to.
He'd just have to be Speaker of the House.
And I don't think that's going to happen because it's just too provocative.
I think the system would fall apart.
But fun to watch.
Well, here's a disturbing story from my backyard.
So this is driving distance from where I live in California.
So there was a black couple, Paula and Tanisha, And they were getting an estimate of their house, so they had their house appraised.
I guess they were thinking of selling it.
And the appraisal came back way less than they expected, because they'd put $400,000 worth of upgrades in it, but it didn't appraise for much more.
So they were thinking that they were victims of racism, because how could you put $400,000 worth of upgrades into a house And yet the house is only worth a little bit more.
How is that possible?
Do you know how that's possible?
Because that's the way it always happens.
For everybody. If you put $400,000 of upgrades into your house, you'll be happy living there, but it doesn't increase the value of your house.
Do you know who knows that?
Everybody who ever bought a house.
Look at the comments.
The people who know this.
Your house... It's going to be priced based on the comparables.
And your neighbor didn't put in any upgrades.
That's it. If your neighbor didn't upgrade, and he sold his house for X amount, and yours is the same square footage, and you're on the same block, that's your value.
So the first part of the story is absolute fake news bullshit.
There is no reason to suspect...
That the value of the home would go up because of their upgrades.
You all know that, right?
Well, I mean, now you know it.
It's a well-known, universally understood principle.
You've read lots of articles about it.
If you've ever put an upgrade into your home, as I have, and then sold it, do you know how much the upgrade got you?
Nothing. Do you know how many homes I have personally upgraded substantially and then sold?
Three so far. And they sold for about what they would have sold if I had done no upgrades.
Always. Maybe 10% more.
But that's about it. All right.
So the first part of this story is utter, absolute, complete bullshit.
But the second part of the story is really alarming.
What they did was they got a white friend, a woman, to pretend that she was the wife, and she was the only one there.
So they removed all the pictures that would have any kind of African art or pictures of the couple, and they put in white family pictures and made it look like the whitest home.
And then another appraiser came in and appraised it for half a billion dollars more.
What? What?
Half a million dollars more just because the house looked white a week later?
What? Now, if this were a repeatable thing...
This is about as bad as anything could be bad, right?
You don't have to worry about, you know, is there such a thing as, you know, racism or whatever kind of racism you want to call this?
Yes. If this is true, and it's part of a pattern, it's like the worst thing I've ever seen.
But... Do you ever have a case where two appraisers come up with different numbers?
Has that ever happened? Suppose those upgrades weren't permitted.
Do you know if the upgrades were permitted?
Because sometimes you might have to rip them out.
Do you know if the upgrades were done well?
Were they done by professionals?
Or were they done by maybe themselves?
So I would ask this question before I get excited about this.
How common is it to have two appraisals that are way different?
How common is it to have appraisals that are way different?
Well, there's a reason that sometimes you get two of them.
The reason is that sometimes they're wrong, right?
Do people ever get two appraisals because they don't like the first one?
Yes. Yes.
Very common.
So, does this one anecdotal situation tell you that there is massive racism in the real estate market?
Nope. Nope.
It does not tell you that.
But the news is selling it to you like it does.
Like, this is solid proof.
But, nope.
Nope. Nope, that's not here.
This information does not give us any information about this.
Now, let me give you some additional context.
I believe that this experiment has been tried multiple times.
And my understanding, I don't have a source for it, but my understanding is that this has been demonstrated to be a real thing.
And that it's sort of everywhere.
And you could reproduce it at will, pick a place, just do the same experiment, and you get similarly shocking, I mean, just shocking results.
Now, I don't know if any of those studies were valid, because we're in a world where we don't trust anything, especially studies.
But I would only caution you that you can't make anything from this one anecdote except the one thing you can get from anecdotes.
Which is it raises a gigantic flag.
I mean, I'd want to know if this is real.
Not just this example.
But I'd want to know, is this happening?
Still? In 2021-22?
Are we really, really this racist?
I'd hate to think so.
But all evidence suggests we probably are.
All right. So, that again is another example of me...
Not having a binary opinion.
So half the people will think I was just a racist, and half of the people will say I was very reasonable.
Hello from Nigeria, Stefan.
Racism is usually just pattern recognition.
Correct. Because your brains are pattern recognition machines.
You can't turn that off.
So being racist is not sort of an option.
Either your brain has pattern recognition or you're dead.
And our pattern recognition is not good.
So when we have pattern recognition, it doesn't mean we're accurate about it.
It just means it's happening. But they identify wrong patterns.
That is correct. So part of the problem with racism is that we see incorrect patterns, but we're sure they're real.
Is there a difference between racism and affinitism?
Yes. Yes, there is.
All right. I think that's all I have for today.
Did I miss anything? There's never been a better show.
I think you're completely correct.
The best show that there's ever been in all of history in the world.
Boo is doing great, and she's taking her medicines by mouth, so I might be able to get that feeding tube out now.
Epstein. You know, the Epstein thing isn't interesting me, weirdly.
They're going to have to throw in some new accusations about famous people to get me interested again.
If it's just more...
Creepy Epstein stuff coming out.
There's just more of it. I'm going to tell my grandchildren about this episode one day.
Say hey to Christina.
I will. Do you think we'd get even more drastic differences as the pictures in the home showed a short guy and then they swapped him for a hot woman?
Well, I wondered about that.
Who was the white woman that the black couple asked to pretend it was her?
And was she unusually attractive?
That's a fair question.
You don't think that attractive people get higher valuations for their homes?
Have you ever tried eating with an attractive person?
Makes the food taste better.
I hate to say it.
Can anybody confirm that?
If you have a meal with a highly attractive person, it makes the food taste better.
Shouldn't, but it does.
Yeah, look at all the yeses going by.
Right, so if you're appraising a house and you walk in and you see a beautiful person there, male or female, they're just beautiful, do they get a higher appraisal?
Probably. Now, to be fair, the black couple that was pictured in the story were an attractive couple.
So it wouldn't be attractiveness, I don't think, in this case.
But it's a good question, right?
The black couple was quite attractive, so I don't think that was the problem exactly.
You can't have your view vaccines reduce spread and believe that we should have more infection and death now.
you know Yeah, you can. Those are not incompatible.
Those are very compatible concepts.
It's just math.
I mean, I won't run through it, but yeah, the math is that you can have those two things.
Well, that's a dark comment there.
All right. Thought you were removing all family pictures when you staged a home.
Oh, good point.
All right, good point on YouTube.
Somebody on YouTube says, isn't it typical to remove all your family pictures when you're putting it up for sale?
Yes, but not when you're getting it appraised.
Am I right? Somebody in real estate might have to answer this for me.
I think if you're showing it to people, you get rid of the family pictures so that they can imagine themselves living there more easily.
But for appraisals, I don't think you remove that stuff for appraisals.
I'm seeing some yeses.
You would approve?
I mean, if the timing was right, I guess you'd prefer it, but I don't think you'd necessarily need to do it.
Because imagine, suppose they were just getting a refinance.
Yeah, they might have been just getting a refinance.
What percent do you think the vaccine reduces transmission and for, what, one month?
Well, we know the vaccines wear off if you don't get the booster.
The experts are saying it's five times less likely or five times more likely to spread it if you're That's what the experts say.
My own opinion isn't useful, because what would that be?
Yeah, I haven't been talking too much about defund the police and the wave of crime, except I'm a little concerned that the crime wave doesn't exist.
Gutfeld said he took down anything with Fox News on it.
Yeah, you would certainly have to do that.
All right. Where is the supply chain?
It looks like the supply chain worked itself out.
By the way, some of you knew that I was trying to buy a Ford vehicle for a family member, and I couldn't get it, and I couldn't even get them to tell me if it was ordered or when it would come.
But I tweeted about it, And it turns out if you have enough followers and you tweet about a service problem, you get a lot of action.
So I think all of Northern California Ford is working on my problem right now.
This might be them right now.
So I have heard from a number of executives at Ford that they are working on it, and my specific car has a commodity problem.
Meaning that there's at least one part that they can't get.
So they can't do the build of the car because they can't get a part.
I don't know what part it is. Probably chips.
Probably chips. Yeah, it's a Mustang.
Probably chips. Now, by the way, and let me say this.
I want to say this as clearly as possible.
Ford's a great company.
It's a great American company, and I'm a big fan of their products.
I love their design, especially.
For the price level of their products, they have the best design at that price level for everything, I think.
And they also were very responsive at a corporate level, you know, as soon as they heard of my complaint.
And they're all over it, trying to figure out what's going on.
My only complaint was communication.
I didn't have a complaint that I had to wait.
Did not have a complaint about that.
Because it's a problem everywhere, right?
It almost sounded like maybe they were treating me special because of the prominence of my complaint.
And I actually asked them not to.
I said, you know, I'm not asking for special treatment.
I really don't want to go to the front of the line because it's not like, you know, it's not like some basic necessity that I'm lacking or something.
It's literally a luxury expense.
And if other people need their, I don't know, Ford truck to go to work or something.
I'd much rather wait at the end of the line.
So I don't need it. I just wanted to know.
I just wanted to know what the situation was.
And now they've told me. So I'm all happy.
If I've ever told you this standard, I don't know if I have, but I would like to share it with you as my closing thought today.
People make mistakes.
If that makes you mad...
You're going to have a terrible life.
Your life is just going to be trash.
If you're mad about people's mistakes, because we all make them.
And sometimes it's not intentional.
It just happens. But you can definitely judge people by how they respond to their mistakes.
I don't judge people by mistakes.
Ever. Because everybody makes them.
But you can totally judge them by how they responded.
And Ford responded aggressively well.
So, A+. Right?
Any errors or omissions are completely forgiven.
That's just my philosophy.
Now, I realize it departs from reality a little bit, because sometimes mistakes actually have to be condemned.
But as a philosophy for staying sane and being as good a person as I can in a bad world, I just try to judge people by how they handle the mistakes.
That's it. That's my only standard for other people.
Everything else, it's not for me to judge them.
All right, that's all for now, and I will say bye to YouTube, and I'll talk a little bit more to my friends here on Locals.
