Episode 1590 Scott Adams: Science Has Proven That Talking About the Pandemic Makes it Worse. 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:
Olympic records and trans athletes
Rising crime and COVID in Austin Texas
CBO cost projection for Biden's BBB
Return to normal, accept the deaths
COVID plume, ventilation, talking, age
Pandemic stopping suggestions
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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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Good morning, everybody, and welcome to another exciting episode of Coffee with Scott Adams.
And I dare say this will be the best one you've ever experienced.
Possibly the best thing that's ever happened in the entire solar system, at least.
That's the part we know about.
Could be more surprises a few parsecs away.
That's my new word for the day, parsecs.
And... We will talk about all that.
But if you want to enjoy this at the maximum potential, and why wouldn't you?
I mean, you're already the sexiest and most well-informed and smartest people on earth.
Why wouldn't you want to take it to another level?
You would. And all you need is a cup or mug or a glass, a tank or chalice or stein, a canteen jug or a flask, a vessel of any kind.
Fill it with your favorite liquid.
I like coffee. And join me now.
For the unparalleled pleasure.
The dopamine hit of the day.
The thing that's going to make everything better.
It's called the simultaneous sip and watch it do its work.
Go! Mmm.
Antibodies. Scott's finally awake.
You know, the trouble is I've been blocking people who say, Scott's finally waking up.
But now I can't tell who's joking, because so many people are saying it as a joke now.
It all looks the same.
All right, well, there's new news today that Andrew, not Andrew, but Chris Cuomo, was apparently reportedly, according to anonymous sources, now, let's be fair, if there were anonymous sources saying something about Trump, would you believe it?
No. Because anonymous sources have no credibility whatsoever.
But CNBC has some anonymous sources, which if it weren't already in the news, I wouldn't even talk about it because the credibility of these things is so low.
But accordingly to this source, Chris Cuomo worked with his brother's top aides To discredit Fox News meteorologist Janice Dean, because she was a big critic of the governor, you know, Chris Cuomo's brother, for his handling of the nursing homes and her family members who died there.
Now, do you think that's true?
Do you think they, quote, targeted somebody because she was talking out?
Would that even work?
You know, she was already talking out, and we'll suppose it was a hit piece saying that she had, I don't know, strangled a puppy or something.
Suppose they could come up with some kind of a hit piece on her.
Would that have stopped her from talking?
I don't know. That feels like a bad play.
Like such a bad play that you wouldn't even really consider it.
You know, if you're operating at the level of a sitting governor...
Or a host on CNN. Aren't you smarter than that?
I mean, I definitely can see going after pundits who are sort of full-time pundits.
Both sides are going after the pundits on either side.
So it makes sense that the right was going after Chris Cuomo and the left was going after Tucker Carlson.
That makes sense.
But this Janice Dean thing was such a special case.
It was about deaths in her own family.
You can't shut somebody up about a death in their own family.
And it's not like she was some continuous critic of all things Cuomo.
She just had one very specific complaint that was quite valid.
Do you really...
I feel as if...
Yeah, they died. Her relatives died in the nursing home.
Was it in-laws? I can't remember.
But... I don't believe this story.
I don't believe this story.
And the reason I don't believe it is that it wouldn't make sense for people who operate at this level of understanding politics to take out somebody who had deaths in the family and really just had one topic of complaint.
You couldn't really take that person out.
I don't know. But it does suggest that maybe it's a thing...
If this were true, it would suggest that taking out critics is an ongoing conversation.
I am so curious how many conversations have happened about me.
Are you? Don't you wonder, like, who exactly is looking to take me out?
Because it's not nobody.
I just don't know if it's a lot or anybody who knows how to do it or anybody who'd be good at it.
I'd love to know what the secret file on me is.
Like, what is it that somebody's already found out?
Or made up, I suppose.
More likely made up. I don't know.
I would think that the top, I don't know, 20 or so effective people on each side are all targeted one way or the other.
I'm definitely in the top 20% of effective persuaders.
So anyway, a little doubt on that one.
There was a Mike Cernovich tweet that I loved.
And the reason I love it is just because I like making trouble.
Can I be honest?
There are some topics in which I get all outraged about, like anybody would.
And there are some topics that I think are just funny, even though I know they're kind of serious.
So as long as nobody's dying or getting hurt, I often will find humor in things that other people are taking quite seriously.
And the topic here is the trans swimmer, a woman, by designation and by preference, and she would say by nature.
But it was somebody who was born and raised male and had all the testosterone advantage of that.
And so this person is just breaking all the swimming records at the college where she attends.
And... The teams are very unhappy about that because they have no chance of winning if she's in the competition.
And this is what Mike Cernovich tweeted about this.
He goes, can't wait for this brave hero to break all the Olympic records for women's swimming.
To which I say, could that happen?
Could that happen?
I mean, do the Olympics have rules that would prevent this?
And what's going to happen to the Olympics?
Because in the Olympics, why would you ever...
You know, if the Olympics allowed this, I'm saying no's, but what specifically is the rule that would disallow it, and how long can that rule last?
Would the United States have to pull out because they're discriminating?
They used to have rules.
It's allowed. So there's some difference in the comments.
Somebody says no rules.
So why would any country field a woman's team that wasn't all trans?
Why would you even do it?
If the whole point is to win.
The Olympics are pretty much about winning, right?
It's not so much about competing.
The whole point of the Olympics is winning.
Sure, sure. It's all about fellowship, which sounds sexist.
East Germans used to do that, did they?
I don't know if they actually had trans athletes.
I think they just had injections, didn't they?
Anyway, I don't know the history of that.
But the thing that amuses me is that I think the Olympics should be cancelled just because it's ridiculous.
It gives people the absolute wrong message in life.
It's the opposite of the message that I give people.
My message is, don't try to be the number one person in the world as some specific thing, because you're probably not going to be.
Instead, put together a set of talents that will serve you well in a variety of situations throughout your life.
And if somebody focuses all their time on, like, throwing a javelin, Then they end up being a certain age and they have one skill.
They can throw a pointy stick.
Good luck with that.
It's a terrible life strategy.
Now, if you win the Olympics and get a gold medal, you might be able to parlay that into something.
But there's only one person every year who gets that gold medal for javelin throwing, to pick one example.
So I think Olympics are a terrible...
Terrible role models.
Just the worst role models in the world.
They're wasting their lives preparing for something that doesn't have any practical use.
So that's my opinion.
And so when I see the potential that the trans situation could completely break the Olympics, I just think it's kind of funny.
I don't know. I don't feel proud about that.
I mean, I'm not saying you should think it's funny.
It's probably just a defect in my personality that I like trouble.
But if it's bad for the Olympics, I'm all in for it.
Here's a question for you.
Remember I told you many, many times that you can have any worldview you want, because our view of the reality is completely subjective.
Well, 95% subjective.
You can have any one you want, but you should pick one that predicts.
Because the best filter on life for understanding it is the one that has a good record of predicting things.
If you thought that Trump was definitely going to jail for all of his many, many, many so obvious crimes, are you confused that it hasn't happened yet?
Aren't you wondering why the news told you that he was definitely going to jail?
Oh, if there's one thing we know for sure, all these crimes, I mean, I can't even list them all.
Give me a longer piece of paper and a couple of sharp pencils, because I don't have time to list all the felonies President Trump has created.
So, has he been handcuffed yet?
Nope. Was there anything he did that looks like it's going to be a legal problem?
Haven't seen it. Have you?
But there are secret investigations going on, and wait till we get those taxes, and wait till we get those extra testimonies about January 6th.
We're almost there. Almost.
And then we never get there.
Yeah. Somebody in the comments says, Trump will share a cell with Matt Gaetz.
Do you think Matt Gaetz is going to actually go to jail for any crimes?
I don't think so.
Whatever it is they have on him looks political.
Just like Gaetz should play games all day in hopes of being the next shroud.
Yeah. Yeah, anything where you're trying to be the best in the world or even the top ten is pretty tough.
Now, I know that sounds funny coming from me, because in the world of cartooning, I'm in the top ten of working cartoonists.
Maybe not in the top ten of all cartoonists of all time, but of people who are still alive and still making comic strips.
I'm in the top ten. So do I look like a violation of my own theory?
No, because the way I got here was with a talent stack, where I'm not the greatest at anything, but you put them together and they work pretty well as a combination.
So look at me as an example of a talent stack, not of being the best at anything in particular.
Here's some CNN fake news.
But it's real. It's fake news because of the way it's presented, but all the details, I think, are real.
So there's no question about any of the facts.
Just the way it's presented is a little fake.
All right, here's the topic.
Rising murders in cities.
Rising murder in cities.
And this is on CNN. Now, does that surprise you?
The CNN would do a pretty big feature on the rising crime, especially murders, in cities.
So a story like that is going to be talking about all these blue cities, right?
Yeah, all these blue cities with their bad governance causing all the crime by defunding the police and stuff like that, right?
That's probably the story you're expecting.
Here's the headline. Austin, Texas.
This is CNN. One of the fastest growing cities in the country.
The capital of Texas.
Fuck you, Texas. That's what they're saying.
Is nearing the end of its deadliest year on record in 2021.
As cities nationwide are experiencing...
Oh, can you name another city?
What would be an example of another city that's not in Texas?
How about picking one that's not in Texas?
No, let's focus on Texas.
So they find this city in Texas, presumably a red city, right?
Austin isn't blue, is it?
Can anybody confirm that?
Oh, it is blue.
It's the one blue dot.
I was wondering about that.
Okay, so people in the comments are saying that Austin is blue, but that's even better.
All right, so that's even better for the point I was going to make, which is, why did they pick Texas for the focus?
Because Texas has a lot of gun rights, right?
So they're making a story.
So the emphasis of their story is that the problem in Texas, in their capital city, is guns and COVID. So you've got a big problem in Texas with all the guns and the bad treatment of COVID, I guess. Here's the other way this story could have been done.
The biggest problem in Texas is the only blue city, according to you guys, and I'm going to assume you're right about that.
Defunding the police probably made more problems in other places, but basically everywhere you've got Democrat leadership, you've got trouble.
That's how Fox News tells the same story.
So we have one story about rising violence in the country, and if you look at how the left covers it, it's something wrong with the right, and how the right covers it, it's something wrong with the left.
Anyway, I just thought that was hilariously, overtly propaganda-ish.
On both sides, by the way.
On both sides.
So it's not like one side is doing propaganda on this.
But I do think Fox News is probably closer to a correct context.
What do you think? Do you think that...
I'll call it the Fox News take, which is it's the blue cities that are clearly the ones with problems.
Is that fair? First of all, does that pass the fact check?
I haven't done any research on it myself.
Yeah. Okay.
Well, that's enough on that. I think I gave some terrible advice on Twitter yesterday for the first time.
For the first time. Aviva Frye was...
Jokingly tweeting that he was considering cursing on Twitter.
And that he thought better of it because he realized that his kids' friends see him on Twitter too, so maybe he won't.
Here's my advice, because I feel like I may have accidentally hurt some of you.
Like actually, like in a bad way, career-wise or even socially or something.
And here's how I might have done it.
Don't tweet the way I do.
Because I worry that people see me tweeting, and I have a lot of followers, and I get a lot of retweets and stuff, and people say, oh, it's working out for him.
I think I'll be provocative, too.
Don't do it if it's not your job.
It's my job to be provocative, because essentially it's a marketing strategy for what I do, which is all public.
If you do things in public for a job, which is the only thing I do, I try to attract attention to make my business model work, right?
So if you have what I call F.U. money, So if I got banned from Twitter tomorrow, it wouldn't make much difference.
It's not going to prohibit me from getting a job somewhere, right?
But if you do, you might not get a job.
If you say something that's a little too far on Twitter...
You know, your dating prospects will be lower.
Your ability to run for office will be destroyed.
So don't use me as a role model for how provocative to be.
And definitely don't use me as a role model for how much you should curse.
Now, I know Viva was joking, but it made me think that there might be people here who are saying, and I can think of one in particular that I think maybe got in trouble with it.
You know, one person who might have said, I think I'll tweet like him.
And I don't think that works for the rest of you.
So I'm just going to say, just know that the way I do it is because I'm literally a professional in this domain, and I can take risks that you can't.
At least reasonably, I can take risks that you can't.
So don't be like me when it comes to tweeting or swearing.
I told you before that CNN was replacing Chris Cuomo with Smirconish, at least temporarily.
I don't know what they'll do in the long run.
And I told you that Smirconish is rare on CNN. Oh, I'm seeing Matt is saying that Sertowicz and Pasabek made the same point.
Good. Good for them.
That is something we all should have warned you about sooner, I think.
I feel like we all let you down.
Honestly. So Smirkanish is, like I said, the most balanced reporter on CNN by far.
There's nobody in his class, I don't think, who's balanced.
And He just went hard at Biden.
He went really hard at Biden.
Now, he does it professionally.
It doesn't look at all like propaganda.
It looks like he's just laying out the facts.
But unfortunately, the facts are not working for Biden at the moment.
Here's what Smirkanish is saying.
And he's mentioning that the revised CBO score, the...
What does CBO stand for?
The... Congressional Budget Office?
CBO? Congressional Budget Office, right?
Yeah, okay. The Congressional Budget Office.
So that's the entity that looks at all the budget propositions, proposals, and says what will happen to the economy if you do this or don't do this.
And so they scored this Biden's Build Back Better bill.
Biden's Build Back Better bill.
I've got to say that at least one more time because it's too much fun.
Biden's Build Back Better bill.
And unlike the first estimate that said it would be closer to revenue neutral, meaning it wouldn't increase the deficit, it would actually help more than it hurt, the Republicans cleverly asked for this.
Now, I would like to give the Republicans some kudos.
I'm not sure exactly which Republicans were behind it, but thank you.
Thank you for good governance.
And what the Republicans did is said, hey, CBO, can you run this again?
Except this time make the following assumption.
That the temporary programs are not temporary.
That they'll last at least 10 years.
Turns out that if you make that completely realistic assumption, because the government is not good at discontinuing giveaways, right?
If you do it with a more realistic assumption that the temporary stuff lasts forever, or at least 10 years, which in financial terms, 10 years is forever.
How many of you don't know that?
Let me put that out there.
Most of you don't have any experience in financial projections, but I have a lot of it for my corporate life.
Ten years in the future is the same as infinity when you're doing a financial projection.
Because after ten years, nothing's predictable after that.
Nothing. The predictability drops to zero at about ten years.
So the Republicans, quite smartly, Picked pretty much the exact right number.
Ten years. Because you get the same benefit as if it had been a forever calculation without being stupid about it, right?
Because infinity is always a bad assumption.
So very smart, very realistic ask of the CBO. And when they scored it with these more realistic Republican assumptions, it turned out to increase the deficit by $3 trillion, right?
Dream King, you're going away.
Scott Adams has gone downhill.
I've always been downhill, asshole.
Goodbye. Also, don't do this the way I do it.
I also block a lot of people, but as was noted on Twitter today, I block people because it's part of the show.
It's, you know, maybe bad for the people who get blocked, but I don't care.
They all have it coming.
So when I block, I always tell you why, and I just make you part of the show.
But if you're not doing that, you know, you might not want to block people like I do.
So it's notable that Smyrkonish gave the correct context for this story.
I know that sounds weird...
You know, a new show is supposed to give you context, but it doesn't happen that much.
I just told you a story where it didn't happen on that Austin story.
But Smirkanish is good with context.
And I'm going to call him...
I'm going to give him kudos for that.
He goes on to say that now that the Build Back Better bill looks like a dog...
And it looks like Joe Manchin is going to say no.
And here's why Joe Manchin is saying no to build back better.
He says that they used budget tricks to make it look good.
So he's a Democrat who's calling out the Democrats for using budget tricks, which is what the Republicans called them out for, too.
Literally a trick to make something very expensive look like it's free.
And so, do you remember, how many of you remember me telling you that Joe Manchin is actually running the country?
Before he was actually running the country.
Now it's very clear.
He basically makes Congress's decisions for him.
Probably one of the best decisions I've ever, or predictions I've made, is that this one guy, by being the smartest guy, I hate to say it, but At least on the Democrat side, he is the smartest Democrat.
And here's why he's the smartest.
He realized that the world had simply handed him power.
And then he's responsibly using it.
He's responsibly using...
The immense power that the United States just handed him, somewhat accidentally, because of the coincidental balance of power, and coincidentally he's one of the few people with Kyrsten Sinema who will cross the line.
So, I don't know if I can say enough good things about Joe Manchin right now.
I feel like he's holding the country together single-handedly.
Now, you know how great power corrupts?
Power corrupts and great power corrupts, absolutely.
Somehow, the universe handed Joe Manchin great power.
Like, really great power.
So far, he is handling it responsibly, in my opinion.
Now, that doesn't mean he makes the same decisions you make.
That's a different standard.
The standard is, is he being the patriot that we want him to be, Democrat and all, right?
He may not be on your political side, But is he being a patriot in exactly the way you wish any American would have been if they found themselves in this situation?
I say yes.
I say yes.
So I don't know if I've ever given a Democrat this much credit, but if you had a Patriot of the Year award, to me, he'd be it.
He'd be it. Crossing party lines for the benefit of the country.
Literally the only person doing it in the whole, well, Kyrsten Sinema, too.
So we'll give her credit, too.
Let's not be sexist.
Let's not be sexist.
Give all the credit to Joe Manchin.
Kyrsten Sinema's doing the same.
All right. Then Biden and Smirkanish is calling out Biden for this.
Which is, again, is weird to see it on CNN. Biden, there was a clip where Biden says, the economy is doing great in every way, in every way except inflation.
That's right. The economy is doing great in every way except inflation.
That's what Biden says.
Meaning that the economy is great except we all can buy less stuff.
Or at least the low-income people can buy less of the stuff.
That's exactly what a bad economy looks like.
The whole point of the economy is to buy more stuff.
You know, I'm simplifying.
But if your economy is going great, but you all have less money to buy stuff, that feels exactly like the opposite of a good economy.
I mean, I suppose it's good for, you know, paying for our military in some ways like that.
But if you're just a family or a person and you're just trying to buy stuff, it's definitely worse for you.
And then Sumerkaner showed the actual inflation category, so he was driving that point home.
And so, anyway...
Good job, Smirconish.
I wonder if he can last on CNN by being actually even-handed and showing context.
I don't know if you can survive on the network if you keep doing that.
I guess we'll find out. All right, here's my new...
I'll put this on the watch list.
I'm not totally convinced of this, but I'm watching it.
You know, I like to tell you the ways to spot cognitive dissonance, because people use similar language when they're in it.
And here are a couple that I think are showing me cognitive dissonance.
Could be something else.
Could be a false signal.
But here's what I think. When people tell me, as I talk about risk management during the pandemic, when people tell me that I'm, quote, panicking, that I'm panicking, About the virus.
And I think to myself, I was actually thinking to myself, I can't think of any time I've ever worried about death.
Does anybody else have that experience?
Like my whole life, I can't think of any time I've ever worried about dying.
Yeah, and I think it might be unusual.
I definitely worry about getting hurt.
So I'm not trying to tell you I'm without fear.
I have, you know, normal amount, I think.
You know, standard amount of fear, pretty average.
So I worry about, you know, injury.
You know, I'm going to wear a helmet if I use a motorcycle, etc.
But I don't think I've...
I can't think of any time in my life I've worried about death, per se.
And so when people, and twice today, people told me I was panicking.
Just today, two people told me I'm panicking.
And if you look at the whole week, it's just person after person, you're panicking, you're panicking.
And I think that this might be cognitive dissonance.
Because cognitive dissonance makes you hallucinate the things that aren't there.
And I think this is a hallucination that somebody just talking about risk management who wants the mandates to go away, as I do.
I want the mandates to go away.
And I think we're already at a point where we should just, you know, go back to normal because we got the therapeutics, etc.
You know, keep an eye on the ICUs, but get back to normal.
So I think I'm about as close as you can get to not being panicked as anything's ever been.
And because my fear of the whole pandemic is, you know, reduced to not much anything at this point.
So I think that's a tell.
If the only way you can explain my opinion is by imagining I'm panicking, which is not an evidence in any way, then you're probably hallucinating because there's something in your own thinking that's not working.
There's a There's a connection that's missing.
So you just hallucinate to fill in the connection.
Here's another one.
Also said of me many times, and you've probably watched me block people in real time, he's starting to come around.
Said about me, he's starting to come around.
Oh, took you long enough to figure out that the vaccinations are all about the money or something.
To which I say, I was always there.
So was everybody.
Not only was I always concerned that, you know, the pharmaceutical companies might put profits over safety.
Everybody was.
There's nobody who didn't consider that.
So I'm not coming around to the idea that the vaccinations might be dangerous.
They're simply different information.
There's more information.
We have therapeutics.
There are alternatives now.
There's absolutely nothing about the situation that looks the same as it did at the beginning.
So if your opinion didn't change, there's something wrong with you.
I mean, I should have modified a little bit.
If you have exactly the same opinion you had at the beginning, you have some explaining to do.
So, no, I didn't come around.
That's actually a hallucination.
I've always been exactly where I am now.
I just have different information.
Alright. Here's another bad argument.
I like to call out bad arguments that agree with me.
Now normally people call out bad arguments that disagree with them.
But I feel embarrassed being on the same side as any bad arguments.
Do you ever have that feeling? Like your own argument you feel is pretty solid?
But there are people who agree with you, who have terrible arguments, and you're like, oh, don't tar me with that.
I don't want to be part of that.
I don't understand your comment, Chad.
It's a little over my head.
So here's the argument that I hate, because I don't want to be associated with it, even though it agrees with me, that...
Twitter user Paisano said this today, and this is just representative of people who say it all the time.
Maybe if we all stopped reading and viewing all the misinformation and hyperbole about viruses that have always been with us, then we can stop the irrational panic pandemic over something that's been 99% survivable.
Now, what do you think of that argument?
That we should stop panicking about it, which I didn't think I was, because 99% survive.
Is that a good argument?
Well, here's my problem with it.
1% of the population of Earth, if we imagine that everybody gets it eventually, because we're now past pandemic into endemic, beginning of endemic, endemic means basically everybody gets it.
So 7.8 billion people on Earth, 1% of them would be 78 million people, roughly the same number as died in World War II. Should we ignore...
A risk that's the size of World War II. Now, as someone pointed out, the population of Earth was far smaller during World War II, so their percentage of death was higher and touched more people.
True. But when you're talking about fatalities, percentages are sometimes inappropriate.
Because if somebody you know dies, that's just a death.
It's not a percentage, right?
So I think the total number, the raw number, is a little more what I would focus on than the percentage of people died.
You know, they both have their point, but...
It's a real person, right?
I want to count them. I don't want to just say, oh, well, it's only 1%.
So that's the first thing that bothers me is just thinking of deaths and percentages, even though we have to.
Obviously, I do it too. But as a focus, it's sort of obnoxious.
And here's what I would prefer.
And I know some of you are going to say, oh, I got the numbers wrong because it's well under 99 and it's stratified and it's the people with comorbidities.
It's not children.
And I agree with all that.
But my only point is, if you're going to make that argument, just do it honestly.
Just do it honestly.
Here's the honest version of the 1% argument.
It says the same thing, but it's more honest about it.
And it goes like this. Just say that you don't care if tens of millions of people die because that's not worth it to limit the freedom of everybody, and especially because many of them will be older.
If you say that directly, then I'm okay with that, at least as a coherent opinion.
You know, I could disagree with it, but it's a coherent opinion.
What I don't like is saying that you want everything to open up and pretending like that's not going to have any impact on people dying.
So let me say my own opinion in the most honest way I can.
I think we should go back to normal because we have the therapeutics and all that.
Keep the people who have the worst risks.
They can take a little more care.
But I would go back to something like normal with the full understanding that at least a million people will die.
It could be a lot more.
It could be 5 million.
It could be 10 million. But I'll say it directly.
If you can't say it directly, I don't know if you belong in the conversation.
Ron says that's a dumb take.
Ron, if you had said almost anything else, I wouldn't be blocking you right now.
Goodbye. It's the risk, stupid, and who gets to assess it?
Well, here's my point.
You should be able to say both the good and the bad of your decision.
The good of my decision is that we get back to normal life, most of us.
The bad is that maybe five million people would die.
They wouldn't necessarily die the same way.
Maybe there'd be a different five million if you kept everything closed and the economy sucked.
But what do you think?
What do you think it might take?
That I don't have a problem with the 99% survivability, as long as you're willing to take it to its obvious context, which is you prefer freedom over the lives of 5 or 10 million people that maybe you don't know.
I'll say it directly.
I'll say it directly.
But if you can't say it directly, I just have a problem with your argument.
Alright, I have two solutions for completely ending the pandemic.
I know some of you think it's already over, but just bear with me here because this is fun to talk about.
So the next thing I'm going to talk about, I know a lot of you turn it off when it's virus stuff, but we're going to talk about the engineering and the logic of something, which I think is way more interesting than just the usual lockdown, no lockdown, blah, blah. Here is a question I asked, and I believe everybody got the wrong answer.
And I want to walk through it with you and see what you think.
So I asked, and again, this is a non-realistic situation just to isolate your thinking.
This is not about the real world.
So I'm going to give you a very artificial situation that can never exist in the real world.
You've got two choices.
You know you're in a room with somebody who has COVID. So that's the first unrealistic thing, because if you knew they had COVID, you would probably get out of the room.
But suppose you were in a room with somebody you knew had COVID, and you had two choices for dealing with it.
And again, this is artificial constraint.
You always have more choices than this.
But one is to open one window, just one.
And the other is to turn on the ceiling fan, but leave the windows closed.
Now, it's not a sealed room with no ventilation.
Let's say it's the winter, probably the heating is going and circulating stuff.
And if it's the summer, maybe the AC is going, whatever.
So it's a closed room, but with the normal circulation of a closed room.
So which one would be more dangerous in the comments?
Your closed room with the fan, but of course there's some circulation.
Or the open window, no fan.
Now, based on what I saw on Twitter, almost all of you are going to say open window.
But I'm seeing more people say fan.
Interesting. All right, here's how you would decide this, I think.
And I need some help with this.
What is more dangerous?
A plume, in other words, the virus that's coming out of a speaker's mouth, like going directly into your face, is that more dangerous than simply being in a room Where the average of the air has some virus in it, which is more dangerous.
A plume, or being in a room that's got a rising amount of virus in it, the longer you're there, but it's just sort of spread out.
Those of you who said plume might be right, but doesn't it depend how long you're in the room?
If you're in the room for five minutes, the plume is definitely worse.
All agree? If you're only in the room for five minutes, plume is worse than ambient or whatever it is, background virus.
I think we'd all agree with that.
But what if you're in the room for an hour?
And apparently there are CO2 sensors you can buy, they're kind of expensive, 600 bucks or so, that you can put on the table in your conference room and it will actually show you a light to tell you when your CO2 has reached a certain level.
Now, if the CO2 reaches a certain level, that tells you the ventilation is not good because the exhaling hasn't left the room.
Your exhaling has started to build up in the room if the CO2 is building up.
Now, would the virus amount in the room build up in lockstep with the CO2?
What do you think?
Yeah, I still don't understand, Chad.
I'm sorry, I don't understand your context.
But I appreciate that you're adding the details.
So I appreciate when somebody tries to put the details in a comment, even if I don't get them all.
I mean, that's the way to go.
So here's my question for the experts, and this is my missing piece of data.
How many people get COVID just by being in a room for any length of time?
Compared to the number of people who get it when they know they were talking to somebody with a plume.
Take Chris Christie.
Do you think Chris Christie got COVID from Trump allegedly?
Because he was in the room?
Or because at some point Trump spoke directly to him and plumed him?
Right? Trump probably plumed everybody in that room.
At one point or another, he was probably talking directly to everybody who got infected.
No, we don't know. We're speculating a little bit.
So, here's idea number one for ending the pandemic.
Have the following rule.
If you can't open a window, and you don't have really high-level ventilation like an airplane does, if you can't open a window, you have to have a fan on.
That's it. And then the pandemic's over.
Because in my opinion, a fan would dissipate the plumes so effectively that you'd have to be in that room a long time to get COVID from the background distributed stuff.
Now, this is, of course, hypothesis.
I don't know that anybody has the data that could say this is right or wrong yet.
But you could A-B test it, couldn't you?
Could you not... Say, all right, the following rooms this winter, we will have fans on, and it'll be a representative of a bunch of people using this room.
And then there are other ones that we won't have a fan on.
It'll just be the normal circulation.
And we'll see which one produces more infections.
I feel like you could test it.
And I feel pretty strongly that if you could get COVID simply by being on the other side of the room from somebody who has it, we would all already have it.
Why do only 25% of spouses get it when the spouse has it?
Why do you think that is?
Well, that dovetails into my next way to solve the pandemic.
You ready for this? We are very aware that breathing can exhale the virus, right?
But do we not believe that talking is the primary spreading method?
Fact check me.
Is that not well understood that the talking and singing in particular, talking loudly and singing, are those two things not the primary thing that spreads it from the spreader?
Right? I think that's true, right?
Now, if you have to be talking to spread it, and only 25% of spouses are giving it to each other, does that sound wrong?
Because I've got a feeling that that makes perfect sense.
Under the assumption which is not confirmed, The spreading is, let's say spreading is 80% of how you, let's say talking is 80% of how you give it to somebody.
Do you think that that would hold up?
Just a guess. But suppose talking is 80% of it.
I think it could be.
That would completely explain the 25%.
You know, I was teasing the other day that when you're married or in a relationship, your spouse will try to talk to you while you're standing next to running water in the next room.
Because that's how spouses talk to each other.
They shout at each other in the other room.
Or they talk to you as you're walking by.
Or they'll yell something to you that you need to know before you get in the car.
Or, you know, you're opening the door to leave and your spouse in the kitchen says, oh, you know, today, blah, blah, blah, remember this.
I'll bet spouses don't talk close to each other very often if they've been married a while.
You know, if you just took the number of people who don't have sex in a two-week period, right, take the number of married people who don't have sex in a two-week period, right, And don't even sleep in the same bed often because of snoring and other things.
I'm not sure that we should be surprised that only 25% of spouses get it if talking closely is how it's mostly spread.
I mean, that would explain it completely, right?
Because if you're in, let's say, a beginning relationship, you get really close to each other and talk a lot.
But if you're married, you kind of shout at each other as you're walking by, and you're lucky if you have sex every two weeks if you've been in a standard marriage for a long time.
So, I don't know.
So here is my second suggestion for ending the pandemic.
Are you ready? First one is turn on fans in any room that doesn't have a window open.
The second one is we all stopped talking for two weeks.
Still communicate, but you can only talk if somebody is, you know, across the room, or you text them.
Just two weeks. No, I'm not serious, because anything I say with two weeks, you're all going to piss your pants and say, but, but, but, Scott, they told us we would flatten the curve in two weeks.
No, it's a coincidence that they're both two weeks.
It has nothing to do with this idea.
How about testing it? Suppose you took a high, let's say, a group that you knew had some COVID going around, and you said, all right, for this group of people, just stop talking for two weeks, voluntarily, right, just to test it.
I could go two weeks without talking.
In fact, I went three years without talking.
I had a voice problem.
So I think I have some special insight on this.
It turns out you can go two weeks without talking.
And you're not even going to be worse off for it.
At all. It would be like the smallest sacrifice you ever made in your life.
And you might even be happier.
Because you can still communicate.
Most of our communicating is by messaging.
Now let me throw in a provocative thought.
We know that COVID is highly correlated with age or bad outcomes.
And the older you are, the more likely you are to have a bad outcome from COVID. But...
old people talk in person more than young people.
Could it be...
I don't believe this, by the way, but it's fun to talk about.
Could it be that one of the biggest reasons that kids don't get it is they don't talk in person?
Have you ever seen two teens hanging out?
Let me give you my impression of two teens sitting shoulder to shoulder hanging out.
That's it. That's my impressions of two teens talking right next to each other.
They're both talking to someone else.
Right? Everybody who's observed children knows this, right?
They're talking to somebody else. Now, obviously, there's direct age-related issues, the ACE2, you know, whatever, receptors, or children have more of them.
So there are obvious biological reasons there would be more.
But on top of that, I wonder if below a certain age, people don't talk to each other in person as much.
Just wondering. A lot of people went to work when people weren't going to school.
Governor Newsom is being smart in a way that you're not going to like, some of you.
He announced that his administration is going to make it easier for private citizens to sue people who sell assault rifles or parts for these ghost guns.
Do you know where he got that idea?
Does anybody know where Newsom got the idea of allowing private citizens to sue people who sell assault rifles?
Texas abortion law.
I don't think I saw this coming.
Did anybody else see it coming?
Yeah. So, from a political perspective, it's kind of brilliant.
But from a health of the republic...
I'm not sure either of these is a good move because it just creates a whole new set of things that can happen that maybe should go through the normal process instead.
I don't like using the quartz for this.
That's my take. Anyway, but it's smart.
You know, at the moment, I would say Gavin Newsom would be the number one potential presidential candidate who could make a dent.
Anybody disagree? Because I can't imagine Biden running.
I can't imagine Kamala Harris winning.
I can't at all. Now, I'm not saying you like him.
I'm just saying he has the most skill.
Well, let's take the two of them.
Consider Mayor Pete versus Newsom.
I don't think that's even close.
What do you think?
Mayor Pete would look like a teenager compared to Newsom, wouldn't he?
Joe Manchin, interesting.
I'm not sure Joe Manchin is president material, but he's definitely leader of the Congress material.
He feels more trustworthy, somebody says.
Well, maybe trustworthy in one way, but I don't know.
Yeah, I don't know.
That's subjective. Newsom's voice is irritating.
Does anybody else have that problem?
I don't know. It sounds kind of leaderly, his voice.
Newsom versus Trump, that would be trouble for Trump.
Actually, I think Newsom could beat him.
He's the only one I can think of who would have an actual shot at beating Trump.
What do you think?
His speech pattern is annoying.
Newsom would beat Trump.
Trump.
Yeah, I'm not saying you'd like him.
With Vax mandates for kids, no way.
But remember, everything that Newsom does is at least popular on his side.
Sometimes that's all you need.
It's the policies, Scott.
No, not really. It's not really.
We want it to be about policies, but it never is.
Tulsi Gabbard could beat Trump?
That would be tougher.
That's an interesting matchup.
The reason that's an interesting matchup is that she wouldn't take the bait and might be the only one who wouldn't take the bait.
So I think she would take his energy away, and I don't know what that would look like.
Yeah, Mayor Pete took two months off that.
That's going to haunt him forever.
But I actually support him on that.
I don't know if I said that directly.
Have I yet? I actually support Buttigieg taking those two months off.
And here's why. Everybody has a reason not to do it.
Everyone has a reason not to take the two months off.
Now, you could say, but, but, but, it's a pandemic, in which I say, but, but, but, he had other people doing stuff.
Now, we don't have direct evidence that his two months cost us anything.
If we ever got that, then I would revise my opinion.
That would be new information. But as a general, here are a couple of general things.
Sometimes when you think there's somebody indispensable, but you want to fire them, and then you fire them, and you find out, eh, they were never that indispensable.
we assume things to be true that just aren't true. Generals don't. Generals don't.
Is that true? Why not?
Why wouldn't a general? You think that there's only one general who can handle every situation?
We don't have an extra general who can stand in for two months?
If generals don't, maybe they should.
Maybe they should. Yeah, you know, if you look at the value to the family and to the child especially for those two months, you know, such a bonding experience and stuff, we don't know the value of that compared to the value of, you know, Pete doing something instead of his stand-in doing something.
So, at the moment, in the absence of direct evidence...
That Buttigieg's time off hurt something directly, and I don't have that evidence.
In the absence of that, I'm going to support him taking the time off, because I would do the same for you.
If you were in a job that looked critical, and there's no way you could take time off, I would still support you taking that time off, because we always figure it out.
We just always figure it out.
It's one of those things that looks like a problem until you're in it, and then you're like, okay, that wasn't so bad.
He should have publicly announced it and who was stepping in.
I agree with that. Yeah, I agree that the way he handled it and not telling us who was in charge when he was going and stuff, at least telling the public, that was clearly a mistake.
Yeah, I think you can ding him for that, for sure.
Why has Mayor Pete done that impresses Scott?
Nothing. Nothing.
I'm basing only on his intelligence.
and his communication ability, which are both quite good.
There was an admiral at Midway who was replaced by a fleet admiral because he was down with his skin disease.
Well, there must be plenty of examples where somebody had to fill in for leaders.
This guy has a soft spot for gay or black men.
That's true. That's true.
I have a soft spot.
I'm not sure how to call it a soft spot.
But I do prefer the underdog somewhat reflexively.
I don't apologize for that.
How do you know Pete is smart?
Went to Harvard and he was a McKinsey consultant.
You can't be a McKinsey consultant unless you're in the top 1%.
If you're in the top 2%, you don't get to be a McKinsey consultant.
Top 2% is literally genius level, according to Mensa.
But that wouldn't be good enough to be a McKinsey consultant.
You'd have to be sort of in the top 1%.
So, we know that about them.
Top 1% of memorizing stuff.
Now, McKinsey is not going to pick people who are just good at memorizing.
I think their hiring standards are pretty good.
Alright, that's all I've got for you today.
Today was not a very newsy day, but wait for tomorrow.
Oh my god. Tomorrow.
I'm working on a micro-lesson for the folks on Locals on how to predict.
It was a little harder than I thought to put it together.
Because the way you predict is different for each domain.
So if it's a relationship versus politics versus business.
So I'm going to try to give you a quick tour of the best ways to predict in each of those domains.
Almost there. You might see that today or tomorrow.
And that is all I've got for you today.
Taiwan invasion after the Olympics.
I'm going to make a prediction. No Taiwan invasion and no Ukraine invasion for the next 12 months.
That's my prediction.
Now, I think probably there will be no invasions ever.
But for the next 12 months, I feel confident that neither of those countries will do a land invasion or anything that looks like an invasion.
Ten years from now, who knows?
Wise guy. All right.
That's all for now, and I'll...
Yeah, we talked about Craig Wright already.
Australia camps, yeah, I've talked about that before.
Oh, if you're on Locals, by the way, if you're using the app, don't turn it to Landscape and then back, because it'll lock it.
It's a bug that we're working through at the moment.
But if you use the browser version, you don't have that problem.
All right, and Ghislaine Maxwell, I haven't heard anything that has come out of that yet.
I love my camp.
Oh, Herbert, you'd be so wrong.
I All right, similar, blah, blah, blah.
Low humidity on planes kills it?
Maybe. Maybe.
What do you do with the money people pay you here?
That's an interesting question.
On YouTube, most of it goes to just pay my assistant and pay my taxes, and there's not really much left.
Locals is...
If you want to make money, the subscription service is the way you do it.
YouTube is really more of a marketing device at this point.
