Episode 1611 Scott Adams: Today I'll Give You a Lesson on Spotting and Avoiding Cognitive Dissonance
My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a
Find my "extra" content on Locals: https://ScottAdams.Locals.com
Content:
Dr. Malone and Joe Rogan
Whiteboard1: Cognitive Dissonance Defense
Whiteboard2: Data analysis, Mass Formation Psychosis
Is free speech more important than accuracy?
Banned for "dangerously misleading" tweets
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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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But before we do that, how about a little simultaneous sip?
Anybody? Anybody up for the simultaneous sip?
Yes, of course you are.
And all you need is a cup or a mug or a glass of tankard, Charles de 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.
It's called the dopamine hit of the day.
Everybody sang it.
And it's all about the simultaneous sip, and it's going to happen right now.
John is willing to pay me to watch the Dr. Malik Malone interview. You're going to pay me to watch the whole three-hour interview.
Can we get any seconds on that?
Can I start a GoFundMe?
Oh, that would be interesting, wouldn't it?
My God, I think we've invented something here.
I think you invented something.
I'm just repeating what you invented.
How much would you like a GoFundMe to force public people to consume the opposite opinion?
And then talk about it.
Actually put a show on.
Huh. That's not a bad idea at all, is it?
In fact, do you ever have an idea that's so good it makes you get goosebumps?
I just got goosebumps.
That is such a good idea.
Isn't there a whole bunch of problem going on that you're sure somebody didn't see the other side?
Because the reason you're begging me, not begging, sorry, that's a jerk word.
The reason you're asking me, and even willing to pay money in some cases, to watch that three-hour interview is that you think that combining those two things would cause something good for the world, right?
Or at least good for your entertainment, which is good for the world, too.
That's really good, because I actually do think that if you induced me to, say, read a book, I would read it.
I would actually go for that.
Now, you know, each person's going to have a different level of inducement.
Maybe I'd need that money to go to charity or something.
You know, something to make it more fitting for people in my situation.
But I would be absolutely influenced by that.
If you're wondering if I personally...
Would change my behavior if somebody did a GoFundMe just to get me to consume some information they think I need that would then therefore be useful for the public?
I would do that. I would totally do that.
Great idea. I think we invented something today.
I'm going to build on that idea a little bit as we go.
But first, have you seen the videos of China publicly humiliating their citizens who violated COVID restrictions?
I swear to God, it looks like a scene from Game of Thrones.
You know, with the Walk of Shame.
Many of you have seen it.
I won't go into the details.
But apparently they do a big public event with lots of military people.
And then the violators of their COVID restrictions wear all white outfits.
And it looks like they make them put a sign around their neck with a big photo on it.
And I don't know if the photo is a picture of them.
Or is it a picture of somebody that would shame them more than their own picture?
I don't know exactly. I couldn't tell from that.
It's their face. Because I think their actual face is covered with some kind of a masky situation, right?
I'm guessing.
So they need to be able to see their full face without a mask.
I guess that's why they do it.
And how would you like that...
And Viva Frye was saying this in a tweet.
Is that better or worse than what Canada does?
Canada will fine you $1,000 to $6,000, according to Viva, if you violate COVID restrictions.
Which one would you prefer?
Would you rather pay...
Let's take an average.
Would you rather pay $3,000 or $4,000?
Fine. Or would you rather wear a sign around your neck...
With your picture on it and be marched around by the Chinese leaders.
I don't know. They're both pretty bad.
I think I'd pay the money.
But your mileage might vary.
All right. We're going to talk about Dr.
Malone and Joe Rogan.
This will not be comfortable.
I promise you, it will not be comfortable.
Are you ready for this? And I'm going to do it in the context of a lesson on cognitive dissonance.
How to spot it so you can see it in the wild, but then also how to maybe defend against it.
Now, I would say first, I do not have anything I would call solid evidence that anybody can defend against cognitive dissonance.
I don't think I can do it, but I think maybe there are some tools you could use that at least have a chance.
But I don't know how you would measure such a thing to know if it was working or not.
Now the problem with cognitive dissonance is if you're the one who's experiencing it, you're the only one who can't tell.
You're the one who can't tell.
That's the point. So anytime I'm experiencing it, by definition, there's a good chance that you could see it in me, but I would argue like a wounded weasel that I'm not doing that at all.
That's what it would look like.
So if you want to know if I'm in cognitive dissonance, you want to look for the trigger first.
But also, and I'll explain the trigger, usually just means that I've done something, usually in public in my case, that would be at odds with who I think I am.
So who I think I am is a person who is reasonable and rational.
But if I were to be called out in public for doing something the opposite, you know, very irrational, getting something really wrong, presumably my self-image would now be on a whack with what I actually did, and then I would hallucinate that I didn't actually do anything that bad.
Oh, yeah, but you're interpreting that wrong.
So you could see it in me, because I would be peddling hard to...
You know, convince you it wasn't happening.
But I'd be the only one who couldn't see it.
It would be invisible to me.
All right. Now, here are some suggested ways to get out of cognitive dissonance, or at least maybe, maybe, and that's the best I can give you on this topic, is maybe it will reduce your risk of being in cognitive dissonance.
And then I'm going to tie this to the Dr.
Malone interview on Joe Rogan.
And it's all going to come together in ways that will make you very uncomfortable.
So, here's the best I can offer you for a defense for yourself against cognitive dissonance.
Number one...
Do some... It would only take 15 minutes of your entire life to do some Googling and learning what cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias are.
Now, I would argue that five years ago, a lot of you wouldn't know what those words meant.
Am I right? But in the last five years, almost all of us know what that means.
It's a big deal.
Now, I think that some of you have known what they've meant forever, right?
I understand that.
But I'd say for maybe a solid third of the public, maybe half, maybe more, they were learning about these things for the first time, usually under the Trump scenario.
So, first of all, know what they are.
That's the starting point.
If you don't know what they are, you're never going to defend against them.
Number two, practice being embarrassed in front of other people.
It's probably the best advice I could give you.
If I were wrong in front of you about something really big, could I survive it?
Yeah, no problem.
No problem. Because I've practiced for decades being criticized, being wrong in public, having to deal with it, being embarrassed.
I've given entire speeches with, like, broccoli in my teeth.
I mean, you name it.
If it's embarrassing, oh, I've done it.
There's an embarrassing story that I desperately want to tell in public, and someday I will.
It's something that's more embarrassing than anything you, any of you, have ever been involved in.
It was something that happened to me personally.
Someday I'll tell you that story, and I have to tell you that I laughed all the way through it.
It was the funniest day of my life.
For most of you, it would have been the most embarrassing thing that has ever happened to you.
Someday I'll tell you this story.
But the only thing I'm offering is that practice in anything makes you better at it.
So if you can practice being embarrassed, in other words, put yourself in a situation where you're not good at something, do something you're not good at in front of other people.
And do it a lot.
Watch what happens. You just get used to it.
You really do get used to the fact that other people's opinions are really just a chemical reaction in the skull of a stranger.
When somebody has a chemical reaction in their skull, why should that bother me?
Because that's all it is.
My sense of embarrassment and shame is a reaction to some chemical reaction in somebody's skull, and I don't even know them half the time.
So don't let embarrassment bother you.
That'll give you a defense against cognitive dissonance.
Create a track record of admitting mistakes.
You don't want to be the person that they say, you never say you're wrong.
I am one of those people, unfortunately, that one of the most common criticisms I get is people say, you won't admit you're wrong.
Well, that's true.
When I'm right, I don't admit I'm wrong when I'm right.
Maybe I don't admit it when I'm wrong.
I wouldn't know. Let's get rid of Ron for being an asshole.
Goodbye, Ron. Now, since I have created a track record, in fact, wrote a whole book about all my mistakes, if I were to add another mistake in public, it would be a small percentage of all the mistakes I've admitted to in public.
So I'm a little bit invulnerable, and it's a little bit of protection, not completely, against getting triggered by, oh, I have to defend my rightness.
I don't feel that as strongly as I used to.
If you asked me when I was 16 years old, do you think you could admit you were wrong?
Nope. Nope. There's no way that's going to happen.
But at my current age, could I admit to you that I was wrong on something really big?
Yeah, I could. I could get past that.
So I have a little bit of protection.
Next, well, let me get to this last.
Think in terms of the odds.
So never think in terms of something is always true or always false.
As soon as you do that, you're setting yourself up to be wrong if the answer is any of those nuanced answers.
So don't put yourself in the position where you've said something that can't be estimated is 100% likely to happen.
If it can't be estimated, just put some odds on it.
And then if you're wrong, you're like, well, I thought it was a 60% chance it would happen.
But, you know, a 40% chance it doesn't happen is pretty big.
So it's not like I have to explain anything.
So if I say there's an 80% chance of something happening and then it doesn't happen, do I get cognitive dissonance?
Maybe. But there's less of a chance, because I said there's a 20% chance it'll go the other way, and that's pretty big.
Alright, recognize the triggers.
This is the most important one, and this will dovetail into the conversation about Dr.
Malone on Joe Rogan.
One of the best ways you can trigger somebody is by adding nuance into a conversation where people are taking only two sides.
If people imagine there are two sides and only two sides, and you know these people, I call them the binaries, they can't really see anything but the two sides.
And if you do anything that's a nuance, or anything that doesn't conform to exactly one of the sides, the person who's a binary will say, well, you're on the other side, because you didn't agree with everything I say.
So, if you see a situation where somebody's sense of binary truth is violated, they will be triggered into cognitive dissonance.
And that's what happened with both Dr.
Malone, who was on the Joe Rogan Show, and with a tweet that I made about Joe Rogan.
Now, in the case of Dr.
Malone, Dr.
Malone is a nuanced situation.
Because he's being called an anti-vaxxer, That's what his critics say.
At the same time, he is vaccinated.
He is vaccinated.
And he's an expert who worked to make vaccinations for other people.
He is the most...
Let me get rid of the absolute in that sentence.
It would be very difficult to make an argument he's actually anti-vax when he's vaccinated and has worked to make vaccinations.
What he is, is someone who has a nuance.
He's someone who says, vaccination good in some situations.
Perhaps we should be more reserved in other situations.
That's a nuance. It's not pro-vax or anti-vax.
So that triggers people into cognitive dissonance.
In this case, it would be the people who are pro-vax.
So the pro-vax people would be triggered by the fact that Dr.
Malone is a nuanced opinion.
Everybody agree so far?
You're all with me so far.
This is the easy stuff. I'm going to get to the more challenging stuff in a minute.
Okay? I'm seeing a nope on there, but only one.
So I don't know what that's about.
All right. Now, I tweeted this morning something about Joe Rogan, which I was quite sure would trigger cognitive dissonance.
Why? Because Joe Rogan is the ultimate binary situation.
And you're going to recognize this as soon as I say it.
You either think Joe Rogan is a national treasure...
And I do, by the way. I think he's a national treasure.
Or you think he's a right-wing purveyor of misinformation.
Seems to me that there are those two impressions of him.
But I tweeted a nuance.
In which you can love Joe Rogan to the maximum amount and appreciate his talent stack, which is extraordinary.
One of the best talent stacks, meaning an assembly of talents that work together well.
Show me a better example.
Best example of work ethic, talent stack, career strategy, and then execution.
Just about that you've ever seen.
So I can't say enough good things about Joe Rogan and his show, which is why it's a gigantic phenomenon.
But let me give you some nuance.
I'll give you an example of a kitten.
Let's say you had a kitten.
It's a tiny little kitten.
And you say, oh, this is so cute.
And then the little kitten, because it's just a kitten, like, claws you a little bit.
But it doesn't really hurt, because it's like little kitten claws.
And you just go, oh, kitten, take that hand off of me.
And you've got, like, a little dot there, and you don't even feel it.
But it's so cute. It's so cute.
You don't even mind that it's got nails and stuff.
You don't mind it's inconvenient.
Like, it's just so cute. Now, imagine that you're a kitten.
Was the size of a dinosaur.
It's still a kitten, but it's the size of a dinosaur.
And now it can kill you.
Does your opinion change?
Yes. And the only point is that the size of something completely changes what it is.
Obviously, right? There's a difference between a raindrop that can't hurt you and being stranded in the middle of the ocean, which will probably kill you.
Right? Now, let's get to Joe Rogan.
When Joe Rogan was a smaller show, if he had some misinformation on there, let's say a guest said something that wasn't true, doesn't matter.
Not really. Because when it's the smallest show, it's for entertainment.
It's not changing the world in any way.
It's just for fun.
People say things that aren't true.
Something to talk about. It's nothing.
It's a kitten. It's just a kitten.
Then, the Joe Rogan show turns into the biggest phenomenon in the world.
Suddenly, it's the kitten that turned into a dinosaur.
Is everything the same now?
If there's some misinformation, hypothetically, that came out on the Joe Rogan show, would you say, ah, it doesn't matter.
It's cute. It's like a little kitten.
Take that little kitten paw out of my hand.
No. Joe Rogan has now surpassed At least for people who lean right, I think.
Joe Rogan has surpassed the credibility of the major news organizations.
True or false? True or false?
Joe Rogan is not only gigantic in terms of audience, but has surpassed by far...
The credibility of the major media publications.
True? I'm seeing all trues on locals.
YouTube, you've got a little delay here.
Would you agree with that?
They're for the right, people who lean right, and most of my audience does, but for us, right?
There's a general agreement with that, that he's far and away more credible.
And one of the reasons he's more credible, and again, I'm going to ask for a fact check on this, is Would you say that he's more credible because he is not intending to mislead you?
Now, we can't read his mind, but we see no evidence, I mean none, that there's any intention that is anything but positive, right?
100% agreement.
100% agreement, I'm saying.
That there's no sense that money could buy him, right?
Right? Do you think money could buy Joe Rogan?
Like, do you think a pharma company could say, look, I know you're doing well, but I'll give you half a billion dollars to say our drugs are good when you know they're not.
Do you think Joe Rogan would take it?
What do you think? Half a billion dollars to lie to you.
Do you think he'd take it?
No! I mean, we don't know, right?
That's in the realm of anything's possible.
But no. No, you would not believe that for a second.
Because he's doing well, and why would he suddenly turn from a force of unambiguously good to, like, the darkest evil?
That wouldn't happen. But would the news do that?
Would any of your news platforms, or even social media, would you trust them?
To not take a billion dollars to say something that wasn't exactly true or maybe de-emphasize something which ends up the same.
Do you think the major platforms would turn down a billion dollars to say something that wasn't exactly the best thing for the world?
Don't know. I don't know.
But I wouldn't say it's the same standard.
Like, I would feel really confident that Joe Rogan would not take a giant bribe to lie.
I would not be confident, even a little bit, that a corporation wouldn't take money to shade the truth.
So, we have this situation...
Where Joe Rogan is, at least to a large segment of the world, the most credible person in the game, or among the top.
Now, so far, are you with me, everybody?
So far? All right, because this is the setup for the cognitive dissonance I'm about to present to you.
If all of that's true...
And you believe it. If I were to say something that violated everything that we both agreed is true, what would happen?
You would be triggered into cognitive dissonance.
So, this is the setup.
And I'll see if I can do it right now.
Because I'm going to read to you a bunch of tells for cognitive dissonance in a little bit.
But you're going to see them go by on the screen, too.
Alright? Here it comes.
I'm going to drop the trigger on you.
Some of you saw this already on Twitter.
We all agree, or it seems like it, based on the comments it seems like it, that Joe Rogan is probably the most useful source of information we actually have in the United States.
We all agree with that.
Now here's the trigger.
Joe Rogan's program is ripping the country apart.
It's one of the most destructive things I've ever seen in my life.
And now I'm going to back it up.
It's one of the most destructive things I've ever seen, and it's completely accidental.
It has nothing to do with Joe Rogan doing anything wrong.
What happened was the show got big, but it stayed the same.
And there's the potential now that if...
And can you deal with me that this is hypothetical?
So what comes next is not a criticism.
It's a hypothetical.
What if...
Joe Rogan, with all of his credibility...
Oh, here's the first one.
I can't tell if this is a joke or not.
But Market Trader is coming in with the first tell.
He says, cognitive dissonance again?
Scott has jumped the shark.
Oh, actually, that's a different comment.
But you'll see the cognitive dissonance in a moment.
So here's my argument for why Joe Rogan is ripping the country apart.
Now remember, I'm now between the binaries.
There's a binary that he's a force for good, and it's just great, and there's a binary that says he's spreading misinformation.
I just went right in the middle.
I said he's one of the best things we have in the country, complete respect, but he's also ripping the country apart, accidentally.
And here's the problem. When you get somebody with that level of credibility and they put one expert on, what if the expert says something that's wrong?
What's the outcome of that?
Well, if you put an expert on a low-credibility show and they said something wrong, maybe no big deal.
But what happens if you put somebody into a three-hour interview And hypothetically, we're not yet talking about any individual person, but hypothetically, what if that person said something that was harmful to your health?
How big a problem is that?
Or what if he said something, the expert, that would divide the country?
Is Scott having a Molyneux moment?
I don't even know what that means.
So... Here's why Joe Rogan is destroying the country, while at the same time being one of the best things we have in the country.
And it goes like this.
When you put one rogue expert, rogue meaning doesn't agree with the mainstream of anything, or on some topic anyway, if you put one rogue on, you are only misleading the public.
That's the only thing that can come out of that.
Because you need the other side.
Well, let me soften that.
If the expert said only things that were true and good, that would be the best thing in the world.
Can we agree on that?
If you were to put an expert on who only said things that were true and good and useful, and you put it on the gigantic platform of Joe Rogan, boosted by the credibility that his platform has, that would be the best thing in the world.
Right? Right?
But what if, and again, this is hypothetical, we're not yet talking about an individual, what if he put on somebody who said something really dangerous?
What's the check and balance against that?
Well, one check is you could go do your own research, right, to see if that expert was right.
Does that work? No, I always rail against that.
We think we can do our own research, but we end up just going down a trail of confirmation bias.
If you do the research, you'll find out that you were right all along.
And if I have the opposite opinion and I do my own research, what am I going to find?
You did your own research and found out you were right all along.
I disagree with you and I do my own research.
Is there any chance that I'm going to see the same thing you saw and then agree with you?
No. We're both going to do our own research and come to different conclusions.
That's why doing your own research is actually a joke for most of us.
I would still say do it, right?
You know, it's better than not doing it.
But you're going to mislead yourself a lot of times, so be careful about that when you do your own research.
So, let me give you this proposition.
How many of you would say that hearing one side of an argument is better than hearing two sides?
Nobody, right? Nobody would say that, right?
There's nobody, nobody, not even...
I think this is one thing you could say as an absolute that you could get away with.
There would be no reasonable person who would say it's better to hear one side of an argument than two.
Who would ever say that?
Nobody. But the Joe Rogan model, again, didn't matter when it was a small show, but now it's really important.
When he shows one point of view, and a lot of the country think there's a mistake there, like a big one that could matter to people's health, that's a problem.
That is a big, big problem.
And that's where we are right now.
And let's talk about Dr.
Malone and what he may have gotten right.
And what he may have gotten wrong.
One of the things I hear from his supporters and defenders is that he's an expert.
He has lots of expertise, and so we should mention it.
So I did listen to the first, I don't know, 45 minutes or an hour of the Joe Rogan show.
I'll watch the rest of it.
You don't have to pay me. So I do plan to finish it.
But I have enough now that I can make my point.
So the doctor was asked, and I love this technique, by the way.
Instead of Joe Rogan introducing somebody, and I use this same technique, I ask them to introduce themselves, because they'll tell you the things you need to know for the topic.
So when Dr. Malone has asked for his expertise, have you heard the list of his expertise?
It's pretty damn impressive.
I mean, he just goes on and on about the trials he's run and the different degrees he's gotten and the things he's worked on.
And, oh, my God, it's really impressive.
So we can all agree on that, right?
That that's all impressive.
But what are the two things that he is most being talked about?
I would say the two things that have come out of the interview, and since I haven't watched the three hours, I don't know how much is buried there, but in terms of the things that emerged out of it as the clips or the highlights, I would say two categories have emerged.
One is, why did he get kicked off of Twitter?
So he got booted off of Twitter, and when asked which tweet, Joe, of course, asked the smart question, which tweet or tweets got you kicked off Twitter?
Do you know what Dr.
Malone said? He said he didn't know.
He didn't know. Now, I think that could be true, because I think Twitter doesn't tell you specifically.
But other people know.
Other people believe that he got kicked off the Twitter, not for something that happened within his expertise, but when he left his expertise and did a data analysis...
Because he may have been analyzing something that was within his expertise, but data analysis, I don't believe, was part of his stated expertise.
So when he left his expertise to say that this study is a good one or a bad one, other people that I rely on to tell me if a study is good or bad said, no, that's a bad study.
So you have the people who are actual experts at knowing whether a study looks legitimate just by even what they tell you about it.
The people who are actually experts, and I don't have an indication that Dr.
Malone is an expert on data analysis, but if he is, let me know.
I would change my opinion if that's true.
But the people like to say...
Say Andres Backhaus, I use him as my example a lot.
When he looks at some of the things that come out of some of the rogue doctors, he may have a different opinion.
So Twitter, presumably, and we need to learn more about Twitter, presumably banned him because he mentioned a study or a fact that other people say, you're reading it wrong.
So the whole Twitter got kicked off is something outside of his expertise.
Who would disagree with that?
Is the good doctor also an expert beyond being an expert on the topic?
So I'm agreeing he's an expert on the topic.
Only data analysis as a field.
I'm saying he didn't claim expertise.
Right? And Andres Bakos could be wrong as well.
That's correct. So we're getting to the point where if you don't have two experts, you don't have much of anything.
Then the second thing he talked about that's getting a lot of attention, trending on Twitter, is mass formation psychosis.
And he quotes some experts on that.
Now... Did Dr.
Malone say that he was an expert in this field, the mass formation psychosis?
I don't believe he made that claim, right?
Can you fact check me?
I don't think there's any claim like that.
So, you have the good doctor who, within his area of expertise, as far as I know, I don't have anything to disagree with him about.
Does anybody have an example?
Because you've seen more of it.
But I'm not familiar with anything he said within his expertise that I disagree with.
Has anybody seen any example of that?
If you know my opinions as his, I don't think we disagree.
Now, he hasn't made some speculation about why he got kicked off the Twitter, and although he doesn't have a specific theory about why it happened, he speculates that it might not be about just the accuracy of his information.
Could be maybe political.
What do you think? Do you think that it's political why he's being taken off?
It's a good argument, right?
I think you could argue that it looks political.
Now, whether or not it's right or wrong can be a separate argument from whether the reason he's being taken off is political.
I think we'd agree on that, right?
So... Those who say, and I think Joe Rogan and Dr.
Malone would agree, that free speech has to trump accuracy.
Would you agree?
That free speech as a standard has got to be more important than accuracy, because we all get stuff wrong.
You want a situation where free speech fixes the inaccuracies.
Right? So you're free to say something that's wrong.
Other people are free to correct you.
Self-correcting system.
So can we all agree that free speech as a standard needs to be higher and more important than accuracy?
I think I could get 100% agreement on that.
Now, how many of you would agree that there are limits to free speech?
Now, I use the example on Twitter of yelling fire in a theater, and I guess there's some history of that that makes that a bad example.
But can you say things that are clearly untrue that would get the public damaged, for example?
Do you have the freedom of speech to say, you can cure your COVID by drinking poison?
Do you have that freedom of speech?
Actually, I don't know. That's not even a rhetorical question.
Do I have the freedom of speech?
Let's say I'm an expert, to make it worse, right?
Let's say I'm an expert, and I say, you know, you should all just go drink poison, because that'll cure your COVID, but you'll still be alive, of course, which is not true.
Do I have the freedom of speech to do that?
The bleach thing never happened.
It got a little complicated, right?
Most of the people who were answering with a yes or no were saying yes.
Yeah, I do have that.
I do have that freedom.
But should the social media companies, who are not exactly bound by the freedom of speech Second Amendment, because that applies to the government, not to private companies, does a private corporation have an obligation to use their best judgment...
To get rid of something that's so dangerous that lots of people would die from it.
Does the social media platform have that obligation?
They certainly have the power, and they certainly have the right.
You'd agree with that, right?
They have the power because they do it.
And they have the right because they're not a government organization.
So they have both the power and the right to do it, should they?
Suppose... Let's make it a little tougher for you.
So you could argue whether somebody's specific information was good or bad for the public.
But let me make it harder for you.
Suppose you knew for sure that the information would kill people and there would be no upside.
What if you knew for sure?
What would you do then?
Your Twitter...
And you see some information, and it comes from a top expert.
And let's say, this is a hypothetical, because nobody could know for sure.
I think we can agree, right?
Nobody's that sure. But let's say, hypothetically, you did know for sure.
It would kill people, and a lot of them.
What do you do? What would you do?
Let me ask you. You're the CEO of Twitter...
And there's some information you could block or you could allow.
If you allow it, you're sure, because this is a hypothetical, you're sure a million people will die.
What do you do? You're CEO of Twitter, go.
Kill the million or save the million?
You don't get to not answer this question.
Yeah, you got really quiet on that question, didn't you?
Yes or no? Do you kill the people or do you let them go?
A lot of you, some would say save, some would kill them.
So I appreciate that.
There are free speech absolutists who say they would let a million innocent people die to preserve free speech.
Now, you could agree with that or disagree with it, but that's at least a credible opinion.
Right? I mean, there's plenty of room to disagree, but that is a fair opinion.
Right? Because I always appreciate anybody who can say, here's my costs, here's the benefits, and I chose one side.
So the people who say, yeah, I'd let a million people die to preserve free speech.
I respect that opinion.
I disagree. But I respect the opinion because you showed your work.
Good for you. And you stood behind it.
Good for you. I don't believe you, by the way.
I don't think a single one of you would make that choice if you were actually CEO. But for our purposes today, it's a perfectly reasonable thing to say.
I just disagree. I think if any of us were in that position, you'd save the million people.
I think you say you wouldn't, and I totally respect why you say that.
Totally respect that.
But I don't believe it.
No way to know, but I don't believe it.
So, here's the situation.
I believe that Dr.
Malone has presented information which is obviously misleading and dangerous.
That's what Twitter would say when it kicked him off.
Now, you could argue that, but do you argue that Twitter has the right and the responsibility...
And aren't you glad you didn't have to make the decision?
Now, a lot of people are saying to me, Scott, are you defending Google and Twitter?
No, that's cognitive dissonance.
I'm just walking you through it.
You make your own decision, what's good or bad.
I'm not even sure I have an opinion, what's good or bad.
But you've got to at least look at it right.
All right, so, there have been claims made...
That there are specific tweets from Dr.
Malone that are dangerously misleading.
And that's why Twitter banned him.
When Joe Rogan asked him what those were, he said he wasn't sure.
Do you believe him? Do you believe that Dr.
Malone doesn't know which of his tweets got him banned from Twitter?
Do you believe he doesn't know?
I'm saying mostly yeses on locals.
How about you, YouTube? Do you believe he literally doesn't know which ones were the problems?
Because remember, he got lots of replies, so he knows which ones had the factual problem, right?
So I'm going to call bullshit on that.
I would say that when Dr.
Malone says he doesn't know which ones did it, that might be technically true, meaning he doesn't have a confirmation, but he knows.
LAUGHTER I would know.
You would know. Do you think that you wouldn't know which one of your tweets got you kicked off?
You would know. Yeah.
No. I can't read his mind.
Right? Whoever said you're mind-reading, absolutely right.
That's a good comment. Can't read his mind.
But you don't think he's aware of which factual data he got the pushback from at exactly the time that Twitter abandoned him?
I don't think there would be anything he would have heard of more than which of those tweets he got banned for.
He knows. Now, I'm not going to call him a liar, because when he says he doesn't know, I think that's technically true.
You know what I'm saying? If Twitter hasn't confirmed it, that's true.
He doesn't know, but he knows.
He knows. Anybody in that situation would know.
You couldn't not know.
How could you not know?
Oh, here's one. There we go.
Boom, boom. So here's...
I'm going to be calling out all the tells for cognitive dissonance.
Here's one I've been waiting for.
Keep digging a hole for yourself.
So that one and accept the L. Those are cognitive dissonance.
And it has nothing to do with agreeing or disagreeing with me.
It's just the discomfort that I've shown you that it's not a binary, and people are just floating around trying to figure out what to do now that they're confused.
All right. I have no idea what information Dr.
Malone put out there that was the problem.
I have seen things he's put out there that were debunked in a way that I thought were just really obviously debunked.
But I could be wrong about the debunk.
So here's the question, and I guess the request.
Here's a request to Joe Rogan.
In his current model, which just evolved from the kitten to the dinosaur, his current model is damaging to the country.
It's seriously damaging.
Very damaging. The interview with Dr.
McCullough I think was pure damage to the country.
Pure damage. And I think the Dr.
Malone interview is pure damage.
Pure damage.
Because it lacks the counterpoint.
Now, have I told you that it's always darkest before the dawn and we can't tell the difference between good news and bad news?
Joe Rogan is this close...
All he has to do is add a second person.
Ideally a third and fourth person who are silent members to just fact-check things and maybe give a note to the person as they're going.
So maybe a couple of silent fact-checkers.
But Joe Rogan is one invitation, meaning the person on the other side of the argument, one invitation away from ruling the whole fucking world.
Joe, if you listen into this, or anybody describes it to you, you're so close.
Take it. There's this big golden ring that's dangling right in front of you.
And maybe you have so many golden rings already that you can't see this one.
But the public is begging you, Joe, or begging you, please, please, bring on the other side.
Because nobody's listening to anybody else.
We don't trust anybody.
We don't trust the news on the left.
We don't trust the news on the right, sometimes, if it doesn't agree with us.
We don't trust social media.
But we do trust Joe Rogan.
Am I wrong? So close.
Just invite the other side.
Oh, my God.
I don't think I can overstate this.
Rogan is so close to the model that saves the whole fucking world and it's killing me that it doesn't go there.
So close. So he's not only, in my opinion, a national treasure, but he is right on the edge of running the whole country.
Indirectly. Because if you imagined what public opinion would do if you saw both sides on his show at the size of his platform, and you knew that Joe himself is not trying to screw you.
When was the last time you saw a moderator for a debate that you didn't worry was trying to fix the debate by the questions they asked?
You always think that, but you wouldn't think that with him, because we have enough track record.
He's actually just trying to figure out what the hell is going on.
Somebody says that the other side will not show up.
Absolutely not. No.
Let me ask you this. Dr.
Malone is called by some, I think he calls himself that, an inventor of the mRNA technology.
An inventor of the mRNA technology.
Now, he acknowledges, and his critics have pointed out, that there are a lot of people who had, let's say, discoveries or contributions to the platform.
And he apparently is one of the important ones.
Have you heard from the other ones?
I'll just let that sit there for a while.
So you've heard a lot from Dr.
Malone. He's trending. He's all over the news.
He's on Joe Rogan's.
We've heard a lot from one of the mRNA inventors.
What did the other one say?
Do they agree with him?
Are you worried that you haven't heard it?
Is there even one other person who agrees with him who is also as qualified and that close to the mRNA technology?
Did you once ask yourself, where have I heard the other experts who work directly with him and have either the same opinion or a different one?
Yeah, it's a good question.
And you should be embarrassed...
That if it's the first time you thought of it, that you heard it here.
That should embarrass you.
You should say to yourself, there's one group of people that we should be hearing from.
All of the other people with this same expertise.
None. I've heard of none, have you?
I've heard of exactly zero people.
Now, some of you suspect...
And I'm not going to discount this.
Some of you suspect that the other side won't go on because they'd be embarrassed of their point of view or they can't defend it.
Maybe. But wouldn't you like to hear Joe Rogan say, I put out 15 invitations to this group of people and they refuse to come on and talk about it?
First of all, whoever refused an appearance on Joe Rogan's show...
Do you think anybody ever has?
I mean, I'm sure somebody has for some reason.
But, well, I've been on his show, so I didn't refuse it.
Dr. Malone has FU money.
He does have some money.
So, here's my bottom line.
If you think that Dr.
Malone is a big old expert and everything he says should be taken seriously, I agree with you.
As long as he's in his area of expertise.
When he goes into my area of expertise, it looks silly.
Because I would say that his views on mass formation psychosis are actually simplistic.
Simplistic to the point of being misleading.
Here's my take on it.
We did not enter a mass formation psychosis because of the pandemic.
We're always in one.
And somebody said, Scott, if we're always in one of these mass formation psychosis, where was the last one?
Ha, ha, ha. If we're always in one, how come we're only having this experience of everybody like hallucinating and being weird when we're in a pandemic?
Give me one other explanation or one other recent scenario, Scott, since you say this is all over all the time.
Give me any other example of a mass formation psychosis.
Go. Go, Scott. See if you can do that.
To which I say, have you heard of Trump derangement syndrome?
We all live through it, right?
That's a mass formation psychosis.
Did we need a virus to get there?
Nope. We were already there.
You want another one? Climate change.
I'm seeing somebody suggest that 911 was a mass formation psychosis.
I accept that.
I will accept that.
It's a little more complicated, but I think there's enough of that.
Yes. So, have I in, let's say, 60 seconds, with my understanding of the topic, you know, psychology, hypnosis, etc., have I debunked The doctor's point of view by showing you that it adds nothing to the conversation.
We are always in this state.
Now, we weren't always in as much of a dangerous state of this because communication is so much better.
Everything's faster and bigger and ramped up.
And, of course, the business model of the news and social media gets us all clicking on whatever makes our blood boil.
So this was always a possibility, but in our modern times, because of the social media and the news model, etc., this is now permanent.
I would argue that when Germany was the example, it was an exception.
How many of you will accept my interpretation?
That Germany was an exception because during those times they didn't have good communication, etc.
It would be a little bit harder for one of these to form.
But today it forms instantly on every topic because we go binary on everything.
So as soon as you go binary, you've lost all reason.
So this is a permanent situation.
And Dr. Malone...
Is famous for this and clearly over-interpreting it.
I won't say wrong, because I agree that this is a thing.
It just isn't relevant to the current topic, because it's just always here.
And data analysis, I would look to people who are better at data analysis than I am, but also better than he is.
And they say, you've got some real trouble with some of the things that you've forwarded.
Now... What happens when you tell people who think that Joe Rogan is the answer to everything, that he's destroying civilization with these one expert interviews?
Do you think that people will say, well, that's a good point.
You got me there.
That is a good point.
Probably not. So let me read some of the comments and I'll use these.
I'm watching my follower count on Twitter.
It's dropping by hundreds every minute.
I think we're down like 1,500 since I woke up this morning.
So this is what happens when you talk like I do.
If you don't stay on one of the binaries, the people who live on a binary are like, I'm out of here.
You are not my binary with me.
All right. So let me tell you the tweet, and then I'll tell you some cognitive dissonance here.
All right. I said this.
I said, stop watching long interviews that involve one non-expert talking to one expert.
That's a guarantee you will be misinformed.
And then just to ramp up the cognitive dissonance, I said...
Ask yourself if Twitter or Google would ban content in which opposing sides are argued by the experts.
Do you think they would?
If Joe Rogan had, or let's say, if Dr.
Malone's tweet had been a tweet about two experts who disagreed, and one of them was Dr.
Malone, and one of them was the other expert, do you think Twitter would have banned that?
Do you think Google would have banned that?
You're saying yes, but you're lying because you know they wouldn't.
Come on. You know they wouldn't.
No. You need to give me an example of that.
If you can show me an example of two experts who both get their point of view out and you show me that that got banned, then I'll believe you.
I'm going to stake a claim here.
My claim is if both sides are shown...
Fairly, that it would not be banned because that would just be useful, right?
All right, so anytime one person gets banned, that's not my argument.
My argument is anytime that both arguments are shown, you won't get banned.
So if you're worried about freedom of speech, are you as worried knowing that if both sides are shown, they would keep it?
I know some of you doubt that, but don't doubt that.
Because I can't believe that they could defend that in any way.
You could certainly defend that somebody had misinformation, am I right?
Twitter could be right or wrong about it, but they could defend the notion that misinformation, if it looks damaging, should be removed.
You could argue against it for free speech, but they could defend it.
They would have an argument whether you liked it or not.
So, all right, having said this provocative thing that you should stop watching long interviews, anybody who thought they learned something valuable from the Joe Rogan interview would, if they are a binary, say, no, no, no, Scott.
So let me show you some of the comments I got to that.
Here's one... Benjamin says, this assumes that Twitter and Google are playing in good faith and not simply banning content they don't like.
Nope. Nope.
I'm not making any assumptions.
So this is a hallucination of an assumption.
If somebody hallucinates your point of view, it's probably cognizant.
Scott, saying we're always in a...
does not discredit...
Yes, okay, here's another example of cognitive dissonance.
So Marv says, in all caps, Scott, saying we're always in a...
one of these, mass formation psychosis, does absolutely nothing to discredit what Malone is saying.
It discredited this.
What do you mean it doesn't discredit it?
I just discredit it.
Were you watching? What do you mean it doesn't discredit it?
I just told you it's nonsense, and I told you why, and you agreed with me.
Stop yelling caps at me and agreeing.
So the other thing that happens is people would get really mad at me while agreeing.
So here's somebody who says, bow-tied reptilian says, so, stop watching your live periscopes?
What did I tell you about the so tell for cognitive dissonance?
Did I say anything that would suggest somebody should watch my live podcast?
Am I an example of a host talking to one expert for three hours?
No. This is cognitive dissonance.
Here's another one.
Somebody says, isn't this what happens every time Fauci says anything publicly?
In other words, the argument is, why would I complain about Joe Rogan talking to one expert when isn't that exactly the same thing that Fauci says when nobody's challenging him?
He's just talking in public. What do you think of that criticism?
Is that criticism valid?
Good point, I see somebody saying.
Who else thinks this is a valid criticism?
Okay, I'm tricking you here.
You're falling into the trap.
I'm seeing people say yes.
It's a valid criticism.
No, it's not.
This is agreeing with me.
I said, don't listen to one expert without the counterpoint.
The criticism is, well, isn't that what happens every time Fauci says anything publicly?
Yes, this agrees with me.
But people are agreeing with me as if they're disagreeing with me.
And there's a whole bunch of examples of this.
For $99, Sean asked this question.
I've asked the same question.
Maybe the others stand to gain financially, so crickets.
Sanjay Gupta interviews are a disaster.
Yes, I think we're all aware that people may have financial interests in the case of the pharma stuff.
All right, let's see some other cognitive dissonance.
And there's just weird things I don't even understand.
Okay, let's see.
Somebody just says it's a lousy strategy and my reading comprehension is just fine.
So there's a bunch of people who just insult me personally with no comment on whether the idea is good or bad.
Scott comes down against Bill Gates' interviews, finally.
Again, this is somebody who is arguing as if I'm not agreeing with him.
Do I think that you should agree with everything that Bill Gates says without having an expert next to him?
I've never said that.
You should also doubt what Bill Gates says.
Yes, that is exactly agreeing with me, as if you don't agree.
Let's see. The problem is that this would only be useful to an expert audience.
Really? You think two experts talking would only be useful to an expert audience if Joe Rogan were the host?
You don't think Joe Rogan would force them to speak in common language so everybody understood it?
Of course he would. That's what he does.
That's why he's Joe Rogan.
That's why he's Joe Rogan and you're not.
Because that's what he does.
It makes people talk in a way you can understand them.
Joseph is just here for the ratio, so he's pretty sure that what I've said is dumb.
Here, Vaping Rock says, except no expert, quote, expert, is willing to debate Dr.
Malone. Really?
You don't think I could find a data analysis expert who would say that that tweet that probably got you kicked off of Twitter...
Is wrong, and here are three reasons why.
You don't think we could find a data analysis expert?
I think you could. I think you could.
Somebody says it's a risk of being misinformed, but far from a guarantee.
It's closer to a guarantee.
I'll acknowledge that this is an opinion, so I can't debunk an opinion.
But I think the risk in these three-hour interviews, since we've watched quite a bit of them, I think the risk is it's closer to a guarantee of being misinformed.
And part of the reason is that what makes a guest interesting is they're a rogue.
They're saying something that the others don't say.
So I think if you're selecting from the field of people who say non-mainstream things and you let them talk alone for three hours, I think that is always going to be closer to misinformation than useful.
Not 100%.
But maybe 80% of the time it would be a bad idea.
And 20% of the time it would be just tremendous.
Something like that. Here's the other one.
Just take the L, Scott.
Now what would I take the L for?
Is it because somebody disagrees that hearing both sides of an argument is good?
No, nobody disagrees with that.
So here's somebody who's sure I'm taking the L, will not disagree with anything.
Let's see.
Some more.
or All these comments are just weird comments all over the board.
Where can one find such content?
Well, that's the problem. It doesn't exist.
Oh, here's somebody saying Rogan envy is a thing.
So that my reason for saying that having one expert instead of both sides is that I have Joe Rogan envy.
Does that sound like an insightful comment?
Let me ask you this.
Who doesn't have Joe Rogan envy?
If you don't have a little bit of Joe Rogan envy, maybe you're not familiar with his content.
Addison says, are you an expert in persuasion?
And if you had ever had another persuasion expert on your show?
I don't think any persuasion experts would disagree with me.
So that would be a weird case where I understand what you're asking, but you'd have to have at least the suggestion of disagreement.
There would have to be some reason I think somebody would disagree.
I'm not aware of anything I've said that a persuasion expert would disagree with.
But let's say there's a situation where on Twitter there's a persuasion expert who disagrees with me on something specific.
That would be a good idea.
In fact, I'd like that.
Maybe I could learn something. But in most cases, if a persuasion expert disagreed with me, they could cover the entire thing with a tweet.
So if a persuasion expert disagrees, here's the whole argument.
You said X. Here's a study that says maybe it would go the other way.
You don't really need three hours for that.
But that was a good question.
All right, how about...
Just lots of side comments that act like they're disagreeing and that's not.
Patrick says, what if I listen critically?
Well, that's better than not, but it's not going to get you.
Listening critically won't tell you what you weren't told.
That's what you need the other expert for.
You don't know what's left out when an expert's talking, unless it's obvious.
So that's why you need somebody who knows what's left out.
And just go F myself, okay?
Okay.
Every interview of every expert in the history of everything, I'm being asked as if that's criticizing my point.
No, that's agreeing with my point.
That the way we've always done it is always wrong, and it will never be right, no matter how long you do it.
Here's another so tell.
This one says, so, basically, don't listen to an interview with an expert because you'll be misinformed.
Now, did I say that?
Did I say you shouldn't listen?
Well, I did, but in the sense that you shouldn't take it too seriously.
Only two or more experts to be properly informed?
Yeah, I would say that that is roughly my suggestion.
And then he ends with, do you see how ridiculous this sounds?
No. No, I don't see how ridiculous this sounds.
Let me read it again. He goes, so basically, don't listen to an interview with an expert because you'll be misinformed.
Only two or more experts to be properly informed.
Yes, that's an exact...
That is exactly my opinion.
And he says, do you see how ridiculous this sounds?
To which I say, no.
Anything else? Oh, and then...
Then he goes on to say, I guess all of my college lectures were misinformation courses then.
Oh, okay, I see where he's going. So here's the clarification.
If it's a mature topic, then one expert is fine.
Because in a mature topic, you don't really have disagreement.
So, for example, if your math teacher teaches you how to add, do you need the other expert to tell you that that's wrong?
No, because it's a mature topic and there's no disagreement.
But on a new topic, Professor Dunleavy, I would say on a new topic where it's obvious there could be or is disagreement, that's when you need the other expert.
You don't need a second expert when there's no disagreement to be had.
What about the flat earth, you say?
Special cases are just special cases.
All right. Well, if you want to read lots more examples of cognitive dissonance, you can do that.
So, have I made my point that Joe Rogan can be both a national treasure...
But because of his size and the one expert model, that he is super destructive at the moment, just with that specific thing.
Thank you. Some people still say no.
Now, I won't disagree that having one expert on could be better than none, if it's a new point of view.
Because at least you can see the counterpoints in other places, etc.
But it's a terribly risky thing to do.
Yeah, it's super destructive.
Because right now, it is changing people's opinion about vaccinating or how they should approach the pandemic.
And if people are making real-life, life-and-death decisions, and they are, you want the other side.
Because it's controversial.
If it were not controversial...
Let me say this. If Joe Rogan had an expert on that says, hey, we should be paying more attention to fitness and health, do you think that I would say, oh, Joe, I'd like to hear the other side of that?
I'd like to hear the person who says you shouldn't pay attention to fitness and health?
No. No.
Because there's no debate.
It's only when there's a debate.
Now, years ago when I used to do something called the Dilbert Newsletter, I don't do that anymore, I came up with an acronym called BACTAO. That's how you pronounce the letters.
And it stands for, but of course there are obvious exceptions.
And I've often said that the reason that most people disagree with me is that they forget the BACTAO is always implied.
BACTAO, but of course there are obvious exceptions, should apply to everything I say all the time.
So when the professor said, oh, so you're saying that my lectures are not good, the actual reply to that is, but of course there are obvious exceptions, and a lecture would be one, because there's no counterpoint to it.
Scott, is it okay to listen to me for entertainment and not any knowledge?
Yes, it is. Now...
For those of you who have been saying that I should just take the L, can you explain that in a way that doesn't sound exactly like cognitive dissonance?
Can you explain to me what exactly the L is that I would be taking?
What exactly am I losing, specifically?
Like, what have I said?
So Donnie is questioning the one expert thing.
Am I passing myself off as an expert?
Except on the one topic that we talked about.
That's cognitive dissonance, my friend.
Kenny says, you just got the vaccine and you regret it, just admit it.
I don't regret it.
And that's the mind reading tell for cognitive dissonance.
Anybody else? You're not an expert on it?
Yes, I am.
I'm an expert on persuasion.
And this would be a subset.
A pretty easy to understand subset.
In fact, mass formation psychosis would be like information 101 for somebody who studied persuasion.
This would be...
Let's say if you were a physics...
This would be like the most basic equation or something.
It's something that anybody would know is applicable or not.
You should go debate Sam Harris on trust the experts.
I'll bet we wouldn't disagree.
I'll bet we wouldn't disagree.
I don't think Sam Harris would disagree with one thing I've said today.
I mean, I don't know.
But let me ask you, do you think Sam Harris would disagree with anything I said on today's show?
I don't think so. Please interview with Joe Rogan again.
I think you need a reason.
You know, when I interviewed with Joe Rogan, it was because I was in the news for having a contrarian view on Trump, I think.
And that's why Dr.
Malone is on there and Dr.
McCullough. So I don't really have a contrarian view that has much depth.
I mean, I don't have three hours of contrarian view.
My entire thing could be, let's hear the other side, and we'd be done.
You can't simply misrepresent Professor Desmet's work and then discuss the disfigured result.
Well, here's a challenge for you.
My claim is that mass formation psychosis is such a simple topic for someone who's familiar with persuasion that it's easy to understand.
And that all of the components of it, I've heard, and I say, oh yeah, that's obvious.
When people are confused, for example, they look for new information.
When people don't feel connected to other people, they're a little bit more confused.
That's all just obvious stuff.
There's nothing about mass formation psychosis that is interesting.
Somebody says, study it, don't hide.
You know I have, right?
I have read about it, and it doesn't take more than a minute for somebody who is familiar with the field to read it and say, oh, that's stuff I already knew.
Do you get that? That it's the most basic thing in the field, that people who are confused will accept certainty when it's offered in some confident form.
And that there are things which cause people to be in an uncertain state, so they're far more likely to be accepting a strong voice.
Is there any part about that I got wrong?
Right? It's kind of simple.
It's where religion sprouts from.
Correct. All right.
That's all I got for now, and I'll talk to you tomorrow.
I'm expecting lots more tells of cognitive dissonance in my Twitter feed.
Let's see how far my folder account has dropped since we started.
It's kind of funny. The people who can't hang with nuance, I'd like to get rid of them.
