Episode 1628 Scott Adams: I'm Ready to Take the L on Vaccinations. I Wasn't Convinced Until Today
My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a
Find my "extra" content on Locals: https://ScottAdams.Locals.com
Content:
Biden's 1st year, 60% say not successful
57% say we're more divided than ever
Death count for vax delay till after election?
UK ends ALL face mask mandates
My COVID Twitter polls result
Feb1 We're Done
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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.
---
Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/scott-adams00/support
Good morning and welcome to the best thing that's ever happened to you in your whole life.
And, you know, there are some things that can be fixed by the simultaneous sip and one of them is the anticipation of the simultaneous sip can fix your printer.
I know you don't believe that, but the people on Locals just saw it live.
And if you'd like to fix your printer, too, by doing nothing whatsoever but sipping a beverage, all you have to do is find yourself a cup or mug or a glass, a tank or chalice or stye, and a canteen jug or flask, a vessel of any kind.
Fill it with your favorite beverage, like coffee.
And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure.
It's the dopamine hit of the day.
It's the thing that makes everything better.
It's called the simultaneous sip.
And this will fix your printer along with many of your technical, personal, and sexual problems.
It's called the simultaneous sip, and it happens now.
Go. Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah. Well, Rasmussen did a poll to find out how people were thinking of Biden's first year in the office.
How do you think that went?
Did the public say, whoa, Biden's nailing it.
Got to get a lot more of him.
Was it something like that?
Or did 50% say he was very unsuccessful?
10% say he's somewhat unsuccessful for a full 60%.
Believing it was not a successful year.
That's not good.
That's not good at all.
More than that, 57% said we're more divided than before.
Well, given that he's the great bringer together, and he ended up being the great divider, I would say that is an ambiguous failure.
Unambiguous failure.
But let me give you some political advice.
Never promise to bring the country together.
That's sort of a losing battle.
Don't promise that you'll beat a pandemic and bring the country together.
Nope. There are two things you're not going to do.
So I guess Biden learned that.
Here's a political slash virus question for you.
Ian Martises asked this question.
Can we calculate...
I'm sort of paraphrasing his question, but...
Could we calculate how many people died because the vaccination rollout was delayed from the time that we had all the data we were going to use for the decision...
It looks like until maybe after the election or for some other political reason.
Do you think that we would be able to determine how many people died because we waited on the vaccines?
Some would say for political reasons.
Some would say maybe not.
And Otoli Lubarsky points out, he says, we did not know the effectiveness nor the safety rates before November.
And then it took a while to scale up.
And Ian replied to that saying that there was no...
His understanding is that there was no new data that was presented after the delay.
And I asked the same question.
How hard do you have to look at the data to know if it says up or down?
I feel like the data, if it is packaged in a way that is meant to be read...
Would tell you if it works right away.
Wouldn't it say, here's the data.
On this tab, you can see that the bad side effects were this.
But you can see that the effectiveness was this.
Or do they just give you raw data and then every single person who looks at it has to, like, come to their own conclusions?
Is that how it works?
I would think that the data says summary.
We have this many side effects.
We have this many benefits.
Am I wrong about that?
That would be a pretty basic assumption.
So why would it take more than 10 minutes for somebody who's not going to do a deep dive themselves?
Why would it take somebody more than 10 minutes to say yes?
Now, of course, you'd want somebody who is really good at looking at data to jump in and ask a bunch of questions, but that's adding a week.
Am I right? Because it's a crisis, it's an emergency, you'd get the best people on the job, you'd fly them in, you'd spare no expense.
Why would it take more than a week for the best data, you know, spelunker in the world to dig in and just see if there's anything fishy in the data?
So, I don't know what the reason would be.
For the delay if it were not political.
How many of you think that there was a political delay unrelated to anything functional or any real obstacles?
Yeah, there are a lot of people who suspect that.
But I think it's something short of definite.
So I think somebody's going to end up calculating that.
Of course, it'll be highly controversial.
Now, did you hear that Ray Epps is going to testify to the January 6th committee?
So the famous Ray Epps, the guy that many think is a Fed.
And so here's the mystery of, let's see, why did...
Was it Kippinger or whatever said Klippinger?
What's his name? He said that Ray Epps had already talked to the committee.
But apparently it was a preliminary talk, and he's going to go, I think, on record and under oath.
Kinzinger, yes. So I think Kinzinger had said that he had already talked.
But he hadn't talked in detail, and maybe under oath.
I don't know. Maybe that's the difference, too.
So he will be coming back now.
Do you remember one of the suspicions was that he was no longer on the list of most wanted?
Like, there was a list of FBI's most wanted from that night, and originally he was on there, but fairly soon after he was put on the list, he dropped off.
And did you say to yourself, well, that's suspicious?
That's suspicious. Do you know why he dropped off the list of most wanted?
He turned himself in right away.
He wasn't most wanted.
So the only reason he dropped off the list of most wanted is because he called up and said, hey, this is Ray Epps.
Here's my address. Here's my name.
Here's my phone number.
When do you want me to come in?
Or something like that.
So as soon as somebody is no longer most wanted, because they've literally surrendered, you take them off the list.
How many of you thought it meant something that he was taken off the list?
How many of you said, that means something?
Instead of the most obvious reason you would be taken off a list, is that you don't belong on the list.
Now, I have to admit, I didn't see that.
It's the most obvious thing in the world, and I was actually blinded to it.
Probably many of you were, too.
I was blinded to the most obvious reason.
And let me tell you how stupid I am.
All right? Full confession.
I've seen video of the press talking to Ray Epps, like after the event.
The press knows exactly where he lives.
The press found him.
I should have known, as all of you should have known, that he definitely wasn't most wanted, meaning they knew exactly where he was.
He may or may not have some involvement that you want to know about.
That's a separate question. But in terms of being most wanted, nope.
He was right there, available for anybody who wanted him.
Right at his, you know, easily available.
So that explained that part.
Now, I do think it will be really interesting to see him answer questions under oath.
And I hope that the Ted Cruz's, et cetera, that the people who are good at asking questions can really, really stop.
So there's a whole new kind of troll that just appeared in the political season.
And I would love to know...
Let me just change the topic for a moment.
I would love to know what kind of training or theory they're working under.
Because the new brand of trolls all have the same quality.
They don't have any complaint.
They just say things like, stop, Scott, stop.
Just don't do it anymore.
And I'd be like... What?
Stop what? I'm not even sure what the topic is.
And then the LOL trolls?
LOL, Scott.
LOL. You're coping.
LOL. And so I thought to myself, I should take these people seriously.
There are so many people telling me that I'm experiencing cognitive dissonance.
And my first impression was, well, that's obviously projection.
You're the one who's experiencing it and you're projecting on me.
But you know what the problem with projection is?
You never know who's doing it.
Am I projecting on my critics or are my critics projecting on me?
And how would I know?
Well, I decided to go with the crowd.
And the crowd has decided that the problem is on my end, so I've decided to take the L and admit that I'm afraid and coping.
And I'll explain all of that as we go.
So if you wanted to hear me say, you know, it looks like I really just made my decision out of fear, and at this point I'm doing nothing but coping and flailing around trying to justify it.
It's kind of embarrassing. I know some of you would be embarrassed even to be associated with me because of my behavior.
But we'll get into the details of why it is that I'm accepting the L, a great shame and embarrassment, which will be a stain on my reputation forever.
And we'll get into that in a moment.
It turns out that the argument is really strong, and I hadn't seen it before.
So we'll get to that. All right.
Can you believe, I hope you can, that Boris Johnson announced that the UK is dropping face masks and any remote work requirements?
There may be some other mandates they're getting rid of.
I'm not sure. And I ask you this.
Is the science on the other side of the Atlantic from where I am different?
Over in Great Britain, do they do science differently?
Or should we be doing the same thing right away?
Because I don't know if China is looking at the same science as the United States.
Maybe they have extra stuff.
I don't know. But I am fairly sure that Great Britain, the UK, is looking at the same information as the United States.
Same science, same concepts, probably same data.
Why do they have a different decision?
I don't think it's because their curves are different, right?
Or their vaccination rate?
I mean, not that different that that's the reason they would make a different decision.
So I think that the February 1 date is actually maybe waiting too long.
I've asked directly for...
My governor, Newsom, and President Biden to get ahead of the February 1 date.
Because February 1 is the date that the public is just going to say fuck it and take their masks off.
And you want your government to get ahead of that to remain credible.
Because I want my government to be credible.
I feel like that's better.
So I'm telling the government that the parade has started and there's plenty of room in the front.
If they'd like to start now and get in front of the parade, I accept them as my leaders.
Please, please take this out of the hands of the public.
But if you're not going to do your job, let's be clear.
Politicians of the United States, if you're not going to do your job, which is to lead us out of the pandemic, make the obvious decisions of valuing freedom the way the public does, get the fuck out of the way.
Those are your only two choices left.
Am I right? The public will take over.
There's no way it's going to be stopped.
The public... In the United States and other places, it's different.
But in the United States, the public will determine when the masks are over.
February 1 is looking like that date.
And government, please lead us.
Please get in front of the parade while there's still time.
If you don't, it's not going to make much of a difference.
But get out of the fucking way, right?
Because you're not going to stop it once we decide to take the masks off.
I've decided that analogy is surrender when it comes to a debate.
Here's why. There are two ways to use an analogy.
One is to explain a new concept.
That's a good way to use it.
I like to use my example.
If you were trying to explain a zebra to someone who didn't know, had never seen a zebra, you might say, well, you know, imagine a horse.
And the horse had stripes.
It looked a lot like that.
And you say, oh, yeah, your horse analogy really helped me understand a zebra.
But that wasn't an argument, right?
Nobody was arguing about zebras.
Somebody was just explaining the concept.
But in the context of an argument, if I say something about the COVID vaccination, I will often get somebody to say, well, you're wrong.
Because something, something with polio vaccinations.
To which I say, if we were talking about polio, I would agree with you.
That's just a whole different situation.
That was not an analogy to show me a new concept.
It was actually an argument.
If somebody argues with an analogy, they've completely abandoned the argument, and they've moved it to some new hypothetical imaginary argument.
So if you can discern the difference between somebody using an analogy as an argument, which is batshit crazy, versus using it just to make a point about how the world works, you can really decide whether you want to spend any more time with somebody who left the argument.
So when people retreat to an analogy, I just say, I accept your defeat.
I accept your defeat.
And somebody says, wrong again, it's the same situation.
No, polio is not the same situation.
It's as different a situation as I can think of.
For one thing, the vaccinations work to stop the polio spread.
I mean, that's a pretty big difference.
So, anyway.
One of my favorite thought experiments is imagining if Einstein hadn't been alive at the same time as Twitter.
Can you imagine Einstein just being, like, somebody who tweets?
And, you know, one day Einstein's fussing around and he figures out that E equals MC squared.
And he's thinking, all right, you know, I'm going to publish this.
But before I do, I'm going to tweet it.
I can say I have a preprint.
I got this idea.
Here's my math. Take a look at it.
What would Twitter do as a response to Albert Einstein tweeting that E equals MC squared and then perhaps showing his work?
And say, all right, here's my calculations.
I've submitted this to peer review, but I wanted to tell you here on Twitter first.
Well, I believe he would get the following comments.
LOL. LOL. Nothing else, just LOL. I believe somebody would say, Albert, you're embarrassing yourself.
You're embarrassing yourself now, Albert.
Just stop. Stop.
Please. Stop.
Please, please just stop.
He would get that.
But he would also take the L. Albert, I feel like you're just coping with the fact that gravity is real and Newton had all the answers.
Just take the L. Take the L. Now, does anybody doubt...
That his comments would look like that.
Seriously. In all seriousness, if he had done that, tweeted E equals MC squared, before you knew it was true, wouldn't he get all of those comments?
And here's my question about the trolls.
There's a great influx of paid trolls, and a huge number of them come after me every day.
Are they trying to wear me out...
Are they trying to ruin my reputation so people don't listen to me on other topics, I suppose?
Are they trying to just, I don't know, divert my energy?
Are they trying to trick me into overreacting so that I destroy myself?
So the question is, do they explicitly have a theory, like a psychiatric theory, about how the thing works?
Because I actually think it does work.
You know, being on the victim side of it, if you will, I would say that they do siphon off my energy.
And there are lots of people I enjoy...
Going back and forth with on Twitter.
But usually it's the people who have something like a good argument, and that increases my energy and I enjoy it.
But the LOL trolls who just say, take the L and you're coping, I feel as though they're just there to drain energy or to get you worked up so you embarrass yourself.
Does anybody have a better theory for that?
Because it's quite clear that they're paid.
Or organized. They might not be paid, but they're at least organized.
All right. So, Israel has some news.
And have I ever told you that we can't tell the difference between good news and bad news?
So this tweet was, I believe, tweeted in the context of it being bad news.
But I looked at it and I said...
This looks like exactly good news.
Not just good news, great news.
Not just great news, but some of the best news I've ever seen.
Here's the news. That Israel, which is the only, this is Dr.
Eli David put it this way, I don't know, this isn't technically true, but he says the only quadruple-vaxxed country, it's not technically true because they're not all quadruple-vaxxed, but lots of them are, I guess.
The only quadruple-vaxxed country in the world, also using mask mandates and COVID passports, just broke the global record for daily COVID cases.
So on a Per capita basis.
So, is that bad news or good news?
Anybody? Is it good news or bad news that the most vaccinated country by far has the highest rate of infection?
Good news or bad news?
I would trade places with them in a heartbeat.
I would totally trade places with them.
Except for the booster part.
The booster part I'm not a fan of.
But if you could give me two vaccinations and the highest rate of current infections, that's the one I want.
You know, assuming our healthcare system is still stable.
That's a big if. But assuming it's stable, and I think it is in Israel, that's your best case.
Because 95% of the new infections are Omicron.
We know that Omicron slices through the vaccinations like they don't exist.
Right? So the very best situation is that you have a regular vaccination, and then later you get the Omicron.
Right? According to the only information I've seen, that's the very best protection with basically really low risk, because it's Omicron.
So what could be better than massive new Omicron infections in a country that's the most vaccinated?
That's literally the best-case scenario, according to science.
Now, if the science is wrong, then, yeah, of course, they'll all drop dead from the vaccinations.
I won't even say if science is wrong, because science doesn't know the future.
So science doesn't have an opinion on 10 years from now.
So if 10 years from now everybody who got a vaccination dies from a blood clot, then science will be wrong.
But at the moment, at the moment, science agrees with Israel that they are in the very best situation.
So it's interesting that Dr.
Eli David, I think, now I don't want to be a mind reader, but I believe the context of it, As I read it, is that that's bad news for Israel, when in fact it's the best news.
All right. I did some highly biased, unscientific polls on Twitter, and this was to confirm that I'm coping and taking the L. So some of this...
Now, remember, these are not scientific, but it's only a...
These are only my followers, for the most part, on Twitter.
So I ask this question.
Do vaccinations increase or decrease risk?
Now, I just said risk, right?
So that means you're looking at all risk.
The risk of the vaccination itself, the risk of COVID, all the risks.
Um... So, do vaccinations increase or decrease risk?
Of the people who answered my Twitter poll, 56% says it decreases.
Interesting. But 23%, or 24%, ish, said the vaccination doesn't do anything.
It neither increases nor decreases your risk.
And 22% said it's more risk.
So there's more risk in taking the vaccination than not.
Now, of course, if you want to be more technical, you would divide it by comorbidities and age and risk profiles and all that stuff.
But if you were looking at just the total average, 56% says it decreases risk.
But if you put together the people who say the vax does nothing, which would be a bad idea to take it, right?
I think you'd all agree that if you knew...
The vaccination was not helping.
You would definitely not take it because there might be some risk of the vaccination itself.
So if you put together the people who say it does nothing and the people who say it increases risk, you're up to around 46% who say the vaccinations make things worse.
Okay. Well, 46%...
Now, that's not science. That's just your opinion.
But 46% I have to take seriously, right?
Okay. Would you agree?
Would you agree that if 46% of a poll in America have a different opinion than you, at the very least, you should take that seriously?
Do I agree? Would everybody agree with that?
I'm not saying agree with it or disagree with it, but you should take it deadly serious because it's a life-and-death question.
On a life-and-death question, which this literally is, life and death, If 46% are on the other side from me, I'm going to take that really seriously.
So we're getting closer to...
I'll reveal to you why I'm going to take the L and admit you're all right, at least the 46% of you.
And this is really what pushed me over the edge.
I said, because a lot of people were saying, pointing out that the vaccinated people in hospitals, in some cases, were having more bad outcomes than the unvaccinated.
And I thought to myself, huh, I've seen exactly the opposite data, but if so many people have seen data that's the opposite of the data I've seen, the data I've seen was that you're eight times more likely to have a good outcome if you're vaccinated.
In other words, you're eight times more likely to die if you get hospitalized, if you're unvaccinated.
That was the bad data, apparently, I was looking at.
But I realized I was doing the math wrong.
So this is going to be my biggest confession.
And I did a little poll here, and that straightened me out.
And I can't believe how dumb I was.
Remember I've told you that I rarely get embarrassed?
This is embarrassing.
You know, I found my limit for embarrassment.
I am very embarrassed. So I did a poll, and I just asked how many people agreed with this.
I said, we're lucky we don't have 100% vaccination rates.
Because imagine if everybody were vaccinated.
Because in that case...
100% of the future deaths from COVID would be among the vaccinated.
And I thought of that as, like, oh, shit, that's true.
The only reason we don't have already 100% deaths among the vaccinated only, the only thing preventing that...
Is that we don't have enough vaccinations.
And here I was thinking, oh, wouldn't it be good to have more vaccinations?
I mean, I wasn't promoting it, but in my mind I was doing the math and I was thinking, wait, if the vaccinations help, which now I realize I can't trust that data, but if the vaccinations help, I would want everybody to be vaccinated for their own benefit.
For their own benefit, not even for mine.
But when I looked at the logic of it, I can't really escape it.
If we were 100% vaccinated, every single person in the hospital who died of anything, if they died of COVID, if they died of a car accident, every one of them would be vaccinated.
And that would be proof that vaccinations don't work.
Now, if you say to yourself, Scott, I'm not sure if you're doing the math right.
Oh, I am. Because when I did the tweet, 53% of my followers agreed with my math.
That if everybody were vaccinated, then all the deaths would be among the vaccinated, and that would be proof that the vaccinations don't work.
And I've got to say that that convinced me.
That put me over the edge.
So I'm going to take the L... Based on this solid logic here.
But I'll go on.
There's also what I'll call the Tim Pool type of thinking.
That my first reaction to it was, I feel like you're leaving something out.
I get your point, but it feels like something important is being left out.
But now I'm convinced that nothing important was left out.
So I did another poll.
And I said, let's see, what was the exact one?
So I asked people if the only benefits of vaccinations...
Let's say you knew that vaccinations did not stop the spread, which we do know, right?
We all know that vaccinations don't stop the spread.
And were we not promised that it would...
Give me a fact check. Were we not promised very clearly by the authorities, the experts, were we not told that this would stop a spread?
Now, I remember the numbers were like it would stop like 90% of the spread.
Now, the other thing I didn't realize at the time is that 90% and 100% are the same number.
I thought there was like a little difference.
So when I read it, and this is how I misinterpret it, when they said it'll stop the spread 90% to 95% of the time, somewhere in that range, I thought to myself that, oh, well, that would leave some like 5% or so that the vaccination wouldn't stop the spread.
But apparently, and I've been informed, that 95% and 100% are the same number.
I thought they were like different numbers and stuff.
But they're the same number.
So originally we can all agree that they said it would stop the spread completely.
But what happened instead, especially with Omicron, is apparently the vaccinations have almost no effect.
Would you agree? So what we were promised, 100% vaccination effectiveness like polio, but instead what we got was something that didn't stop the spread at all.
Same page so far?
Everybody? We're all on the same page?
They promised us to stop the spread.
It didn't do it at all, with Omicron anyway.
So, that's bad.
Now, therefore, they promised us it would do those things.
It does not. Therefore, vaccination is pointless.
Pointless. Now, the first time I heard that point of view, I thought, wait a minute.
Are you leaving out, like, the main thing?
Like, isn't the main point to stay alive?
And doesn't the data that the so-called experts are saying, doesn't it say that there's an 8 to 1 advantage to being vaccinated?
And don't they say it also prevents you from being seriously hospitalized?
And some new data that needs to be confirmed, I don't think it's solid, but that it might even reduce your long-haul symptoms.
So I thought to myself...
Isn't the Tim Pool thought that vaccinations are pointless?
I get the point about it not stopping the spread.
That makes complete sense.
That part would be pointless.
But wasn't there another point of staying alive and stuff?
Like survival and things like that.
But I have now decided that I'm just projecting or coping.
That my view on this was probably based on my fear...
Of having made the wrong vaccination decision.
And not of any kind of logic or anything like that.
So my current logic, and I asked other people, if they agreed with the Tim Pool logic, and 45% did.
They said there would be no point in taking a vaccination that doesn't stop the spread if all it does is keep you alive and prevent you from having bad symptoms.
So 45% I'm going to take seriously.
And so I think I was overvaluing the whole staying alive part.
So this was my error in the long run.
My error was I was undervaluing the argument about the spread, and I was putting too much weight on survival.
So I think I'm just going to accept my defeat.
And let this be a lesson for a lot of you.
If you can learn how to lose gracefully, allow me to be your role model.
I accept total, complete defeat.
I don't think that I can defend my batshit crazy idea that survival should be like a high priority and that that would be in the conversation.
I think survival is not important.
Nor do I think suffering should be part of the equation at all.
In fact, I think six months of horrible suffering from long-haul symptoms, you should just take right out of the decision.
Because the date isn't solid anyway.
So, I am now persuaded that I should ignore the risk of death...
And long, horrible, horrible symptoms.
And instead, just look at this one promise they made that I think they lied about.
They lied about that promise.
So if that promise was a lie, then you can't believe anything.
And therefore, it would be pointless to get a jab.
Wait a minute. Pointless?
Pointless? Do you realize that needles have a point?
That's all I'm saying.
And so I asked people, what do you conclude?
This is another poll. What do you conclude when hearing that lots of vaccinated people were hospitalized with COVID? And I gave them choices.
I said, do you conclude that the vax doesn't protect you?
Or do you conclude that's how math works?
Or other? And here were the answers.
At least preliminarily.
May have changed a little bit.
So 47% say that the conclusion would be that...
The vaccination doesn't help.
And 34% said that's how math works.
Nerds! Can we take a moment just to mock these fucking idiots?
There are all these nerds coming into the poll.
Nerds. Fucking nerds.
And they're trying to win this argument with math.
Can you believe that?
They're using math!
Math! I don't know.
I don't know what to say about people who think that math tells you anything.
I would go with people who are pretty sure that they can read my mind.
Because you want to be... If you're going to approach something like this, you want to approach it with a rational approach.
Now, what would be more rational?
Math. Math.
Duh. Or reading the minds of a stranger to determine how much fear they have in their hidden thoughts.
A fear that would be associated with them believing they made the right choice on everything.
But a fear nonetheless.
And I don't think it's no contest.
Math, I think, has been largely debunked.
Am I right?
Yes. I'm pretty sure I've seen math being debunked on Twitter.
There was no source for it, and I didn't look into it too deeply.
But I did do my own research.
I did my own research, which involved seeing a meme on Twitter.
And that said that math is bullshit, and so that's good enough for me.
But the idea that somebody could read my mind and see my secret hidden thoughts about my fear and then put that together and decide that I'm operating in a fear and not math, I think that's a little more credible and something you should bank on.
So if you have a choice of depending on math and fucking nerds, am I right?
Fucking nerds.
Like, who's going to side with them?
Don't. Don't.
Instead, go with the mind readers, because those are the rational people.
All right. So, if I may, if you'd all like to dunk on me, I accept my shame, and I'm here for you.
I was of the opinion...
That all of the science supports my lucky guess on vaccinations.
The lucky guess was that I'd wait as long as possible to get vaccinated in the first place to see if anything was fishy.
Then, if I had to make the decision, and then I did because I had to fly, then I would.
But then I would also wait as long as possible for the boosters to see if the boosters were sketchy.
And sure enough, waiting to get the booster was exactly the right decision.
Because we learned that the Omicron is going to just fly through the booster and you'd probably be just as happy with Omicron as with the vaccination, frankly.
So did I smartly make all the right decisions?
Not really, because I don't know the risk of the vaccination itself.
Nobody does. And I don't know the long-term risk to me personally.
So I was guessing.
I said that from the start.
I was just guessing. But those of you who are not guessing and not making the mistake I made, which is after guessing, to look at the math and see if you can determine anything, because math...
Instead, using the mind-reading technique for knowledge, I think you guys got it right this time.
So on paper, it would look like my guesses and my process for getting to where I am, on paper, if you believe the experts, was perfect compared to all the other choices.
But by luck. Remember, I'm telling you that if you think I'm telling you I used my smartitude to make the right decision, nothing like that happened.
I was guessing just like you were.
But... Based on current information by the experts, all of this is subject to change, of course.
Could be changed tomorrow.
But at the moment, I hit, by complete luck, the exact right place to be, according to current data.
Two vaccinations of Moderna, followed by no boosters, followed by almost certainly getting Omicron fairly soon.
Now, I'm not saying that that is the right decision.
Are you hearing me clearly?
How would I know? Because I don't know what future risks are.
I don't know if I die from a clot tomorrow morning, right?
So I can't know I made the right decision.
That's not knowable.
But nobody else can either.
But am I comfortable with my decision?
Of course I am. I mean, I'm comfortable in only the limited sense that it coincidentally agreed with science at this moment.
It doesn't mean that the science is right.
I mean, that could change.
But, yeah, at the moment, I got lucky.
So tomorrow, if it turns out that the only people who survived got the boosters, then I'd say, oh, I guess I got it wrong.
But at the moment, everything is on my side.
I believe it'll change.
but at the moment.
Let's see.
What did you say?
Okay.
I saw an interesting comment here.
I want to get back. Is he purposely destroying his reputation?
You're asking about me.
Am I purposely destroying my reputation?
That's actually a good question.
How many think that? How many of you are wondering if I'm personally destroying my reputation, like intentionally?
Am I intentionally destroying my reputation?
Yeah, I'd be agreeing with you if you said I got lucky.
Okay.
All right, well, I guess it depends who you're looking at.
So what reputation do you think I want?
I don't want the reputation of agreeing with a team.
So to me, the greatest insult would be always agreeing with a side.
To me, that would be shameful.
I don't think I would ever say my opinions in public.
But the only reputation I want is that I didn't agree with teams.
Didn't agree with all the left, didn't agree with all the right.
That's all I want. I don't really need right or wrong, because nobody will ever agree on that.
But I do need to not be associated only with one side.
That's all I ask.
So reputationally, that's all I ask.
On the cold survey...
Oh, I think it ended up...
I did a survey of if people normally got colds, just regular colds, would they be more likely to get COVID? Now, of course, it was a Twitter poll, so there's no science here.
But interestingly, it ended up being kind of similar.
The people who often got colds got COVID... As likely as people who didn't get colds.
So COVID does not seem to, if you were to believe a Twitter poll, which you shouldn't.
But if it were correct, it would indicate that your prior immunity wasn't that important.
But wouldn't you like to see a real, an actual scientific study?
You know, you can't believe the Twitter poll, of course.
But a scientific study would be real interesting.
I'd love to know how much prior exposure makes a difference.
7.45. Today I don't have a hard stop, but thank you, Paul.
I like that you do that every weekday, but today I don't have to drive.
Christine is driving today.
Boris is dropping mandates as he's facing leadership challenge because he has parties at 10 down and needs to lift his popularity with voters.
Good comment that Boris Johnson is responding to the public.
Who did I tell you runs the country?
Now, I wasn't talking about, you know, Boris Johnson's situation.
But if Boris Johnson is getting ahead of the parade, it's because the parade started.
It's not because...
Probably not because of some other reasons.
I don't think it's because of science.
You know? So yes, that's what we want in this country.
We want our leaders to go Boris Johnson's way and say, oh shoot, I better get in front of this thing because the train's already moving.
Yeah, February 1 is approaching.
It almost seems too far away now.
Because when you see the UK make this decision today, their science can't be that different.
February 1 is way too long now, now that somebody made the first move.
There should be a first-mover kind of effect.
Scott fears death, in all capitals.
Let me tell you something.
How many of you fear death?
I'm kind of curious about this.
How many of you fear death?
All right. I'm seeing some yeses and nos.
I had a realization recently that I've never feared death.
Like, ever.
I've definitely feared injury.
I have a substantial fear of injury.
But I've never once...
Honestly, my life isn't that good that I need an unlimited amount of it.
And especially now...
I'm at a really unique place in my life where I've done what I needed.
Like, if I stop now, like if I just died tomorrow, my last thought would be, all right, I got it done.
I did what I needed to do.
You know, I left things a little better.
So I am so ready to be dead.
I mean, I hate to say it as starkly as that, but quite honestly, I'm ready.
I mean, I had a good run. I'm completely ready.
So I can promise you that of all of my fears, death might be...
I don't even know if it's on the list.
Because my concept of death is that that's when you don't have any pain and any problems.
And I'm not even sure I don't look forward to it, in a way.
Because life is good, but it's not great, if I may say so.
Life, being alive, has advantages.
And I'm sure that I would be happy that I had them.
But when I'm dead, none of it's going to matter.
To me. I mean, it won't matter to who's left behind, but it won't matter to me.
So I don't even really understand the concept of being afraid of death.
Like, I don't have any hook that my mind can connect to to say, oh, that makes sense to be afraid of death.
My life has never been so good that I preferred it over death.
I'll be honest with you that for most of my childhood, I planned to end my life when I turned 18.
Literally. So most of my childhood was waiting to kill myself because I didn't think my quality of life was sufficient to make it worth the effort.
I would say that my entire 20s were well below the level of being worth being alive.
You know, if I had to look at it in retrospect, I would say the first...
30... The first half of my life was below the level of being worth it.
You know, there were great moments there, right?
There were great times within that time.
But I'd say the first half, definitely not worth it.
Then I'd say maybe the next 20 years...
While there were, like, tremendous successes and monetary advantage and, you know, great relationships and bad relationships and everything else, I would say there were definitely some high points, but I'd say the next 20 years, break even.
You know, if you asked me, would you want to do it over again or would you just rather be dead, I'd say, I don't know.
It's a coin flip. I don't know.
Give me dead. I don't know.
It wasn't really worth it.
But if you fast-forward to the moment, at the moment, there are really high highs and there are really low lows.
At the moment...
See, if I were to assess whether it's worth being alive to me personally, like right now...
Hmm...
I don't know.
It's a close call.
Close call. So anybody who thinks that I'm worried about death, you really couldn't be further from the truth.
If you said I was worried about injury, you'd be right on.
Scott is begging for help.
No, I'm giving you a cold assessment of life.
I'll bet it's not that different from yours.
Actually, let's test that.
Less about me and more about you.
More about you. How many of you, right now, think that being alive is a better deal than not being alive?
Right now. Your current life, is it better to be alive?
I'm seeing lots of yeses, but some 50-50s.
I'm seeing some noes.
Now, I do think that the way life works is if you are alive, you talk yourself into it being a good idea.
How would I know?
Yeah, how would you know?
So Oh, if you ever had children, it makes you want to be alive.
Yeah. No, when you say wanting to be alive, there are reasons for the benefit of other people.
I would say I mostly stay alive for the benefit of other people, I would say at this point.
I'm not really in it for my own pleasure, because that's sort of fleeting.
I'm not that much of a pleasure seeker.
Yeah, if I were, I would have retired a long time ago.
If I were a pleasure seeker, I wouldn't be doing this.
I mean, I do enjoy this, but I'm just saying that I would just go sit on a beach somewhere and not work, because I have the option.
I would say that my reason for staying around, being alive, is whatever I can do for other people.
And pretty much that's the whole deal right now.
I'm a little bit curious.
By the way, one of the best motivators I've found...
Here's a little reframe for you.
I find that curiosity can solve a lot of problems.
Meaning just focusing on your curiosity instead of focusing on your problem.
So here's the reframe.
This is one of the best ones I've ever used.
I don't know if it'll work for others.
Maybe there's something personalized about this.
But now and then I'll be saying to myself, did you ever have those days where you're just going to wake up and today's like yesterday?
And you think to yourself, this isn't even worth it.
You just wake up and you're like, am I just going to put on my socks and have my breakfast and go to work and come back?
Is it just going to be like yesterday?
And also, if you have a big problem, you're like, oh, God, this big problem, I don't know what's going to happen with it.
It could go bad.
It could go good. And here's the reframe.
Turn it into curiosity.
Instead of, I don't know, pain and ennui and all those other bad feelings.
Because if you watch it like a movie or a book, you say to yourself, I wonder how this is going to turn out.
Now, you would be surprised that this works, right?
When you first hear it, wait a minute, I'm not just going to change my frame to curiosity about how it works, but it does work for me.
So I'm not sure it would work for others.
It might be just something about how I'm wired, but it reliably works.
I just say, you know, I'll just watch this like a movie and see how it turns out.
And here's the thing.
Curiosity is really baked into you as an essential element of who you are.
Would you agree with that?
That without curiosity, humans would just fall apart.
Civilization would fall apart.
So curiosity isn't just a thought.
It's baked into who you are.
It's one of your most basic things.
So the point is to get away from your intellectual...
The intellectual part of you, which is saying, how will this turn out?
It's making me stressed.
Could go this way. Could go that way.
I want it to go this way, but I've got an obstacle.
I'm trying this, but it won't work.
So that's the intellectual way to frame it.
Are you naturally intellectual?
A little bit.
But not the way you're naturally curious.
See what I mean? Your curiosity is really baked in.
That's a basic biological function.
But your higher intellectual thoughts of how things will work out, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, that's a little bit more of a modern, I don't know, emergent property or something.
I'm using all the wrong science-y words.
But the idea is that curiosity is just stronger and more basic.
than your intellectual thoughts about what might go wrong.
So just move your focus, not entirely, because you can never leave the intellectual, but move your focus to, oh, I just wonder how this is going to turn out.
I'm just super curious if this is going to be a disaster tomorrow.
It works. I swear, it works.
All right. So, I do think that we are beyond the mask vaccination questions.
Would you agree? Aren't we beyond them?
The question of whether you should or should not do anything mandated, we're beyond that.
So I'm not going to talk you into anything.
That would be stupid at this point.
And also immoral.
You know, I said from the beginning that trying to persuade you to get a vaccination would be deeply immoral.
For those on YouTube, especially, can the rest of you confirm that from the beginning, the very first words out of my mouth were that trying to persuade you in one way or the other would be deeply immoral, in my case especially.
In my case especially, Because I'm trained to persuade.
Like a prize fighter...
Now, that's an old term, I guess.
A professional boxer can't get into a street fight...
Because that would be considered unfair.
In the same way, if you're making a life-and-death medical decision, and I'm not your doctor, you do not want me trying to persuade you.
You do not want that, because I'm trained.
I'd be too good at it.
In a way, it would reduce your agency, your own ability to control yourself.
And so, for everyone who thinks I have been secretly trying to support the vaccinations, I don't say things that directly if I don't mean them.
Right? If there's one thing you can know about me for sure, if I say something clearly and directly and without being prompted, and I say it over and over again, it's fucking true.
Right? You'll never find an exception to that.
If nobody asks me to say it, I say it clearly and directly and over and over again, it's fucking true.
And you can take that to the bank.
If I'm vague about something, then maybe I've got some hidden agenda or something.
But if I'm direct and consistent, you can bank on that.
That's really, really what I think.
Biden said something about facts and truth recently.
Why are the trolls hard to persuade?
Because they're not there to be persuaded.
Do you know how many of my trolls actually have troll in their bio?
A lot! I would say something like, I don't know, 30% of all my critics actually have in their bio Twitter troll.
Right? Look for yourself.
Yeah, they're not there to be convinced.
All right. Good times.
All right, that's all I've got for now.
And I will...
Back off from some of this vaccination and mask talk for now.
I'm going to hit really, really hard the dropping the mask mandate by February 1.
How many of you are on board with that?
February 1 as our public deadline to our government as to when the public is done with the mandates.
Yeah, so...
If you're on board, tweet it.
And I added the following twist that I think helps.
I've asked small businesses, well, businesses, I've asked businesses to put a hashtag Feb1 sign on their window or door.
Because if I see that sign, I'm going to go right in.
So it's free marketing.
Just put up the sign.
You don't need an explanation. You don't have to be a rebel or anything else.
Just hashtag Feb1.
Put a little sign on your door.
I will buy your shit even if I don't want it.
I will walk directly into your store, take out my wallet, and buy some of your shit just because you have the hashtag on.
Now, that's free marketing.
How many of you would join me?
You don't have to buy things you don't want.
But how many of you would join me in showing a strong preference for somebody who had a hashtag Feb1 sign on their building?
Yeah, look at the comments.
Yeah, strong preference.
We don't love boycotting.
I'm big on not boycotting.
There are some exceptions when they're beyond the line.
But I'm really big on marketing.
Right? Marketing works.
So why not get some free marketing?
We're offering it to you.
If you just put a hashtag in your window, get some extra business your neighbor won't get.
That's it. So I don't know how big this can get, but it needs to get big enough to make your governors and your president say to themselves, oh, shoot, the parade's already moving.
We better get in front of it.
And there's no fight to be had here.
I don't want to fight with the government.
I want to assist it.
And that's very, very important.
The framing here should be assisting our government.
Because they legitimately are the wrong tool for getting us out of a pandemic.
Because they have too much risk aversion.
We don't have the same risk aversion.
We're the public. So the public needs to guide them.
Help them. Push them.
But it's not a fight.
It's not a fight.
We're not on the other side from the government.
Don't get that wrong.
You are here to help.
You're here to help.
Push your government in the right direction.
They need it. They want to be pushed.
There's nothing that would make Biden happier than 75% of the public saying, let's get rid of mandates.
Because that's good for him, too.
He wants that shit done before the midterms, right?
So everybody wants this to happen.
This is activating the fake because.
The public's activity is creating the fake because.
It's a real one, I guess. But it operates as the reason that Biden and the governors can say, okay.
Now that Boris Johnson has made that move, don't you think every governor is talking about it?
I don't know how you can see that the science is different on the other side of the Atlantic and not at least ask yourself, is it time over here?
Because the situation is the same.
So I feel as though if you get one more entity to go maskless, it could be one big state, a blue state, that would be impressive, or one other country, maybe another European country, to follow the lead, One more, and two points to draw a line, and then it's over.
So that's how close we are to being done with this, at least the mask part.
We're that close. One more entity.
Boom. Domino time.
Let's go, Spain! Germany!
Come on, Germany! France?
Psst! France.
France. You know France?
You've been kind of an inspiration to us on this whole freedom thing for hundreds of years.
And we don't want you to get behind on the whole freedom thing.
So if you wouldn't mind setting a little example, because we like it when you do that over here.
If France can find freedom, you would do a big favor to us in the United States.
Now, I'm not going to say this is, you know, Statue of Liberty size or, you know, or Lafayette We Are Here sized.
It's not that big. But remember, France, you and America, we have like a long-standing agreement, don't we?
Sort of an unwritten thing that if you get in trouble, we help you.
If you get in trouble, you help us.
We're in trouble over here, France.
If you go first, that would really help us.
Really help us. We'd appreciate it a lot.
And I know there's a lot of activity over there, a lot of people in the streets.
It doesn't look like you're close to pushing your government, but I'll bet you can do it.
I'll bet you can get there.
And I think Boris Johnson just made your job a little bit easier.
So France, be next.
Count on you. I think you can do it.
Be true to your history.
Be true to what made you great in the first place.
