Episode 1646 Scott Adams: Fake News, Fake Statistics, Fake Data, and Real Delicious Coffee. Come and Get Some
My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a
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Content:
CNN fake news J6 compilation clip
Statistics, common sense and blind spots
Monty Hall problem
A lot of TRUE news is ALSO...FAKE news
@Wokal_Distance on the hits against Joe Rogan
Whiteboard: Summer 2021
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Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the best darn thing that ever happened to you.
And I don't know how life could get any better, but it just happened.
You happen to be watching Coffee with Scott Adams.
Think of all the poor people around the world Not necessarily monetarily poor, but spiritually and philosophically poor, entertainment-deprived.
Those are the people who are not here with us today, and if I may say so, and I don't like to speak ill of other people, especially when they're not in the room, but the people who are not watching this, they're not as smart and not as sexy as you are.
I'm just saying. I don't have science to back that up.
But anecdotally, every one of you looks smarter and better looking than every other person who isn't watching, and I don't think that's a coincidence.
Well, we'll talk about statistics and things that are just as exciting as that, but after, a thing called the simultaneous SIP. I don't know what that was.
And all you need is a cup or a mug or a glass, a tank or a gel, 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 the dopamine of the day.
It's the thing that makes everything better.
It's called the simultaneous sip.
And do you know how hard it is to read your comments at the same time I'm talking?
Try it sometime. It's not easy.
Go. Ah, yeah.
I didn't think it could get more satisfying.
But then it did. It did.
All right, if anybody's new to this live stream...
The connect the dots that's happening on my head is just a dermatology thing.
I did not get beaten up.
I deserve it.
I think we could all agree on that.
If anybody ever deserved to get beaten up, it's probably me.
According to at least a third of the people who follow me on Twitter.
All right. Oh, damn it.
Technical difficulty of the worst possible kind.
Looks like my notes didn't print out.
But I, unlike other people, have a backup plan.
It goes like this.
Here we go. So let's start with CNN's fake news.
How many of you have noticed...
That I can do a segment just about every day of the week that begins with, let me tell you about the fake news on CNN. And I think most of you would agree that when I explain why I say it's fake news, it really is.
Now what are the odds that you could just do that every day?
Well, so there's a new video that was released by, I guess, the January 6th Committee.
And it shows some of the Capitol rioters, as they call them in CNN, making what they call graphic threats against former Vice President Mike Pence and other lawmakers.
And then they showed the clip.
Now keep in mind, this is a compilation.
So it shows rioters, plural, making graphic threats.
So I'm thinking, wow, how many of them were there?
This could be pretty bad.
And then I did something that not everybody's going to do.
I actually clicked on the video to see these people saying the terrible things.
There were two of them.
But really one.
Really just one.
And then another person who made a joke about it and laughed.
So it was more like...
It was less like...
A compilation of people making graphic threats than it was about one guy taking a selfie and saying some hyperbolic things about what they would do with the wrong side.
The guy behind him laughs and says, yeah, off with their head.
Clearly joking.
Now, these people were together.
They weren't just coincidentally in the same place.
It looked like they were part of the same little group.
His friend literally laughed, Yeah, off of their heads.
Now, let me ask you this.
In a group of people that would say whatever number you want to put on it, 98% just patriots?
I'll just pick a number without any backing, but I'm guessing 98% of the people there were literally just concerned about the quality of the election and were patriots.
Were the 98% Going to let the 2% drag Mike Pence into the courtyard and behead him?
Or hang him or something?
To imagine that this specific crowd of people, literally the most patriotic, were going to hang Mike Pence, who had been the loyal number two.
He just had a technical, legal, constitutional disagreement about what his powers were.
That 98% of the MAGA people were just going to hang him.
Now, I don't want to minimize the fact that there were probably bad characters in the crowd, but aren't there bad characters in every crowd this size?
I mean, how could you put this many Americans in any place and not have a murderer, a pedophile, you know, some dirty trickster, an FBI agent?
If you took 100 Americans randomly selected and just put them anywhere to protest about anything, how many of them would just be so disreputable they were only there to loot or they came there for the violence?
It would be every crowd of American people would have a few.
So this is the diversity we celebrate, which I actually do.
In a weird way, I love the fact that there's every kind of person.
Yeah, I don't think you'd want it in a different way.
Because if you thought about it, like imagine everybody was sort of the same, it would get old fast.
I mean, life would be very uninteresting unless everybody was just all over the place, which is the way it is.
Unfortunately, some of them are doing illegal things.
Now, here's the weirdest, most ironic thing.
Apparently, there's some evidence.
I don't know how solid this is.
It might be more anecdotal. That the defund the police movement is causing higher gun ownership.
Because people are realizing, and also more vigilantism, but higher gun ownership because people realize they have to arm themselves in the most dangerous places.
So if you're in the most dangerous place and you know that the police have been defunded, you're going to go get yourself a gun.
Now what's interesting about this is that defunding the police is sort of a small government move, isn't it?
Did you ever think about that?
That, you know, not if they're going to use the money for some other stuff, then it's the same size government.
But if the only thing they're saying, because mostly they don't have an alternative, right?
Even the people who say defund are not saying, I know the alternative.
It's more like, let's experiment, or there must be one.
But I would say defund the government is a small government thing, and doing something that actively encourages greater firearm ownership of private citizens, it's kind of Republican.
It's kind of Republican.
And I was thinking, what could you do if you were a Republican candidate and you just wanted an interesting...
Persuasive messaging.
Right? So forget about what's logical or true.
What would be just a good persuasive messaging thing if you're a Republican?
Well, I tweeted an example.
And I think we'll see how that tweet's doing a little later.
And I said, a big difference between Democrats and Republicans is that Republicans only want you to own firearms if you choose to do so.
Whereas Democrats are making it a necessity.
Republicans don't want that many guns in the hands of the public.
Now, I'm not lying.
Republicans actually are the ones who would want fewer guns in the hands of the public in this specific case.
Because this is a case of, basically, people getting illegal firearms, in many cases.
At least that's what we're talking about here.
So in the most dangerous neighborhoods, there's probably a whole bunch of illegal firearms people are buying, and for the wrong reasons, to go be vigilantes.
So... I don't know.
I think you could have fun with this if you were a Republican candidate.
And just act like...
That you and the Democrats are competing on guns, but the Republicans only want you to have one if you want it.
The Democrats are making it a necessity.
Let's just shorten it to that.
That's your whole message.
I'm a Republican.
I'm running for whatever office in some high-crime area.
I'm a Republican.
We want people to be able to own a firearm if they want one.
Democrats are making it a necessity because they want to defund the police.
Don't make it a necessity.
Make it an option.
We live in the land of freedom.
I want you to be safe enough that you don't have to get a gun, but if you want one, I'm going to make sure you have that right.
It'd be hard to lose, wouldn't it?
It'd be pretty hard to lose.
It just completely guts the other argument.
But you'd have to depend on this somewhat anecdotal stuff about people arming themselves and becoming vigilantes because of defund the police.
Here's an interesting story of which the interesting part is not the story.
So Chris Wallace famously left Fox News to go to CNN. And he got...
Reportedly, $8 to $10 million a year compensation to do that.
But I don't think he's put anything on the air yet, and there are reports or rumors that he's not getting a producer and they're not giving him support.
But at the same time, he went over there because of Jeff Zucker, who now is retiring.
Well, retiring. He's resigning because of his relationship with an employee that he did not disclose.
At least, allegedly, that's his reason.
And so that's, you know, the story is more like a, you know, schadenfreude sort of a story because people who were mad at Chris Wallace, they want to be happy that he left Fox because they don't like him and then he went to someplace worse.
So, you know, blah, blah.
We're happy that Chris Wallace is unhappy, I guess.
For some people, they would feel it.
Now, I never had a particular feeling one way or the other about...
Chris Wallace's politics or his performance.
But I'm reading this story, and I'm looking for the hook.
What's the interesting part?
And then there's this throwaway line that wasn't essential to the story, but it's good context.
He's 75 years old.
What? Suddenly this story went from, oh, mildly interesting, you know, somebody changed jobs and didn't like it, maybe.
And, you know, maybe not, because we don't really know what he's thinking.
But then I'm like, he's 75 years old?
Are you kidding me?
Did you have any idea he was 75?
I would have guessed 55.
I would have guessed 55.
And he does not show it.
Man. You know, and his father lived forever, too, right?
So it looks like he has good genes.
But, you know, this was like this slightly, mildly interesting story that as soon as I hit that, like, what the hell is happening to the world?
And here's the thing. At 75, he went and got a better job.
Because the money still mattered.
He figures he'll probably be around for another, you know, 30 years.
Maybe. So what does that say about either a good lifestyle?
I don't know if that's just good genes, but I imagine it's good lifestyle, right?
Because you look at him and his weight, he looks like he exercises, doesn't he?
He looks like he exercises and he's right.
I don't know if that's true.
I mean, you know, if we find out he's a chain smoker and whatever, I'd be surprised.
But isn't that impressive?
Damn. You know, I say the same thing about Joe Biden.
But Joe Biden's only a few years older than Chris Wallace.
And Chris Wallace looks like he could be Joe Biden's son.
I don't know. I was just blown away by what people can do if they're really trying, health-wise.
All right. One of the most interesting things in the world and in the news, to me anyway, is when statistics and common sense don't match.
So the reason that people use statistics is because if you could just look at stuff...
And say, well, based on looking at this thing, I'll determine this.
But it doesn't work. And we know that for a million reasons.
So you need this whole discipline called statistics.
And then there are all these blind spots that people who do not study statistics would not even know is a blind spot.
And I would argue it's one of the biggest problems in the world.
Because you don't have to be an expert in statistics...
To learn what kinds of situations you shouldn't trust and when statistics is, you know, a good thing to use and when it's not.
And I would think that the best class that you could have for a, let's say, life strategies degree would not be necessarily a class to learn how to do statistics, although that would be great for many people.
But for the mass of people who don't need to be a statistician, Wouldn't you like to see a class that is just about the blind spots?
You know, just like if you run into this situation, I'll just give you an example.
If somebody's doing a meta-analysis, I'm not going to teach you how to do a meta-analysis.
I'll just explain what it is, and they'll say, this is why you can't trust it.
Because it's susceptible to what you decide is in the meta-analysis and what isn't.
That ends up being what determines it.
So how interesting would it be to be a class that was, let's say, no more complex than what I just told you?
That, oh, meta-analysis, you can't trust it because people will be selecting things.
And then secondarily, there might be one study that's the wrongest study, but also the biggest.
And if it gets put in the average, it's going to make everything wrong.
So I didn't use any complexity whatsoever, but I taught you how to recognize a blind spot.
That if somebody said, here's this analysis and you should trust it because it's a meta-analysis, you should at least be able to say, well, maybe.
I mean, it doesn't mean it's wrong because it's a meta-analysis.
But I would ask these two questions.
Now, beyond that, I'm wondering if there's an even deeper meaning when our common sense doesn't match statistics.
And it just makes me wonder if that's another clue that we're part of a simulation.
I'll just put it out there.
This would be one of my weaker pieces of evidence.
But if you were building a world with software, I can imagine there would be situations where you didn't want to have to explain everything.
And you just wanted to put it in the code.
All right, if this happens, then this will always happen.
Why? What is the rule of physics that requires it?
I don't have time to write one, so I'm not going to make it a rule.
It just happens. So in theory, one would imagine that a sign of being in a simulation is that there should be some things that your common sense says, that should not work statistically.
But then when you do the math, it does.
So, I mean, this is my weakest evidence for the simulation, but I'll throw it in there.
Let me give you some examples.
How many of you have heard of the Monty Hall problem in statistics?
In the comments? I'm just wondering, because my audience is unusually well-informed.
So just look at the answers yourself to see where you stand.
Wow. On locals, it's almost all yeses.
Wow. And how about over here?
Oh, this is quite impressive.
Now, I told you you were smarter and better looking than all the people who are not on this live stream right now, and you just proved it.
I don't know what percentage of the general public would know what the Monty Hall problem is, but I'm guessing...
20%?
I'll bet no more than 20% of the general public has ever heard of it.
And for those of you who haven't heard of it, I'll tell you what it is in a moment.
But, wow, this is a really interesting indicator of the kind of people watching this live stream.
If you know what the Monty Hall problem is, the odds of you being a rational person and really having that preference to be statistically and scientifically sound...
That's probably a pretty good indicator.
All right, here's what the Monty Hall problem is.
And I'm not going to do the boring, long explanation.
I'll just tell you to Google it if this interests you.
This is one of those cases where your common sense doesn't match what the math and the statistics will tell you.
And, by the way, this is something of which even the highest-level thinkers had long disagreed on.
Because even the smartest people in math and statistics...
We completely disagreed until simulations were run, and the simulation always came out the same way.
So there's that.
All right, this is what it is, the Monty Hall problem.
This is just from Wikipedia.
Suppose you're on a game show, and you're given the choice of three doors.
Behind one door is a car.
Behind the others, goats.
So you've got two goats and one car, and all the doors are closed.
You don't know what is what.
You pick a door, say number one, and the host, who knows what's behind the doors, opens another door, say door number three.
Now, you still haven't seen your door yet, right?
You've picked a door, but it hasn't opened.
So now the host is going to play with your mind and says, opens up one of the doors you didn't pick, and it shows that there's a goat behind it.
And he then says, all right, now do you want to pick door number two, which is the only one that's not picked and not already opened?
Do you switch? What do you do?
Now, keep in mind, the smartest people in the world on this kind of stuff disagree.
Anyway. I'm not even going to tell you what the answer is.
That's what makes it fun.
So go look it up if you want to.
But here's, I think, the bottom line.
I think the way to explain this is it depends what you assume.
And that's the blind spot for a lot of statistics.
That it's not really the statistics that are fooling you.
You're making different assumptions, but you didn't realize it.
And so the different assumption would be about, for example, was the host always going to open another door?
And was it always going to be door number three?
So if you knew that the host was always going to do something, would your assumption be different than if you thought that it spontaneously thought that based on what you chose?
So all of these have a different set of information that's being revealed, and that's what makes it interesting.
Now, my point is not what's true and what's not about this.
My point is that there's really a big difference between what you think looks logical and And what is not?
Now, here's what I'm going to ask you because I'm not great at statistics, but I think this is true.
Let's say if you have something that's a 1 in 100 odds, what are the odds that happens?
1 in 100. Let's say the odds are 200 to 2.
What are the odds? Well, the same as 100 to 1, right?
200 to 2 is the same as 100 to 1, just math.
But what about this?
If I told you that you had one shot to win something that's 100 to 1, and you just take your one shot, or I tell you you can take 100 to 1 shot over and over and over again, which one has a better chance of you winning?
The one where you do it once, it's 100 to 1, or you can do it a number of times, but it's always 100 to 1.
The people who study statistics would say it's the same, right?
Yeah, the people who are the smartest about statistics would say that's a pretty basic one, it's the same.
But here's where the common sense fails.
If I only get one shot, I'm there and done.
But if I can do it infinite times, there's a 100% chance I'm going to get that.
Am I wrong? If I can do it infinitely, no matter...
I just do the 100 to 1 forever until it hits.
So how could the odds be the same if one of them is 100% chance of winning and one of them is 100 to 1?
But they are. Right?
Now, of course, it depends on...
Right. Now, I think it depends a little bit...
On whether you can do something infinite times.
If you're going to do something just twice, is there a big difference?
Let's say you're limited to twice.
It's either once 100 to 1, or you can do it twice.
In that case, I'm pretty sure the odds are so close to identical that they're basically identical.
Am I right? But it's the infinity that makes it completely opposite.
So, now, if there's anybody here who knows a lot more about statistics than I do, and I imagine that's quite a few of you, actually, some of you are probably thinking, Scott, you have this all wrong, you've described it wrong, you got the Monty Hall thing wrong, and that's my point.
That's my point. My point is that you could be reasonably smart and statistics are still sort of a weird blind spot.
And that even people who understand them can disagree.
So this 101 thing is the one that's been puzzling me forever.
And when I see something that cannot be false and cannot be true at the same time, I tell myself that can only be because of the simulation.
But of course that's not true.
It could be just something else I don't know.
All right. Now...
I might make that meaningful in a moment.
So here's something you need to understand, and I think we all understand this in 2022 in a way we never understood it, say, five years ago.
That a lot of the news that is true news, meaning it actually happened, is also fake news.
Because somebody gets to decide what context you see it in, And whether or not you see something that would change your mind if you saw something else.
So we've sort of left a realm where the news is either true or false.
And that's what matters.
Because a lot of the news that I call fake news on CNN is completely true news that they've presented in a way that's clearly meant to mislead.
So if it's technically true but presented in a way to mislead, obviously...
I'd call that fake news as well.
But here's a real question.
How much of what you see that's maybe technically true and sometimes not even, lots of times not even, how much of that is organic?
Meaning that there was just, you know, the business model of the news entity just said, oh, we'll get more clicks if we do this.
So that's sort of organic.
And how much of it is because outside forces have caused it to happen?
Now, if you have a degree in economics, I always say that knowing economics gives you another field of vision.
You can just see things more clearly if you understand the world of money.
And the short version of that is follow the money.
But if you know economics, you can follow it a little more easily.
And economics suggests that given a baseline beginning of the media companies, that over time they would all be captured by people with money.
Let me say that again.
Any understanding of economics, and if there are people who have economics backgrounds, can you back me on this or even deny it?
So look at the comments if you're not...
Versed in economics.
Economics would guarantee, just guarantee, that over time, all the news would be owned by people with money who are not technically part of the news.
Right? Now the only question is how long it takes...
And whether it's happened to every new entity.
I'm going to name a name, but I'm not going to make an accusation about them, okay?
This is just an example.
So Axios is a relatively new entity.
Could it be that some newer entities don't have money influence when they start, but that over time, economics would guarantee that they did?
Now, economics also largely guarantees that it has it when it starts, right?
But it doesn't totally guarantee it, right?
So, you know, I'm not making any accusations about Axios.
They have a good reputation, as a matter of fact.
And I recommend it.
I would go further. I would say, I've added Axios to my sort of daily scan.
It's worth doing. But anyway, and this is very relevant as we're watching the Joe Rogan situation.
In case you didn't think I was going to make this relevant.
Because, have you noticed, as I say, the continuing Roganization of America, which means that all stories must be told through the filter of what did Joe Rogan think about it, or say about it, or one of his guests.
It's becoming a little bit more obvious, thanks to observers such as Glenn Greenwald.
And I'm going to tell you what he has to say about it.
Now remember, economics suggests that all news will become fake over time, if only in the way the context is presented, not necessarily the detail of the news.
So Glenn Greenwald tweets this.
It was only a question of time.
It was only a question of time before the all-out war on Rogan began.
He's way too big and off-key to permit him to keep going.
The concept of free speech in the U.S. is a mirage.
You have it right up to the point where it matters or can threaten power centers, then you don't.
It was only a matter of time.
In other words, the economics of Joe Rogan His success made him big enough that he was sucking power away from the existing power centers.
So what economics suggests is that the existing power centers would attack.
Now, that's not proof that they did, right?
We're just in a situation that says, wait a minute, whenever you have this situation, you can reasonably predict if it hasn't happened yet, It's going to happen.
How many who have a degree or background in economics will back me on that?
That once he became a threat to eyeballs and credibility, and he became big enough, they had to attack him for pure economic incentive.
You couldn't not do it, really.
So sure enough, you see all the other big media centers start to attack him.
But then the question is, is that truly organic?
Because it would be organic in terms of economics is organic if they just said, hey, he's my competition now.
So just like CNN and Fox News go after each other each night, you would expect them to turn on Rogan.
And likewise, you would expect Rogan to turn on at least CNN, which he did.
So all of the part which is just media entities insulting each other, that's organic.
But is there a level beyond that where somebody's putting extra money in that you don't know about?
Because did you notice the interesting timing that the very moment that Joe Rogan seemed to have weathered the storm about ivermectin and Dr.
Malone and Dr. McAuliffe...
That the moment it looked like he could weather that, well, look, suddenly there's a compilation video of him using the N-word.
Of course, he only used it in the context of talking about it, but that would be left out of the video.
So then he had to apologize about that, which is a whole substory.
But here's a hypothesis.
This comes from...
Twitter user wokaldistance.
W-O-K-A-L distance.
So just search him or her, I don't know, on Twitter.
But I'm going to read you that thread.
And I'm not going to endorse the thread.
So there's a conclusion reached in this thread that I do not personally reach.
But... Whether or not the conclusion is right, follow the logic, because it suggests that if it hasn't happened, it will.
So local distance has this thread.
And he's responding to somebody who goes, blah, blah.
Since you asked, and I love your work, as he's talking to somebody else, he says, I'll tell you.
This is a professional political attack.
So that's his hypothesis about the Joe Rogan stuff.
Three waves, one right after the other, is not a coincidence.
Good spacing, good timing, so it's absolutely professional.
So in other words, somebody who understands this world is saying, if you see somebody murdered and it's two in the chest, one in the head, probably not a coincidence.
It looks like professional work.
But who is it, you ask?
That takes some digging.
But, and then he does some digging.
He goes, the video compilation of Rogan saying the N-word was dropped by at Patriot Takes, an organization, I guess, six days ago.
You see the video in the tweet, in picture one, so he shows a picture, and Patriot Takes takes credit for republishing, republishing the information.
That they take credit is important, and you'll see why.
So there's an organization that republished it, But also takes credit for it.
Interesting that they republished it instead of published it, but then they took credit for it.
Interesting. And then the local distance goes on.
As you can see in their bio, Patriot Takes is partnered with At Midas Touch, another organization.
And this is where it gets interesting.
Who is Midas Touch?
Well, they are a professional political organization.
In fact, they are a Democrat super PAC. More on that in a moment.
Run by three brothers.
All right, this is all local distances thread.
The three brothers, Ben, Brett, and Jordan Misalas, I guess, all of them have worked in media and have expertise in understanding and manipulating media.
The most important thing for us is that Brett was a social media manager for Ellen DeGeneres and is an expert editor, which matters because...
Patriot Takes works with Midas Touch, and I'd say it's a safe bet.
Now, this is vocal distance talking in this thread.
I'd say it's a safe bet, given their expertise in social media management, that the N-word video was created by Midas Touch.
Now, I'm not saying this.
This is an allegation in this thread.
But we are not done.
Midas Touch is a super PAC. Well, what's a super PAC, you ask?
Well, a super PAC is a political advocacy group with a special twist.
Super PACs may raise unlimited sums of money from corporations, unions, associations, and individuals, then spend unlimited sums to overtly advocate for or against political candidates.
So in other words, they can gather tons of money and use it to influence elections.
This means that a super PAC can take in unlimited amounts of money and then spend however they want politically.
Midas touches a super PAC. They can take in as much cash as they want, $4.7 million for the 2020 cycle and $1.5 million for the 2022 cycle, to be exact.
And he shows his sources.
To recap, Midas Touch, a super PAC which can collect as much cash as it wants from pretty well anywhere and is a professional strategy and media firm run by people with deep ties and entertainment, likely had a hand in the N-word video.
Now, we don't have proof, and there's no allegation of proof, just likely associations and a hypothesis.
And that they work together, blah, blah.
So the question is, why?
Why are they doing this, and what do they have to gain?
I think a clue can be found in the letter that Patriot Takes wrote about all of this.
Look at the highlighted part.
Now he highlights the part of their letter.
It's an official statement in response to the Joe Rogan apology.
It says that this is what Patriot Takes said.
The past week, Patriot Takes republished and brought to the national spotlight dozens of recorded instances of Where Joe Rogan used the N-word, blah, blah, blah.
But, of course, the context was talking about the use of it.
He didn't use it in its native form.
He was talking about it.
And the videos have now received millions of views.
So, local distance says, PatriotTanks is bragging about their millions of views and how they made the video the center of the national conversation.
They're bragging about their clout.
Rogan is the one guy the leftists can't cancel.
If a group could cancel Rogan, it would be a massive show of power.
Woke people in legacy media groups have been trying to cancel Rogan for ages because he steals their audiences and doesn't play by their rules.
Rogan also offers his enormous platform to people like Jordan Peterson that woke progressives in media circles really don't like.
The group that takes out Rogan would gain a lot of clout and a lot of power.
The group that can say, we canceled Rogan, if we can get him, we can get you too, would be able to swing a very large stick.
And that's what this is ultimately about.
It's a play for power, says local distance in this thread.
In short... It goes on vocal distance.
Media's Touch is a political super pact that is very likely behind the Patriot takes account.
They're attempting a viral hit on Joe Rogan so they can take him out, both because they don't like him and because they want monetizable clout for having done so.
Blah, blah, blah. It goes on some more.
Now, let me be very clear.
I am not endorsing or backing the hypothesis in this thread.
But what I am endorsing is the understanding of how things work.
It's a very good description of how things work.
Now, it gets more interesting.
How many other people need to get taken out, either because of somebody's business model, just competition, or for political clout?
How much of the Joe Rogan situation do you think might be somebody just proving they can do it Could be that.
How much of it is Democrats don't want him to have a voice?
Could be that. Especially as the next election comes up.
And how much of it is organic?
And how much of it is business models?
I don't know. But...
Whenever you see something like this, and I know you want me to talk about the fact that Joe Rogan did another video, I guess you could call it an apology, in which he described the context and he was horrified seeing the video himself.
I don't have much to say about it.
You know, some people said it was too far.
I get that point.
Some people said never apologize.
I get that point. But I'll say it again.
Be very careful when you second-guess people who are far more successful than you are at this stuff.
Right? Take a little bit of humility when you're looking at somebody who built a media empire with nothing but his own good judgment.
Am I right? I mean, talent, judgment, etc.
So if you're saying, I would have handled that differently if I were in his shoes, you know what else you would have handled differently?
Everything. That's why he got $100 million and you didn't.
Because he doesn't do it the way you do it.
Be careful when you criticize somebody in their own domain.
Remember, this is his domain, it's not yours.
His domain is the public.
How to read the room.
He's literally a stand-up superhero in today's world.
He stands in front of audiences and he feels them.
Like in real time. He just feels them.
He's about as connected to his base as anybody but maybe Trump was.
I hate to use him in the same sentence because then it gets political.
But, oh my God, could there be anybody who had more experience...
And is more directly connected, like in a visceral way, standing in front of huge crowds saying a lot of the stuff that he probably says on the show.
And then he does the show and he has lots of feedback.
So I'll tell you my own interpretation was, if it were me, it would have been a lot shorter.
But I give that advice for everybody for everything.
I think his instinct to say something about it felt right.
The general message he said about it felt right, but it went way too long.
He could have hit the high points with exactly the same point, and I just think it would have been punchier and better.
But that's just a general statement I make about everybody's communication, even my own.
You know, if I reread my own tweets, I always think, well, I could have left out a word there.
So it's not much of a...
It's sort of like saying somebody should have done something sooner, right?
It's the most generic attack you could make.
You should have done it sooner. True of everything that's good.
All right, so that's all.
I mean, I'm just not too interested in the apology part because I'm just not going to double...
I just can't get to the point where I can check his work if I can't do his work.
Am I right? Don't check his work if he can't do his work.
And I can't do it. I don't have 11 million followers.
So... But because everything in the world is really about me, this brings me to me.
And here's some information you might not have known.
My audience is down about 25%.
Maybe 30%, I don't know.
You can follow it on a graph, and it just went boom.
And it happened kind of quickly.
Now, there are two reasons for this, I imagine.
Number one is talking too much about the pandemic, and a whole lot of the world has moved on.
So I think I had far too much of a California perspective, because I was still in the prison camp and still am.
So the people who are out of the prison are not going to be so interested in every day hearing prison stories.
I get it. I get it.
But I tried and failed.
And let me say this about myself.
I tried, failed, to make it more about how we think about things.
But I guess, you know, that's just too hard to...
You can't thread that needle.
It doesn't work for everybody.
It worked for some of you, and I think for the people and locals it worked better.
But it's a hard general message to do.
So my audience is down 25% or 30%.
And here's one of the things I ask.
Is that organic?
Now, if I had to bet on it, I'd say yes.
Yeah, my bet would be yes.
But in the context of seeing what's happening to Joe Rogan, and then if you rewind the tape back to 2016...
There was something that Trump required in order for him to win that first election that I provided and nobody else did.
There was a key to his victory, and I don't think history will ever record this, but it's easy to check.
I mean, you can go back and check it yourself.
It's very easy to check.
That until somebody reframed him as a persuader, he was just a liar.
Am I right? He was just a liar and a con man.
But until somebody could explain everything that you saw in a different frame, which was, oh, this is, you know, 3D chess, and then that phrase, oh, it's 4D chess, oh, he's not playing 27D chess, and then everybody started talking about was he or was he not doing it intentionally?
Now, it started with a blog post called Clown Genius, and I redefined him from a clown to, yes, he's a clown, but he's a clown genius.
He's doing the clowning for effect, and it's working, and it will work.
I think that without that reframe, and if anybody says that didn't come from me, just Google it yourself.
You can find out. I don't think he would have won.
And I think that there might be, you know, half a dozen voices who could say something similar, that they added something to the process that was somewhat necessary.
You know, there were a lot of big accounts.
You know, the Mike Cernovich big account made a difference.
You know, you could list a dozen other people who just had big accounts and made a difference.
Somebody says, narcissist.
Jessica. Jessica, you don't want the Shelly treatment, do you?
There's somebody here who wants to get Shelly'd.
You probably knew. You either knew or you're such a good troll that you know what to say to try to get me to divert to you.
All right. So the point is, if you were trying to lay down suppressive fire to keep Trump from running for office and winning, would you start now to try to delegitimize and deplatform anybody whose voice would be part of that tapestry?
Yes. Now, if the whole thing that I read from Wokel's thread, if that way of working is a common way that things happen, and I think that it is, it rings true to me.
You know, I've seen enough things, you know, personally and in the news that says, yeah, that looks like a thing.
Am I already being attacked?
And if this drop isn't organic, is there an attack to come?
Because I would expect that anybody in the top, I don't know, 20 or so influential voices, and influential would be anything from a big platform, like Tucker Carlson.
Look how much Tucker Carlson gets attacked, right?
How much of that is just softening up the room for the elections?
Probably a lot. Probably a lot.
So, I told you that I was expecting that I would get one of these, like the lower class version of the Joe Rogan treatment.
And I'm wondering if it's already happened.
Let me ask you this.
Most of my audience dropped off, if I base it on the feedback.
There were a number of people who just dropped off because there was too much vaccine talk, and that was organic.
But there were a number of people who were convinced that I was one of the primary pushers of vaccinations.
Where did that come from?
And it came from one tweet, which was widely misinterpreted, but totally my own fault.
I'll give it to you graphically.
Here's the mistake I made.
Now let me give you some context.
If somebody says something and 99 people understand it, and one does not understand it, it's fair to assume that the problem is with one person.
And that if 99 people understood it, then the person who said it did a good job.
But if something like 80% of the people who see it don't understand it, or don't understand it the way you meant it, then clearly, by definition, That's the problem of the speaker, right?
So given the number of people who misinterpreted a tweet I did in 2021, clearly my fault.
But was that mistake big enough to cause the reaction that it got?
Because it was a tiny mistake, but the reaction was really big.
So I'll show you the mistake, and I'm not softening it.
Clear mistake, all right?
So nothing I'll say next is a hedge toward the fact that, oh, this was just a mistake.
But it was a small one.
And I wonder if there was anything behind the fact that it turned into a big impact.
Here was a mistake. I said that once I got vaccinated personally in 2021, that from my personal perspective, as a person who is pro-vax only for myself, I never told anybody else to get vaxed.
And you can fact-check that.
Because I'm not a doctor, and you all have different risk stuff, right?
So I never said anything about you.
I just said that in my specific case, all things included, I took a guess, and it was a guess.
That was my guess.
So the moment I got it, I had this weird psychological effect, which is that...
And here's the part that I got wrong.
Here was my mistake.
I didn't say from my perspective.
I implied it, but not well enough.
From my perspective, the moment I got my second shot, I never again thought about the risk to myself.
That was just my personal perspective.
From that moment on, I worried about the mandates.
Only. I worried about the mandates.
And the economy and stuff.
So from this moment, I was done.
But here's the thing that people jumped on.
They said, what about us?
What about us? For us, it was always done.
Scott, Scott, it's always been done for us.
In fact, we don't even think it ever started in some cases.
So nothing I said should discount this point of view.
Again, that was my mistake, not your mistake.
So I should have maybe, you know, just acknowledged there was another point of view.
And then it would have been a little bit more clear that it was just a perspective.
So I'm not saying any of this is true.
I'm saying that from a mental perspective, the moment I got the second vaccination, I never again thought I was in a pandemic.
I thought I was in an oppressive environment.
And then people said to me, oh, you've changed, blah, blah, blah.
Anyway, so I have no direct evidence that I was the subject of any kind of organized attack.
However, I do expect one.
If that wasn't it, I would expect one.
Here's another weird statistical thing, and I'm not sure what to think about it, but there was this other study, or a latest study at the Bar-Olan University in Israel.
It shows that vitamin D might be perfectly able to predict your outcomes along with age.
So this article about this new study suggests that That your odds of having a bad outcome are 14 times higher if you have low vitamin D. 14 times.
And then you add on age as a predictor, and you'd have two good predictors.
Now, Andres Beckhaus has poured some water on this, and so I always take him seriously.
And he pointed out that the 14 times more likely actually had a range from You know, 4 to 50 or something.
So it was like gigantic range.
But in all cases, it was a serious multiple.
Even at the lowest, it was four times bigger risk.
That seems big enough to be meaningful, right?
If it was 50 times more, I doubt it.
But, you know, somewhere in the middle.
But it doesn't matter where it is in that range, it would still be the same conclusion that it would help you predict.
And given that they've done retrospective studies and it did predict, it's probably, you know, it's short of being proven.
And let me clarify, I'm not saying that adding vitamin D would help anybody.
Let me say this clearly.
We're only talking about its ability to predict if you're somebody who's going to get in trouble.
A separate question, which is definitely not proven...
As far as I know. I don't think it's proven.
I don't think I've seen proof that immediately adding vitamin D once you get in the hospital is necessarily going to cure you.
Like, that's a different subject.
But the question is, does it predict that you're overweight?
And it does. Because people who are overweight have lower vitamin D on average.
So does it predict that you have, I don't know, cancer?
Or something. I think it predicts a whole bunch of general low health things.
So as a proxy to determine whether you should hide until the virus is over, or you should just live your life, it would be a pretty good risk management factor.
So Andres has some questions about the value of it, and you should take him seriously.
But I think that...
There's no question that people with high vitamin D have better immune systems, right?
Am I wrong about that?
That if your immune system has good vitamin D, you're almost always going to have a better outcome against just about everything?
I don't know. So to me, I don't know why this is controversial.
And as some of you have been nice enough to point out, I probably was one of the earliest people to say at the very beginning of the pandemic, hey, there seems to be some weird correlation here that's vitamin D related.
And so far, looks like there might be.
Not causation.
Not causation.
That has not been demonstrated.
All right, so...
In theory, and this is not confirmed, but I did see a report that California even is going to drop coronavirus restrictions on February 15th, meaning that the temporary rules are going to time out.
Can I get a confirmation on that?
That even in California, unless they renew it, which could happen, that it times out on February 15th?
I don't see any way that the governor could politically extend it.
I think the fact that we caught him without his mask...
At least the masks are going to have to go away in nine days.
But yesterday I went to Safeway without my mask.
I was the only person not wearing a mask in Safeway, big grocery store locally.
And nobody asked me to put on my mask.
Now... Have things changed, or is it something about me?
And I guess I would ask this question of you.
Because you know how you can't really see yourself the way anybody sees you?
I've been told that I look dangerous.
Not dangerous in the I will kill you kind of dangerous, but dangerous in the way that I can make trouble for you.
Like I can make your day unpleasant.
Is that true? Does anybody get that vibe from me?
Somebody says you scare the hell out of me.
So I'm getting mixed messages.
Mostly no. Some are saying definitely yes.
You look too short to be dangerous.
But remember, in this context, I don't mean dangerous physically.
Interesting. Well...
Because I would have said no.
My self-image is that I don't seem dangerous in any sense.
but other people have said that.
Interesting.
All right.
But here is my funny observation about Safeway.
In my state, in California, you've seen all these videos of people shoplifting with impunity.
You'll see a video of somebody filling up a big bag and then just walking out because there's no penalty for shoplifting.
So the store isn't going to chase you because they don't want to get hurt.
It's not going to work anyway.
And they can't call the cops because the cops don't care.
So the same store that you're wondering if they're going to make you wear a mask if you're an adult.
By the way, I think kids might get asked to put on a mask.
I don't know. But...
Here's what I was going to say if somebody asked me to put on a mask, if it was a manager, not if it was an employee, or not if it was another customer.
But if somebody who worked for the store asked me to put on my mask, I was going to say, you do understand that even shoplifting is not...
You don't even enforce shoplifting.
And the employee would have to stand there and say, well, okay, that's true.
So I would say, let me get this straight.
I could fill a pillowcase with goods and walk out of the store and you wouldn't say a peep.
Am I right? Well, that's true.
But you do need me to put a mask on nine days before it's going to be dropped for obvious reasons.
I mean, who wants to have that conversation with me?
Who wants to waste their time having that conversation with me when nothing can be gained by it?
So I think we've just reached the point where people maybe think about asking me, but they know it's not going to go well.
Don't you think? It's not so much that they're afraid of me in any real sense.
I don't think. But I think they just know the conversation won't go the way they hope it will go.
That they look at me and they say, that's not somebody who's going to put his mask on just because I asked him to.
So it might be that.
I think it's the look on my face that I'm not going to put it on just because you asked me to.
That might not be the only reason.
On Twitter, I tweeted this.
And somebody chimed in in the comments and said, you know, you're bluffing.
You wouldn't actually shoplift.
Right in front of the employee just because they made you wear a mask.
And I thought to myself, oh, you don't know me at all.
If you don't think I would literally shoplift just to make a point, you don't know me at all.
We have never met.
I would totally shoplift just to make a point, especially if it was on video.
If you could videotape me breaking the law, Just to make a point.
Even better. Let's let that thing go...
Let it go viral.
Anybody who thinks I don't like attention enough to break a ridiculous law just to make a point, you really don't know me at all.
Yeah, I would probably stream it.
Anyway, I thought it was funny that somebody could misinterpret my basic character that...
That grossly? All right.
There we have it.
So the question is, can we learn to identify when professionals are taking somebody down?
And do we see it in the Joe Rogan situation?
I can only tell you that the people who are good at seeing it think they see it, which is different from meaning it's true.
And in my case, I just used my case as an example, I would say I don't see it.
Would you agree? I would say in the Joe Rogan situation, it does look like there's something fishy going on.
But in my case, I would say there's no signal for that.
It's just something I'm alerted to in case there ever is a signal.
Would you all agree that in my case there's no...
I wouldn't say there's any direct evidence of that.
Yeah. So don't take any speculation beyond speculation.
There's no direct evidence of that.
All right, this. Disagree, huh?
I mean, I can easily be next, but that might also be me thinking too much myself.
Which is?
It's adenoidal and weak.
I don't know what that means. All right, I need to go, and I will talk to you.
Oh, my God, I just saw a question here on Locals.
The question was, should Joe Rogan interview Trump if Trump decides to run?
Yes. Yes.
It would probably ruin his business, so maybe it would be a bad idea.
But if he wants to make a point about free speech, he should invite both Biden and, well, okay, or whoever he's running against.
Okay, that's the way to do it.
He should put out two invitations, and optionally, you know, again, I'm not going to...
Let's have some humility...
Let us not, as I've done before, and I think I have to correct myself on this, I think I need some humility about anything that I suggest that Joe Rogan do in his own domain.
But one way to go would be to say, I'm inviting all of the candidates so you see both sides, or just whoever says yes.
Or whoever says yes.
He does have the clout that he could do both.
He could just do back-to-back.
Somebody says Rogan isn't a Trump fan.
Perfect. Perfect.
And that's why you want to watch him, right?
The reason you watch Joe Rogan is that you believe what he says is true.
You know, what's the interesting thing about both of Rogan's, let's say, apologies, if you want to call it that, both of his videos sort of explaining his situation, is that you believe them.
Think about how weird that is.
Now, you might have criticized, you know, the form of them or the timing or whether people should apologize.
Those are different questions. But was there ever even one moment...
In either of those videos where you thought he wasn't talking from his actual honest opinion?
And the answer is no. Think about anybody else who could do that.
Who else could pull that off?
Seriously. Who else could pull off both of those videos and nobody...
I don't even think his biggest critics said it was not sincere.
If you can't even get your critics to say you're lying, you're doing something right.