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March 26, 2022 - Real Coffe - Scott Adams
55:47
Episode 1694 Scott Adams: All The News About Russian Generals, Vaccination Safety, Movies Are Dying

My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a Find my "extra" content on Locals: https://ScottAdams.Locals.com Content: Bill Maher's bubble Conservative consistency Adding a person to a success system Mushrooms are coming soon Fact Check Org lacks credibility Putin's exit strategy goals ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 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

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Time Text
Hey everybody, congratulations and welcome to another amazing, amazing day.
Did you know that if I tell you you're going to have a good day, it actually makes it better?
No, it's true. If I simply tell you today will be a good day, it will bias you.
And your confirmation bias will kick in.
And so, as the official hypnotist of live streaming, I'm going to snap my fingers and tell you to have a good day today.
Have a good day. Watch how many people We're going to have a better day today.
It's amazing. Now, suppose you'd like to take it up a level and you'd like to really enjoy the day, really dig in, really give some traction.
All you need is a copper mug or a glass of handkerchiefs, a canteen jargon flask, a vessel of anticon.
Fill it with your favorite liquid.
I like coffee. And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure.
It's the dopamine hit of the day.
Everybody's talking about it. It's the simultaneous sip, and it's going to make all of you sexier, smarter, and more capable.
Go. Hold on, hold on, everybody.
Hold on. Ben isn't ready.
Everybody? We're all in this together.
I just got an emergency message on YouTube from Ben.
Wasn't quite prepared. Everybody?
Hold on. Ben? Ben?
Are you ready? I think he's ready.
Go. All right.
Now, if you didn't make it that time, Ben, it just wasn't there for you.
Well, did anybody join me last night in the man cave?
I did an unscheduled live stream in the Man Cave in which I decided that my thing is going to be telling you stories.
Because it turns out I've accumulated a vast amount of weird, interesting stories.
And so I was trying them out last night on my local subscription platform.
And I think those might have been available to other people.
I can't remember what setting I had.
But that's going to be my thing.
I'll do some more Man Cave live streams.
Well, in the weird simulation-like tragedy, as you know, I've been learning to play the drums in recent years.
So that's sort of my main hobby, is learning to play the drums.
And so part of that process and that journey, you end up following great drummers, because you want to see how the great ones do it.
And so I feel like every time I find a great drummer, something bad happens to them.
So I started out looking at Ginger Baker from the old group The Cream, but he's dead.
So I was like, wouldn't it be cool to follow somebody who's alive?
So I was looking at Neil Peart, and he died.
And then I started getting interested in the drummer for the Foo Fighters, Taylor Hawkins.
He died last night at age 50.
I don't think any of this is my fault.
John Bonham? Deceased.
Yeah, so basically Ringo Starr is all we have left at this point.
Charlie Watts, exactly.
Charlie Watts was literally who I was copying when he died.
I was actually playing his videos and like, oh, he's got...
He had a simpler style that was designed for being danceable.
So that was Charlie Watts.
It just has to be danceable.
Everything else doesn't matter.
So... How weird is this?
Every time I love a drummer, they die.
Now, the story is that he was about to, he was a few hours from going on stage in Columbia, I believe.
And he was age 50.
He looked perfectly healthy.
I mean, if you looked at him, he looked, he didn't look 50, first of all.
Did you know he was 50?
I mean, he looked 40.
So he didn't look like he was going to die at all.
But he died at age 50, and no cause of death was given.
No cause of death.
He's in Columbia.
He's 50.
It's before a rock concert.
He'd be maybe preparing for the rock concert.
You know, I really feel like...
When they don't tell you the cause of death, you kind of know the cause of death, don't you?
I mean, I don't want to throw this guy into the bus because I actually respected him quite a bit as a performer.
So I liked him a lot.
So I don't want to make up some crappy rumors about the guy that's not true.
We'll wait to see what happens.
So I don't want to predict.
Oh, yes, I do.
Yes, I do. It's probably drugs and probably fentanyl.
Now, what's it going to take?
What's it going to take? Now, I'm not going to assume that I'm right there.
So if it turns out that it's not fentanyl, I have an apology to give, and I will definitely be giving it.
So if tomorrow you find out he had a heart problem or something, I will be apologizing profusely.
But I am concerned...
That this looks, obviously...
Oh, Stuart Copeland is still alive, you're right.
This looks exactly like what it looks like.
And I hope it isn't.
I really hope it isn't. But if it is, we might be closer to taking it seriously.
Well, is there any story that starts with the three words, a Florida man, that is not entertaining?
I should do a survey on that.
Have you ever seen a story that started with the three words, a Florida man, and then you found yourself saying, well, that's not going to be interesting.
Well, here's the story today.
I think it was in CNN. A Florida man has died after crashing his car into an 11-foot alligator.
And then they reported that both the driver and the alligator were deceased.
I kind of wonder why there are not more alligator fatalities.
You know, the only times I've been in Florida, I feel like I always see an alligator by the road.
Am I wrong? If you're driving around in Florida, don't you?
You always see alligators by the road.
How in the world are there not continuous vehicle deaths Based on alligators.
I don't know. The thing that surprised me is that we don't hear it every day.
Well, here's a story about Bill Maher's bubble.
Here's something that he said.
Bill Maher said on the show.
Friday, I guess. He said, I think that today's Republicans would not do that.
I think that they would be thrilled to have no black seats on the court.
Talking about the Supreme Court.
And then he clarified, you know, okay, maybe a few.
He said, okay, a lot of them.
So he wasn't saying every single Republican.
But I would like to add the following to his bubble.
Here's something that Bill Maher really, really doesn't understand.
And I want to see if you all understand it.
Or disagree with me.
You're free to disagree.
I'm going to tell you a story of two people talking...
And how it goes. And you tell me this is...
I'm just making this up.
But you tell me this isn't how it goes.
There's a white conservative guy gets into conversation with a black man, and he doesn't know if the black guy is conservative or what.
And maybe they get into a little disagreement about something, and then the black guy says, well, I just want to clarify.
I'm a conservative. And the white guy says, what?
Oh, odds were against that.
And then the guy says, yeah, I'm totally conservative.
Church going. Love my constitution.
I think everybody should earn their own way, and race should not be part of any decisions in this country.
And then what does the white guy say?
He's a white conservative.
Does he say, in his mind, does he say, you know, but, yeah, you do agree with me on all the things that I find most dear, but, you know, you're still black.
So, is that what happens?
Is that what happens? Does the white guy, the white conservative, the Republicans say, oh, you know, you do agree with me on all the important stuff, but, you know, you're still black, so...
so...
no. I don't think in the history of the world that's ever happened.
Let me tell you how that goes.
Oh, you probably don't know, but I'm actually a conservative.
And then the white conservative says, what?
Yeah, right down the line.
Constitution, Bible, family, whole deal.
And then the white conservative says, huh, are you free for lunch?
Let's do lunch. You know that's the fucking way it goes, right?
Why does Bill Maher not know that?
Am I right? I'm literally right.
If the conservative finds somebody who agrees...
With the philosophy, they're 100% okay.
Not 99%.
Not 99%.
They're 100% okay.
No exception. That's my opinion, and I've never seen an exception to it.
Now, I tell you often that I'm not conservative, because I'm not.
But I definitely appreciate that about conservatives.
There is a consistency there that's impressive.
It's that consistency that draws me to conservatives and Republicans.
I'm not going to be the guy who tells you that the Republicans don't have a lot of conspiracy theories running around in their brains, because they do.
They do. So does everybody.
Just different ones. So it's not about that.
It's not about the conservatives are always right and the Democrats are always wrong.
I don't really see that. What I see is a group that has a consistent, workable system that they respect, and they're quite consistent about it.
I love that.
I love that.
Even when it gives me a result that's not exactly my preference.
But I love this system.
And I love the people who buy into that system.
It's not like I dislike the other people, but there's much to respect about people who take seriously their own philosophy.
And I do think conservatives take seriously their own philosophy.
All right, I've been telling you for a while that I think movies are a dead art form for a variety of reasons.
The biggest one is that our attention spans have declined.
Watching a two- or three-hour movie just sounds like torture to me.
I can't imagine how anybody does it anymore.
But beyond that, the movies themselves are complete crap.
There must have been a time in our world where we were not exposed to so much ugliness that we could watch it for entertainment.
And I don't know if this is what happened to me.
It feels like it. It maybe happened to you too.
I suppose in my childhood...
I just was not exposed to as many negative things, maybe because no internet or whatever.
TV was all, you know, sanitized.
So if I went to a movie and the movie showed some horrible thing happening to somebody...
It would be so out of the normal, for my experience, I'd be interested in it, even if it's horrible.
Because, unfortunately, that's the way brains work.
But now, we live in a world in which we're inundated with real-world disaster scenarios.
We're all going to die from the bio-labs and the inflation and the food shortages and Russia's going to attack and it's a nuclear war and everything.
And my capacity to handle ugliness...
Is always completely full.
So that any extra bit of ugliness that's added, it just makes me flip out, right?
Everybody's the same. There's a limit that you can take, and then there's over the limit.
And to me, paying money to go across town, let's say you're watching it in person, and sit in an uncomfortable seat...
And watch three hours of something that is designed to make you feel uncomfortable.
It's made that way.
That's not an accident, that's the feature.
The feature of a movie is to make you feel really bad, so that when the end of the movie comes, they can relieve that.
It's like an itch and a scratch.
So first they make you itch really badly, and then if you can sit through all three hours, they'll give you a little scratch, and that's your payoff.
Who does that?
Why? Why would you go to a movie?
It makes no sense.
Because you have infinite alternative entertainment on the internet.
You could go into YouTube and have 50 cool short experiences that are just what you wanted with nobody tied to a chair to be tortured for information.
By the way, there's a standard that I use that I would recommend to all of you.
It might make movies better.
It goes like this.
As soon as the movie involves somebody tied to a chair, turn it off.
Turn it off. That's it.
Because as soon as you see somebody tied to a chair, you know this isn't a good movie.
This is a movie designed to make you feel bad.
And then you got suckered into going to it.
Right. As soon as you see the chair, even before they're tied to it, you know they're going to get tied to the chair.
Turn it off. There's nothing good there.
Here's another little tip for watching comedies.
If you want to know whether a comedy, let's say a sitcom on TV, is worth watching to the end, see how long it takes them to make a food joke.
Now this is real insider humorist stuff here.
Bad writers make food jokes.
Do you know why? Because when they're writing, they're eating.
And a bad writer does this.
Blank page. What am I going to write about?
Eating my doughnut.
Got to come up with an idea.
Hey, what about something about food?
Now, It is impossible to make a funny food joke.
I actually write about this very thing.
You can do jokes about people and about how people feel, and maybe you could do a joke about how somebody feels about food.
But you can't really make a joke about the food.
And if you see somebody making a food joke, like, uh, love those donuts, and Jim Gaffigan.
Jim Gaffigan's jokes are really about himself.
So that's a little bit of a trick.
Yeah, Jim Gaffigan can do hot pocket jokes because it's not really about the food.
It's about his reaction to food.
That's the only thing that makes it funny.
So if you see jokes that are about the food and not the person's response to the food, that's a bad writer.
Turn it off. All right, I tweeted this and then I caused an accidental controversy.
Here's my tweet. No system can survive the addition of one person to the situation.
No personal system for success can survive adding one person to the process.
And a lot of people said, oh, you're publicly complaining about your divorce.
No, it's not about that.
It's actually literally just about systems.
So it's not about me personally.
It's something I've been noticing.
Here's a specific example.
Now, if you think this example is unique and maybe an example of the exception, the whole point is that this happens over and over and over again.
So what sounds like an exception, trust me, you can generalize this a lot.
So I have a system of rewarding myself for work, so I don't mind the work as much, just like a dog.
If I do my work, I get a treat.
Now, the treat that I give myself is a raisin bagel, With coffee in the morning.
It's just about my favorite thing to do.
To have a nice bagel.
You have to wait for it in the toaster.
It's piping hot. And there's something about the process of making it that's kind of pleasant.
And all of this I treat as a reward.
So it's working for years and years and years.
My reward.
Now, I improved my system.
In the morning, I would order fresh bagels every three days or so, because you can eat them for a few days before they get stale.
So about every three days, I'll order fresh bagels in the morning, and they get delivered to the door.
And a member of my household...
I'm going to speak very generically now just for privacy purposes, but I have several members of my household.
And one member of the household said...
Hey, bagels, can you get me some blueberry bagels?
Because I really like blueberry bagels.
Not really like any other kind, but really like the blueberry bagels.
And so, I took my system of ordering raisin bagels on a regular basis, which are awesome, and I added to that the blueberry bagels so they come in the same order.
Now, here's what I didn't count on.
A blueberry bagel and a raisin bagel look exactly the same to idiots.
In this case, I would be the idiot.
Now, I know what you're saying.
Scott, I could pretty much easily tell the difference between a blueberry bagel and a raisin bagel.
You just have to sniff them.
To which I say, I do not have a sense of smell.
I have to rely on visual.
Visually, they look about the same until you cut them open, and then you realize you got the wrong one.
Now, they come in a big box.
They're all mixed up.
So every morning, my system, which used to be treated as a reward, where I just love that raisin bagel, has now been transformed by the addition of one extra person into the situation.
Now, every morning I go and I look at the bag of bagels and I say to myself, God fucking damn it!
I'm not going to be able to know which one is the right bagel.
I'm going to waste my fucking time toasting this bagel.
I'm going to be done with it. I'm going to put it in my mouth and I'm going to say, fuck, fuck, fuck!
Once again, I picked the wrong bagel.
And so, my beautiful system of rewarding myself has turned into a bagel hellscape In which I have not yet figured out a way to emerge.
I was thinking I could do two orders of bagels, one of just raisin and one of just blueberry, but it literally doubles my work.
I don't want to double my work.
That's not a good system.
Yeah, two orders? Nope.
Now, I could ask them, of course, it's DoorDash, I could ask them to put them in separate bags, but they won't.
If you've ever tried to make a special request to DoorDash, they don't really read those.
As far as I can tell, they don't read them.
So, I don't really know what to do.
Now, is this the biggest problem in the world?
No, this is the ultimate rich person's problem.
However, watch how well that generalizes.
Let me give you another example.
I created a system where downstairs I had one drawer in the kitchen that was just for things that I always had to go upstairs to get.
So I kept putting anything important in that drawer.
One of the things I put in there was my wallet.
Because I was always running upstairs to get it if I needed to leave the house or my keys, you know, that sort of stuff.
So my ex-wife at the time said, don't keep a wallet down there.
Somebody might get at it.
Now, of course, I had made that conscious decision that there was a little extra risk, but the convenience was worth it.
But when somebody else tells you not to do it, you're like, ah, I'm going to have to get to this conversation again.
So I was like, okay, I'll move the wallet, but it'll still be my drawer of everything else.
Well, about that point, my ex-wife decided that that was a good junk drawer.
And so my well-positioned drawer of only the things that were clearly visible became a pile of garbage that I had to pile through every time I wanted anything, and it was the stuff I wanted most often.
So take those two examples, and if you're tempted to say, Scott, that's just about those two people.
I mean, that's not everybody.
You can't add just everybody to a system and it breaks.
No, I'm saying everybody.
I'm saying it has nothing to do with the personalities of people involved.
It is a general rule that as soon as you add one person to your system, it'll break.
So look for ways to avoid adding anybody to your system.
And just be aware, the moment you let that other person in with their little preferences, they start getting in your head, your whole system is gone.
So just remember that when you're building your systems.
Rasmussen says 66% of the public thinks the Hunter laptop story is important.
Scott did a poll in his head and found out that 0% of people will base their vote on Hunter's laptop.
I don't think anybody's going to vote on that, do you?
They should. I mean, it feels like it's pretty darn important.
But I don't think anybody will.
Because the Republicans, we're all going to vote Republican, and the Democrats, we're going to vote Democrats.
So I'm not sure that's telling us anything.
We have further confirmation today in a more meaningful publication.
So it's the UK's Daily Mail.
You can insert your own comments about the credibility of the media, and that one in particular.
But it is reporting a lot of details about a Ukrainian bio lab that was funded in part by Hunter Biden's efforts.
So he was part of an investment group, and he did get some investments for at least one bio lab that was involved in stuff that at least could have been weaponized.
Don't know exactly what they were doing.
Now, I saw the funniest tweet...
From a Twitter user called Nothing.
That's his handle, Nothing.
He goes, I'm genuinely a little bit upset.
He's talking to me. He says, I'm genuinely a little bit upset that you guessed the Hunter Biden biolab thing.
He's genuinely upset that I made that prediction, that it was correct in 48 hours.
Now, is anybody else impressed that I made that prediction, that Hunter Biden would be tied to the biolabs?
Thank you. You should be impressed by that.
You know, there aren't that many things I do that even I think you should be impressed by, but that one you should be impressed by.
I mean, that was a frozen rope home run over the center field fence.
I mean, there's no way around that one.
Now, as I replied to my critics who were wondering how the hell I guessed that, was it a guess or did I have inside information?
I will tell you, I didn't have inside information.
So on this particular topic, sometimes I do.
I have to admit, sometimes my predictions are based on a little bit of inside information.
Not always. Sometimes.
This one had no inside information.
The technique I used, I explained to you ahead of time.
Somebody says, Scott pretends to make predictions based on insider information.
Did you write that before I just said that, or after?
But let me clarify.
I rarely make predictions based on insider information.
Is that different than what you think?
I think I rarely do it.
Now, I don't always tell you, because the source of the insider information might be private.
Rarely. Rarely.
But sometimes. I don't always have insider information.
Now, the part that would make this amazing and really a movie is if we found out the coronavirus came out of the Hunter Biden-funded BioLab.
Now, I don't think that's going to happen.
But it would be the perfect movie ending, wouldn't it?
So the technique I use to predict this is that reality will follow a movie script path because we're...
There's a Cristino video.
Don't know about that. So there's a...
By the way, let me ask you something.
If you see anything about me that you think you need to send to my ex, don't do it.
If you see anything about her in the media or anything else and you think, well, he's got to know about that, just don't do it.
Just do me a favor. Just don't do it.
Just stay out of it.
Everything's fine. Just stay out of it.
All right. Mushrooms are coming.
There's a weird thing happening.
So a number of Republicans and Democrats around the country in about a dozen states are pushing legislation to legalize some form of Psychedelic mushrooms.
Now, the context usually is medical.
Or always, I think.
And it has to do with experimentation and maybe some treatment.
And so what they're doing is different.
But here's the amazing thing.
It's bipartisan.
There doesn't seem to be like an obvious difference about whether this is a Republican or Democrat thing.
And, you know, the thinking is that it might be going the same path as marijuana legalization.
But I don't think that's the interesting part of the story.
I do believe that psychedelic mushrooms are guaranteed to become legal and routinely used in a medical context.
That's my belief.
Actually, I'll make that a prediction.
It's barely a prediction because it's just so obvious.
I don't think anybody disagrees, do they?
Is there anybody who would disagree? I don't think so.
I think that's just obvious at this point.
So maybe some other psychedelics as well.
But mushrooms for sure.
I will tell you that in the last few weeks, the number of people who I would call normies, people that you would not associate with advanced drug use, I think at least three normies have said something about wanting to do mushrooms.
And apparently there's some chocolate bars, and I don't know if they're legal or illegal, but there's like a, now there's a well-made product that puts the mushrooms into chocolate squares, and I hate to tell you this, but it was the main thing that was keeping mushrooms from growing, in terms of the public, is dosage.
If you get a bag of actual mushrooms, you don't know how much to take.
For me, that's a full stop.
If you don't know a quantity to take, full stop.
There's no way I'm going to play with something I don't know the quantity, especially if a small quantity could have.
Now, I've never even heard of anybody having a bad mushroom experience.
It must happen. One assumes it does happen.
Never heard of it, so I don't know how dangerous it is if I've never heard of one example.
But... So mushrooms are coming, and there's nothing to stop it.
However, that's not the big story.
I just got an anonymous text from somebody who was saying the chocolate squares are amazing.
So, mushrooms have moved into the mainstream.
You know that, right?
So ordinary people, you just don't associate with this, are just saying, yeah, I'm going to get some mushrooms, and mushrooms are great.
Now, the medicinal value is almost incalculable.
Mushrooms have been reported to be curing everything from addiction to different mental health illnesses, anxiety, all kinds of stuff.
And it's because they all have the same root.
Do you believe that? The reason that mushrooms and psychedelics are reported to, I'm not the doctor, so I'm not going to tell you what's true or not, but reportedly have these miracle cures against all kinds of seemingly different conditions.
Like, is addiction really the same thing as anxiety or some other mental illness?
Not really. But it seems to fix all of them.
Do you know why? Why?
Tell me why. Why do mushrooms seem to work against a bunch of different things?
Somebody says trauma equals...
That's interesting.
Trauma equals inflammation.
I wouldn't bet against that.
I haven't heard that hypothesis, but I like it.
All right, let me... There we go.
Yeah. Yeah.
Mushrooms dissolve your ego.
Yeah. It's like rebooting your whole mentality.
It allows you to reframe your existence.
So you basically do a demo on your entire thought process, and then by eliminating your ego, because in a way your ego is what keeps all of your existing thoughts intact, even when they're stupid.
Your ego is the part that says, well, you think I'm wrong, but I'm not wrong.
Because the ego is protecting itself.
It's the thing that makes you not able to change your opinion, even when the evidence says you should.
So if you get rid of your ego, what happens to your confirmation bias?
It goes away. Because it's your ego protecting your reputation, your feelings and stuff.
That's the only reason the confirmation bias works.
Because you're trying to protect yourself.
If you take away the protecting yourself...
No confirmation bias.
Imagine seeing the world for the first time without bias.
Now, it's impossible to describe what people experience under any kind of hallucinogenic state.
There aren't any words in the non-hallucinogenic state that capture that in a way you can transmit it.
All I'm going to say is that it doesn't surprise me that if you can eliminate your ego long enough to reprogram your frames, that when you come back online after the mushrooms, and again, let me say this to avoid demonetization, I'm very much against anybody using any kind of drug that's not doctor-recommended and doctor-supervised.
So, you know, don't go wild and just shove magic mushrooms in your mouth.
Be a little smart, okay?
All right. The Supreme Court ruled that Biden is the commander-in-chief.
You know, I thought that was like a joke headline.
Was it Politico had that headline?
And then I read the article and I was like, oh yeah, actually that headline does capture it.
So the Supreme Court was ruling on whether Biden can order the troops to get vaccinated, or because it's maybe unconstitutional, the commander-in-chief could not tell people to get mandatory vaccines.
But the court ruled that the commander-in-chief can pretty much tell the troops to do anything because he or she is the commander-in-chief.
That's why. And I feel I agree with that.
You know, you could say that there's some kind of evil going on with forcing anybody to get a shot, but I don't think we treat the military like any other part of society.
Am I wrong that the military can expressly discriminate?
They can, can't they?
Can't the military discriminate?
They can. It's the only part of society...
Well, that's not true. But it's one part of society that is explicitly allowed to discriminate.
Now, they can't discriminate against race.
Do you know why? Because race apparently doesn't affect your fighting capability.
Makes sense, right?
There just wouldn't be any reason.
Now, if there was a reason, that would be dicey.
If it turned out there was some reason that race made a difference in your fighting, they would discriminate.
They would. Because that's their job.
But as it turns out, it's probably not a factor.
So they can discriminate against your height.
Am I right? You could be too small.
You could be too old.
Too disabled.
So the military is all about discriminating.
And when it comes to the trans question...
I think they only care about cost and readiness.
And otherwise, that's your problem.
So we do allow the military to discriminate, and the Supreme Court has backed them in that ability.
This discrimination is a weird kind because it's about the vaccinations.
All right. Fact-checkers on Twitter were going wild today, and they were fact-checking as false...
A claim that vaccines were hurting people more than they were helping them.
So they say, the fact checkers say, this is not me, this is the fact checkers.
And can we pause for a moment?
Give you a little context.
If you look at something like factcheck.org, one of the ways you can know that they're right about everything is that fact is right in their name.
Fact check. So therefore, logically, it follows that 100% of the things they say are facts.
And so when I read this fact check, you should definitely believe the fact check.
Do not believe the alleged fake fact.
Don't believe that.
Oh, wait a minute. Okay.
All right. I did some mushrooms and now I'm thinking more clearly.
It does turn out that the fact checks are exactly as non-credible as any conspiracy theory.
Now, I'm not going to back the conspiracy theory in this specific case, but it is sadly true that the fact checkers do not have more credibility than the conspiracy theory.
They can be right.
I'm not saying they're wrong.
They don't have credibility.
Certainly not on this.
And let me tell you why they don't have credibility.
So here's the story.
So there's a bogus claim by some doctor's group that's organized doctor's group to basically say contrarian things about the pandemic.
You've probably seen them.
And... They say that there's a misleading graphic to show that the deaths rose even though the vaccinations were rolled out.
So the graph purported to show that there was no difference in the deaths and they kept going up after vaccinations rolled out.
The fact check says they made this mistake.
They confuse cumulative with daily.
What? Who does that?
Apparently the entire graph, it only tells the story that these doctors wanted to tell because they confused cumulative deaths, which, by the way, you do know that cumulative deaths always go up, right? They never really turn down.
You can't add anything to anything and get less of it.
Doesn't work. And so the doctors who are...
Have I ever mentioned this? Have I ever mentioned that doctors, while they might be excellent at doctoring, do not necessarily have skills at data analysis?
Exhibit A. If you can't tell the difference between cumulative and daily, well, maybe you shouldn't talk in public about data.
But, and then the fact-checkers pointed to two studies, more recent studies, that showed that the vaccines totally worked and that it saved America.
And so you can believe the fact-check because they pointed to two studies.
And if it's in a study, am I right?
It's in a study.
Well, it's got to be true.
It's got to be true if it's in a study.
No. No.
What about two studies?
There are two studies that say that it works.
So you believe that?
Two studies?
No. No.
Now, I happen to think it's probably true that the vaccines worked.
And I would place a fairly large bet on that, actually.
But we can't tell.
There is no fucking way that you and I know if the vaccines worked or not.
Because we only get bullshit.
The only data is unreliable data.
That's all we have. We have only unreliable data.
So I have my bias.
My bias is that the vaccine probably worked.
Do you think that I'm biased by the fact that I got vaccinated?
Do you think my belief...
The vaccines maybe were safer than some people thought.
Do you think that is in any way influenced by the fact that I got vaccinated?
Yes! Yes!
If I've taught you nothing, you should know that.
Of fucking course I'm biased.
Now, does it help that I'm completely aware of the source of the bias?
A little bit. But not much, right?
If people could see past their bias because they understood where it was coming from, well, we'd be in pretty good shape.
But apparently people can't do that.
And why would I think I can?
If I observe that it just doesn't seem to be something that human beings can do, why would I think I can do it?
Now, it feels like I can do it.
But it feels like you can do it, too, doesn't it?
And I'm not so sure you can do it.
So the fact that it feels like, you know, I can come up with good, unbiased opinions means nothing.
I definitely feel like I can.
If you asked me, Scott, like really deep down in your bones, do you think you could overcome these biases?
I'd say, with a completely straight face, I'd say, you know, I really think I can.
Unlike everybody else in the world, I really think I can.
And I step back and I hear myself.
And I think, OK, listen to yourself.
Listen to yourself. Now listen to everybody else on Earth who you know can't do that.
Yeah, they all think they can.
So that's the only way you can get to anything like humility, is to understand that you're claiming a superpower that everybody on Earth claims and nobody has.
Nobody has it. The ability to be unbiased.
So factor that in when you look at my claims.
Now, here's the payoff.
There's nothing interesting in knowing that the fact-checkers say something you don't think is true.
But here's the trick.
Are you ready? Was this the only data and the only graph and the only group saying that vaccinations might have been more dangerous than we've been told?
Only one? Nobody else out there?
Did anybody else have different arguments, but they came to a similar conclusion?
Why is it that the fact-check orgs just had multiple orgasms on this one specific claim?
Why is that? Because I'm seeing stuff by other people online, I won't name names, that seem far more compelling than this one would have.
I don't hear anybody fact-checking them.
Do you? Have you now seen completely different claims that vaccines might have a problem?
I don't know if they're true, and I'm not saying that they are.
In fact, I'd bet against them.
I don't think they're true.
But I don't know. I don't know, and you don't know either.
So why is it that they picked this one to debunk?
If you don't know this, I will be disappointed.
Because you've been watching me for a while.
Why'd they pick this one to debunk?
It's a diversion. They picked the weakest one to debunk because they can't debunk the strong one.
If they debunk the weakest one, they could say, we've debunked the idea that vaccinations are dangerous.
Just look at it. There's my fact check.
We just debunked it. Totally debunked.
But why did they debunk...
The weakest, most obviously wrong one that had no value at all when there are stronger claims that also might be false, but they appear to be more substantive.
This is propaganda.
This is brainwashing.
And again, I'm not saying that vaccinations are dangerous because I think if I had to bet, I'd bet that the risk balance was appropriate.
Don't know. Could be totally wrong because I'm biased.
You don't need to tell me I'm biased.
I know that. All right.
But if you see a fact-checker going after the weakest argument, you should say, fuck you, a fact-checker.
You are trying to manipulate me by going after the weakest argument.
Go after the strong one. Do you know how I tell you that if you're trying to debunk the list of persuasion, somebody comes at you with a list of ten reasons why something's true?
If they've got ten reasons why something's true, the only way you should attack that is say, give me your one best reason.
Would you agree? If I can debunk your one best reason, you'll go rethink the others.
That's all you can do. That's the best you can do.
Well, here's a question.
Do you think Russia will run out of generals before Ukraine runs out of bullets?
Seems like every day or so we're hearing about another Russian general who got killed by the Ukrainians.
How many of you believe that is true?
Well, I'm going to agree with Twitter user...
I hope I wrote down his name.
Maybe I'll find it later.
But I think that after the war is over, we're going to find out that maybe some of those generals are alive.
What do you think? I think maybe some of those generals might be alive.
Maybe more than we think.
All right, there was, speaking of Russian generals, there was a Russian general who was talking about what they were trying to accomplish, what Russia is trying to accomplish.
And it feels like he was moving the goalpost a little bit.
So here's what the Russian general says they're trying to accomplish, in his own words.
The combat potential of the armed forces of Ukraine has been significantly reduced, allowing us, I emphasize again, to focus the main efforts on achieving the main goal, the liberation of Donbas and the other region there.
I forget his name. So it seems that a Russian general, speaking in public, presumably not off page, It is saying that the reason they're there is to basically degrade the Ukrainian military and to liberate Donbass.
Now... Backwards mission creep, right?
You see what's forming here, right?
This is the exit strategy.
So Putin is putting in play an option if it turns out he can't conquer the whole country, which one assumes would be the preferred thing.
But he's creating an option...
To say, these were our goals, even if they weren't, and here's how we accomplished them, even if we didn't, and now we can get out.
Right? So you can see the endgame now.
The endgame is really clear.
The endgame is that Putin will create a situation in which he can definitely claim victory.
Here's my opinion as of today.
Russia won. In my opinion, the war is basically over.
I mean, it still needs to run out.
But here's what I think.
I don't think we were trying to win this war.
Because that's not what winning a war looks like.
Am I right? When I say we, I mean the Western people backing the Ukrainians.
We weren't trying to win this war.
We weren't. Because I don't think we wanted to.
Because when we want to do something and we have the ability to do it, well, don't we do it?
Am I right? If we have the ability to do something and we want to do it, we do it.
So here we have the ability to do far more damage, and we didn't do it.
That looks like a choice.
It looks like a choice to simply destroy Ukraine and destroy Russia for maybe decades.
To get an advantage over them so that they couldn't fund their military and wouldn't sell their energy against us.
So I think both sides are going to get what they want, weirdly, in a way.
Here's what Putin's going to get.
Complete victory. It looks at this point, if he survives, and it looks like he will, that Putin just won.
I think he just won straight up.
Because he can tell his people he won...
He did get things he didn't have before.
Now what he loses is maybe international reputation and then sanctions.
But let me tell you, if the sanctions last 10 years, but their productive control of Ukraine lasts 100, Putin is going to look like one of the best leaders Russia ever had.
Am I wrong about that?
All he has to do is serve on his time, you know, and keep the history books saying what he wants them to say.
And he's going to say, we got rid of the Russians, or I'm sorry, we got rid of the Nazis, we repatriated the Russian-speaking lands, we built a land bridge, and we neutralized the Ukrainian threat, and we kept NATO out.
I think he ran the table.
Am I right? He ran the table.
He got everything. Because I don't know that he really cared about Kyiv.
I mean, Kyiv is irrelevant.
If you own the parts you want, you've got everything you need, and you can come back if you need to, and blah, blah, blah.
So Putin himself won't starve.
His country might go through some tough times.
I think they will. But so will everybody else.
I mean, we're heading toward a...
Potential global food shortage.
And I think we're going to work our way around that.
I think we'll be okay on the food.
But I think Russia's going to go through a tough 10 or 20 years, and then in 100 years Putin will look like a hero, one of the great builders of the nation, and he will win.
And it will never have that much effect on his personal life, because he'll go to his dacha and have his harem and whatever else he's doing.
So, looks like he won.
What else has happened?
Oh, it was Gregory Maccles on Twitter.
This was his tweet.
I'm agreeing with this. He said, my money is that most of those generals will pop up alive after the war and after many people who follow edgy Russian sources...
Oh, and only the people who follow edgy Russian sources will know about it.
I wouldn't bet against that.
Now, if one general died, well, I'd believe that, or maybe two or three.
I'd believe that. I mean, anything could happen.
But seven or eight generals?
No. Here's another fake news.
There's a story that a Russian commander has died after being run over by a tank by his own mutinous troops.
So that was in the news today.
Do you believe that?
It comes from a Ukrainian journalist.
One source. A Ukrainian journalist believes that he witnessed it, or he was close to the scene so he found out about it, that the mutinous troops ran over their own commander with a tank.
Now, how fast does a tank go?
And how fast can a Russian general get out of the way?
Are you buying Russian tank ran over general?
Yeah, now somebody says it could be an accident.
How many people in a war zone during a hot war, how many people die by mutinous murder versus accidents and acts of war?
If you had to put a bet on this one, somebody says 30 or 40 miles an hour, but very loud, I'm guessing you can see it coming.
Yeah, I wouldn't stand in front of it, that's for sure.
A tank goes faster than a person can run, but does a tank turn faster than a person can just walk out of the way?
If you saw a tank coming at you at 30 or 40 miles an hour, and remember, it's not going to be at top speed, could you get out of the way?
Can tanks go sideways too easily?
Somebody says they're surprisingly agile, but at that speed.
Have you looked up Operation Gladio yet?
No, should I? All right, I'm going to call this fake news because it's a little bit too on the nose.
You know, when you predict, hey, I think Ukraine is going to do some propaganda like this, and then some propaganda like this comes out right when you expect it.
Because this is right when you expect the mutinous Russian soldier stories.
Now, I did get credit...
I think Andres Bacchus gave me credit for...
And he said, if...
Big question is, if it's true, then I predicted it.
But I don't think it's true. So I'm not going to take credit for that because I don't think it's true.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, brings us to the end of possibly the best livestream that has ever happened in the history of civilization.
Civilization. And...
Try ordering your bagels in separate boxes.
That would double my work. I know how to fix it if I double my work.
Trust me. I easily know how to fix it by doubling my work.
I'm trying to avoid that.
Oh, my God. Zelensky being recognized by the Oscars is a strike against validity.
Yup, it is.
Get a girl to sniff my bagels?
Oh yeah, maybe I could get a bagel-sniffing service animal.
Not a woman, but maybe like a squirrel or something.
You don't really need a whole dog for that job.
I guess some kind of a ferret or something like that.
Ferrets, there we go. Putin won by ignoring Biden?
Maybe. Now, who do you think owns Mariupol?
So the Ukrainian city has been demolished by Russia.
Who do you think owns Mariupol?
The news tells you that Ukraine still owns it.
I'm not so sure about that.
Who owns rubble?
If you surrounded the rubble, do you own it?
Or if you live in the rubble, do you own it?
Who owns the rubble?
The people living in it and starving, or the people who have surrounded it with a massive military.
Oh, that's a bad pun.
Marry a rubble. Ugh.
It's clever. Too soon.
Too soon. Yeah.
I don't know. So I don't think any of the news coming out of Ukraine should be believed.
I think you've got that story by now.
And how do we do today?
Was it amazing?
It was, was it?
Yeah, best ever, I think.
Probably the highlight of your day.
And now, I'll be turning off YouTube.
I'm glad you enjoyed the perfect audio experience.
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