Episode 1977 Scott Adams: Sudden Athlete Death Data And You'll Learn Something About Defamation Also
My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a
Find my "extra" content on Locals: https://ScottAdams.Locals.com
Content:
Rational/Irrational takes on Damar Hamlin
Dr. Peter McCullough
Fixing healthcare
60 Minutes interview: Paul Ehrlich
Ben Garrison's defamatory cartoon
5 Elements for a defamation lawsuit
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If you would like to enjoy this same content plus bonus content from Scott Adams, including micro-lessons on lots of useful topics to build your talent stack, please see scottadams.locals.com for full access to that secret treasure.
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Yeah, that was good. - Well, let's talk about all the things.
There's a new political movement forming in the United States called the Pure Bloods.
The people who are anti-vaxxed, I'm pretty proud of it, and they seem to be unwilling to Unwilling to mix with the non-purebloods.
So I think the purebloods should form their own political party.
See how they do.
See how they do. I'm all for it.
Alright, we have to talk about Monday Night Football.
If you don't know, there was a horrible incident that actually postponed the entire game.
So the game was called off, or I guess postponed.
I don't think they're going to play it again, but maybe.
And it was because a player named Dammer Hamlin, I hope I'm pronouncing that right, he took a hard hit in the chest, And then he stood up, but then he collapsed with some kind of a serious heart issue.
Amazingly, he had medical attention in 10 seconds.
Now that is impressive, right?
Now, I don't want to detract from the fact it's a human tragedy, so first, let's be human about it and show some respect to the family and to the player who's in critical condition.
So, I think we can all agree that the human element is the primary story here.
Do we all agree that, you know, our priorities should be on the health and safety of the individuals and his family?
So, but having said that, there's no avoiding the fact that it triggered the entire country.
Why? Well, because the question of whether or not a vaccination Had any kind of contributing effect.
Now, I'm going to run a little experiment here today.
We'll see how this goes.
I'm going to talk about the very real possibility that vaccination may have played a role in this event.
Totally possible.
So you hear me say this as clearly as possible.
This is a red flag and I think we would all like to know, if they can tell, I don't know what happens autopsy-wise, but we would all like to know there's a public interest and it may be a signal that's worth checking.
So can we all get on the same page that we don't know what happened but it's enough of a red flag that we have a genuine interest as a society Which is also an interest in the family and the player.
We have a genuine, sincere interest in their well-being and to know what happened.
Because it also applies maybe to us.
So, here's the experiment.
You just experienced how clearly I said that.
Watch how many people say, Scott, why aren't you even considering that the vaccination could have played a role?
I am considering it.
I am considering.
Yeah, he's alive. He's in bad shape.
Now watch how many people treat me like I didn't consider it.
That's the test. Because when you discuss any nuance or say it could be this or it could be that, that's what happens.
So let's observe how many people seem to treat me like I said the opposite of what I just said.
Okay? Here's what we can take from this event.
We're going to take a lesson, which I'm going to inflict on you, on rational thinking.
So let's look at this situation and let's see what is an irrational way to look at it versus a rational way.
An irrational way to look at it is to say, whoa, that is obviously vaccination.
There's no way that that could be anything else.
We don't know that, so that would be bad thinking.
If you put a percentage likelihood on it, that could be reasonable.
You got that? It could be reasonable to say, well, I don't know, I've looked at all the details, and I'd say there's at least a 50% chance, or whatever you put on it.
Now, I would say that would be an opinion, but not irrational.
So, an opinion can be wrong, but it's still rational.
You understand that, right?
So, what do we know?
What we know is that the collapse happened almost immediately after what some people say was an extra hard hit, and other people who would like you to believe that they're very tough people, they say it was nothing.
Now, do you think that we will be able to...
Now, I watched it live.
I watched it live and I've watched lots of football.
If you're my age and you have any interest in sports whatsoever, you have watched a lot of people get tackled.
In my subjective opinion, which in a moment I'm going to tell you why you shouldn't trust my subjective opinion.
So you don't need to say that because I'm going to say that about myself.
My subjective opinion is that when I watched it, it was one of the hardest hits I've ever seen.
I will acknowledge that many, even maybe most of you, possibly, looked at it and said exactly the opposite.
Why would you see it the opposite of how I would see it?
Which one of us is having confirmation bias?
The ones who say, that was an average hit, they're used to that.
Versus the ones who say, no, that was an unusually hard hit.
Go ahead, in the comments, tell me who has confirmation bias.
Both, yeah.
This is a case where there's no ambiguity whatsoever.
This is definitely both, right?
So am I influenced by the fact that I think it's probably unlikely that the hit wasn't the cause?
So therefore, there's an obvious trigger.
So you always look for the trigger.
For me, there's an obvious trigger that I would be semi-hallucinating in this case.
Would you agree? Would you agree there's an obvious trigger for me, Scott, to be hallucinating on how hard the hit was?
In other words, I could look at it time and time again, and I would always see it the way I see it, while knowing that you could look at it time and time again, And see it completely differently.
But if you say, Scott, you have a cause for confirmation bias, that part's right.
You're almost certainly right about that.
But if you say it doesn't apply to you, that's not rational thinking.
This one clearly applies to everybody.
This is the cleanest example of nobody can have a credible opinion on this.
It's the most subjective thing you'll ever see.
Now, I'll tell you what I saw, which I will not claim to be true, because the whole context here is we're all hallucinating, basically.
You're hallucinating, I'm hallucinating.
You can't help it. This is one that makes us all hallucinate.
Here's my hallucination.
What I saw was that the, I guess the...
What do you call it? The tackling, or the player that hit the guy who went down, that looked to me like he hit him with his shoulder, and so that would reduce the size of the impact, which we know can be important.
So in other words, if one player had hit another player full body to full body, that would less likely cause a heart problem.
But if somebody got hit with like a, let's say a baseball, really hard, That's known to actually give somebody a permanent heart attack and die.
There's evidence that that's a thing.
So the question would be, did this player get hit in the normal way people get hit, and was there any padding there to prevent the exact thing that happened?
So what I saw was not a normal hit.
Now again, I acknowledge I'm hallucinating, but you have to accept that you are too.
So my hallucination, I saw the shoulder hit right about here, or the other side, I guess, about here, which I wonder if it avoided any padding there.
Just a question. I don't know if there's any padding there.
So it might have hit it, like, sideways where it sort of got a little purchase where it wasn't supposed to.
And if it hit hard like a shoulder, even though the shoulder has pads, so it's, you know, not as hard as a bare shoulder, could that be enough?
I don't know. So I asked on Twitter, I asked the Twitter doctors to weigh in, and we have the following opinions.
The following opinions.
One doctor said, given that the problem happened immediately after the hit, it was the hit.
Almost certainly. Nothing's on your percent, right?
Everything I say about this, except that we're both having confirmation bias, everything else is like speculative and, you know, some percentage chance of being true.
But an actual medical doctor on Twitter, who by the way, and this is important to the point, a medical doctor who was cancelled on Twitter, but came back under Musk, he was skeptical of vaccinations.
So he was banned on Twitter.
So somebody skeptical of vaccinations, Banned on Twitter for being skeptical of vaccinations, looked at it and said, it looks like it's the hit.
Probably not the vaccination.
Now, again, it's probability, right?
So I'm not saying he's right or wrong.
I'm saying that I'm not a doctor that is a doctor.
And the doctor said, hmm, it would be weird To have it at the same time.
Now here's the counterpoint.
Here's where everybody starts hallucinating I took a side.
Because it's not happening.
You're not seeing me take a side.
Here's the other side.
Dr. Peter McCullough, famous COVID vaccine skeptic, who also has been, let's see, I think he's lost his certifications and stuff, so he took a lot of big hits for being a skeptic on vaccinations.
And he points out That the vaccinations might cause a problem with the heart where if you combined the adrenaline of the sport with maybe some inflammation, and then you added a hit on top of that, that that would be something you should look into.
Now, Dr. McCullough, Does not say that's definitely the cause, which would be, I think that would be kind of wrong.
So he takes a perfectly practical approach, which is, you should definitely look into this, because there's a hypothesis that would explain it completely.
So do you all agree, and I'll use the phrase red flag, do you all agree that in the context of the entire country being interested in this question, that it's enough of a red flag that we would like the medical professionals to give us an answer?
You know, the family needs an answer.
He needs an answer.
We hope he's surviving.
And we need an answer.
Like, that's a social need at this point.
So... Hear me as clearly as possible.
Let me do a fact check with you.
Is it the best understood truth about the so-called vaccinations that are not really vaccines?
Is it the so-called truth that the medical society, including skeptics, Like Dr.
Malone, would say, so check me on this, they would say, it looks like it probably saved lives above a certain age.
But that it probably was hurting, especially men, below a certain age.
So that's the current understanding, right?
It was probably bad for younger men, probably saved lives above a certain age, let's say 65.
Is that the current...
I'm not taking a side.
I'm just saying that's the current most popular medical understanding, right?
Now, that still leaves open the possibility that even the older people should not have been vaccinated.
Would you agree? Because we might find out, you know, five years from now, they get some problem we didn't know about.
So there's still some question about About the older people, whether or not they actually got the benefit.
Maybe we won't know for a few years.
But the current medical consensus is it probably saved lives, at least in the short run.
Probably was bad for younger men, especially.
And then, more generally, school-aged children, we don't think necessarily makes any sense to vaccinate.
Now, I'm just trying to represent the common, most popular, informed view.
I'm not saying it's right. Because I don't trust anything anymore.
All right. So, if you are sure that this is another case of athletes dropping dead because you saw a compilation video where lots of athletes were dropping dead, do all of you know that the compilation videos are fake?
The data is probably more reliable, because there's data about excess mortality, and I don't doubt the data.
I don't trust it, but I don't doubt it.
But the video where you can actually see the people falling over, you know that those have been debunked, right?
So there are people who were not vaccinated in some cases, people who survived and it was no big deal, they were just dehydrated.
People who there was an identified cause that had nothing to do with vaccinations.
And then there were a bunch of them that happened before the pandemic.
But if you put together all those categories and then you show them all together, it's very persuasive.
So a lot of people got taken in by that.
But just spend a minute, you know, here's a general, good general process.
If you see something that looks sketchy, And people are saying, I'm not so sure that's true.
The least you can do, the smallest amount of intellectual rigor, is to Google the thing, you know, whatever you're talking about, the headline, and then the word debunked or fact-checked.
At least see what the other side is saying.
If you don't at least hear their point of view, you can't give any credibility or lack of, so at least hear it.
Now this is one that, if you'd seen the video of all the people dropping dead, the athletes, apparently, if you Googled it, you would find that every fact check says the same thing.
Well, we looked into it, and many of these examples are fake, so there you go.
Now, the problem is we also don't trust the fact checkers.
But in this case, they showed their work.
They said, this player died this date.
You know, stuff you can check. So I got a feeling they're probably pretty close to write on that one.
Alright, here's a question.
This is a test of your critical thinking.
This is a test of your Sort of intuitive understanding of statistics, and then some of you are actually trained in statistics, hold off for a second.
Because I think the people who are trained in statistics are all going to have the same answer.
The people who are not trained are going to have more of a, let's say, a common sense answer that could be misleading.
All right? So this is a comment from a Twitter user, AOCrazio.
It's a play on AOC. All right.
And he or she asked this question.
How often in the past have players suffered heart attacks due to impact to the chest?
How often has it happened before?
Now, the essence of the question is, if it had never happened before, and the only time it's ever happened is in the context of vaccinations, that means something, doesn't it?
Agree or disagree?
In the comments? Some say no.
I say no. I say yes.
I say no. No.
How could you possibly say no?
That means you understand statistics, basically.
Yeah. So, does it tell you that maybe there's something you should look into?
Yes or no. Does it tell you that you should look into it?
Solid yes. The same way you would look at the VAERS reports.
The VAERS report looks like, hey, there's all these scary things happening that never happened before.
It's not a proof, but you definitely want to look into it.
It's a signal. It's a flag.
But are there other reasons you could be seeing what you're seeing?
Let me give you a little statistical lesson.
How many things do you think happened on Monday night at that game That had never happened before.
Go. Just the Monday Night Football where the guy fell over.
Just that day. Just that game.
How many things happened that had never happened before?
A lot. The actual answer is billions or trillions.
Because literally all of it never happened before.
How many people in the stands had never been there before?
How many times has that stadium had a person who believed they could kill people by their stare at the same time somebody fell over?
Wouldn't that be weird?
You'd have to look into that person to see if they really had psychic powers, wouldn't you?
Would you? Let's say you knew that was true.
There was somebody there who had claimed in public for years that they could kill somebody with their gaze just by looking at them.
And then on the same day, the only day they ever went to a game, somebody fell over.
Is that a red flag?
Should you look into it to see if this person has killed others?
Now what does your common sense say?
So now your common sense is telling you, wait a minute, it's rare, and there's an obvious cause for why it might have happened, but everything that happened that night was probably the first time it ever happened.
There are things like it, but that game had never happened before.
Those people had never been there on that day.
Those people had never been there on the age they were that day.
Every single thing about it was for the first time.
So we live in a world where everything just continually is super unlikely.
Super unlikely.
What are the odds that one of the most prominent voices on the pandemic would be a cartoonist?
I mean, literally everything is unlikely.
What were the odds that I would predict that Trump would win in 2016 and be right?
I don't know. Everything is unlikely.
So the thing that you have to grapple with is that while something could definitely be a signal that you should look into it, and this is, it doesn't really tell you that much about how likely it was.
They're a little bit disconnected.
The common sense says you need to look into it, but the statistical part of you says, I don't know, could be anything.
Could be anything. But we would agree that whatever it is, it's the first time it happened.
So let me reverse the question.
What are the odds that if the vaccination is killing young people when they get hit, By, you know, a football hit, what are the odds we wouldn't have seen it before?
Because they're all vaccinated, they're all young, and they're all getting hit hard.
We wouldn't have seen even one case until now, Because every situation is hugely unlikely.
So it would be accurate to say, how likely is it that we suspect the vaccines, so-called vaccines, of exactly this problem, and then we've never seen exactly this problem, and then we have exactly this problem, right? Your common sense says that's got to be connected.
But when was the last time we saw anybody die, or almost die?
I mean, his heart stopped.
That's pretty close to being dead.
Have we ever seen anybody vaccinated who was taken out by a hit?
Never. So whatever this turns out to be, it'll be the first time.
Right? If it's a vaccine injury, it'll be the first time...
After all these football games and all these practice hits and game hits, it'll be the first time.
And if it's something completely unrelated to the vaccination, it will also be the first time.
Do you think you could estimate the odds of either of those first times?
Which one's more likely, given that neither of them have ever happened?
How do you estimate the odds of something that's never happened before?
Because every path is a never happened.
Right? They're all never happens.
So if you thought one of them is a never happened, but the other is sort of more ordinary.
Now, people tried to game that by telling me, but Scott, it does happen all the time.
Because there's these videos of all the athletes falling over, which we just talked about were already debunked.
So if your confirmation bias says, I'm pretty sure Dr.
Malone and Dr.
McCullough got this right and these vaccinations are dangerous, especially for young men, it's got to be this.
Could be. Could be.
Dr. Dr.
Drew tweeted MNF first time?
What's MNF? And let me acknowledge, let me acknowledge that the hit looked normal to people who believe the vaccination killed them, and to people who don't necessarily think the vaccination was a cause, could have been. To us, I think, many of us, it looked like an extremely hard hit.
Did I say that my point of view should have a higher priority or more credibility than your point of view, where you say it looked like an average, or at least normal-ish?
Whose point of view should you value greater?
Neither. It's sort of a tie, because we both have triggers for cognitive dissonance or confirmation bias, both, and under those conditions, you should trust neither of us.
That would be the best take.
Now, here's who I would trust.
If the football players themselves, having had some time to look at the video, if football players say that was a hard hit, I would be influenced by that.
Would you? Do you think you would change your mind if the actual players said, yeah, that was unusual?
I'm not saying they will, because they might want to project some toughness, and also maybe it wasn't.
Maybe it wasn't unusual. I'm going to say unusually hard.
Whatever that means to you.
All right. Enough about that.
Did I mention that Dr.
Peter McCullough has blocked me on Twitter?
He blocked me on Twitter.
Now, I think that was a good block.
I actually support that block.
And it's not because I think that the things I've said are inappropriate.
It's just that I've been a critic of his.
And if he doesn't want to listen to it, I totally support him blocking me.
So some blocks just make sense.
Like you just don't need to see it.
And he didn't need to see me.
I'm sure I was saying things other people might have been saying.
There's nothing special about my commentary.
So if he blocked me, I support it.
He did block me, and I do support his block.
But I did go, you know, I went through an anonymous page and checked out what he had to say.
I didn't realize That he was terminated as editor-in-chief of his cardio-renal medicine and reviews, some kind of magazine, because they didn't like his COVID commentary.
He was stripped of his board certifications.
This is directly from him, by the way.
Stripped of his board certifications in internal medicine and cardiology.
And he points out that this was after decades of perfect clinical performance, board scores, and hundreds of peer-reviewed publications.
So let's give him his due.
He's a seriously accomplished person.
And he says, none of this will stop until there's a needle in every arm.
So let me say this about that.
I asked this question on Locals before I turned on YouTube, but maybe somebody on YouTube knows.
Now, don't confuse them with Dr.
Malone, because I think some of us do that, you know, the prominent doctors who are skeptical of vaccinations.
But Dr.
Malone is vaccinated. He wouldn't do it now.
But is that the same for McAuliffe?
Does anybody know for sure if Dr.
McAuliffe has got the original vaccinations?
Or did he say no to it from the start?
I think your answers are probably conflating Dr.
Malone with him. If you have a source for that, could you send it to me?
Oh, mandated because he was practicing medicine?
I don't know, was he seeing patients?
He was actively practicing, was he?
I don't know if he was actively practicing.
So it's interesting that we don't know the answer to that, isn't it?
Don't you find it fascinating that you don't know the answer to that?
Because now I know of two vaccine-skeptical doctors who both got vaccinated.
And that should tell you that in the fog-of-war period, people were making decisions that would be different.
Then after the virus mutated and after we knew more about it and all that.
All right. What else is happening?
All right. I have a solution for fixing everything in healthcare.
I think you're gonna like this.
This is actually, like, a seriously good suggestion.
Totally practical.
Totally doable. I'm going to predict that you will like this idea better than anything I've ever suggested.
I'm building it up so I have a high bar to cross.
You will like this suggestion better than anything I've ever suggested in any domain.
Are you ready for this? Your doctor should be able to refer you to Researchers whose only job is to tell you if the medicine or prescribed treatment makes sense based on the science or not.
Because your doctor's not going to do that.
You would like your doctor to do that, but as a practical matter, they can't really keep up with every study.
You can't really expect that.
So they can't keep up with every study, and they're also not experts at looking at studies.
And they might not be experts on knowing who funded the study.
They might not know the track record of whoever performed the study.
They might not know if a paper had been recalled.
They might not know if there's one paper that says one thing, but maybe two papers that said the other.
So here's what we need in the United States.
We need a separate profession.
from the medical doctors that work closely with the doctors, but independently.
So you want a situation where your doctor can say, I recommend this medicine, and I also recommend that you get a second opinion from a non-doctor who's, you know, this person who's good at looking at studies.
Then let's say the person who looks at the study says yes, You know, I see no reason to overrule the doctor.
Now you've got a little more comfort, right?
But suppose the researcher says, you know what, your doctor is unaware that there's new research.
So I would say be careful about that.
Now you don't want the researcher to give you medical advice, right?
But if they give you contrary advice, you can take that back to your doctor, and your doctor can look at the same link and say, oh, wow, I'm influenced by that.
The last I knew, this was a good idea, but it's a good thing we have this new system where you can get an independent, non-medical view of just the research, and now that that person has told me, well, I'm not the expert in research, so I'm going to trust the person I recommended to do it.
And then they change their...
All right, you tell me.
Best idea I've ever had?
Go. Best idea I've ever had.
No doubt about it.
You're saying no. What do you mean?
Are you saying that I had some other better idea?
Or you don't think this one is a good idea?
I guess I'm asking the question wrong.
I shouldn't be asking you if it's my best idea.
I should be asking you if it's a good idea.
So let's change the question, all right?
Is it a good idea?
Okay, that's a different answer.
Well, I guess I'm happy that you disagreed with me, because I would suggest that you think I had even better ideas.
If I had a better idea than this one, that would be a pretty good idea, but I don't know.
I mean, I can't think of one.
Yeah, all right, so we won't say best.
There's nothing wrong with this idea, right?
Would you agree there's literally nothing wrong with the idea?
And it's practical. It's something you totally do.
You could start this business as a start-up tomorrow, couldn't you?
This could be a start-up tomorrow.
And if I knew that it existed, would I use it?
Absolutely. All right, let me ask you this question.
If that business existed, and the only thing you had to do to access it was, say, go to a website and say, here's my doctor's recommendation, here's my symptoms, do the research.
And then they give you an answer, and you can take it to your doctor or not take it to your doctor, that's just up to you.
And let's say they charged...
$100, and insurance didn't cover it, at least initially.
I could see that they would cover it, but not initially.
Would you pay $100 to make sure that the drug your doctor told you to take forever, because a lot of the drugs are forever drugs, would you pay $100 to find out if a forever drug was really a good idea?
I sure would. You know, relative to the effects of your entire life, $100 is pretty cheap.
Now, I don't know if you could get it for $100, because it might require a human to do more than $100 of research.
But here's the cool part.
Once the humans have done the more than $100 worth of research on a drug, then they have it for the next time.
So the next person who asks, you know, hey, how about my blood pressure meds?
That's already packaged.
They're like, oh, we looked into it.
Here's your answer. We'll check just to see if anything new happened since we looked into it.
But if nothing new happened, that's five minutes.
And then you get your $100 in five minutes.
So your initial experience for this hypothetical company might be it takes a while and they lose money, but once they've packaged up all the main drugs and they can give you an opinion on them, then it's $100 for five minutes' work.
Alright. Biggest problem in the world.
Just solved. I asked people on Twitter if they had a choice, would they believe the recommendation of the doctor about a specific treatment or somebody who was really good at spotting bullshit?
And there were more people who said they'd trust the person who's good at spotting BS. And I would too.
I would too. So I agree with them.
All right. I'm going to call this next segment Internet Dads to the Rescue.
I've been telling you for a while now that there's a thing forming that's like, it's almost like an adjunct to the republic or the constitution.
Sort of not part of the constitution.
And it's the internet dads.
Basically credible voices.
They don't have to be all male.
But you can say internet parents if you want.
And that they would reach a level of influence That people would check with them just to check their own thinking.
And here's the perfect example.
So 60 Minutes runs this interview with this Paul Ehrlich who wrote a book called The Population Bomb back in the late 60s or 70s or something.
And that influenced probably a lot of environmental decisions and probably had some maybe good and maybe worse impacts.
Now, if people were to believe Paul Ehrlich, they would think, my God, we're in trouble.
The whole world can't support us.
We're going to have to kill people intentionally to have a chance of survival.
I mean, just horrible things. But as soon as that 60 Minutes interview came out, which is now blessed by a famed news organization, 60 Minutes and also CBS, But that takes a lot of...
If you see something on 60 Minutes, that's going to take a lot of firepower for anybody to say you should ignore it.
But look at the firepower that was immediately applied to this.
Almost immediately, you had Jordan Peterson calling bullshit on it and saying that this guy is like the worst thing that ever happened.
Now, how valuable is that when Jordan Peterson pulls no punches, basically just says, this guy's bullshit, don't listen to anything he says, he's been wrong about everything forever.
How useful is that for society?
Super. Because Peterson is smart enough and credible enough that his opinion influences yours.
That is so useful.
Who else weighed in?
Elon Musk.
Elon Musk said directly, his population bomb book might be the most damaging anti-human thing ever written.
When Elon Musk calls bullshit on somebody, people listen, right?
I'm not saying everybody believes everybody, but you listen to that.
And then who else? Michael Schellenberger, long thread, calling bullshit on him.
There you go. Perfect.
Now, Schellenberger brings not just the criticism, but he brings a detailed analysis of all the things he said and how wrong they were.
How useful is that?
I mean, talk about a treasure.
Talk about a service to the country.
That's useful. Um...
How about Alex Epstein?
Also did a long thread, called out all of the problems that Ehrlich has had, perfectly documented, checked your sources.
How useful is that?
Like, super useful, right?
And that's just four, right?
Now, I consider myself somewhat accidentally in the Internet Dad category, on some topics anyway, and I simply boost...
The four people that I mentioned, I boosted all their signal.
So my 820,000 followers get a little extra boost.
So I feel like Ehrlich's influence Was greatly reduced, at least for people who use social media in a certain way, by the fact that these internet dads immediately just trained all of their firepower on this guy.
I mean, it was immediate, it was brutal, and it was right.
But what did the news do?
How did the professional news?
Well, first of all, CBS aired the thing apparently without much criticism.
How about the other news organizations?
Oh, Internet Big Brothers and Sisters, you would say?
Yeah. Yeah, it was just another Malthusian prediction.
That's true. All right.
So I like how that developed.
All right. I'm going to give you a little lesson on strategy and defamation.
I'm going to use idiot cartoonist Ben Garrison as my whipping boy to make my example.
So this situation has more to do with me than you.
But I'm going to try to make it useful to you by teaching you something about defamation that you didn't know.
Okay? So to prove defamation, what we're talking about is his comic strip that was widely, it was pretty viral, and suggests that Dr.
Fauci hypnotized me into getting multiple vaccinations I've got three needles in my arm, and I seem to be insisting that you take the vaccinations because science says so.
Now, since that's the opposite of my view, my view was always clearly and loudly and publicly, don't take any medical advice from me, number one, but also that I didn't trust Any data about the vaccinations.
So it's literally the opposite of my frequent public statements that you should not trust any of the science.
So the way he represented me is the person who trusts all of the science.
Literally the opposite.
Now, I ran a poll and asked how many people would either stop following me, did stop following me, or would no longer buy, let's say, a Dilbert calendar or a book or something.
It was like 46% of the people answered, said that they had a negative view of me because of my, it turns out, their false beliefs about what I believed, and it devastated my income stream.
Probably took a third of it off.
Because you count the live stream audience shrunk by about that amount.
And then, I haven't checked yet, but I'm sure if I check my calendar sales, you'll see that they sold at roughly a similar rate every year.
But my guess is that this year it fell off a cliff.
It's easy to check.
I'll check it later today. So it's very clear that the rumor about my opinion that was incorrect, that he boosted, It affected my business.
Now, you might know that it's almost impossible to prove defamation, because here's what you have to prove.
This is a pretty high standard, and it should be.
So the five elements of defamation, there might be some state differences, but five elements.
Publication of the information.
So the first thing, it has to be published.
Correct? All right, so it was published.
Second thing, the person being defamed, me, was identified by the statement.
Yes, I'm identified by name and picture in the comic.
Number three, the remarks had a negative impact on the person's reputation.
Easy to demonstrate. I could just run a poll and say, do you think less of me because you believed I believe this?
I would get a massive number of people said, yes, I used to follow you, but now I think less of you because...
and then they would say something that never happened because Ben Garrison and others told them it did.
So that one's easy.
The published information is demonstrably false.
That's easy because everything I said is in public.
So I can find you the video, I can find you the tweets.
Now, he would also produce tweets that apparently support his view.
But they're all easy to debunk because they're out of context.
If you put them back in context, they're all consistent, you know, all the way through.
So that's easy. I can show that it's false.
And that the defendant is at fault.
So in this case, that would be idiot Ben Garrison.
So yeah, he made the cartoon, so he'd be at fault.
Now, you also have to demonstrate malice, meaning that you're doing it with bad intentions while knowing it wasn't true.
That's a hard one. How can you possibly demonstrate malice?
Well, I'm doing it right now.
So on Instagram, I think we're blocked on Twitter.
On Instagram, I just left him a message.
I don't know if you'll see it, probably.
Somebody will mention it to him.
In which I've asked him to do a public statement or tweet in which he acknowledges that the comic does not capture my actual opinion.
Now, I expect he won't do that.
But in not doing it, malice will be established.
Because there won't be any reason not to do it unless he just wants me to hurt.
If he wanted to be a good person, he would acknowledge that he had maybe misinterpreted me.
It's easy to demonstrate.
And then he would say, oh, shoot, I guess I did put some misinformation out there.
So I'll put out a statement, just a simple statement, that says, don't take the comic too seriously.
It was just and fun.
And I don't mean to say that represented his opinion.
Would you think that was fair?
Would that be fair to you?
Just say, it was just a joke.
I'm not going to take it away.
It's on the internet. You can't really remove it.
But I'm not claiming it represents his view.
And then maybe show a link to my explanation that shows my actual views.
Now, if that happened, I'd say, oh, okay, there's a guy who made an understandable mistake, and he's correcting it, at which point I'd say, oh, okay, no lawsuit needed.
Mistake is a mistake.
Mistake is a mistake.
People make them. I'm sure I've, not sure, I'm positive.
I'm positive I've accused people of things incorrectly.
And when they pointed out...
Well, actually, the Covington kids' situation is the exact case.
So I defamed them because I saw a bad video that was misleading.
So I defamed them.
Totally. Said bad things about this guy's character that was 100% untrue.
But it was a mistake.
So the moment I realized it was a mistake, I apologized publicly.
And clarified my views.
And that becomes impossible to sue.
So I made myself unsuable because I declared it a mistake.
Other people had made the same mistake.
It was an obvious mistake. And then I made it better.
I corrected the record as publicly and clearly as I can.
So if it turns out that Ben Garrison is just an idiot, and that's the end of the story, Then I'm sure he wouldn't mind correcting it and restoring his reputation and mine at the same time.
Now, a number of well-meaning people have said to me, Scott, you know you're going to waste maybe $200,000 on this, including paying his lawyer fees if you lose.
Of course I know that.
Of course I know that.
Do you think I would do it anyway?
If I had a 95% chance of losing, and not only losing, but having to pay $100,000 to his lawyer because I lost, would I do it?
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Why would I do it? Why would I do it?
Do you know why? Not at a principal, exactly.
No, not to teach him a lesson.
Okay, somebody got the right answer.
The only thing I want in this is correcting the record.
Because in my specific case, since what I do is talk to you about the news and make predictions and stuff, if an incorrect view of me is out there, then I can't do this.
At least not as effectively.
Because every time I talk in public, somebody's going to be quoting Ben Garrison and saying, well, if you got all this stuff wrong, we shouldn't believe all this other stuff.
And if that were true, it would be a good point.
But it's permanently damaging to me and my ability to provide value to the public.
Because you know I don't do this for the money, right?
It's definitely monetized, but this isn't what I would choose to do for money.
If I wanted money, I would just agree with my audience all the time, like most people do.
It's an easy formula, but I'm not in it to monetize it in that way, right?
I don't mind monetizing it because it helps with the incentives and stuff.
So, here's the real play.
The play is this. I want to create way more attention to the lawsuit than the original comic got.
And if losing the court case also surfaces the fact that it was a not accurate statement about me, that'd be fine.
Because every time I lost the case, somebody would say, hey, you even lost that case.
And I would say, here's the decision.
Read it for yourself. And it would show that I had demonstrated it was factually inaccurate, because that'll be easy.
But maybe I don't demonstrate his intentions.
That's good enough. As long as the court could look at it and then tell the rest of you, oh yeah, it's definitely wrong.
The cartoon does mischaracterize his opinion.
I don't care what happens after that.
If that costs me a quarter of a million dollars, money well spent.
But all he has to do to not waste a year of his life is to simply read my profile document, see what my actual opinion is, And then put on a statement that he stands corrected.
That's all I ask. All right.
And specifically, the claim that I was hypnotized by Fauci could be debunked by the fact that I was the first public figure to call him a liar.
Now, I don't know if that's true, but I think the claim probably is.
I think I'm the first person to call him a liar about the pandemic.
Now, other people might have called him a liar about prior work, but I didn't know who he was before then.
But in terms of the pandemic, I'm the first public figure to say, that guy's on TV lying to you right now.
Now, you're not going to like what I call that as his lie.
I said, his saying that you don't need a mask is not his real opinion.
That it's a lie. Now, I don't want to get into the conversation of, do masks work?
That's not what we're talking about.
We're only talking about his belief, and did he say the opposite of his belief?
And the answer is yes, because he admitted it.
So, nobody, nobody in the game, trusted Fauci less than I did.
You can't top that.
I am the number one Fauci doubter in the whole United States.
Not you, Ben Garrison.
Ben Garrison, I'll bet when he said, you don't need these masks, you said, oh, he's telling the truth.
Well, that would be pretty gullible.
What, are you going to believe everything that Fauci says?
I don't. I don't.
So, it's a weird situation where the people who are most gullible think that I was.
Sort of projection sort of thing.
Alright, what else is going on?
Let's talk about the 2024 election.
Rasmussen has some new poll.
It says, most voters don't want President Biden to seek re-election.
So here are the numbers.
Just 33% of likely U.S. voters, so this would be of all parties, think Biden should run for re-election, and 55% say no.
But it's not much better for Trump.
Not much better for Trump.
So Trump, 35% of voters think Trump should run, and a majority, 53, think he shouldn't.
So those are almost identical to Biden.
So one possibility is we're going to have two candidates that nobody wants.
That's very likely.
It's very likely we'll have two candidates that nobody wants.
Nobody meaning the majority.
Now, I'm going to make an optimistic prediction.
I don't know what the odds of this coming true are, so just know I'm being optimistic.
I think the two contenders in the end will be DeSantis and Newsom.
DeSantis and Newsom.
Here's why. I don't think Democrats will allow Biden to run.
Because I think Trump would take him this time.
What do you think? Do you think Trump would take him?
I think he would. Especially if we are watching the polls more carefully, I suppose.
All right. Oh, DeSantis, no.
I don't think anybody important will run as an independent.
So here's the basis.
I think Democrats as a group will overrule Biden.
How many would agree with that?
That Biden wants to run.
I think that's real. But I think Democrats won't take the chance.
It's just too big of a chance.
So I think Democrats will overrule Biden.
And then if they do...
They need somebody to replace them, and I think Newsom's their strongest player.
Now, yes, I know all the negatives that are hurled at him.
I know them all, right? You don't have to remind me.
But remember, they have a weak bench.
He's the strongest in a pretty weak field.
Now, on the Trump side, You know, there are a lot of smart people.
I think Ben Shapiro is one.
And I say this often, but Ben Shapiro is in my small, small group of people where if his opinion differs from mine, I immediately question my opinion.
Does anybody else do that?
Is that a Ben Shapiro thing?
There are other people like that.
If Jordan Peterson disagrees with me, I'm going to stop and think.
So, yeah, because you know he's thought about it.
You know he knows the whole context.
You know he knows the history. Yeah, Dershowitz is another one.
So if he disagrees with me, I'm just going to stop and say, okay, let's look at my point of view.
I might have missed something here. And he thinks that it's somewhat clear that DeSantis will be the candidate.
I don't see it as clearly as he does.
I don't see the path to it, because it seems like it would require Trump to stand down.
I don't see that happening. But, I don't think Republicans will take the risk of Trump losing a second time.
Because we're very much affected by the last war.
You're always fighting the last war.
It's going to feel like Trump Lost the last election when he was young enough to be, you know, viable.
I think Trump's age will show.
And if DeSantis decides he could be a candidate, people will just defect him.
All right.
How many people would agree with my prediction that in the end the candidates will be DeSantis and Newsom?
Go. How many?
I see some yeses.
Lots of yeses, actually.
I like somebody answered with a percentage.
I like that. I like anybody who answers that with a percentage.
Yeah. Do you feel also that the country is so unhappy with the last several years that it feels impossible that we would let somebody back in office who is responsible for anything at the federal level for the last five years?
It feels like, I don't know, Biden and Trump are looking a lot like the same person to me.
I hate to say it. I mean, they're very different.
But in some ways, they look like the same person today.
Because they both seem like their window has passed.
They both look like the past.
They both smell...
This is the worst thing to say.
I'm just going to say it this way.
They both smell like a pandemic.
That's the best way to say it.
They both smell like a pandemic.
Now, you could get into the argument of who did what right or wrong, Trump with his vaccinations, you know, Biden with whatever he did, but they both smell like a...
We just need somebody who doesn't smell like a pandemic.
I suppose DeSantis and Newsom do too, but it's different.
DeSantis doesn't smell like a pandemic.
He smells like somebody who managed the situation well.
It just feels different. Cabbage and urine.
That's funny. Alright, let me give you this challenge.
What Republican could beat DeSantis?
Besides, if you think Trump.
There's nobody who would beat DeSantis.
Besides maybe Trump.
And who do you think could beat Newsom on the Democrat side?
I don't know if Rand Paul inspires people in that presidential way.
He's definitely one of the most valuable players in Congress.
So as a member of Congress, he's a superstar, in my opinion.
But presidential is just sort of a different vibe.
Now, I don't think Carrie Lake has proven herself in elected office, and I think it does matter.
I mean, Trump was bigger than that, but he at least ran a big company.
All right, Joe Rogan for president.
Is Rand Paul too short to be president?
No. I don't know.
And Tom Cotton voted for the omnibus bill, I think.
So that made some conservatives unhappy.
You think Hakeem Jeffries could win in a Democrat primary?
Maybe. But I don't think he'd run.
Yeah, I don't think Kamala can win.
Elon Musk was not born in America.
He can't. Alright, that is all I have for today.
Is there any topic I missed?
Anything else happening? Can hypnosis help a man prolong ability to have sex without reaching climax?
You want me to hypnotize you to have fewer or to take longer to climax?
You know, I don't know the answer to the question.
So I haven't heard of anybody working on that specific problem.
But probably.
Probably.
Maybe not for every person.
Alright.
You don't need hypnosis for that, I agree.
and Alright, that's all I've got for now.
I'm going to go do something else. I'll talk to the locals people for a little bit.
