Episode 1998 Scott Adams: Teach Me How To Recognize The Good COVID Data To Avoid The Same Mistake
My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a
Find my "extra" content on Locals: https://ScottAdams.Locals.com
Content:
TikTok's "heat" button
Antifa is back
Former top FBI agent arrested
Biden's many homes
Whiteboard: Postmortem Analysis Of Vaxx Decision
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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
And if you'd like to enjoy this at the maximum potential, all you need is a cupper mug or a glass of tankard, a chalice or a stein, a canteen jug or a flask, a vessel of any kind.
Fill it with your favorite liquid.
I like coffee.
Join me now for the unparalleled pleasure.
What?
Better with the microphone on.
The dopamine of the day.
The thing that makes everything better.
It's called the simultaneous sip.
It happens now.
Go.
That's the best thing ever.
Thank you, Paul, over on Locals.
That little graphic you have, so on the Locals platform, One of the members always puts up a little graphic to tell me if my sound is working on both platforms.
Oh my God, is that useful!
That is so useful.
I so appreciate that.
Thank you, Paul Kleider.
Let's go privately over here.
We're going to put the locals people private, so when I turn off YouTube later, they'll have their little special time.
Now, are you wondering why I'm in such a good mood?
Are you wondering why I'm so damn happy this morning?
I mean, I'm like crazy happy!
Well, number one, the rains have stopped and we've got a sunny California week.
Now, if you've not enjoyed a sunny California week, they're pretty awesome.
But I haven't seen one in a while, so all excited about that.
Yesterday was amazing.
But, it's even better.
I had a book deadline, which is today, actually.
And that meant I had to get all of my first round of edits done, which are really hard.
Because editing, writing is hard, but editing to an editor's changes, when those changes involve moving parts around, it becomes this huge Rubik's Cube.
So instead of writing, which you're also doing as you're fixing stuff.
You're also holding in your mind the entire book, hundreds of different sections, and how one phrase may have been more about this chapter than the other.
And so you have to hold all of it in your head and then move it in different places.
It's almost like programming, really.
You're moving sections of code around to be in the right place.
It's the hardest thing I do.
Period.
It's the hardest thing I ever do.
And the reason I'm so happy today is that I finished it a few hours early and submitted it last night.
There is no better day in the life of an author.
There's no better day than the day you've submitted your stuff and you know it's a book.
Now the next edits will be a little more work, but it's a book.
Nothing can stop it.
Until you submit the final, or first round of edits really, until you submit those, you're not entirely sure you have a book.
You've worked for a year.
You could potentially waste a year of your life because it takes all of your free time.
All of it.
And today I know it's a book.
Somebody says, what about the day your trophy wife left you?
Was that supposed to be my best day?
I'm not sure what that... There's somebody who mentions my wife or ex-wife on every topic.
So let me tell you my latest troll technique.
So I'm still, of course, every day I get loads of insults.
And yesterday I was looking through the media stories about me.
There's a sub-stack about me, how terrible I am.
And there's a whole bunch of, the last few days, there's a bunch of media reports about me.
Now, here's the funny thing.
None of them were even close to accurate.
They were just so wildly mischaracterizing me and my situation and what I'm thinking and what I've done.
It's all just completely fiction.
And it's become so funny that I'm just going to do an LOL on all of it.
Because there's nothing to say about it.
I mean, you'd have to go back a year and fix like a hundred different misconceptions.
It's all just LOL now.
So I'm having a great week.
Just looking at all the stories about me that are just ridiculous.
Rasmussen has a poll.
58% of people polled considered it important that a company shares their social and political values.
Including 28% who think it's very important.
This feels like a big problem.
Now, even though most people, the vast majority according to the Rasmussen Poll, most people think that the product is the most important thing, right?
So most people say, yeah, it's a product.
Oh yeah, 28% is very close to one quarter.
It's very close to one quarter.
Yes, I saw the Trump retweet of my endorsement on Truth.
That was cool.
So anyway, here's my question.
As we become more awoke and people are putting more pressure on companies to do stuff, don't you think we almost need like a new, I feel like we almost need a new constitutional amendment?
Because aren't we all better off that government and religion are separate?
Wasn't that like one of the smartest things?
Oh, you say no?
Well, I mean, the Constitution is based on a sort of a Christian bias, if you can say that.
So I suppose you could say that in some ways it is a religious document.
They just have some walls that say, don't get your religion in with the workings of the government.
Now, I think that's worked.
I think that's worked.
But I wonder if we should do the same thing for business.
Don't you think the worst thing you could do to the economy of a country is mix your politics in with the business?
Because we already have laws, right?
If the companies are following the laws, I feel like I'm done.
I mean, I can have my opinion and stuff, but I don't want my opinion to put them out of business if they're following the law.
Now, I might want to change the law, That's a thing.
I can see that.
I might want to ban some companies that are especially bad.
But should we really be trying to micromanage companies?
That feels like the worst thing you could do.
I almost think like we need some kind of standard to keep our business out of it.
Now, I do like transparency.
So to the extent that the external pressure causes them to be more transparent, that's probably good.
But I feel like there's a better way to get there.
So I don't like having more government regulations, but separating religion from government I think worked.
And now we might at least think about it for separating politics and business.
Because it's just crushing businesses.
Am I wrong about that?
Isn't the politics of it just crushing businesses that didn't need to get crushed?
Now they should also stay out of it.
So if you made an argument that says, well, if Disney, for example, let's say Disney decides to enter an argument that's a political argument, well, then maybe they're putting themselves out there for a little pushback.
But if they're minding their own business and obeying all the laws, I think we should stay away from them.
Let them do what they want.
But, you know, it would probably help the businesses to make it illegal.
It would probably be a boon to business, wouldn't it?
Because let's say you're the CEO, and your, let's say your customers and your employees and stockholders are all yammering at you, hey, be more awoke, or be more political, or say something about climate change.
What's the CEO gonna do?
Pretty much bow to the pressure, right?
But what if the CEO had backing, backing them, A law.
And the law said you can't speak out as a company on a political item.
You can speak out personally.
Personally, of course.
But companies can't have opinions.
Oh, how about that?
Companies can't have political opinions.
They can do what they want to do, and the individuals can have any opinions they want.
How about that?
And how about at the same time we say you can't be fired for your political opinion?
How about that?
Can't be fired for your political opinion.
Even if you say something on social media that the company doesn't like.
I feel like there are a few tweaks we could make to account for the fact that social media changed the balance of power.
Because I think the regular media had some balance with business, but social media is the Wild West, and now it's just forcing business to respond to basically the randomness of social media.
That can't be good in the long run.
Anyway, I don't have the best idea for fixing that, but something needs to be done.
Here's what I don't like to say.
We should have a national conversation about that.
I hate hearing that.
Because I'm actually criticizing myself at the moment for bringing up something I didn't have a better idea for.
I probably shouldn't do that.
I mean, I'm just throwing out that constitutional amendment thing, but even I don't think that's necessarily a good idea.
Just put it out there.
All right, let's talk about... Are you aware that China built a technology and it's got a user interface Where China can control the minds of Americans actually through the interface?
Did you know that?
How many of you knew that?
There's actually a user interface that China can control the minds of Americans.
Like, literally.
No joke.
That's a real thing.
How many of you knew that?
Yeah, it's called TikTok, and people think it's something else.
Now, here's the thing.
Why is it that Congress hasn't acted on TikTok?
Because if you said to them, do you know that the Chinese government literally, not hyperbolically, actually literally has built a tool that they can tweak very easily with the user interface to change the minds of Americans, to change our minds on important political things.
Now, nobody doubts that social media can do that.
Right?
Is there anybody who says social media doesn't change anybody's mind?
No.
Everybody knows that.
Everybody knows that China controls TikTok.
And now we know from article in Forbes that TikTok literally has a button that any employee, I guess some employees, can touch.
It's called the heat.
Heat button.
They touch one button and they can make any content on TikTok go viral.
They can make it go viral with one button.
Now, let me ask you this.
I don't use TikTok.
Is there anybody here who uses TikTok?
Must be some of you.
Bunch of you use TikTok?
All right, so for the... Not very many of you, actually.
That's good.
But for those who do, let me ask this question.
Have you seen a lot of anti-fentanyl content on TikTok?
You know, a lot of content about The overdoses, the number of people dying, and specifically where it's coming from.
Have you seen that?
Is TikTok just full of the biggest issue for young people?
Because TikTok skews younger, right?
Younger.
And what is the number one cause of death for young people?
It's actually drug overdose.
And guns.
Oh, well, actually, that's a good comparison.
I'm assuming the two biggest problems for young people, death-wise, would be guns, an issue that the left likes, and then fentanyl.
Right?
So those of you who use TikTok, if you want to wonder, hey, is this TikTok already being weaponized against Americans?
It would be easy.
It would be easy to check.
Easy to check.
All you'd have to do is see, is there more viral content about mass shootings and how guns should be banned?
And does it roughly match the anti-fentanyl information, especially mentioning that it comes from China?
Right.
So you could easily check, couldn't you?
I don't know.
Why is somebody saying not guns?
I don't know what not guns means.
They must have plenty of content that's anti-gun, am I wrong?
Does Tic Tac have anti-gun content or not?
I'm just assuming that it leans left on that topic.
Am I wrong?
Give me a fact check on that.
I guess there are not enough TikTok users on here to fact check me as I go.
But it's easy to check, right?
Now, why would Congress ignore this?
Do you think China would ignore it if we built a user interface to control their youth and that was working?
It totally works.
Nobody's questioning whether it works.
I don't think they would ignore it.
That's why the young people in China can't use TikTok.
They have a different version in China that's a safe version.
So it's possible that Congress isn't doing nothing because we're all bought off.
But there's another possibility.
Congress is too old to understand the topic.
Congress is too old to understand the topic.
That's my current thinking.
And I'll be a little more specific.
If you had never been on TikTok, or you'd never used, let's say, Instagram, and most of them probably have somebody else send a tweet, and maybe they know a little Twitter, maybe they've got some Facebook going on, but they're not really social media consumers so much.
They're more like producers, not consumers.
Now, if you're a consumer, and you've done what I did, Which is, you pick up Instagram, and you say, ah, I wonder if there's any good, like, Instagram stuff.
And then you spend about a second scrolling, and you feel your entire body being taken over.
Okay, I'm actually a trained hypnotist and I know exactly what's happening to me right now and I can't stop scrolling kitten pictures and it's feeding me infinite Jordan Peterson videos and they're all good.
And what are these attractive women I like looking at?
I think I'm done doing the live stream because I can't take my eyes off of these reels.
Now, I understand social media at a cellular level.
A cellular level.
I understand social media with my fucking... I'm sorry.
I promised I wouldn't do that this year.
I understand social media with my body.
I didn't read an article about it.
If you read an article that says, oh, this social media is pretty...
It's pretty sticky, maybe people will be hooked on it.
Like, we all know logically it's addicting, right?
But if you haven't used it, you have no idea how addicting it is.
Would you agree with that?
That if you haven't used it yourself and experienced the pull, you can feel TikTok or Instagram, it's sort of a similar thing, you can feel Instagram take over your body.
You can feel it taking over your body.
Right?
If you've never experienced the feeling, I don't think you would take it seriously.
Because there are a number of members of Congress follow me on Twitter.
They've seen all of my tweets, or a lot of them, and they know that people say, hey, TikTok is addictive and it can influence people.
I'll bet if I did a quiz of all the members of Congress, they would all get the right answer.
Don't you think?
Does social media influence people?
Yes.
I'll bet every one of them would get the right answer.
Does TikTok influence people?
Yes.
Right answer.
Is TikTok controlled by China?
Yes.
I believe that Congress would get all the right answers in the quiz.
Every one of them.
Probably every one of them.
But I'll bet there are very few who've used it.
If you used it, you're going to kick it to the curb really fast.
Because you feel it.
And you've also had the experience, have you all?
Just listen to this.
You've all had the same experience, so mine is not unique.
I have considered and talked with friends about maybe taking singing lessons.
Vocal lessons.
Because I've learned the drums, I'm trying to learn the guitar.
And I was just curious whether anybody could learn to sing.
And I have no skill or aptitude.
And so I was kind of curious.
I've never written it down, I don't think.
I've never tweeted it, and my advertisements are full of vocal lessons being offered.
Full of vocal lessons.
Now, is your feed full of vocal lessons?
No.
I never wrote that down.
Never wrote it down.
But I said it out loud.
Said it out loud.
Now, do you think that Congress, the 80-year-old people in Congress, do you think that they've experienced talking about something in the privacy of their home and then watching it show up on their feed?
Do you think they've experienced that?
Maybe.
A few.
The younger ones.
AOC has, I'm sure.
But I don't think that Congress is young enough to have actually, you know, Mind melded themselves with social media to know how powerful it is.
So I'm thinking it's actually an information problem.
As in you can't communicate to somebody what a feeling feels like.
Right?
Like intellectually they all get it, but I don't think they know what that feels like.
If they did, it'd be over.
There would be no TikTok if Congress used it for a week.
It would be gone.
That's my best hypothesis.
Because it could be just corruption.
It could be exactly what it looks like.
China just owns the Congress.
It's possible.
Well, Antifa is back.
And there's no reason they ever disappeared.
And there's not really a strong reason they came back.
But as Tucker Carlson conspiratorially suggests, they're nothing but the military And they come whenever the Democrats want to tell the public that the country is falling apart and they need to trade out the leader.
So the first leader they got rid of was Trump.
And it started looking like they want to get rid of Biden.
So Antifa might be a way to get rid of Biden.
Because it just makes the country look unstable because it gets so much news coverage.
Now, apparently Antifa people, instead of being executed, which seems like the obvious play, are being just released.
But I think in Atlanta, they're going to be a little tougher on them.
The Atlanta police say they're going to charge them, so we'll see.
I think I'm going to agree with this take.
I'm going to agree with this take.
Antifa appears to be an entirely artificial Democrat army.
I don't believe that all the members of Antifa know what they are or why they're there.
I think a lot of them are in it for the lifestyle and to, you know, meet women.
It's the only way they can.
But I think that the leaders, the leaders are working for a paycheck.
And if we don't know who's paying them, I think classifying them as domestic terrorists and also Democrats is accurate.
Now, they wouldn't identify as Democrats because they're, you know, they're for chaos.
But consider the fact that they're not asking for anything.
Just that, just that alone.
They're not asking for anything.
Are we done?
There's nothing else you need to know about them.
If they're burning cities and not asking for some specific demand, and they're not asking for anything that could be provided, right?
No, it's obviously to create chaos, and obviously somebody's paying them.
So it's a, what if everything is exactly the way it looks?
All right, more on that note.
It turns out that there is a FBI agent I don't even know what to say about this story.
This story is so mind-boggling that you just, there's no comment on top of it that can do anything to make it more outrageous.
So the federal prosecutors are going after the head of, former head, of the counterintelligence for the FBI, New York office.
They're saying he laundered money, From some Russian oligarch, who apparently was the same one who was giving money to Banniford.
Of course.
So, sure enough, the FBI guy, I think he was in charge of making sure this didn't happen, was doing it himself.
So once again, the Tucker Carlson theory That I thought was batshit crazy, batshit crazy, that the Democrats do whatever they're accusing you of.
Every time it comes true, this is exactly what they're accusing Republicans of.
They were doing it.
They were literally taking money, this guy was literally taking money from Russia and probably using it in service of Democrats.
It was exactly what you thought.
You know, the pandemic looks like it's going to be exactly what you thought, your worst suspicions.
Everything is exactly what you think.
It just seems exactly what you think.
So, anyway, I'm fascinated by that.
But let's take that concept that everything is exactly what you think to the fact that there are more classified documents at yet another Joe Biden home.
Now, let's discuss How it looks.
Number one, nobody can explain why Joe Biden has so many homes.
We should be done.
That should be the end of his term.
Right?
He should be like immediately swept out of office with one sentence.
Nobody knows how we got to all those homes.
Nobody knows.
There's no theory.
There's no hypothesis.
We just decide not to talk about it.
What?
He's the president.
We're not going to talk about how he mysteriously got great wealth without having a job that provided that much income?
Nobody's curious?
Well, what if that's exactly what it looks like?
He's been on the take for decades.
That's what it looks like.
And so what if it's exactly what it looks like?
Now, apparently he had classified documents like a snail trail wherever he went.
Now, I speculated that he was leaving the documents so he could find his way back from wherever he went.
I don't know if that's true.
Just speculation.
But three locations so far, right?
Three is a pattern.
One could be a mistake.
Two could be a mistake.
Three is a pretty clear pattern, especially since it's documents that predate his presidency.
Now, in these same homes, we presume that Hunter Biden had access to all three places, correct?
Hunter Biden had easy access to all three places.
And we know that he was trying to sell, at least influence, to foreign countries.
So what it looks exactly like is that Joe Biden for decades has been a huge criminal, for decades, a huge criminal, and that Hunter is part of monetizing it, and that they've been offering or selling state secrets to other countries for decades.
If everything else is exactly what it looks like, why would this one be different?
It looks exactly like it, and you would need a crowbar to pry me off that opinion.
Because there's no information countering it.
At all.
Now, remember, individuals are innocent until proven guilty.
So the Biden's as individuals, innocent until proven guilty.
But Joe Biden is also the government and the government is guilty until proven innocent.
So if you're going to walk around being my president and looking guilty as heck, it took me, that was hard to pull that one back.
Guilty as heck.
Well, I'm going to assume you are.
So as of today, my operating assumption is that the president of the United States, Joe Biden, is and has been a major criminal and a traitor for decades.
That's my working assumption because all information suggests it.
Now, I'm open to him opening his books and explaining how he got these homes.
I'm open to finding out that it's all a big lie, and it's all some big conservative conspiracy theory, and he doesn't even sniff girl's hair.
That's all just a lie.
So I'm open to counter evidence.
But as of now, I think it's a safe statement of fact, preliminary, that we're led by a major criminal, which would explain why he's not doing anything on the border, Useful.
And why he's not doing anything about TikTok and fentanyl.
It would explain everything.
So if it explains everything, that should be your working hypothesis.
So we should all just assume it's true.
Just assume it's true.
And if he wants to prove it isn't, I'm open to that.
All right.
One of my favorite things to watch on the Internet is, you know, you're all watching the Crowder Crowder versus the Daily Wire, where Daily Wire offered him a deal, but in it was some clauses that say if he got cancelled on social media, that they wouldn't pay him as much money.
Some people called that a penalty.
I called it a normal business deal in which you're sharing revenue.
Penalty?
I guess all of my contracts are penalties.
I guess my book deal's a penalty.
Because you know what?
If I don't sell enough books, that publisher's not going to give me money.
Can you believe it?
Like, if I don't produce money for both of us, they won't give me my half.
I know!
I know!
It's like, well, not half, but whatever it is.
But it's totally criminal that if we make a deal that we'll both make money, and then we don't make any money, they're not going to pay me.
Bastards.
Anyway, so here's my favorite thing, is watching Mike Cernovich disembowel Crowder's argument at all of his supporters.
And, you know, he's the only one who can see the whole field that's talking about it.
I'm always a big fan of Cernovich in general, but he's an attorney, he's a business person, he's seen enough of the world that he knows what a business deal is supposed to look like, and he sees this entire thing for what it is.
I don't think there's any hidden You know, like dark corners.
I think he sees the whole field.
And he's calling the balls and strikes here.
It's kind of hilarious.
So you should watch.
You should follow Cernovich anyway.
But you should definitely look at his Crowder comments.
I'll tell you what he's saying.
So you know, Crowder's claiming that Big Con, as he calls it, the big conservative groups, are working with big tech.
So they're not exactly on the other side of big tech.
They're working with them because they like to monetize, you know, through big tech.
So they want to keep them on their side.
So his take is that nobody is sort of working for the artist who doesn't want to get banned on social media because all the big conservatives are just working with the platforms like everybody else.
Now, what Sernovich asked is, he gives some details about, he goes, he goes, how?
People keep saying Daily Wire is in bed with big tech.
Cite examples.
And then he says he's not a Daily Wire fanboy, but can anybody give an example of how the Daily Wire is doing something with big tech that you wouldn't like?
Like, what would be that?
Now, why did we have to get to today, and why did it have to be Mike Cernovich to ask the question, do you have even one example?
Just one example.
Now, maybe he does, but why haven't we heard one example up until now?
No examples?
Self-censorship?
No.
All right, well, I think it's up to Crowder to give us some examples, and maybe he has them.
If he asks them, we'll talk about it.
Because I'd like to know that, wouldn't you?
I mean, if his claim holds up, I'd certainly like to know it.
So give us some examples.
Maybe you can flip us to your side.
And then I guess we found out that Crowder says he wasn't about the money.
And then he was asked on Tim Pool's show, Tim Cast.
He was asked, but didn't your agent ask for more money?
But it wasn't about the money, but your agent countered and asked for more money.
And a creditor, I think he acknowledged that his agent might have, but he didn't.
But he didn't.
So what do you think Mike Cernovich said about that?
That Crowder didn't make an offer, but his agent did.
It's exactly what you think.
Exactly what you think.
All right.
Yeah.
So let's talk about that border crossing.
I saw an Adam Shaw tweet.
He's a Fox News journalist, reporter.
I'm not sure what they're called these days.
Correspondent, maybe?
And he says the border numbers for December are out.
This is for one month.
For one month.
The number of border crossings, 251,000.
Encounters.
That's how many encounters there were.
We don't know how many crossed and didn't get counted.
That was just the number of encounters.
Encounters.
How many do we stop?
One in four?
Does anybody know how many we stop?
One in three?
One in ten?
I have no idea.
My guess would be one in four, like with no background information to back that up.
So that's a pretty high run rate.
But again, let me remind you how Trump can win both Republicans and Democrats on border issue.
High ground maneuver.
You say this.
It's not about stopping people coming in.
It's about having a system where we can let the good ones in and stop the criminals, for example.
So what we need is some independent group.
of economists to tell us what's the right number and mix of people to let in and let that all be public.
Should be a bipartisan group, you know, maybe one more Republican just because if Republicans put it together, everybody gets to have one more person if they're in charge.
And then make it all public.
Like the OMB.
You know, one of the most surprising things to me is that the Office of Management and Budgets is actually deemed somewhat credible by both sides.
Am I wrong about that?
Give me a fact check on that.
Is it a fact that the OMB, that always scores the federal budgets, aren't they considered credible?
I mean, maybe not, but I always thought they were.
Because they work for both administrations, and I don't think that the staffers, I don't think they're necessarily appointed, are they?
Maybe just the head?
The GBO?
Or the CBO?
It's a CBO?
All right, whatever it is.
So do you think that there could be a credible permanent organization, and maybe it's something that's already in the government, that would tell us what is the number of immigrants and what types and from where to come in?
Because I don't think the president should make that decision.
Do you?
Any president.
I don't think the president should decide on the mix.
That's way...
That's way outside their strike zone.
I think economists and business people should decide on the mix.
You know, with input from business, how many employees do you need that you can't get?
And, you know, then also there should be advocates for Americans, right?
So if you've got some kind of a group doing that calculation, you need at least somebody in that group who's going to say, okay, but you've got to consider, you know, how that's going to come out of the pockets of the poor directly or indirectly.
And all that stuff.
So, I think Trump can take the high ground and say, let's take the president out of the decision of who comes in.
Let's have a tight border, but take the politics out of who comes in.
How does that not work?
I think Trump just walks into the presidency if he says that.
I think you just walk right in.
Because if he just says, you know, I'll do the president thing of controlling the border.
But separately, let's take the who gets in out of politics.
And we'll create a bipartisan group.
You tell me he wouldn't get elected on that?
In a heartbeat he would.
Easily.
He would just walk into the office if he said that.
Because the border is where people put up the most resistance because they feel the dog whistle.
Just take the dog whistle out.
Because it's not something Trump needed.
He didn't need a dog whistle.
So just take it out.
All right.
There was a weird story about Damar Hamlin, the football player who collapsed on the field.
And I guess he's healthy enough to be walking around and he attended a game yesterday.
But he wore a mask and sunglasses and a hat.
And never showed his face.
So the videos of him don't show his face.
So of course, of course, of course, people think it's not really him and he died.
Okay?
I'm pretty sure we would know if he died.
Like that would be a hard one to keep a secret.
So I don't think he died.
I think it might have more to do with, who knows, just didn't want to talk to people or whatever it was.
So he may have had some medical or other reason.
But are you amazed that we've got to today and we don't have a cause for his problem?
There's no official cause?
May we take the standard that we have been using up to this point today?
The standard is, maybe it's exactly what it looks like.
What if it's exactly what it looks like?
Because what it looks like is he may have been vaccinated recently.
Am I right?
Because if that were not the case, I'm sure they would have told us that right up front.
If he were, I guess they all had to be vaccinated.
But if he had been recently vaccinated, let's say recently boosted, it's got to be that.
Am I right?
Now, they're not saying it, so you can never be 100% sure, but if your gut instinct is to say, well, if it looks exactly like it, and they're not even bothering to deny it, that should be your starting assumption.
Your starting assumption is that he got the vaccination and fell down.
They don't want to tell you.
Am I right?
Now, let me make a distinction.
I also was debunking some of those suddenly died athletes, because a number of them actually were video of people died before the pandemic.
And some of them didn't die, and they were fine, they just got up.
So a lot of the video you've seen of athletes dying, a lot of it was fake, for sure.
But not all of it.
Not all of it was debunked, there were just some obvious ones that were wrong.
But this is a different situation.
This is one specific person who is, you know, having a public medical situation and is not telling you the thing you would most want to know.
Did you recently get vaccinated?
That's all you need to know.
Clearly, that's the problem here.
Now, I'm not saying that the vaccination injured him.
I want to be clear about that.
But it's pretty clear that they're not telling you he got vaccinated recently.
Does anybody disagree?
That we could conclude that with a pretty high degree of certainty that he was probably boosted recently.
And I think probably all of them were.
Right?
Don't all the professional athletes have to get boosted?
Like, boosted and boosted and boosted?
I think they do.
I think it's just required.
So, yeah.
You should assume it's exactly what it looks like.
That would be a fair assumption.
All right.
So there's an update on Russia and Kiev.
By the way, stay with me if you want to see me admit more about things I got wrong on the pandemic.
If anybody likes me to admit I'm wrong, stick around.
We'll do that last.
So there's some people speculating that Russia is going to mass forces in Belarus and then attack Kiev from there and, you know, destroy Kiev and declare victory or something.
Does that sound like something that might happen?
Do you think that's going to happen?
That feels unlikely to me.
Yeah, I'm not going to rule it out.
I think that given the winter pause, it changes everything because you don't know which side did a better job of preparing for after the pause.
So I think at this point the war is a toss-up.
I don't think as of today you could say Ukraine or Russia are winning.
It looks like a toss-up to me.
What do you think?
I think it's now in solidly unpredictable territory.
Not that it was ever super predictable.
Admit defeat.
You mean admit defeat that Ukraine will lose?
I'm always open to that.
I've predicted that Russia would be unsuccessful conquering Ukraine.
But if they wait long enough, I would acknowledge that if Russia wanted to risk everything and wait long enough, that they could take Ukraine, probably.
Yeah, so I'll give you that.
All right.
It's a draw.
I think the most likely outcome is a draw with forever fighting in the, you know, some of those recently captured areas.
That's what I'm guessing.
So.
There's a new study that says that vitamin D deficiency was found in 82% of COVID cases, but the general population is only 47%.
So the vitamin D deficiency was twice as profound in the people who got COVID and probably the outcomes as well.
Now, I would like to do a competition.
And I did a little Googling and I couldn't determine.
I feel like I am the first person in the world to say in public, I'm probably not, so this is where you get to debunk me.
So if you like to embarrass me, this is your opportunity.
I believe I'm the first person in the world who said that the country differences and the demographic differences, like black people having worse time with COVID, that that was a vitamin D pattern.
Now hold on, hold on, let me be specific.
I'm not the first person to say vitamin D was important to outcomes.
Hear that clearly.
I'm definitely not the first person, or even close, to say that vitamin D would help you recover.
Would you agree?
Everybody said that.
Like, doctors said it, laypeople said it, early on.
Like, right away, everybody said, more vitamin D. So that part, I'm not claiming anything.
I was just one of a million people who said the obvious.
Hey, vitamin D is good for you.
All right?
So I'm not taking any credit for that.
I'm being very specific.
I believe I'm the first person who said, it's the reason that you're getting different outcomes in different countries, and different outcomes across black versus white, et cetera.
I believe I'm the first.
And here's why.
Because when it occurred to me, I'd never heard it.
So the only thing I can know for sure is that when it occurred to me, I hadn't heard it yet, but it might be out there.
So somebody has a source.
Because once I found out that Sweden routinely gives people vitamin D supplements and cod oil or something, I don't know.
Once I realized that the reason that Sweden was an exception is that they had a lot of vitamin D.
And then, have you ever figured out why Africa never had a problem?
Is that wild?
That Africa basically escaped the pandemic without doing much of anything?
Do you know what the vitamin D rate is in Africa?
Really good.
Because they spend a lot of time outside in the sun.
It's really good.
So even though they're mostly black, so they have a tougher time absorbing, on average they spend so much time outdoors that they have good vitamin D. Now Africa is also young and thin.
Some people said, oh, they have lots of ivermectin, but that's probably, it can't be more than 10% of the population.
Ivermectin, probably less than 10%.
I would imagine that most people in Africa aren't on any kind of pharmaceutical drug at all.
Yeah, and maybe 10% for hydroxychloroquine and stuff.
But those things are definitely factors, or could be.
But the one that just jumped out was that every group that had low vitamin D were the ones everybody said was going to hit the hardest.
So I put that out there that nobody made the country connection before I did.
Anybody want to fact check that?
Find somebody who said in public, anybody who had a YouTube or a tweet or something, that the country difference.
I know you're just going to send me people who said vitamin D is good.
Do not send me anything that just said, I said vitamin D is good.
Stipulate it.
I get that.
We all agree with that.
Just the country difference.
I think I was first.
I think I was first in the world, actually.
But could be wrong.
All right.
Here's... I used to work in big corporations, and if you've worked in a big corporation, you know there's a process that they like to do.
In a big company, if something doesn't work, you make a big mistake, a bad product or whatever, your project fails, they like to do a post-mortem to find out what they learned.
Right?
So I would like to find out how so many of you got the right answer about the vaccinations, whereas I didn't.
So I'm going to try to figure out, and maybe you can help me, figure out what heuristics, what rules of thumbs, what sort of common sense, but also data, did you look at?
And one of the things that people most complained to me when I said, That I was giving the win to the unvaxxed people.
So I gave them the win, because they definitely got to the right place.
And I'd like to learn how they did that, because I got to the wrong place.
Because now I have a vaccination in me, but I'm not worried about COVID.
So now I just have to worry about the vaccination.
Right?
So I lost.
Right?
So having said that, and be very clear that the winners are the people who use some different system to analyze stuff.
I wanted to find out I did.
Now, I made the mistake of saying all the data is unreliable.
So I didn't believe the data from the official sources, but I also didn't believe the data from anybody who disagreed with the official sources.
And so, to me, it was a data-free environment.
But it was a data-free environment for many of you, but a lot of people said, no, Scott, you're wrong.
There was a lot of good data.
And I've been sending it.
A number of people said they've been sending it to me and I've been ignoring it.
So let's fix that.
Right?
Wouldn't you say that was a big mistake on my part?
That there was, in fact, good data.
It was presented to me.
I didn't even have to go look for it.
And then I discounted it.
And then I made the wrong decision because I discounted it.
Would you agree that's an accurate statement?
So we're going to try to correct whatever the hell is wrong with me with your help.
There will be a little whiteboard here.
So I asked people how they did it on Twitter this morning.
Like, how did you do it?
Like, how did you know what was the good data and what was the bad data?
I'll give you some answers.
And then you can add some answers if anything is left out.
All right, so here are all my problems, the things I didn't do right.
See, James Popp, these are people on Twitter who responded, said, for me it was just pragmatic.
How could something so new, talking about the vaccination, how could something so new be remotely ready for human use in such a good time, short time?
That's a good starting place, isn't it?
Would you agree that That's a good, solid, common sense.
No dispute about the facts.
There's nobody who's going to question that the vaccination was rushed relative to what we would all expect or like.
Good point.
And so I like that point, so I responded, I have a lot of respect, I tweeted it back, I have a lot of respect for the people who are smart enough to avoid a hastily prepared vaccination.
Is that fair?
I do have a lot of respect for people who were smart enough to avoid a hastily prepared vaccination in favor of the relative safety of an engineered bioweapon that escaped from the lab.
So the people who were smart enough not to take the hastily prepared vaccination and rather go to the relative safety of an unknown bioengineered weapon made the right call.
And so I'm trying to learn from them.
All right, I put too much weight on an unknown bioengineered virus that looked like it might have been a weapon of mass destruction, with God knows what kind of future impact.
But I put a little too much emphasis on that, whereas I should have been focusing more on the fact that the... And I knew this.
I knew the vaccination was not tested as much as others.
All right, so then there were people who sent me good data, and I kept saying, But how did I know it was good?
You see the problem?
Because people were saying, I have the good data, and I sent it to you.
And I saw it.
In many cases, I saw it.
But how was I supposed to determine that that was the good data?
And so I asked people, how did you know?
Because I couldn't tell.
To me, it all looked sketchy.
Like, it all looked bad.
I didn't see any good data.
Nothing that I trusted.
But other people did.
And they say they could sort out the good data from the bad.
So I was asking how they did that.
And here's some more answers on that.
Here's how some people did it.
Some people said you should trust the people who were banned.
That that's like a flag of credibility.
That the people who were banned were more credible than the people who were not banned.
And I'm not trying to live in the past.
I'm trying to prepare for the next situation.
So I wondered if that's a standard we could always use.
Was that a standard that only worked for that one pandemic?
Or would it be true for the next one?
And I'm not aware of all the people who got banned, but is the argument that everybody who got banned had the right answer?
Was there anybody who got banned who had the wrong answer?
Or was it only, was banning like a really good signal for the right person?
What do you say?
Well, if you had to put a percentage on it, And let's say for the next situation.
Forget about the pandemic.
For the next situation, whatever that is, should I say if you're banned, you're like 80% likely to be right?
And the people who are saying things that don't get them banned are most likely to be wrong or lie?
About 80%?
What would you say?
Well, 25% doesn't help me.
Because if they're only 25% likely, why are you believing them?
I mean, it's got to be over, it's got like 80, 90, right?
All right, so we're getting some 80s and some 90s.
All right, good.
So I'm seeing some agreement that you can see what data has been banned and also what people.
So that falls for people as well, right?
The people who were banned, were very much most likely to be right.
And you could tell because they were banned.
Is that right?
You could tell they're the good ones because they're banned?
Okay.
So I'll look more to banned people next time as opposed to people who say things that don't get them banned.
And then other people said they're just some people you can trust more.
It's more about trusting the right people.
So, you know, I acknowledge my weakness that I can't tell the difference between good data and bad, because it all looks bad to me.
So if I can't tell what data is good, then I can rely on what people are good, right?
Because the reliable people are most likely to have the reliable data.
That makes sense.
So the people who were, you know, banned and ostracized, the Alex Berenson's and Brett Weinstein and, let's see, Fat Emperor and Bori Quagato and some other people.
So those are the ones we trusted.
So rather than trusting the medical professionals, a lot of people said, I'm going to trust a journalist.
Now, does that always work?
Or did it only just work on this pandemic?
So the people who trust a journalist, Berenson, over, let's say, the bulk of the medical community, and we know Berenson got the right answer, so obviously he knows something they didn't.
But here's the question.
Will the journalist who disagrees with the medical community generally be right, or only if they're also banned?
Are they only right if they're banned?
So what if it's a journalist who disagrees with the mainstream, but is not banned?
Are they still more likely to be right?
And what if there are two journalists, and one says the mainstream is wrong, and one says it right?
Because two journalists would be roughly equal in credibility, right?
So how would you sort that out?
Because you have one journalist who's on one side, but another journalist who's on another.
And since journalists are better than medical professionals at medical stuff, so we can ignore the medical people.
But which of the journalists would I pick?
The band one, right?
So somebody like a Dr. Drew, Who did not get banned, I should sort of minimize his influence and look for the people who are the most banned to get my credibility?
Does that make sense?
I'm looking for your guidance.
All right.
Here's some other things that people said.
Let's see.
Some people said that the data that they were hiding tells you everything you need to know.
And I thought, well, that's pretty insightful.
Because once you can tell that somebody's hiding some data, or that there's a lack of data, the lack of data tells you more than the actual data.
You good with that?
Does that make sense?
The data that you don't have is telling you more than the data you have.
Right?
I mean, that's a pretty big signal, if they're going to hide that data.
So I'm wondering, in general, Again, because I'm not living in the past, I'm trying to prepare for the next one.
In general, should I use the lack of data to make my decisions versus the data?
Should I go with the non-information to base my decisions on?
All right.
And then let's see.
Then somebody was ostracizing me or criticizing me.
Not ostracizing.
Saying that I gave you two pretty clear examples of how to do it.
One, you want well-credentialed, peer-reviewed people prior to COVID.
So, do you agree with that?
You should believe the people who are well-credentialed and peer-reviewed even before COVID.
That makes sense, doesn't it?
Believe the people, because like Dr. McCullough, Dr. Malone, peer-reviewed, very credible, so you should believe them.
But what happens if the people on the other side are also credentialed and peer-reviewed?
So if they're all credentialed and peer-reviewed, but they have different opinions, should I take the ones that are in the extreme minority?
Because the minority is usually right on medical stuff?
Or should I use that as the base and just say, all right, but which one's more banned?
So if they have equal credentials, I should favor the one that's banned, right?
Next time?
All right.
Also, the people who risk livelihood Basically, they put their careers on the line.
So I should trust the people who knew they were going to lose money in this, right?
Because they don't have a financial incentive.
So that would be like Dr. McCullough, Dr. Malone, because they risked their careers.
Didn't they?
So that does make you more credible if you're willing to put some skin in the game.
So Dr. McCullough, for example, definitely put some risk on his medical future.
We can only hope that he makes his money back on his book.
Because he did do a book.
Probably does some speaking tours.
So Dr. Malone has a book.
And Brett Weinstein has a podcast.
I think it's monetized.
But you don't want to look at any of those people, because they put their entire financial futures on the line.
And all they got out of it was best-selling books and top-rated podcasts that are monetized.
So that's a group you want to believe in, because they're not influenced by money in any way.
So that was a good idea.
Then also... All right, what else?
I had some other... Oh, this is important.
You should not... You don't trust any study where the people running the study were funded by, you know, like Big Pharma or somebody who wants to make money from it.
You'd agree with that, right?
You can't trust any study that somebody's got a money motivation.
But here's my issue.
And I know you can do this because you did it, but I did it wrong, so you're going to have to teach me how to do this.
There are some studies where you can tell who funded it.
And so I would be with you and say, oh, if it was funded by those people, you can't trust it.
But what happens if it's a study where you don't know if it was funded?
Or here's the tough part.
What if, let's say, there's a doctor who's the head person of the study, And that doctor did not get money from any big pharma, but the doctor does a lot of speaking engagements for big pharma.
And let's say somebody who is, you know, close to the decision they were trying to make.
Would you know that?
Would you know if a doctor who led a study that was not funded by big pharma, but would you know if the doctor individually and privately gave a highly paid Talks as seminars, paid for by the same company that he's doing the research for.
Would you know that?
I don't think you would.
I mean, I wouldn't.
So you have to teach me how you'd know that, because I wouldn't.
It's my understanding that everybody's working for money, but apparently some people are not.
All right, so I put it all together on a whiteboard so I could try to understand how you made the decision correctly.
It looks like this.
I was using bad data.
And other people were using good data, and they could tell the difference.
So the best data is stuff that's banned, and the best experts are the ones who risked it all, and were unpaid.
Unpaid except for the best-selling books and podcasts.
And then, this was the important part, because I got this, because I asked people, okay, if you do all this, how do you know the data is right?
Ultimately, how do you know data is right?
And the best answer I got is that somebody compared it to what they already knew, and when you compare it to what you already know, you do your own assessment.
So you don't just trust the data, I was told.
You do your own assessment of whether it looks reasonable.
A day ago, I would have said this is confirmation bias.
And that it just looks like people had confirmation bias and they work backwards to who the right data was and who the experts are.
That was my old model of the world.
But since this process got to the right answer, I have to revise that and apologize.
Because I was in wrong... I'm being told that there's a different doctor who's more credible.
Somebody called Dr. Lee.
Now, I don't know anything about Dr. Lee, but I'm sure he's not writing a book or monetizing his opinion anyway.
Just like the other experts, although they did write best-selling books and probably doing speaking engagements and are very, very famous people now, but they didn't have any monetary, no monetary interest, just books and podcasts and stuff, which are probably paying more than their medical Medical stuff.
So this used to be confirmation bias, but now I know this is actually just a common sense kind of approach.
So then the last step is the part that I was totally wrong about.
This is the part where I really screwed up.
So once you've got your good data and your good experts, Which you can tell because you're comparing it to your own assessment of the data and the experts.
So you know that's good, because it's all compatible.
Then you take that, because that's just your assessment on one side.
That's just the vaccine.
And you compare it to the unknown risk of a bioengineered weapon of mass destruction.
And it's obvious that this is a bigger risk.
So this is as close as I can get to trying to improve my game.
And I think what happened was, ultimately, I got lost in the weeds.
I was all in the weeds.
I couldn't see the trees for the forest kind of thing.
But it was all kind of obvious.
If I just go and use the good data with the good experts, and it's easy to tell who the good ones are because they're banned, and then just use my own assessment to decide what was the good data and the good experts, and then compare it to the unknown risk of a bioengineered weapon of mass destruction, and I could have gotten the right answer too.
during the fog of war.
And on top of that, one thing I was also getting wrong was certainty.
I kept being on the fence.
I got a lot of criticism for that.
Because I was like, I'm on the fence.
I don't know which is the bigger risk.
I don't know.
Is it the vaccine or the virus?
I don't know.
So I was all over the place.
And I can't apologize enough for that.
I'm sorry.
Did I mislead you?
And I was totally wrong.
The unvaccinated were the winners.
They got the right answer from the start.
And impressively, they got it with heuristics, which beat the heck out of my poor analytical abilities.
And you have my respect for that.
I don't understand this comment.
My inability to be wrong?
How much more can I agree with you?
You won't take yes for an answer?
Why can't you take yes for an answer?
I'm literally telling you, you got the right answer.
And I'm accepting your analysis.
What's the problem?
Seriously, what's the problem?
No, no, no.
I may have misled you.
Somebody says, was I certain it was a bioweapon?
Now, let me be clear.
I didn't know what the virus was.
I also didn't know what the so-called vaccination was.
I didn't know what either one of them... So I was a complete unknown.
I should have listened to... I should have listened to the good experts.
Who knew from the start what the virus was and what the vaccination was.
And I should have known who the good experts were, because I should have used my own assessment.
And like you say, there were a lot of you who were right from the start. - Yeah.
And I certainly wasn't.
Would you agree with that statement?
There are a lot of you who through this improved Let's say, sort of a model for understanding the world.
All right.
And now we want tribunals.
Yeah.
I think the people who did not use this method probably need jail time.
Would you agree?
I'm wondering if I should go to jail.
Do you know how many people I probably killed with my analyses?
I have to live with that for the rest of my life.
Those of you who were the smart ones, you don't.
You have clean conscience.
Now, I used to worry about all the people who used this analysis and then died of COVID because they were unvaccinated.
But that actually was one of my biggest decision-making criteria.
Because I was under the mistaken impression that there was like some COVID pandemic that swept through the country.
And recently I'm learning that nobody died.
So, I mean, I thought I was believing the government.
The government.
Idiot.
I don't know how dumb I could be and believe in the government that people were dying of COVID.
And the government was saying that the unvaccinated were dying at a much higher rate.
And now we know that that was all made up.
Because all data is made up.
Except for this.
If I'd known the good experts of the good data, I wouldn't have made that mistake.
That's for sure.
All right, so next time I'm going to try harder to use my own assessment to know what the good data is and who the good experts are.
And I won't be making that mistake again of distrusting all of the data.
I'm getting there.
Yeah.
So, I'm getting a lot of support on the YouTube platform from people who say, finally, finally you're understanding what's going on.
All right.
Thank you.
Well, thank you very much.
I'm going to say goodbye to YouTube and talk to the people and locals.
Whoops, got a little problem here.
Talk to the people and locals and I'll see you tomorrow.
