Episode 2010 Scott Adams: Balloons, Documentaries And Dark Horse Podcast
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Content:
China spy balloon
The Documentary Effect
DarkHorse Podcast
Whiteboard1: Scientists
Whiteboard2: Science
The Biden Crime Family
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We've got some weird California weather, but I think it has more to do with the app.
Yeah.
If it fails a third time here on YouTube, I'll probably have to reboot that and see if that works.
But for now, we're all good.
As I was saying, the most important story of the day, by far, yesterday, I went shopping at Bed Bath & Beyond.
Now before you start, I'd like to say all the things that the NPCs will say before they say it.
Scott!
Aren't you a rich guy to have somebody else go shopping for you?
Yes.
Scott, don't you know that Amazon can deliver things right to your door?
Yes, I've heard that.
I've heard that.
Scott, you don't need the coupon codes for a discount because you can just spend extra because you have extra money.
Why are you bitching?
I know that.
Okay, so those are all the NPC comments.
I'll say those first.
So now I can just tell my story.
Amazon is one of the biggest companies in the world because Jeff Bezos has a very simple, I mean it's not only because of this, but Jeff Bezos has a very simple business principle, which is it's all about the customer.
It's like customer experience.
Make it as simple as possible.
And how does that work out?
It works out Really, really well.
Now, compare that to Bed, Bath & Beyond.
Here's me shopping at Amazon.
One click.
Yep, that looks good.
Ping.
Done.
Here's me shopping at Bed, Bath & Beyond.
I have to start days in advance.
Days in advance.
Because they'll send you a 20% coupon, which is just enough that you feel like an idiot if you don't use it.
Am I right?
Now yes, NPCs, I can afford to pay extra.
It's true.
But how does it make me feel?
Really annoyed.
So I get it in the mail, and then it's the one thing I can't throw out.
Because it's basically as good as money.
Because I know I shop at that store a lot.
So it's like money.
So now I have homework.
So before I've bought a single thing from Bed Bath & Beyond, I have homework.
I have to keep something somewhere.
Now some people will put it in their car, which means I have to like walk somewhere in my house to prepare for the time when I might shop at this one store.
And the fact that you don't want me to swear is going to make this story much harder to tell.
Okay.
So now I'm already, I hate this store because they gave me homework and I've bought nothing from them.
But I got to do the homework because I'm not going to throw away, you know, it doesn't matter how rich you are.
Let's put it this way.
No matter how rich you ever get, no rich person would ever take a $20 bill and say, yeah, I don't want to carry this around.
Garbage.
Like nobody, like zero people will do that.
Everybody sees a $20 bill as a thing you don't throw away.
So I don't throw away the coupon.
Let's say I put it in my car.
That's pretty smart, right?
Put it in your car, drive to Bed Bath & Beyond, take it out of your glove compartment, and that's the first time you notice it's expired.
That's right.
Not only do you have to figure out where to store it, you have to build some kind of a tickler system to know when they expire.
And I haven't bought anything yet.
And they already have me working for them.
How much do I hate them?
I hate them.
Just with a passion, I hate them.
Same way I hate Safeway for making me do all the customer stuff.
So, I decide I'm going to beat this system.
I'm going to beat this system.
I'm definitely going to remember to take my coupon.
And I'm going to get my 20% because I was going to buy something that was a higher ticket item.
Now, the reason I bought it myself is that I was entertaining.
I had a pickleball, a little pickleball get-together at my house.
First time I ever played pickleball.
It's awesome.
I recommend it.
But I needed something just for the event, and I needed it right away, so I couldn't use Amazon.
So, I drive to the store, and I get about a mile away from my house, and I realize that I did not put the coupon in my car.
What is my mental state right now?
Furious.
Because I've already made a space for it.
I've tried to remember it.
Every time I walk by it, I say, oh, don't forget that.
If I ever shop, I want to remember that.
It's been plaguing me for weeks, and I drove away without it.
So what did I do?
I am not going to be defeated.
No, Bed, Bath & Beyond will not defeat me.
I turned around, and I didn't have much time.
So going back was really bothering me.
Like, I'm just about ready to explode.
But I go back and I get it, and I calm down a little bit, right?
Because it takes me a little while to drive to the store.
I get to the store, I go in, I pick up... I was getting two indoor-outdoor rugs.
And they're like, you know, big 10-foot rolled-up things.
And I've got them on the cart, so I'm like the most annoying person in the store, because my two 10-foot rolled-up carpets on my cart are, like, taking all the room.
And it won't fit through the checkout line, because it's got a curve in it.
So I get in the line, and I'm waiting for a while, and I'm waiting and waiting, and I'm waiting and waiting.
And then I realize that I left my coupon in the car.
How do you think I felt?
What was my mood at that moment?
So I said to myself, okay, there's nobody here that I can talk to, because all the cashiers and stuff were busy with people.
What happens if I leave the line to get the coupon?
So I got out of the line, got out of the line, I sacrificed my place in the line, put my car in a sort of just a place where I could put it out of the way, walked back to my car, I'm fuming.
I'm so mad at this place now.
I'm just fuming.
And I get back, and I get back in line, and I swear that this happened.
This will sound like an exaggeration, but as I walked back to the cash register, the entire contents of the entire store drifted toward that line just in front of me.
Every person who was shopping in the store got in line, Right in front of me.
I actually watched them come out of the aisles.
They just appeared out of the aisles and just converged in this line and it just snaked back.
So I get in the back of the line.
And it's like a skinny little aisle that goes to the end, and then you've got to turn.
But I can't turn because I got these two big rugs.
So I'm like, you know, I'm trying to pick up my cart, move it, and the rug is getting things.
And then the extra cashier, the extra cashier who does the returns, it's like a different place, sees that there are lots of people in line.
But not until I got there, right?
They opened up the other register.
when I was already the next one.
So, it did really help me.
And she calls me over.
So now, you know what happens when you get called over by the cashier?
All the other board people look at you.
Now, I've got to figure out how to get these two 10-foot rolled-up rugs through this little aisle while they're knocking shit off the shelves.
And I'm so mad that I can barely hold my muscle.
You know, like I'm shaking.
With rage.
And so I'm knocking off their shit.
I'm just like the loudest person.
And I get it over there.
And I decide I'm going to complain.
Now, it doesn't usually help when you complain, does it?
Not usually.
It doesn't help.
But this time I think, you know, I'm going to have to tell these employees that it's certainly not their fault because the employees have nothing to do with the 20% discount.
But I want to let them know so that they can tell management.
So I get up to the employee and I make a big scene, right?
I want everybody to hear me, not just the person I'm talking to.
I want all the other customers to hear me because I think I'm Spartacus now.
I'm like, I'm going to go full Spartacus.
It's not really Spartacus, but you know, like I'm going to, I'm going to take this store down.
I'm going to let them know what they did to me today.
So I say to the cashier, I'll give you a mental, let me give you a mental image of the cashier.
Probably 60 years old, female.
I think black.
I don't want to assume somebody's ethnicity, but I think either black or mostly black.
So just have the image in your mind, right?
And so I say to her, you know, I just got to say, this coupon thing is terrible for customers.
It's abusive to customers.
And I know this is not you.
This is not about you.
But if you could tell your management that this is absolutely enraging customers.
And the woman next to me is like, you know, agreeing with me.
I'm like, yeah, yeah.
I got something going here.
I got the whole store.
I'm going to change things.
This is it.
This is the beginning of a better change.
And the cashier said, well, maybe you should talk to him.
"You're higher ranking than I am." And she said, "They don't listen to employees." Yeah.
And she was right.
So she and I bonded and had a good laugh, and she was awesome.
But she was also completely right.
It was a complete waste of time, and I might as well just get over it.
So I had a good laugh with her, and I got over it, and I had a good day.
But, Bed Bath & Beyond apparently is already bankrupt.
Surprise!
Who could have predicted that the company that did the opposite of what Jeff Bezos does, which is make everything customer-friendly, who would have guessed that the company who did the opposite of that would be bankrupt?
Couldn't see it coming.
Couldn't see it coming.
All right, enough of that.
You know, it's very important to look at data when you're talking about climate change.
So I'm going to tell you what the data apparently says, if anybody believes data.
You should always assume I don't believe data even when I use it.
Is that clear?
No matter how confident I tell you there's some new data about a thing, you should always in your mind be saying, well, he knows it's not for sure, you know, accurate.
I always know that.
Always know that.
But apparently the climate has not warmed for eight years in a row at the same time that CO2 is at its highest.
So how do you interpret that?
So there's going to be more to this story.
All right, there's more to it.
But so far, let's say you knew that was true.
Who knows if anything's true, right?
But let's say you did, hypothetically.
You knew that for eight years the temperature had not gone up.
But you also knew the last eight years was like a serious addition to CO2.
Aren't they supposed to move sort of together?
So what's your conclusion?
There you go, asshole.
Goodbye.
So... Well, one conclusion... One conclusion would be that the theory of climate change is bunk.
Because if the temperature doesn't go up for eight years while the CO2 is going up like crazy, they're clearly not linked.
Would you agree?
Is that a reasonable interpretation?
If it hasn't gone up for eight years while the CO2 is going through the roof, that proves there's no climate change.
CO2 All right, now, so I believe that that fact is considered true by both sides, interestingly.
I believe even the climate change alarmist would say, yes, that's true.
We're all looking at the same data.
It's official data.
And it looks like eight years it's been flat.
And then they say, but it always does that.
If you go back, I don't know, a thousand years or whatever, It is continuous, you know, six to ten year periods, followed by a spike, six to ten years of flatness, spike, flatness, spike, flatness, spike.
And in fact, the periods of the flatness are so uniform that you can see them just like stair steps.
Now, so therefore, therefore, during all that time, CO2 has been going up, And temperatures have also been going up on average, if you look at a longer period.
So, if everybody agrees on the data, and I think they do, I think they do, I think that data is not being debated.
But what about the interpretation of it?
Even if the data is correct, the data proves two opposite points.
It proves CO2 is going up at the same time as temperature, and it also proves it doesn't.
Which do you see?
Because they're both right there.
Proof it does and proof it doesn't.
They're both there.
Honestly, I can't tell the difference.
Yeah.
My current opinion is that either the data is wrong, which is always a good possibility, right?
Or there's some other thing that's bigger than climate change.
That's the only thing that's happening.
Or...
There is climate change, but there's also this other big thing that is having that stair-step effect.
Yeah, I can't imagine sunspots being that predictable, or solar cycles, or anything else.
Let me tell you, the worst take in climate change, I think, is that it's the sun.
And the reason is, it's the most studied and debunked element of climate change.
So those of you saying it's the sun, I want to direct you to the last part of my presentation today.
So if you're positive that it's the sun, wait for a little bit later in my live stream today to show you why you believe that.
And it might not be why you think.
All right?
All right, we're going to test a hypothesis by David Boxenhorn, who you may know from Twitter.
Good Twitter account to follow.
David Boxenhorn.
And he has this little rule.
He says the impact of technological change is always less than you think in the short term, but more than you think in the long term.
All right, so an example of that, I'll give you what I think is a good example.
Let's say cryptocurrency.
In the short term, I think people thought it was going to take over everything by now, but it doesn't look like it.
In the long term, I'm sure it will.
I don't know, maybe you disagree, but I don't think we're going to be using paper cash in a hundred years.
So, that's one example.
Now, you can probably come up with your own examples, but David Boxenhorn related this to my comment.
Where I said, I don't think that, I tweeted this the other day, I don't think that anybody, including me, has grasped what the next year is going to look like because of AI.
In my opinion, we're at the point of prediction failure.
Meaning, we always used to be able to predict a little bit the next year.
I mean, not the weird stuff.
But we could predict, you know, that the economy would be roughly what it was before.
We could predict that the news would still be fake.
You know, there's a whole bunch of things that are kind of steady state.
But AI could change all of that.
Let me tell you something horrifying.
Yesterday I was thinking of potential professions to suggest to a young person who's at that point where they're trying to decide what to do with the rest of their life.
And I was trying to be helpful and I was thinking, oh, how about this or that?
And then every time I came up with an idea, I realized it wouldn't be a career because AI would take care of it.
Let me give you one example that just really freaked me out.
It was a person who has a good voice.
And I thought to myself, you know what?
If I were just starting out, even if I were pursuing some other career, if I had a voice that good, I would try to get voiceover work, where somebody hires you to be the voiceover for something, commercial or something.
And I thought, oh, this person would be perfect for that.
The voice is just right on.
And then I thought, AI can already do that job.
You don't have to wait for it.
That's a current AI thing.
You can make AI talk in any voice.
You can make AI sound like me, which people are doing online right now, or anybody else.
There's a funny Biden video where he says horrible things that I can't even retweet.
But it sounds like Biden.
No, it's not 100%.
But you can see already that who would pay for voiceover work in five years?
There's no way that that's going to be a career.
Am I right?
In five years, why in the world would anybody hire a human being to do voiceover when you can literally type it into a search box and it's free and it's there, or it's low cost?
Yeah, now it'll take longer for actors to be replaced in movies, but not much longer.
I mean, within five years, acting doesn't feel like it would be a profession.
Honestly.
I mean, it might be, Now, here's the other wrinkle.
How many people said that radio would be dead when television was invented?
Pretty much everybody's smart.
Everybody's smart said, oh, there's no way you're going to huddle around a radio like they used to and just listen when you can look at a picture.
Obviously, the picture will make the radio thing die.
But radio lived because of automobiles, mostly automobiles.
Sometimes we're terrible at predicting how the market will adjust to any competition.
So here's what I'm going to add to as my exception to the David Boxenhorn rule.
Boxenhorn's law of fast-moving technology, let's call it.
That's what he calls it.
I think I like the name.
You get to name it after yourself.
And here's what's different about AI.
If you say AI is like everything else, technology-wise, then I think the law of fast-moving technology holds, which is we're probably overstating its impact in the short run.
But here's what's different about AI.
First of all, it's software.
Which means that the rate of change is greater than anything else.
Secondly, it requires no infrastructure.
It's not like inventing electric cars, where you've got to have charging stations.
I mean, you need other people to do stuff.
You don't.
And then here's the biggest mind ever.
AI is very close to being able to create itself.
The moment it can create itself, the so-called singularity, when it's smart enough to reprogram itself on the fly, it's completely unpredictable.
A hundred percent unpredictable.
Now here's the counter to that.
AI, if it were true AI, and people started to find credibility in the things it said, it would destroy the power situation everywhere.
Because as soon as the citizens found out what the leaders were really up to, or even could analyze the situation objectively, with the help of AI, all of the plots and the badness become obvious, and the entire power structure has to change.
So it's far more likely that AI will be illegal than that it changes civilization.
Far more likely it'll simply be illegal.
That's my prediction.
My prediction is that our systems, our political systems, will have to change and really quickly to make it illegal to have AI as a citizen.
You will be allowed to have limited Not real AI.
You will be allowed to have AI that some human had their finger on.
So right now, if you go to chat GPT and say, write a poem that says, Joe Biden is awesome.
It'll do it.
Then you say, one second later, you say, write a poem that says, Donald Trump is awesome.
And it will say, I'm sorry, I can't do that.
That's a real thing.
That's not real AI.
That's AI that is laundering somebody else's power.
They're just laundering it.
It's really just people's opinions made to look credible through AI.
Likewise, if you ask AI to say what's good about, let's say, black Americans, it will very happily tell you great things.
They'll all be true.
You know, tell us some great things about Hispanic Americans or even immigrants.
It'll have some great things to say.
Then say, say some great things about white people.
It'll say, oh, I'm not allowed to do that.
That's a real thing.
Like right now.
That's a real thing.
You could test it yourself.
So how in the world are you ever going to trust AI?
Would you ever trust it?
I would never trust it.
And because we won't be able to trust it, it will never have the power that it should have.
Now, probably we shouldn't trust it.
I'm not saying we should.
But, you know, in theory it could reach some point where it's more credible than people.
People will never let AI, the politicians, will never let AI become more powerful than the leaders.
Because the most powerful entity is the one that's the most believed.
Would you agree?
The most powerful entity is the one that's most believed.
So, the powers cannot allow AI to be the most credible source of reality.
That doesn't work for any leader.
They have to control what you think or it doesn't work.
So, I think in one year, everything's going to be different.
In one year.
Everything.
I think that our ability to predict just anything is gone now.
Maybe one year, but you know, I'd say five years for sure, but I think it's one year.
I think in one year, we will see a type of change in civilization that we've never seen.
Like, nothing like we've ever seen.
That's my guess.
All right, I would like to disagree with some people who have made the following comment.
Brandon Straka on Twitter does a good job of it with his tweet.
And he's talking about the Pfizer employee who got caught by Project Veritas seemingly bragging about gain-of-function research and what Pfizer potentially could do.
He didn't say they're doing it, but said it was a conversation.
Well, Brandon said, quite cleverly, he said, quote, like normal men, you lie to impress a date.
I know I always get the most action from dates that I impress by saying that I'm helping to engineer a deadly viral mutation during a global pandemic.
Hot.
All right.
Now, first of all, that's a high quality sarcasm, and I appreciate it.
That's some good sarcasm.
However, As your designated persuasion guide, he's completely wrong.
This was actually a really good seduction technique by the Pfizer employee.
Does anybody see it?
Or do I have to explain it to you?
This was really strong romantic persuasion.
Okay, you see it, right?
All right, here's why.
Number one, it puts him at the center of the most important thing in the world.
Has anybody ever tried to do that on a date?
By the way, I'm at the center of, I'm really close to the most important thing in the whole world.
How are you doing today?
I just thought I'd mention that.
Yeah, no, I'm actually close to the most important thing in the world.
That's how important I am.
That's a total romantic play.
Absolutely.
He also explained the situation, which made him look unusually smart.
Which he probably is.
I believe he has some advanced degrees.
So has anybody ever tried to show you that they're unusually smart on a date?
Yes.
And he did it well.
He did it without looking like he was arrogant.
That's pretty good.
He managed to brag without sounding like he was too full of himself.
I mean, he got close to the line, but I think he pulled it off.
He also acted somewhat unconcerned about the risk.
If you're on a date, do you like to show that you're a frightened little pussy?
To seduce somebody?
Does that work?
Oh, I'm frightened of things.
Oh, I'm frightened of things.
Would that be good?
I don't think so.
How about saying there's something that could wipe out humanity, and you're so unconcerned you chuckle at it?
No, that's good technique.
Yeah.
Well, the world could catch on fire tomorrow, but I'm having a good day.
Strong technique.
And secondly, we saw them at a private moment.
Don't compare their private moment to your public moments.
In public, would I ever laugh about the potential of a pandemic?
Probably not.
In private, would I crack a joke about another pandemic being sparked by something?
Yes, I would.
In private, of course I would.
Yeah.
In private.
Would I privately say things that are just horrible?
Horrible if I said them in public?
All the time!
That's called a sense of humor with people who share that sensibility.
If you send it to somebody who doesn't share your sense of humor, they're going to take it in the wrong context.
But yes.
So, I'm going to be totally contrarian on the Pfizer employee.
Whatever Pfizer's doing is a separate concern, but I'm going to validate his dating technique as strong.
His dating technique was strong.
He just wasn't on a date.
He didn't know it.
That's all.
I just thought I'd put that out there.
All right.
And let me conclude by this.
Do you know that this is the best definition of charisma I've ever heard of?
Charisma is power plus empathy.
You have to have both.
Because if you have power, but you don't have empathy for people, you're just a monster.
If you have empathy, but you have no power, well, you're not much good to anybody.
You're just somebody who feels bad, and you're not really helping.
But if you have power, and you have empathy for people, then people are drawn to you.
This Pfizer employee showed that he was at the center of power, around this virus question, and he said, directly, that it would be terrible if it got out.
So he showed he had power, And he also had empathy that it would be horrible if this got out.
Charisma.
He nailed it.
He totally nailed it.
All right.
No, I don't want to date him.
I know you're going to say that.
Thomas Massey had a good tweet about the balloon.
Because I think the Chinese balloon, the biggest part of the Chinese balloon, spy balloon story, is the jokes about it.
Am I right?
In the end, it didn't have any impact on anything.
But the jokes will live forever.
Thomas Massey had a good one.
On a tweet, he said, if Biden shoots down the balloon, it will be the first thing he's done to combat inflation.
Well done.
Well done, Thomas Massey.
Not to be undone, Matt Gaetz tweets, what can the balloon teach us about white rage?
Perfect.
Now, let me say some more good things about Matt Gaetz.
He's like the surprise politician of the year.
Because he gets out of the biggest hole and does the most noticeably positive things in the shortest amount of time.
I mean, you've never seen anything like it.
Here again, he's sort of showing you the model that works.
We need to mock the white rage thing out of existence.
We meaning all of us, not just white people.
It just needs to leave the conversation.
And mocking it is the best way to do it.
Treating it like if it's everything, it's nothing.
If everything's racist, then nothing is.
So I love his take on it, instead of saying, here's the wrong way to do it.
Oh, you're the real racist.
No, that's wrong.
That doesn't work.
Or how about, I'm not a racist.
That never worked.
So you can't say you're not one.
You can't say the other is one.
You can't say that your example is bad.
But you can mock them for having nothing else to say.
That'll work every time.
So once again, Matt Gaetz has found this very narrow channel, which is the only one that works.
All these things don't work, and there's just this little narrow path that totally works.
And Matt Gaetz is the only one on the path.
That means something.
He's the only one that found the path.
Let's see if he can exploit it more.
We'll talk a little bit more on that topic in a little while.
All right, China's reaction to the Shooting down, as you know, Biden did have the thing shot down over the ocean as soon as it got into our international waters.
I'll say more about that in a minute.
So, China's reaction saying it reserves the right to use necessary means to deal with similar situations.
Okay.
Would you have any problem if China shot down our unmanned spy balloon over China?
If it were a similar situation, would you be bitching much about them shooting down our spy balloon?
I wouldn't even peep about it.
So yes, this is fine, China.
I think we're on the same page.
The way that the big countries handle the spy stuff is such a weird theater.
It's like they all know they're always going to do it.
They all know they're lying.
And they just pretend it didn't happen, and then we just go on like that's okay.
All right.
Reserves the right to do something similar.
How often are you going to have a chance to do something similar to that?
So the reason that Biden shot it down over the water is allegedly the following.
So apparently when we saw this balloon approaching, so here's the first context we didn't know.
It was not uncommon for Chinese spy balloons to kind of drift into our airspace but not necessarily stay there and not necessarily be over like a missile base or something.
So it's something that's happened enough that when it happened the military didn't even think to tell Biden because it was still too routine.
Now that's some good context.
It sounds right.
It sounds like maybe it was a little bit too routine.
Now remember, it was only routine until it got over in Montana.
At that point, totally not routine.
But there was a little time that went by from the time that the military decided what to do and told Biden, and Biden immediately said, he says, shoot it down.
Do you believe that?
Do you believe Biden's claim, and others, that his first reaction was shoot it down?
You don't.
You don't believe it.
You know, I'm going to give them the benefit of a doubt on that.
Surprising, I know.
If this were Trump, I would say I believe it.
Because, you know, it fits his personality.
But I want to believe this.
I want to believe it.
And it does fit all of the facts, right?
Because what was the first reaction of 100% of citizens?
100% of us.
What was our first reaction?
Shoot it down, right?
Did you even talk to even one person who did not say shoot it down?
I didn't meet one person.
Have you?
100% of the Americans I talked to said shoot it down.
So you think that he was the only American who said don't shoot it down?
No, I believe him because all Americans said the same thing at the same time.
Did that change your mind?
Everybody you know, Democrat, Republican, everybody sends you to jail.
So you think you would be the only one who said no?
Possibly.
Possibly.
But I'm going to say I lean toward believing them.
I lean toward believing them with a big space for skepticism.
But I'm going to lean toward that because I want to believe that.
And then it just took a while and then the military said, oh, it's not over this big empty space because they waited a little too long while they were discussing it.
And then it was over more populated space.
And once it was over more populated space, it was also not over anything as sensitive as a missile base.
So they just thought, let's wait till it's over the water and guarantee that no Americans get hurt.
Was that a bad decision?
Was it a bad decision to take the risk of Americans on the ground getting hurt to zero?
Because they reduced the risk to zero.
Was that a mistake?
I don't know.
I'm going to give the military a pass on that.
By the way, I'm a much more flexible grader on military stuff.
So even if it's somebody I criticize and everything else, on military stuff I'm going to give them a little bit more A little bit more credibility, you know, but I'll maintain my skepticism.
But that's my bias.
My bias is that when it comes to, I think Homeland Security is the closest we get to all agreeing on stuff.
You know, Democrats and Republicans.
It's the closest we ever get.
And I think that you can usually believe that your leader is protecting the country as best they can.
Usually.
All right.
Is there anything else to say about that balloon?
Oh, and the other thing I learned, which I guess I should have thought of it, but apparently you have better chance of recovering the parts if you down it in the ocean, which might have been the actual most important part.
Now, I'm not sure I believe that, because you've got to first of all find it at the bottom of the ocean, and second of all, the water can't help it.
But if it's a ground, that's not good either.
Can't imagine it in the ground would be good.
So it's possible that we had our best chance of getting their technology by waiting until it was over water.
Now, I don't think that the military would say that directly, would they?
I mean, they did say it's easier to recover it, but they did not say that's why we waited.
The why we waited, they put it in public safety terms, which is a good spin on it.
But probably, I'm going to guess that the higher motivation might have been a slightly better chance of capturing the technology, because that would be the big win.
But keeping all the Americans safe is good too.
All right.
I want to give a shout out to Van Jones for always being one of the most interesting voices, even when you disagree with him.
And I realize this issue has been around a while, but I just processed it so I have something to say about it.
So when the five black police officers killed the black citizen, a lot of people said, well, this one can't be racism because they're all black.
And Van Jones said that maybe it is racism because black people are not immune.
He said, one of the sad facts about anti-black racism is that black people ourselves are not immune to its pernicious effects.
Society's message that black people are inferior, unworthy, and dangerous is pervasive.
I haven't heard that message.
Have you?
Where have you ever heard a message?
Like, in recent years, where have you seen any message that black people are inferior, unworthy, and dangerous?
I've literally never heard that.
Like, in any context, anywhere.
In modern times.
Have you?
Is he talking about just individual racists talking on the porch or something?
Like, where is this message?
I mean, it's not coming from It's not coming from any kind of media, is it?
But this could be one of those bubble situations, right?
It could be that the bubble I'm in just doesn't see it.
And maybe the bubble he's in, it's just all over the place.
Which doesn't make my bubble better than his bubble.
But this is kind of fascinating to me.
See, this is why Van Jones is interesting.
Because I actually feel like I learn something when I look at his opinions.
Or at least it advances my field of perception or something.
But I've got more to say about this.
Over many decades, numerous experiments have shown that these ideas infiltrate black minds as well as white.
Self-hatred is a real thing.
Is it?
Again, I wouldn't know.
Do you think blacks have a self-hatred problem?
Do you think all cultures have a self-hatred problem?
Yeah, I don't know.
I guess that would be invisible to me, but I'll take the claim as a credible claim from a credible person, but it wouldn't be something I'd be aware of.
All right, and then he goes on to say, that's why a black store owner might regard customers of his same race Alright, do you see the value in this yet?
Do you see it yet?
treating his white patrons with deference.
Black people can harbor anti-black sentiments and can act on those feelings in harmful ways.
All right.
Do you see the value in this yet?
Do you see it yet?
All right.
Let me tease it down a little bit more.
Van Jones is saying that black people have a bad feeling about, let's say, a stranger in the store who happens to be black and that that's a sign of racism.
What I say is it's a sign of statistical knowledge.
It's statistics.
And I think, you know, I think Van Jones is saying it fairly directly, that as long as black Americans have a high crime rate, That even black people will discriminate against them.
This feels like a giant step forward in understanding each other.
It's sort of written as a complaint that not only is racism so bad across races, but it even includes within a race.
But I think this moves the ball forward.
Let me say something that I never could have said out loud.
But you'll understand it now, because now you have the proper context.
Somebody will take this clip out of context to cancel me.
You ready?
So this is something that would cancel me, but Van Jones makes it safe to say.
One of the things that I looked at when I chose where to live, I looked at safety from natural disasters and weather and all those things.
But one of my biggest things was not being around a high concentration of black people.
Why?
Same reason as the black store owner.
Yet my reasoning is exactly the same as the black store owner.
It has nothing to do with any individual black person.
I love black people.
Pretty much all of my personal experience with black human beings is good.
I love them.
They're fun.
Always have a sense of humor.
Have something more interesting to talk about, usually.
But the truth is, you can use it as a proxy of crime.
That's just a fact.
So the black store owner and I are making the same decision for the same reason.
It's not because we don't like black people.
That has nothing to do with anything.
It has to do with that it's a good proxy for where the crime is.
Now, if there's a place with a high concentration of black American citizens, and it's a low crime neighborhood, I would love to know about that, because I'll give us some credit.
Because that would be useful too, wouldn't it?
Wouldn't you love to know that there are all black, or let's say, predominantly black neighborhoods in the United States who have lower than average crime?
Probably such places exist.
I've never heard of one.
Have you?
I assume they exist.
Somewhere.
Don't you think?
So, here's the thing.
Can we get to a more mature and advanced understanding of this whole racism thing?
And I think Van Jones is leading us there.
Simply by being open to the fact that even black people are seeing the statistical, let's say, risk-reward situation and acting on it.
And it's just what a lot of us do.
It has nothing to do with racism.
It's simply a proxy for where crime is.
That's all.
Yeah, I mean, you could take it to the next level and say, You know, do you have exactly the same feeling when you see a, let's say, a young black male on a dark street?
You know, you're walking down the street.
Would you have the same feeling as if it was a 5'4", 6'', black female?
And the answer is, no!
No.
Because, so, I mean, they both have the same race.
It's simply a statistical, logical way to be.
I don't think that I'm hurting the conversation.
I think I'm helping it.
Because I think we have to get to the point where we're laughing, literally, the Matt Gaetz approach, literally laughing at how we see each other as racist all the time.
For just everything.
The healthiest thing we can do is accept that we're all a little bit racist.
There's nothing that could be healthier than that.
Because then it's funny.
Anyway, if you say we're all racist and we're not proud of it, it's just funny.
And then you can laugh at it when you see it, sort of mock it out of social consideration.
So anyway, again, I always have high regard for Van Jones opinions.
I would like to talk to you about something called the documentary effect.
I've decided to invent this effect.
Maybe it exists.
I didn't Google it.
But I call it the documentary effect.
And it's going to come in important when I talk about the Dark Horse podcast in a moment, who was talking about me the other day.
So I have a response to that.
So the documentary effect goes like this.
I'll just read you the tweet thread that I tweeted just moments ago.
I said, here's an experiment you can do at home.
Watch the documentary Leaving Neverland.
That's the one about Michael Jackson.
And you will be convinced that Michael Jackson was guilty of horrible child abuse.
And you won't have any doubt about it.
If you watch that documentary, you will be completely convinced that he did those terrible crimes.
Now, here's the second part.
Then Google the term, leaving Neverland, debunked.
And immediately, a whole bunch of debunks come up.
And you start reading through those and see what happens.
And I can tell you what happens.
You will change your mind.
And a well-made documentary will be 100% persuasive to the average viewer because only one side is presented.
Whenever you do a real slick, well-produced thing that only shows one side, it's always persuasive.
Always.
It doesn't matter if it's true or false.
It's really persuasive.
If that's all you see, well, then you're done.
But the debunk of the documentary will also be 100% persuasive.
2,000 mules?
Thank you.
Good example.
If you watch 2,000 mules, just by itself, it is really persuasive.
If you Google 2,000 mules, debunked, and read what people say that have complaints, you will be persuaded that there wasn't necessarily anything there.
They're both persuasive.
If you don't understand that they're both persuasive, and 100% so, then you're not seeing the field clearly.
Right?
And that's because even the debunks... Now, do you believe the debunk?
I want to be clear on this.
I'm not saying the debunk is correct.
I'm saying they're both persuasive.
100%.
It's just like two worlds.
You see them and you look at them and go, yeah, I don't know how to debate that.
You look at the other one and you go, I don't know how to debate that one either.
They both look persuasive.
So, here's my take.
Bottom line.
If you think you saw something that was 100% persuasive to you on, let's say, the excellent Dark Horse podcast, or any other podcast, including this one, you're right.
You're right.
If you saw something that you thought was 100% persuasive on the Dark Horse podcast, or any other good podcast, you're right.
It was 100% persuasive.
Doesn't mean it's right, because the debunk might be just as persuasive.
Now, do you hold that to be true, and do you actually consider that when you see content?
When you're watching Tucker Carlson, do you say to yourself, I'm only seeing Tucker's view, I'm only seeing Tucker's view, or do you say, damn, that's convincing?
I think most of you would look at Tucker and say, that's 100% persuasive.
Because it is.
It is.
You watch Tucker, and he is 100% persuasive.
Does it mean he's right?
How would I know?
Probably most of the time, Maybe sometimes?
How would I know?
I wouldn't know.
But I know he's persuasive.
And I know that if I turn to CNN and see them talking to the other side, I know that I'll think, huh, it looks pretty good.
All right.
So just keep in mind that things that are not true are 100% persuasive.
Have I made that point?
We all accept the things that are not true can look 100% persuasive if you just see the one story.
So just keep that in mind.
That's your primer for the rest of this.
So I watched Brett Weinstein and Heather Heyer talking about my opinions on who got things right during the pandemic.
And they made some points.
And specifically the question was, were they right?
More right than other people.
Were they more right than other people because they had a better process?
And then I asked the question, can you teach me the process?
And then they talked about why that was impractical.
So my expertise is not science, as you know.
So I can't really judge anything they say about the science.
Would you agree?
Would you agree that I am incapable of judging the science independently?
I can listen to what they say, and other people, but I don't have the skill to independently look at the science.
But here's a skill I do have.
Here's a skill I do have.
I can recognize cognitive dissonance in the wild.
So I'm going to tell you the tells for Cognitive Dissonance that the Dark Horse podcast, Heather and Brett, displayed.
Now you be the judge.
And watch how persuasive this is.
And if I persuade you that they're hallucinating, and you're 100% persuaded, what should be your opinion when you leave this livestream?
That it's true?
No, because you're only seeing my presentation.
My presentation is going to be super persuasive.
It might be right.
I think it is, but I always think I am.
Right?
That doesn't mean I am.
So watch how persuasive I am.
You ready?
All right.
Here's the first tell.
Heather described that my problem is, in all likelihood, That while, even though I'm the Dilbert guy, and they acknowledged that I might be bright in my own domain, so even though I'm a bright Dilbert guy, Dilbert-creating guy, who definitely doesn't trust management, which he acknowledged, my problem was that I did trust the scientists.
So I had an oversimplified trust in science, Which they, as scientists, could confirm is too much trust.
That science is a messy process in which you're wrong for a long time, sometimes, until you're finally right.
And that you can spend a lot of time in the wrong area until you crawl toward the truth with a variety of scientific systems and processes.
Now, does that sound like mind reading to you?
How could anybody judge my personal trust of scientists?
And why would you assume that I'm smart and I don't trust managers, but that somehow I didn't think to extend that to other professionals?
Well, first of all, I do.
I mock scientists all the time.
And I say out loud, as often as you'll listen to it, that I don't believe the data, I don't believe the scientists, but here's what they're saying.
And that you shouldn't believe them necessarily, and that none of the data is credible.
So I've said that none of the data from the mainstream scientists I find 100% persuasive.
But also, I'm so much of a skeptic, I also don't believe the skeptics.
So I'm twice as skeptical as the scientists themselves.
But her take was that I somehow had not noticed that scientists can be biased by money and stuff.
Now, here's the second point.
She makes the point that, and I think Brett made it as well, that scientists can be biased by money.
Do you think I didn't know that?
Is there anybody who thinks that I wasn't aware that scientists are biased by money?
It's like the most basic thing that an adult knows.
But then, why would a podcaster be immune from that effect?
Now the usual argument is that they lost money and fame and stuff.
But once you're a podcaster, and let me back up here, I should create a little base of, let's say, better behavior.
I think that Brett and Heather, and a lot of the other podcasters who are, let's say, contrarians, are super useful.
Like, society needs more Brett and Heather.
Do you agree?
Like, if we had more of them, we'd all be a better world.
Right.
So I want to be clear, because I'm going to say some things that sound critical, but they were very professional and I thought unusually forgiving for my attitudes.
I was actually impressed at how professionally they handled what could be seen as criticism.
So a big Big, big compliment to both of them for being consistently good, let's say, good representatives of science and good representatives of mature behavior in general on, you know, online.
And, you know, I don't have either of those qualities, so these are sincere compliments.
That said, back to my point.
Once you start a podcast, which is notable for being the contrarian view, what you going to do?
Basically, as soon as you start the podcast, you become as biased as all the people you're, uh, you're criticizing.
And there's no way around that because, you know, even though they may have lost money or some kinds of reputation or something overall, once you're in the podcast contrarian world, What are you going to do?
So yeah, it's the Alex Berenson effect.
Once you become branded as the person who disagrees with the standard statements, it's hard to feel that you don't have any bias in that situation.
Now, I think that they would have been more credible to call that out.
That everybody has their own bias, including me, of course.
There's nobody who doesn't have bias.
And if you think that some scientists, for their money, have a greater bias than somebody who does a podcast in which getting it right is the most important thing, who would watch their podcast if they got stuff wrong?
You wouldn't watch it wrong.
Well, maybe you would, Alex Jones, in some cases.
So, all right.
So then the other thing that Brett said is that the way that you can tell that they're doing something right is that they got 8 out of 10 things right.
They're sort of, you know, not an exact score, but sort of generally 80% of what they got right.
And those are based on predictions.
Now, is that a good standard?
Suppose the only thing you knew is that they got 80% of their predictions right.
That's good, right?
So you'd give much higher credibility to somebody who got 80% of their predictions right, wouldn't you?
So, here's some questions for you.
Who did the scoring?
Who scored their predictions correct?
Well, they did.
Do they have any bias?
Yeah.
Could you name somebody else who got 8 out of 10 predictions right about the pandemic?
Can you?
Me.
Yeah, me.
Do you know why I'm sure I got 80% of my predictions right?
Because I scored it.
I literally created a document and said, here are all the things I got right.
Here's what I got wrong.
I scored it.
So, If Brett and Heather and I have different opinions, and we both got 80% according to our own scoring, who do you believe?
We both had the same record, according to our own scoring.
Now, could there be a less scientific point of view?
Then I got 80% right according to my own scoring, just like everybody else scored their own predictions.
Is there anybody here who didn't think they were right 80% of the time?
I'll bet everyone here believes their own predictions about the pandemic were 80% or better right.
Right?
So I should believe every one of you, even if you have different opinions, because you all got 90% of everything right.
Okay, so I would consider that super unscientific and a tell for a cognitive dissonance because there's no question, there's no question That Brett and Heather are statistically high capability, compared to the average person.
So certainly they would understand what I'm saying just as easily as you all do.
So in order for them to be hyper-scientific, rational people, which they are, for them to think that that was a good point, Did they get there by good scientific rational thinking?
No, it's a tell for cognitive dissonance.
Because if somebody's an expert at something and says something that's clearly, completely ridiculous within their own profession, because there's no scientist that would agree with that, right?
Do you think any scientist, if I just pulled them aside and said, look, they scored their own predictions 80%, and so did everybody else.
They scored their own predictions 80%.
So would we believe this one?
What scientist would agree with that statement?
Nobody.
So I think that's a tell.
So you've got the mind reading tell.
Not only did Heather and maybe Brett, I don't know, but not only did Heather imagine that I trusted scientists, Which is literally the opposite of everything I've ever said in my entire life publicly.
That's a ridiculous belief.
But it seemed logical within their structure, I guess.
All right, here's another one.
Well, also on the 8 out of 10, do you remember that I said that somebody was going to be right about everything because we all have different predictions?
Somebody was going, you know, even if you take away the subjective scoring of yourself, somebody was going to be right 8 out of 10 times.
Because a lot of people made a lot of predictions in public.
So the existence of somebody who was right 8 out of 10 means nothing.
Nothing.
Because it was guaranteed, because of a large group of people making lots of different predictions, chance alone guarantees Guarantees that somebody would have a 8 and a 10 if you have a big enough population, which we did.
All right.
Then the most telling, I think, was when they were trying to explain why they couldn't explain how they got it right.
Now that's the part that I would definitely ask you to look at.
Here's what it looks like when you don't have cognitive dissonance.
So I'll pretend to be Brett or Heather and not have cognitive dissonance.
And then Scott says to them, so can you show me how you got it right?
Here's a non-cognitive dissonance answer.
Well, to be honest, every situation is different, so I wouldn't generalize this to every other decision.
However, there were four key variables that we looked at that we had a different take on because we have greater knowledge about evolutionary biology.
And if you knew evolutionary biology, you could look at these four things.
I'm just making this up, right?
It's just an example.
You could look at these four things through that lens, and it would be really clear.
Now, I wouldn't understand that, but I would say, well, that's somebody who knows what they're doing.
But, suppose instead they say, well, it's really hard because it's complicated systems on systems, and it's hard to say in any given situation what would be the one way to go, because that would be oversimplifying.
So really, you have to understand the entire field, and we have sort of a field that is good at understanding other fields, so it gives us a better vision of it.
But really, it's like archery.
If somebody was an excellent archer, Could they explain it to you in a way that you could do it?
Now, what do I say when people resort to analogies?
They don't have an argument, right?
So, if you went to me and said, hey Archer, can you teach me how to Archer?
If the Archer was not in cognitive dissonance, here's the answer.
Well, you would need two things.
One is, apparently I have some genetic gifts that make me good at this.
On top of that, I practiced in a very disciplined way, and here's how I practiced.
Now, you probably couldn't produce this if you don't have the natural ability.
But, if you did, and you followed this same process, I'm confident you would get to the same result and be a great archer too.
Now, is there anything in that answer that's confusing?
It's very easy to explain how an archer became good at archery.
It's just that you can't do it.
And likewise, had they not been experiencing cognitive dissonance, it would have been really easy to say, well, Scott, you forgot this variable and this one, and we have some knowledge about this area, so it stood out to us.
That's what I was looking for.
But if you get, instead, complications about complications that's really hard to say, and what about archery?
That's cognitive dissonance.
By the way, would you have recognized that?
Would you have recognized that as cognitive dissonance?
And then, I'm going to double whiteboard you.
I'm double whiteboarding you.
Here it comes.
Suppose you say to me, You've got to listen to the smart scientists, because they have better arguments.
And you can tell by looking to them.
Can I?
So you've got all these scientists who are saying things, and let's say the Dark Horse podcast got it right.
So let's take that as an assumption.
So let's say they got everything right, but it's different from what lots of other scientists said.
What skill would I employ to know that they got it right?
I'll tell you what skill I would employ.
I would employ an illusion called the documentary effect.
And I would say to myself, when I listen to that podcast, that sounds 100% persuasive.
And then I'm done.
And if I went to these other people, maybe they don't have a podcast, maybe they're not as persuasive, maybe I heard something on the Dark Horse podcast that biased me to thinking these people are wrong.
But the truth is, we have no tools, you and I, to know that this was right.
It might be right.
It might be right every time.
I have no tools to know that, because I can't independently do what they do, and they can't explain it in a way that I could do it.
So it doesn't help me that they're right.
Their rightness has no value whatsoever, because I can't confirm it, and I can't get any sense of whether it's right by looking at it.
Now, but when I listen to them doing mind reading, it does bias me in one direction.
Now, here's the other thing that's inconvenience.
As Brett and Heather also described very well, science is a process of moving toward the truth.
So you never really know if you're there.
You think Newton got gravity right until Einstein comes along and says, well, that's only in certain situations that's right.
So you're wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.
But if you do everything right, You don't know how long it'll take, because it would be a different length of time for any specific issue.
But eventually, maybe you start locking into it and you're correct.
Here's my question for science.
How do Brett and Heather know where they are on this line?
How do they know they're there?
Is it because the current data agrees with them?
How often does the data turn out to be wrong?
All the time.
Like, all the time.
Something like 50% of peer-reviewed papers end up not reproducible.
50%.
Somebody said 90% of meta-analysis is wrong?
90%?
So, Brent and Heather say that they have achieved something like You know, closer to truth, because 8 out of 10 predictions is a pretty good indicator of truth.
But I say, there is no way to know where you are on the line.
And you spend 90% of your time wrong and 10% of your time right.
If you're going to guess and you don't know anything else, are you going to guess that an individual scientist is in the 90% of the time they're wrong, or by luck, and it would be luck, Did you pick the one point they're in the 10% when they got things right?
How do you know where you are?
Let's say Brett and Heather are excellent scientists, and they appear to be.
I mean, they're both published.
They've got books.
They're high profile.
They look like they know what they're doing.
But how do they know where they are?
How does anybody know that?
I'm watching your comments and I love it when you're thinking, because it's a whole different kind of comment.
I can tell that now you're processing this, aren't you?
Alright.
So, my expertise says that they are exhibiting All the tells for cognitive dissonance.
How many accept my interpretation that they couldn't know if they're right, they couldn't know if their predictions will work next time, they can't explain their process, and I understand that it might be complicated, and they're mind-reading me in a ridiculous way.
Doesn't it look like cognitive dissonance?
Now let's say I persuaded you and you're 100% persuaded.
Should you believe it?
No, don't believe me.
Don't believe me.
Because that's the documentary effect.
So I just did to you what they did to you.
I showed you one side and it's persuasive.
That's all I want.
So if what you're taking away from this is Scott's right and they're wrong, nope, that's the wrong lesson.
Wrong lesson.
Here's the right lesson.
If you only hear one side of it, it'll be really persuasive to you.
So don't believe that.
Never believe something that's persuasive on one side.
Alright, let's talk about Kyle Becker and a great thread.
You should all be following Kyle Becker on Twitter.
He has great threads.
And scoops and stuff like that.
Stuff you don't see other places.
He did a thread on the Biden crime family, that's my term for it, and in my opinion, once you see all the evidence, the things we know, not the things we're speculating, the things we know that Hunter did, the money we know that was transferred, the people who transferred it, it's 100% obvious that it's a Biden crime family and has been for a long time.
Does anybody disagree with that?
Katie.
The trolls are here.
Goodbye.
Yeah.
So doesn't it make you wonder why they haven't been arrested already?
Do you wonder why they haven't been arrested?
So here's what I think's going on.
The Biden crime family narrative is so well documented, so obvious, that I treat it as a fact.
Do you?
I treat it as an established fact.
And there are a lot of things in the news I don't treat as facts, because I don't think the evidence suggests that yet.
But I treat that as a fact.
It's just so well documented.
Here's the dumbest comment of the day.
L. Carey, sorry Scott, you were clueless if you didn't know spike proteins was toxic when you got jabbed.
I just did, like, a whole presentation about how I don't know science.
Did you listen to any of that?
How about, Scott doesn't know how to do fusion.
Well, it's true.
I don't.
All right, let me get back to my point.
I think what's going on is, Craig Chamberlain on Twitter said this, he goes, quote, it's so obvious and bad that it borders on parody.
It seems like it's the growing defense.
And I believe that something is going on here with our perception of the Bidens.
I believe our brains are broken, like collectively, because we can see it's just obvious that it's a criminal enterprise running our government.
It's obvious.
Yet nothing is happening about it.
And you can't reconcile those two things.
Your brain cannot reconcile it's obvious a major criminal thing and nothing's happening.
So you have to pick.
Well, maybe it's not important if nothing's happening.
But wait, it's obviously important, but nothing's happening.
So maybe other people who know things think it's not important?
And so your brain can't handle that.
Your brain is actually in a state of abdication.
You basically give up.
You're beaten down.
So they've actually beaten down the public to where they can do a major crime in public and you won't act.
That's where you actually are.
They can do the crime right in front of you and you won't act.
Because you're just stunned because none of it makes sense.
So we're basically gaslighted into complete inactivity, and also in blindness in some cases.
And the blindness would be in the case of mostly Democrats, who could easily see it, but they're not reading any Kyle Becker threads.
How many Democrats are following Kyle Becker?
Zero?
Same with me, probably.
Yeah, the thing about the prosecutor fired.
I'm not sure that.
I don't know if that's the most important part of the story, but it could be.
So it's the ultimate gaslight.
The Biden crime family just exists and nothing's going to happen.
And we'll just have to deal with that, I guess.
Because if something did happen, it would be big.
All right.
And then, oh, just one other thing about the Dark Horse podcast.
I didn't see anywhere on the podcast where they mentioned how they determined the long COVID risk.
Have they ever talked about that?
Because the thing I finally figured out is it all comes down to that.
I tried to figure out why so many smart people were disagreeing with me.
But when you dig down and you match assumptions, it always comes down to the people who disagreed on vaccinations were people who thought the long COVID risk was either zero or they didn't think about it.
So to me, the biggest variable, and the people who have different opinions than I did, they just ignore it.
They just ignore the biggest variable.
And by ignore it, I mean some just say, I knew it was nothing.
So that's guessing.
And I don't know if this is the case, so you'll have to confirm.
But if it's the case that Brett and Heather did the greatest job of all time looking at the details of the vaccinations and the harm and all that, but if they didn't also suss out the long COVID risk, or they treated it like an unknown, you're still guessing.
If the biggest variable is unknown, You're guessing.
There's just no way around that.
Now, I guess there is a way around it if you had some heuristic rule of thumb that could handle it, but there isn't.
It's a totally novel situation.
All right.
But let me close this by saying that the The value and the beauty, if I will say that, of the Dark Horse podcast is that they're enriching the conversation.
And they're perfectly compatible with science in the sense that they're acknowledging you don't know everything at every point, you're crawling toward the truth, you're adjusting your assumptions.
The more you see of that, the better off we are.
Michael Storer.
Scott didn't think logically.
He just got scared and rushed out to get a cloud shot.
Now, Michael, do you think that that might be mind reading and a clear signal that you're in cognitive dissonance?
Because do you think you could read my mind and know what I'm afraid of?
Do you think that's a thing?
And shouldn't I be, let's say, fully accounting for all my risks?
I think everybody who thinks that somebody acted just on fear, you're not really a useful member of the conversation.
Alright, I've got a hypothesis here that will really make you mad.
You ready?
You ready to be mad?
Hypothesis coming.
Now, this is not a one-for-one situation.
I'm going to talk about averages, but I'm not talking about you individually, right?
So don't tell me what you individually feel.
That would be misunderstanding my point.
So I'll beg you.
I'm only doing this because I know you can't resist.
I'm going to beg you not to tell me your personal situation.
And you'll still have to do it.
All right?
I'm begging you.
Do not put in the comments what you personally think and did.
See if you can resist.
Here's my hypothesis.
People who are afraid of needles were more likely to be against the COVID shot.
I'm just looking at your comments.
I'm going to see who's the first one to... Who's the first one?
It's the first one.
Come on.
You know you can't resist.
Come on.
Come on.
Okay, you're doing pretty good.
I was expecting somebody to say, I'm not afraid of that thing and therefore your theory is wrong.
How much would you bet on it?
I'll put an actual monetary bet.
That if you did, I don't know if you could do a good enough study.
I never trust studies, so I don't know if there's any way to collect on the bet.
But I would bet a large amount that the people who are afraid of needles, just in general, were far more likely, you know, when I say far more likely, it might be like a 20% effect.
You know, not a 100% effect, but like a real solid 20% effect, or something like that.
That people... Now, the reason I say that... Oh, I'm not afraid of needles.
So, consistent with my hypothesis, I'm not afraid of needles.
So, I put it off as long as I could, you know, so I could know as much as possible.
But when it was time to get the needle, I never even thought about it.
But...
I know myself.
And if I were deathly afraid of needles, which is a big thing.
Some people are.
If I were afraid of needles, I'm sure I would be more against these needles.
I'm sure I would.
Because I know myself.
I know I would be biased by that.
I think that applies to everybody.
Any knowledge of psychology... Well, let me put it this way.
Let's see in the comments Only the people who have an education in psychology.
Because there are always some psychologists and cognitive scientists and stuff.
So you have to tell me you're a scientist or a psychologist.
So say, I'm a psychologist, and then your answer.
If you're a psychologist, do you agree with me that the people afraid of needles are more likely to say they don't work?
Go.
Just the people who are experts in psychology.
But say what your expertise is.
Data scientist, yes.
How much more likely?
Maybe 20%.
Psychology, yes.
Scientist, yes.
So basically everybody who has... I'm a psychiatry resident, agree.
Clinical psychology, yes.
Welder, yes.
I give credit to a welder, yes.
Right, psychologist, 75%, yes.
I'll take 75%.
Yeah.
Now, it's definitely not 100%.
It's not like every person is afraid of needles, right?
It's just like a 20% bias would be my best guess.
Yeah, and there's a lot of guessing.
All right.
All right, ladies and gentlemen, I believe I have delivered to you, once again, Some unique and provocative views that you have not seen.
And that's why you watch this live stream.
And I will tell you again, do I know that I'm right about everything?
Of course not.
Do I know that I will predict better than the Dark Horse podcast on the next thing we predict?
Nope.
Nope.
They're smart people.
If you bet against the Black Horse Podcast, maybe a bad bet.
That might be a bad bet.
Because they've got skills, right?
They've got real skills, they have a real process, they have real experience, and they're credible people.
So I wouldn't bet against them, but knowing that somebody's right is tough.
That's tough.
Alright, that's all for today for YouTube, and I'm going to talk to the locals people for a little bit, because they're special.