Episode 2147 Scott Adams: Durham & Schiff, Elon & Zuck, Hotep and RFK Jr., Woke Disney, Botox & Me
Find my "extra" content on Locals: https://ScottAdams.Locals.com
Content:
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- Musk to fight Zuckerberg in Octagon?
- When scientists won't debate
- Disney loses its chief diversity officer
- Durham & Schiff
- One parent homes (bad science)
- Lots more absurdities
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Go.
Ah.
I had to do that, like, extra fast with extra energy.
Because I'm noticing on Twitter today, That people are saying they're using my live stream to help them get to sleep.
So cruel!
Cruel!
It's true.
But it's cruel.
It's cruel.
All right.
I keep finding reasons to like Marjorie Taylor Greene.
And it's not so much about what policy preferences she has, because I don't really know.
I mean, not in any detail.
But I just love her whole vibe.
So apparently yesterday she got in the face of Lauren Boebert, who is on her side, you'd think, over Boebert allegedly not communicating with her or trying to steal her legislation idea or something.
And allegedly Marjorie Taylor Greene called her a little bitch on the floor of Congress.
Not publicly, but I think people overheard it.
And I thought to myself, stop making me love her.
Stop it.
I read a story like that and I'm like, oh, I guess I'll pay more attention.
I kind of like somebody who can call their coworker a bitch on the floor of Congress.
I don't know.
I just like that.
We have reached peak absurdity.
That will be the theme of today's live stream.
Peak absurdity.
Have I ever told you we've reached peak absurdity before?
Yeah, about five times a year.
And every time I think we've reached it, we're not even close.
But let's see if this feels like a peak to you.
Randy Weingarten, who's head of the biggest teachers union, has just been appointed to the council to advise the Department of Homeland Security.
What?
It sounds like it's not real, doesn't it?
It doesn't even sound real.
So the good test of absurdity is if you hear it and you're like, really?
That doesn't even sound like a real thing that happened in the real world.
But in the real world, the actual literal real world, Corey DeAngelis was appointed to advise the Department of Homeland Security.
About what?
I don't know.
I got questions.
Now, you know she famously also visited Ukraine several times.
What is going on?
Is Randi Weingarten being prepped to be our next Hillary Clinton?
Is she going to run for president?
I mean, in the bubble that I live in, She's the most ridiculous character in America.
And they just put her on Department of Homeland Security.
Does that feel like a... Is that a diversity hire?
Do they not have enough women working on the Department of Homeland Security or something?
Gotta find a woman.
Get Randy.
She'll do it.
She's been to Ukraine.
Alright, Disney apparently is now losing its chief diversity officer.
We're into the post-millennium, I was reading that today.
And they're losing their chief diversity officer because, well, two things happened that weren't going well.
One is they made the Little Mermaid, but they race swapped, which played well in America, but apparently China's not so happy about it.
So it's going to cause some problems in the Chinese market, they say.
Those racists.
And it says the film is likely to be Disney's worst performing Chinese release this year.
Wow.
And then Disney's latest release called Elemental, which I never heard of.
Have you heard of Elemental?
Apparently it's a movie.
I don't know how there could be a major Disney movie.
I never heard of the name of it.
So that's not good.
And it's on track to be one of the lowest premieres of the company since the late 1990s.
All right.
So, yeah, the chief of diversity, LaTondra Newton, is out.
Now, do you think that any lessons are being learned or any Any corrections are being made because of any of this?
Do you think?
No, I don't think so either.
I don't think anything was learned and I don't think anything was adjusted.
I think they will just replace LaTondra with another chief of diversity and just keep doing what they're doing and hitting new lows every day.
All right.
So, I saw a tweet by Kat Ten Bard who said, on a tweet, why would anyone care about truth and credibility when you can live in whatever reality you want?
If you want the news to fit your predetermined biases, it will, in fact.
You'll get the news that does so without asking.
The algorithms will serve you what you want before you want it.
And I thought, Didn't you imagine that the internet would be when we could have better knowledge?
I kind of, I guess I was an idiot.
And I thought, oh, all of this volumes of good knowledge at our fingertips.
We'll be so smart and well informed then.
But I underestimated the weaselness of the human beings to create more fake news than real news and to find business models that pay you for lying.
And suddenly, the internet is the worst thing in the world because we think it's good information, but it's just creating little bubbles.
So I live in my little bubble where everything I want to be true is true.
And you get to live in your little bubble where your stuff is true.
And as long as your bubble and my bubble don't bump, we can both have different realities and live our entire lives that way.
Perfectly happily.
Or not.
All right, I am loving this conversation about whether Professor Dr. Peter Hotez should have a debate with some mere gaslighter such as RFK Jr.
That gaslighter.
That's what the good doctor says.
He says, scientists shouldn't debate gaslighters.
Scientists shouldn't debate gaslighters.
Does anybody see any problem with that philosophy or that rule?
The science shouldn't debate gaslighters.
Hmm.
And I'm just going to point out one potential problem with that theory.
I don't know if it's occurred to anybody else.
Maybe I'm the only one who ever thought of it.
Who gets to decide who the gaslighter is?
Isn't that just a smallish problem with the theory?
That everybody thinks the other person is the gaslighter?
If I asked RFK Jr., who is the gaslighter?
Is it himself, or is it Dr. Peter Hotez?
What do you think RFK Jr.
would say?
Oh, you got me.
You got me.
I am a gaslighter.
You know, nobody ever asked me before, but I, you know, honestly, I'm just a gaslighter.
Do you think he'd say that?
Or do you think he would say, um, maybe the person who said all these things about the pandemic that turned out not to be exactly right, maybe they're the gaslighter.
Maybe.
Do you think there would be any disagreement about who the gaslighter is?
That's right.
The man of science believes that the public can tell who the gaslighter is.
Does he really?
Really?
I mean, really?
Really?
Really?
This is an actual opinion?
How many of you think this is an actual, legitimate opinion?
That this man of science really believes this would be a good standard?
That if you're the scientist and you accuse the other person of being wrong, then you don't need to debate them.
Because you think they're wrong.
Does he really think that's the best way to go?
Because it doesn't feel like it.
Because that feels absurd to me.
It feels just absurd.
But I would like to recommend a meet-in-the-middle place.
Okay?
One thing that's useless... Alright, let me tell you what's useless.
Useless to have one person on a show for an hour talking about what they think is true.
Useless.
Useless.
Because if there's not somebody there with the other point of view, you're just misled.
If you had two people debating, and you have a short time period, like it's just going to be a ten minute debate, that's terrible.
Because the person who's the most wrong will just run out the time with bullshit.
Right?
You've seen it like a million times.
The one who's the most wrong will just use up all the time so you can't tell they're wrong and then go on to the next bullshit.
So there's lots of things that don't work.
Here's another thing that doesn't work.
RFK Jr.
has a whole book filled with details and citing studies and his arguments.
Dr. Hotez apparently has a book of his own.
Which questions RFK's, you know, some of RFK's vaccine beliefs about autism.
Now, how about that?
You could read their two books and make up your own mind.
Is that good?
No, it's useless.
Completely useless.
Most people are not going to read one book.
Very few people are going to read both books.
And if you read both books, would you be qualified to know which science was the good one?
No, he wouldn't.
It would be just like watching two separate podcasts, in which they just get to say their thing without being challenged.
So, comparing their books has limited value.
It's just too hard to get people to do that stuff, and if they did, they wouldn't know what they're looking at.
Having one person on is terrible, because it's only one side.
Here's what I would suggest.
I would suggest that the three of them decide where their points of disagreement are, pick the top three, just randomly, could be three to five or something, but pick three, and say, here's my claim, and here are the studies I'm looking at that I depend on, and then furthermore, here are the studies that are in the same domain, but I believe are flawed, and here's why.
And then see both of them do that.
Here are the studies that I'm relying on.
I think these are accurate, and here's why.
Here are the studies I don't believe, and here are the flaws with those studies.
Now, somebody on Twitter said to me, Scott, Scott, Scott, do you really think the public can look at scientific studies and, you know, tell what the good ones are?
I mean, really?
You think we can do that?
To which I say, yes.
Yes, because it's subjective.
It's not a matter of opinion.
You could give us a little help, and I'm going to do it right now.
Here's a little help if you don't know how to look at scientific studies.
If one side has a massive, randomized, controlled trial, and you know that the people running the trial are not receiving their money from any interested parties, And you compared that to a 30-person observational study funded by a big pharma company.
Could you compare those?
You, the ignorant public, do you think you could tell which was the good study?
Yes, you could.
Yes, you could!
Now, they might need to tell you in advance.
Here's our checklist.
By the way, this is what I like to see.
I'd like somebody to produce just a really short one-pager that literally ranks the quality of studies by those variables.
So at the very top would be not funded by somebody sketchy, massive lots of people involved, Randomized, controlled, trial.
So that would be your gold standard.
Coming down one level from that, well, maybe lots of levels.
Well, actually, I would put it at the lowest end, anything that was funded by somebody sketchy.
I would say sketchy funding just puts you at the bottom.
Doesn't matter what you do.
It just puts you at the bottom.
A. Everybody who knows anything about anything should know that an observational study, where you look at things after the fact, is nowhere near as good as predicting what will happen and setting up a study to isolate that in advance.
You know, a randomized controlled trial.
There's no way those are similar.
How hard would it be for the public to learn that a randomized controlled trial with a massive group Funded by people who are not sketchy is the best kind of science Would that be hard to teach people?
Not hard at all How hard would it be to say there's this thing called a?
What do you call it meta-analysis a meta-analysis?
Where they take the various studies, and they say well all these studies are imperfect, but they're imperfect in different ways so if you look at them all And they point in one direction and that means something.
Well, how hard would it teach the public that that's a lie and it's all bullshit?
I just did.
If somebody says they have a meta-study, just turn it off.
A meta-study is not science.
It's opinion.
It's that easy.
I just taught you.
I just taught you everything you needed to know.
If it says meta-analysis, just ignore it.
That's not science.
Do you know why it's not science?
Because the person who does the meta-analysis decides what's in the study and what isn't.
Based on their opinion.
Basically, it's just a way to launder an opinion.
Was any of this hard to learn?
I just taught you 90% of what you need?
Alright, how about this?
There's a study that's been peer-reviewed.
That's all you know.
It's been peer-reviewed, and the peer reviewer passed.
So what odds do you put on the quality of the study?
What are the odds the study is valid?
A little less than 50%.
Less than 50%.
Look, I just taught you something.
Was that hard to learn?
If it's a peer-reviewed study, historically about half of them turn out not to be right.
Was that complicated?
No.
None of this is complicated.
You just need somebody who can explain stuff to just lay it out there simply.
Observing is not as good as a randomized controlled trial.
There.
You're done.
You just learned it.
Well, what else is there to say?
That's the whole thing.
That's the whole lesson.
So you don't think that if Dr. Hotez and RFK Jr.
put out their lists of these are the studies I trust and why, these are the studies I don't trust and why, you don't think you could look at those two lists and feel like you learned something?
I feel like I could.
Now, here's the problem.
I know exactly what will happen when I recommend it, because it already happened.
Somebody will say, it's already done.
It's called RFK's book.
And it's already done.
It's called Dr. Hotez's book.
So just look at the books.
No.
I just said, I can't look at the books.
I wouldn't know what I was looking at, really.
It needs to be one page, or the public isn't going to pay attention.
So here's the interesting thing.
In my opinion, there's a very easy way to find out who's looking at the more solid science.
Just put it on one page.
I believe this stuff, I don't believe this list.
Boom.
And here's why.
Now, I can't tell if I'm making a good point, because you're not disagreeing with me.
Tell me if you agree or disagree.
Do you agree?
That we could avoid the gaslighting, you could avoid the whole gaslighting problem by just showing us the studies.
Because, correct me if I'm wrong, but neither RFK Jr.
nor Dr. Hotez are basing their opinion on horoscopes.
Are they?
I believe both of them are looking at science But they have a different opinion of which science is valid.
And what makes science valid is well understood.
And they could tell us, oh, here's one that's not a randomized controlled trial.
Do you understand that concept?
Yes, I do.
Here's one that's a small observational study.
Do you understand that those are not as credible?
Yes, I do.
Do you understand that if it's a peer-reviewed paper, there's less than 50% chance it's real?
Do you understand that?
Yes.
Yes, I do.
I'm almost done.
That's almost everything you would need to know.
And then who funded what?
That's almost everything you need to know.
Yeah, I think Linda, you're right.
When you're when you're quiet, you're digesting.
All right.
Now, just because there is a solution doesn't mean that it will be solved because humans, human beings, Can you believe that Democrats are tweeting and talking about the fact that debating is bad?
That debating what is true is a bad idea.
So now we have the head of the Democrats, Joe Biden, who says, debate?
I'm not even going to answer questions in public.
And then their most important scientific stuff.
Are the Democrats willing to debate climate change?
Do you think they're going to put a climate change expert on CNN and Michael Schellenberger or Bjorn Lomborg or somebody is going to be there to give a counterpoint?
Do you think that's going to happen?
No.
But do you think that the Republicans would like it?
If the Republicans could have their dream world, would they want a debate with a good skeptic and a good scientist who believes it all?
Of course they would.
Yes, Republicans would absolutely want Biden to debate.
They would absolutely want to see a debate on climate change with two different people.
They would absolutely like to see a debate on all the vaccination stuff.
Who is it who doesn't want the debate on any of those things?
The Democrats.
Now, some of you have said, well, if they don't want to debate, that's all you need to know.
Tom.
Tom, you worthless piece of shit.
That's all the time I have for you, Tom.
I feel like some people go onto social media and leave comments for no purpose other than for us to know what pieces of shit they are.
Have you noticed that?
I'm going to make this comment.
People really know what a piece of shit I am.
Go back to whatever you're doing with your other hand, Tom.
All right, so debating is bad.
Did I tell you that this is peak absurdity?
Can you really hold in your head that the three most important things that the Democrats care about, who's the president, climate change, and then, you know, science and vaccinations and stuff, they're most important stuff.
No science.
How about the science on, you know, the whole trans situation?
Do you think they want to debate that?
No.
In fact, there's nothing they want to debate.
I feel as if somebody, you know, maybe it's Trump, maybe it's, you know, Vivek or somebody, somebody needs to call them out for not being able to, able to or willing to debate anything.
You're seeing the pattern, right?
It's everything.
The Republicans are up for a debate on everything.
No exceptions.
Prove me wrong.
Republicans are up for a debate on everything.
Except maybe religion, which is not really the subject of debate.
And the Democrats want to stop debate on everything.
That's true, right?
I don't think I'm making that up.
It feels true.
I've never seen a Republican turn down a debate.
Have you?
I'm not sure they do that.
Guns?
Well, you know, like I said, the gun debate is a fake debate.
Let me just diverge.
The gun debate is a fake debate.
So I don't think we need one on that.
Because it's not a real debate.
Guns are about what's good for you personally.
And then people try to pretend like what's good for them personally, they can generalize it to other people.
Here's the thing.
Me owning a gun is good.
Why?
Far more likely to stop a crime than to create one.
Would you agree?
And because I'm unusually responsible.
Like, I'm, you know, I'm very responsible about a lot of stuff.
Me having a gun makes my neighborhood probably safer.
Probably.
But I'm not so sure about you.
Not you specifically, but I'm not so sure you should have a gun.
Because you may not be as reliable as I am.
You might be in a different place, different situation, completely different security considerations.
So when people are arguing about guns, usually they're lying.
Because they're arguing that guns would be good for them.
But they want to generalize that to, you know, a general thing.
And I think it's just a case that it's good for some people and definitely bad for others.
And there's no way to solve that.
How would you solve that?
It's just definitely bad for some and definitely good for others.
And that's the end of it.
So it's just a power.
So some of these things are based on what's true.
But the gun debate is not based on what's true or what's not true.
It's based on preference.
We're just acting like it's based on something else.
So the gun thing is mostly just acting.
All right.
I have this pet peeve, which is when dumb people call me dumb.
Do you ever have that?
When smart people call me dumb, I just get competitive.
All right, well, game on.
Let's see why they think I'm dumb.
They might have a point.
You know, then I have to look into it a little bit, try and make my best argument.
But when people who are objectively dumb go online and tell you you're dumb, it just makes me crazy.
I have to admit, it gets under my skin.
So here's one.
Somebody who calls themselves the nicest boy on the website and app.
Bikini Vini De Loo or somebody.
Was talking about why you don't want the average person to look at the studies.
Because the average American is well equipped to read and understand the methodology results.
You have to read this with sarcasm.
Limitations to most medical studies?
Sure, big brain.
Yes, they can tell the difference between RCT and an observational study.
Yes, they can.
All right, more absurdity.
Elon Musk has challenged Mark Zuckerberg to a cage match.
Zuckerberg has agreed and asked for a venue.
Elon has suggested Vegas Octagon.
This is so awesome.
It's just so good.
So as we know, Zuckerberg is 5'9", but he's completed Jiu-Jitsu, so he's actually quite accomplished in Jiu-Jitsu.
Elon Musk, I believe, is 6'1", and is threatening that he will beat Zuckerberg by laying on top of him with his extra weight.
None of this could be better.
This is as good as a good thing could be.
Everything about this is first-rate.
I love the fact that Zuckerberg is finally learning what free publicity looks like.
So Zuckerberg absolutely should have said yes.
Saying yes and asking for a venue was exactly right.
And then... Do you think this is going to happen?
I think it might.
No?
You don't think it's gonna happen?
I think it might.
Because both, you know, both of them benefit from, they both benefit from publicity, right?
So right now Face, or Meta, is launching the competitor to Twitter.
So don't you think, don't you think Zuckerberg would like everybody to know that there's a competitor to Twitter?
Of course he would.
And Elon Musk, of course, wants to make his point that he's the marketing person for his companies.
It would just be the best league ever.
It would be the best league ever.
Yeah, with Joe Rogan calling the fight.
Oh my God, that would be amazing.
All right.
So you've heard RFK Jr.
and others say that Say that the Big Pharma is distorting the information that's available to the public.
Do you think that happens?
Do you think Big Pharma distorts the information that gets on the internet in any way?
Do you think that happens?
Yeah, I don't know.
I don't know, but let's do a little test, shall we?
You know that RFK Jr.
has a voice problem.
It's called spasmodic dysphonia.
You might also know that I have the same problem, and for three and a half years I couldn't speak, or at least not intelligibly.
And you might know that you're listening to me now, and I'm speaking just fine.
So I had a surgery for this condition, which it was a long recovery, but recover I did.
Now the reason I got the surgery is I checked with other people who had the surgery first.
I talked to them personally.
And they all spoke perfectly.
Perfectly.
There wasn't any hitch in their voice at all.
So when I talked to several people who spoke perfectly, I got the same surgery they did, and now I speak perfectly.
So if I were to check the internet and ask it, hey, is there a cure for spasmodic dysphonia?
It would give me a good answer, right?
So it would say, oh yeah, there's this surgery, and a number of people have been cured.
That's what the internet says, right?
Let's check.
We'll check Bing.
Is there a cure for spasmodic dysphonia?
And the answer comes back from Bing.
No, there is currently no known cure for spasmodic dysphonia.
There's no known cure.
You know, I asked Google, borrowed the same thing.
No known cure.
But luckily there's a treatment.
There's a treatment.
However, there are treatments available to help manage the symptoms of the condition, such as Botox injections and speech therapy.
Oh, and then it does say, in some cases, surgery may also be an option.
And then it says, is there anything else you would like to know?
So it says, there's currently no known cure But Botox is sort of featured as the main thing you would do.
But just so you know, there might be some surgery option.
Does that sound accurate to you?
Can you hear me talk right now?
Am I talking in a way that my words, you can hear them?
Are they clipped or unclear?
No.
No.
But apparently I'm not cured.
No, no.
I just had some surgery that may have, you know, maybe had some impact on my symptoms.
Yeah.
So my symptoms all went away.
But would you call that a cure?
Just because all of your symptoms went away?
Forever?
What kind of a cure is that?
Just because all of your symptoms go away?
Forever?
No.
According to Bing, it's Botox.
Who makes Botox?
Who makes Botox?
That would be Allergan.
It's an American-Irish domiciled pharmaceutical company.
Do you know what a Botox shot costs?
Do you know the retail price, let's say, at the doctor?
I don't know.
It used to be $900 a shot.
Because I got Botox before I got the surgery.
I think it's close to 500 now, or it depends where you are.
Yeah, anywhere between 500 and 1,200, right?
It's very expensive.
How much money do you think the Botox people make treating spasmodic dysphonia, where you have to go in every month to get another $900 shot?
Or whatever it is.
Yeah, well there's quite a few people.
A lot of people.
Who do you think would be a big donor to all things voice-related?
If there was an organization that promoted cures, do you think that Allergan would maybe want to be involved in funding them?
Probably, because they'd want that organization to know that they offer a treatment.
So that's quite normal, right?
They would support anybody who's got the problem that they have the exact treatment for.
Totally logical.
So can you explain to me why it's been well understood for at least 10 years that this is a completely curable condition and that the internet doesn't know it?
If you had this condition in a small town, and you talked to your doctor, and your doctor googled it to find out what's new, do you think your doctor would know it's curable?
Nope.
Probably not.
Probably not.
It's an obscure enough problem that a lot of people have it.
Now, why do you think this situation exists?
Why do you think that if you Google it, it tells you the wrong answer on a very important medical condition?
Now keep in mind, people with this condition are quite often considering ending their lives.
Did you know that?
I mean, I was.
It's the most common thing you think.
Because your life often is below the line at which it's worth living, frankly.
Yeah, when I had that problem, I only stayed alive for the benefit of other people.
I was done.
I mean, I was hopeful that I'd find a solution eventually, but the quality of life was below the worthwhile level.
It was well below it.
Because you could have no social interaction whatsoever.
So there's this company, Elegan, who gives money to various, or not gives money, but advertises probably, maybe donates to some places.
But who knows if money was any part of this?
Who knows?
What do you think?
If you had to speculate?
Do you think that the internet is telling people it's incurable, and the only thing they could really seriously do is look into this Botox solution?
Do you think that's just sort of a coincidence?
Just maybe an odd thing that happened?
Or do you think that money had anything to do with it?
Well, follow the money works pretty well, doesn't it?
Every single time you think that follow the money shouldn't work, Because surely there would be no human beings who would be such bad human beings that they would want you to not know there's a cure for a condition that you want to kill yourself for having.
That would be pretty bad, wouldn't it?
So certainly there are no people in any kind of pharma company who would do anything intentionally to make a shit ton of money while knowing that the way they were talking about it and marketing it was probably going to kill people.
Because people will end their life over this.
Yeah, probably.
So I cannot make any specific claims.
I will tell you that for the past 10 years, people who are involved in the spasmodic dysphonia world have told me that there is a big company that has been erasing all of the useful information.
It's just an allocation.
I can't prove it.
So, I don't know if this is happening accidentally or if somebody is doing it intentionally.
But can you wrap your head around how bad this is?
Is this coming through?
I don't know if I'm making my point.
Do you understand how bad that is?
This is a 10 out of 10 in bad behavior.
This is murder level bad behavior.
Murder level.
Right?
Because it's actually killing people.
Presumably.
Because people are suicidal.
If they think there's no cure, yeah, things could happen.
There's your world.
That's your world you're living in right there.
So how about Greta?
She deleted her tweet from five years ago that said we'd all be in big trouble by now.
Oh, Greta.
How many of you saw the Durham... I'm still blown away that Adam Schiff gets censured for lying to the country about Russia collusion.
In other words, Adam Schiff tried to pull off a soft coup in the United States and all he gets is a censure which he uses to raise funds and then he sits on the panel to question Durham.
And make him look like a jerk, and then try to tell us all that Russia collusion was real all along, because Paul Manafort conned a Russian guy once.
That really happened.
In the real world, that happened.
That Paul Manafort tried to con some money out of a Russian guy, and Adam Schiff, who's already been censored for lying about everything about this, tells you that, oh yeah, there was really that Russia collusion because that one Manafort guy tried to rob a Russian.
So that's Russian collusion.
Okay.
Like every time you rob somebody, I mean, if you heard the story of what Manafort was showing that guy, it was sort of some internal polling.
How much was that worth?
Internal polling.
Not a lot.
All right.
I don't know.
My brain is just falling off listening to that.
All right.
Here's a little exchange between Representative Jordan and Durham.
And Jordan said, in the summer of 2016, did our government receive intelligence that suggested Secretary Clinton had approved a plan to tie President Trump to Russia?
Durham, yes.
Jordan, was that intelligence important enough for Director Brennan to go brief the President of the United States, the Vice President of the United States, the Attorney General, and the Director of the FBI?
Durham, yes.
Jordan.
Did Director Comey share that information with the FISA court, the lawyers preparing the FISA application, and the FBI agents on the case?
Durham.
No.
Oh my God.
Oh my fucking God.
Everything you thought about this was true.
It was all true.
Wow.
Wow!
Amazing.
So Snopes got fact-checked by Community Notes.
Isn't that great?
So Community Notes is Twitter's little thing where it'll fact-check you if you do a bad tweet.
And they fact-checked Snopes, which is in itself a fact-checker.
So Snopes was claiming that the sub that's missing was using Starlink Communications.
And community notes said nope.
It doesn't even work underwater.
It doesn't work underwater.
Apparently the support ship was using it.
But that's a pretty big difference because it wasn't the support ship that's lost.
It was the sub.
So.
During the time that I started this live stream, until now, approximately, I just did the math this morning, five people, five people have died from fentanyl overdose in the United States since I started this live stream, like 42 minutes ago.
So in 42 minutes, roughly five people died from fentanyl overdose.
Do you know why you haven't heard of them?
Do you know why you don't know their names?
Because they're not vacationing in a submarine.
That's why.
Yeah.
You put four assholes in a submarine, it's all world news.
But four people die of fentanyl?
That's nothing.
That's a big nothing.
This submarine story is fucked up in every way that a story can be fucked up.
Number one, it's a tragedy that we're laughing about.
You couldn't be more fucked up than that.
Number two, it's the least important thing happening in the whole fucking world.
Least important thing.
Four deaths, unfortunately, you know, which are tragic, of course.
But like I said, four people died of fentanyl while I was talking.
While you were listening to me, four just died.
There will be 70,000 of them by the end of the year.
Roughly.
Four people will die in the sub.
Who's gonna get more attention this week?
Anyway.
Wall Street Journal is going after RFK Jr.
for all of his conspiracy theorizing, but they gave me a handy little list of the things that people are questioning RFK Jr.
about.
So I thought I'd read you the list that I picked out of the Wall Street Journal's reporting.
So here are the things that, according to the Wall Street Journal, RFK Jr.
says.
Now, before I tell you these things, I would like to give you this framework.
I believe that whenever RFK Jr.
talks about a study that shows a correlation, that he's careful to say that's what he's talking about.
I don't know that, because I have not heard everything he's ever said.
It's my understanding, based on the few things I have seen, that when he says things like, this thing is highly correlated with this bad health outcome, that he's not saying that causation has been established.
But when people talk about him, they talk about him as if he's saying it's true.
He might.
Maybe sometimes he does.
Maybe he plays a little loose with that.
I don't know.
But I would ask you to keep a skepticism handy that It might be that he's just pointing out worrisome patterns that would require more testing.
Because when I've heard him talk, he says things are under-tested.
In which case the correlation argument, you know, that this is correlated with autism or correlated with gay frogs or whatever he's correlating, the correlation is completely valid if your main point is these things haven't been tested.
Would you agree with that?
Correlation is how you find out what you should look into further.
So he might be exactly there.
He might be exactly in the gotta look into it further.
If he is, would that be a conspiracy theory?
Not in my mind.
In my mind, he's just being a lawyer, basically.
He's a lawyer who had chased after these exact kind of things.
Now, in a legal case, maybe the correlation would be enough.
I don't know.
I'm not sure how the law works.
But I think when he's talking about it scientifically, outside the legal context, when he talks about scientifically, I think he just says it's correlation.
Which I would not call a conspiracy theory.
I would call it something worrisome that should be looked into.
Alright, here are the things he claims.
Contaminated water might be causing a rise in trans.
That's the famous gay frogs study.
So there's a particular contaminant that in one small underpowered study suggested it changed the sex of frogs.
And he's saying quite reasonably, if this is changing the sex of frogs, is it impossible that it's changing something about humans?
Now I don't believe he says it's proven, to my point.
I believe he says, why would you be okay with this?
If it's doing this to the frogs, you're going to take a big swig of that?
If I handed you a glass of water and I said, you know, I don't want to worry you, but this same water is changing the sex of frogs, would you say, ah, that doesn't sound like a problem?
Suck it down?
It's at least a good question.
Alright, here's the next one.
Childhood autism linked to childhood vaccinations.
Linked to.
Correlation.
Correlation.
Right?
I don't think linked to says causation.
Now, has he?
Has he said it's proven that it's a cause?
Now if he has, I would have some issue with that, because I don't know that anything's proven.
But if he says it's linked to or correlated, highly correlated, the timing is suspicious, we should look into it, we should test it better, we should maybe modify the schedule.
Is that a conspiracy theory?
Does that sound like a big old conspiracy to you?
If there's a important correlation that's a little bit scary?
I don't know.
I personally think the autism is caused by who's getting married.
People are older, techie people are meeting each other.
Two Elon Musk get married, the odds of an autistic kid go through the roof.
So I don't think it's, I don't think it's that, but I would also be worried about the correlation.
Prescription drugs lead to a rise in school shootings.
Maybe.
Again, is RFK Jr.
saying I have proof that prescription drugs are causing school shootings?
No.
Nope.
I don't believe he said anything like that.
I think he said you should look into it because there's an obvious reason to look into it.
It's a really obvious reason that these drugs are known to have these side effects.
So look into it.
Is that a conspiracy theory?
No.
It's just a good question.
How about Wi-Fi might cause cancer?
Is that a conspiracy theory?
And did he say it does cause cancer?
Or did he say it might?
Because there's some studies that are suggesting that.
Well, might is okay.
Who's arguing with might?
Might means Wi-Fi is everywhere.
Since Wi-Fi is everywhere, if it might be dangerous, you don't think you'd like to know a little bit more about that?
I would like to know a little bit more about that.
Is that a crime?
Is it a conspiracy theory?
No, it's just somebody who wants to know more about what might kill him.
How about his claim that the CIA killed his uncle and maybe his father?
He doesn't have anything that looks like direct evidence for killing his father.
But the evidence that the CIA killed his uncle, would you call that a conspiracy theory in 2013?
In 2013, that doesn't sound like a conspiracy theory.
It sounds like something that's well established in the history.
Maybe I'm wrong, but or maybe I'm falling for the same, you know, gaslighting or something.
But yeah.
All right.
Yes, I know it's 2023, not 2013.
I only did that once.
I only got the right.
I only tweeted the wrong date once lately.
And then another claim from RFK Jr.
is that the Ukraine war is for the benefit of the defense industry, and that's the primary purpose.
Crazy, right?
That wars are for the benefit of the military-industrial complex?
Now, are they calling Eisenhower a conspiracy theorist?
This is just Eisenhower's theory.
Eisenhower is considered one of the wisest, you know, predictive Correct people of all time.
So if RFK Jr.
says the same thing that Eisenhower says, only one of them is a conspiracy theorist, and the other one is a wise sage who's warning you of something real.
Now, so those are the ones that the Wall Street Journal called out.
There might be others, I don't know.
Do any of those look like a conspiracy theory to you?
Would you characterize any of those as a conspiracy theory?
There's definitely, I do believe that he is perhaps internally convinced of some things that I'm not internally convinced of.
Such as, you know, maybe this correlation means more than it does.
And I tend to lean toward it doesn't mean it.
He might be leaning toward it does mean something.
But don't we both agree we would like to know for sure?
I'm completely on the opposite assumption than he is, but I'm exactly where he is on if we haven't tested it enough, maybe that's a problem.
Maybe that's a problem.
I'm going to call bullshit on the following science.
I think all of you saw that there was a recent study, I don't know what it was now, that showed that it was a bad deal if you were raised by one parent, You know, you would perform poorly in school, more likely to go to jail and all that stuff.
But then the study seemed to indicate that that was only a problem if the one parent was your mother.
But if it was your father, you get outcomes that are similar to a two-parent situation.
Do you believe that?
Do you believe that?
I'm sorry.
No.
No, I do not believe that.
Here's why I don't believe it.
Do you believe that when a father gets custody, that that group of fathers who got custody, if you were to look at them as a group, do you think that would be a normal group of dads?
Just the average dads, and they all got custody of their kids?
And then if you were to look at the mother who didn't get custody, was that an average mother?
Just an ordinary mother, but she didn't get custody.
Right?
No.
Obviously.
Super obviously there's something very different about those populations.
Do you know how super you have to be as a dad to get custody?
Full custody?
You're gonna have to be like the super dad.
Here's what you would have to say.
My parents, which would be the child's grandparents, will be raising the kid, so they'll have the best care in the world when I'm at work.
When I come home from work, I've got a pretty good job, and if I have to go somewhere, I can hire a really good babysitter.
And you know what?
My job is so good, I got a tutor.
So my kid has a tutor, grandparents looking after him during the day, all the love in the world on the weekends.
Do you think that would give you a good outcome?
Of course!
Of course!
It's the perfect situation.
I mean, minus the mother.
It would be better with the mother.
But it's a pretty good situation.
Now, what if the wife gets custody?
Or let's say the mother.
If the mother has full custody, what's that say about the father?
Well, was not an awesome father, because didn't get custody.
But if you had two worthless parents, if they're both worthless, who's going to get custody?
If they're both worthless, who gets custody?
The mom, right?
That's just sort of the default.
So shouldn't you assume that the mothers with custody are somewhat selected accidentally as the lower Lower parental quality than average.
Whereas if the father gets custody, full custody.
We're not talking about shared custody.
Full custody.
If the father gets full custody, that's a pretty solid citizen.
Am I wrong?
Is this not obviously bullshit science?
You know, I remind you that when the studies started coming out decades ago, they said moderate drinking was good for your health.
And I just started screaming at the time, not possible.
Completely obviously bullshit.
And now we know it was bullshit, right?
At the moment, the studies all show you that was bullshit.
This is another one.
There's no way in hell that this is a valid study.
But it made all the news.
Made all the news.
All right, Ukraine is bogged down.
So it turns out that the Ukrainians are not busting through the weak Russian defenses, because it turns out the Russians had a really good defense.
And the Russians are reconstituting their military.
They're doing some aggressive things to get their next army ready to replace the one that's there.
So Russia's not running out of money.
They're not running out of soldiers.
They're not running out of time.
Seems to me that there will be some negotiations over the winter, or they'll wait for the winter after this to wait for a Republican president.
That's what it looks like.
So anybody who still calls it a war, I feel that you're just behind.
This is clearly a negotiation.
It's a bloody negotiation.
But the broad outlines of what the end of this war looks like are already settled.
The broad outline of what it looks like when it's done, we already know.
Ukraine will still be a country.
Ukraine will not be a NATO.
We know this.
Crimea is not going to go back to Ukraine.
I'm not saying it should or shouldn't.
It's not a preference.
I'm just saying what will happen.
There'll be some accommodation for the non-Crimea places.
Maybe Ukraine keeps one, gives up three, something like that.
And then Ukraine will get some security guarantees, short of being NATO.
Russia moves its military away from the borders.
How hard is it at this point to know how this ends?
It's obvious.
It's obvious how it ends.
And how many Ukrainian men are just going to be chewed up?
How many Russian conscripts are just going to be chewed up for nothing?
For nothing.
At this point, every single person who dies over there, No point.
Completely no point.
I mean, they still have to fight, because the other side's fighting.
But there's no point to any of the fighting anymore.
We've already reached... We know how it ends.
Just do it.
And by the way, if I were Trump, I could end the war before I became president.
That would be the most baller thing anybody ever did.
Oh my God.
Can you imagine that?
Can you imagine Trump ending the war without being president?
He could do it with truths.
He could do it with a statement.
I bet he could end it with one statement.
Here's the statement.
It's obvious that you've reached a stalemate.
Every person who dies from this point on is on you.
I'm going to end this war when I become president.
End it now.
If you wait for me to become president, I'm going to come out down hard on both of you.
Both of you.
That's the key word.
Both of you.
I'm just going to fucking kill both of you.
Do it now, because you already know how it ends.
The ending is already written.
Just read it.
How about that?
The ending of the war is already written.
All you have to do is read it.
I believe that Trump could actually end the war just by threatening what he would do when he takes power because there's a greater than, you know, probably a greater than 20% chance he'll take power.
And remember that Trump often uses the the small risk of a bad thing.
That's how he negotiates.
Well, I might not become president.
It's possible.
Maybe I won't get elected.
Are you gonna take that chance?
Hey Putin, I might not get elected.
You willing to take that fucking chance?
Because if you take that chance, I'm going to remember you.
I'm going to come at you with full force if you don't stand down now.
And sure, take your chances.
Maybe there's only a 20% chance I get elected.
You want to take that fucking chance?
I don't know, I think he could pull it off.
I think he could end the war without being part of the government.
Because one thing I'm sure of is that Putin wants to end the war, and I can't imagine that Zelensky wants this to go much longer.
Obviously, they both want to win, but I don't think either side believes that's possible at this point.
All right.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, brings us to the conclusion of my prepared comments.
I think we can agree this was the best livestream you've ever seen.
And I'm going to say goodbye to the YouTube people.
