Making Sense - Sam Harris - #335 — A Postmortem on My Response to Covid

00:00:00.000 Welcome to the Making Sense Podcast.

00:00:23.520 This is Sam Harris.

00:00:25.820 Okay.

00:00:27.740 Well, long housekeeping here.

00:00:30.900 As many of you know, I've been off social media for a long time at this point.

00:00:36.320 It's like nine months.

00:00:38.180 But social media apparently is not off of me.

00:00:42.420 Occasionally someone sends me a tweet that they think I really must see.

00:00:46.460 Do we still call them tweets?

00:00:48.060 What do you call a post at X?

00:00:50.520 Anyway, people send me these things.

00:00:52.800 And after the astonishment subsides, I'm usually left with two feelings.

00:00:58.140 The first is that social media is destroying society.

00:01:03.560 And the second is that I'm very glad I'm no longer witnessing this on an hourly or even

00:01:07.300 weekly basis.

00:01:09.460 I generally then ignore what was sent to me.

00:01:12.240 But there's been a flurry of these communications of late, focused on what I did and didn't think

00:01:17.700 or say throughout the COVID pandemic, which I should probably comment on.

00:01:22.940 Now, some of you get annoyed when I address controversies of the sort I'm now going to touch.

00:01:27.640 You tell me I'm defending myself from things that don't require defense.

00:01:31.760 Some of you say it's boring or that it looks petty.

00:01:34.960 And I get that.

00:01:36.220 But consider it from my point of view.

00:01:38.100 It's like I have a doppelganger out there who is now much more famous than I am.

00:01:45.000 And this fake version of me is saying some exceedingly stupid things.

00:01:50.260 So I feel I have to correct the record from time to time, at the risk of boring you, and

00:01:55.240 at the risk of appearing to care about things that I shouldn't care about, just so that I

00:01:59.440 know that a clear statement of my views exists somewhere.

00:02:03.780 Here's what seems to be happening.

00:02:05.520 I've been appearing on other people's podcasts, people who have very different audiences from

00:02:10.680 mine.

00:02:11.820 In some cases, these audiences are quite hostile to me.

00:02:15.540 Now, my reason for doing this is pretty straightforward.

00:02:18.440 These people invite me on their podcast, and I generally assume that there is some possibility

00:02:22.440 of communicating something of value to part of their audience, even if it's only a sliver

00:02:27.600 of the audience.

00:02:29.080 A sliver of a podcast audience could be much larger than the largest public talk I've ever

00:02:33.720 given.

00:02:34.020 It could be 50,000 people or more.

00:02:37.600 So if I'm not too busy, and if this person hasn't behaved unethically toward me in the

00:02:41.560 past, however much we may disagree about politics or anything else, I will often say yes.

00:02:47.940 And generally speaking, I'm happy to talk about anything, no matter how arcane or controversial,

00:02:53.460 provided I have an opinion that I think is worth sharing on the topic.

00:02:56.140 So what's been happening is that I've been putting myself in front of, again, often fairly

00:03:02.160 hostile audiences and giving them hours of video content on a wide variety of controversial

00:03:07.720 topics.

00:03:09.060 And then people produce clips from those conversations and share them on social media.

00:03:13.520 However, rather often, the clips are chosen to make it seem like I'm expressing a belief

00:03:19.160 for an opinion that I don't actually hold.

00:03:21.840 To be clear, it's not the podcasts themselves that are doing this.

00:03:25.400 It's members of their audience.

00:03:27.560 Of course, this game of editing for the purpose of misrepresentation is something we're all

00:03:31.100 very familiar with.

00:03:32.280 But what seems new, at least to me, is the effect that it is having in my life.

00:03:38.700 I'm beginning to see some very prominent people, and even some friends, and now in some cases,

00:03:43.660 former friends, have begun to think the worst of me.

00:03:47.260 The problem seems to be that many people are so busy and lazy that they don't have time

00:03:52.340 to consume anything but clips, even when they're going to stake their professional reputations

00:03:56.980 and even their friendships on the dubious premise that a clip created and shared on social media

00:04:02.360 by a person who absolutely loathes the subject of that clip will be accurate and its meaning

00:04:08.240 self-explanatory.

00:04:09.160 Now, I have some sympathy for taking a clip at face value, being very busy myself, and

00:04:14.840 also lazy.

00:04:16.240 It's also true that many clips, perhaps most, are not made by people who hate the subject

00:04:20.780 of that clip and are seeking to make him look terrible.

00:04:23.460 Many clips can be trusted because they are made by fans, and they really do help amplify

00:04:27.580 a person's actual message.

00:04:29.980 But again, I'm not talking to my audience when I appear on these podcasts.

00:04:34.440 And now, more and more, I'm seeing people criticize me for views that I do not hold.

00:04:39.160 And for things that I have not said.

00:04:41.540 To be clear, I'm not talking about valid criticism of my views.

00:04:46.140 I've received a ton of that, and that's great.

00:04:48.980 I'm not even talking about strawmanning my positions.

00:04:52.340 I'm talking about clips that present something I said for the sole purpose of making it appear

00:04:58.240 as though I said something else.

00:05:00.140 Something quite stupid or obscene.

00:05:01.840 People have edited videos to make it seem like I wished that more kids had died during

00:05:07.520 the pandemic, so that I could have been proven right about how scary COVID was, or something

00:05:12.560 like that.

00:05:13.560 And some people who I used to consider friends have shared those videos and dunked on them

00:05:19.320 to produce clickbait for their podcasts.

00:05:22.120 So part of this is just a fake controversy, based on malicious editing.

00:05:28.160 But the problem is also deeper than that.

00:05:30.700 There seems to be a consensus out there, right of center, that I got COVID wrong.

00:05:36.280 Disastrously so.

00:05:37.920 And for some reason, I have refused to admit this.

00:05:40.880 People seem to think that it's the result of some combination of pride and sunk cost,

00:05:45.580 and perhaps my own capture by bad incentives.

00:05:47.960 Of course, a few people think that something more nefarious is going on.

00:05:52.760 I know that there's also a general feeling of disappointment, that while I have routinely

00:05:56.840 challenged prevailing opinion on other topics, I mostly just went with the establishment on

00:06:02.400 COVID.

00:06:03.580 So, for instance, in the years after September 11, 2001, when both the ivory tower and the

00:06:09.000 mainstream media were telling us that Islam is really a religion of peace, hijacked by extremists,

00:06:13.680 and there's no connection at all between its actual tenets and the suicidal terrorism we

00:06:18.100 were seeing in dozens of countries, I said bullshit, and at some considerable cost to my

00:06:23.120 reputation, left of center, which is where I have always lived, politically.

00:06:28.020 I even landed on the Hate Watch page on the Southern Poverty Law Center website, or when George

00:06:33.560 Floyd got murdered, and half of our society erupted in protest over an imagined epidemic of racist

00:06:39.460 police killings.

00:06:41.140 I spent two hours on this podcast arguing that things were not as they seemed, and there are

00:06:45.840 several other instances where I've been willing to stand against a river of sanctimony and lies

00:06:50.240 coming from the establishment, and yet during the pandemic I seemed content to just get washed

00:06:54.840 out to sea with everyone else.

00:06:57.360 Trump is bad.

00:06:58.760 Vaccines are good.

00:07:00.540 To many of you, I sounded just like the suits on CNN.

00:07:02.980 Again, crucially, I didn't forcefully push back against specific policies, like vaccine

00:07:09.000 mandates, that many of you considered unjust.

00:07:12.760 Well, I'll get into more detail about what I did and didn't think or say about COVID in

00:07:16.940 a minute, but I just want to point out that there are important differences among these

00:07:20.860 various topics, and they explain why in some cases I'm content to, quote, do my own research,

00:07:26.840 and in others it feels irresponsible not to run with whatever consensus among qualified experts

00:07:31.960 we can find.

00:07:33.780 The first difference is that COVID was a public health emergency, around which there was tremendous

00:07:38.260 uncertainty.

00:07:39.660 There were several collective action problems that we had to solve.

00:07:43.080 If we were going to lock down, we had to do that together.

00:07:46.700 We could only meaningfully practice social distancing and flatten the curve together.

00:07:51.640 When vaccines arrived, we could only achieve herd immunity and protect people who really couldn't

00:07:56.920 get vaccinated together.

00:07:58.760 And in every instance, the clock was ticking.

00:08:02.900 And COVID was also a moving target.

00:08:05.000 There was no point at which all the facts were in.

00:08:07.500 They're still not all in.

00:08:09.440 Given this situation, the most responsible thing to do, in my view, was to defer to whatever

00:08:15.080 consensus we could find among experts, until that consensus changed.

00:08:20.200 This was not the situation with jihadism or the data on crime and police violence in the

00:08:25.580 U.S.

00:08:30.980 We've got 1,400 years of data about Islam, and the relevant information is very easy to

00:08:36.020 access.

00:08:37.060 I've read the Quran cover to cover.

00:08:39.320 If you want to know why jihadists do what they do, they will tell you.

00:08:43.580 The data on crime and police violence are also very simple to parse.

00:08:47.360 As much as I've been pilloried by the left for the positions I took on these topics, I

00:08:52.240 was not worried that I might be wildly wrong.

00:08:55.560 But with COVID, the mainstream position was generally as close to the truth as we could

00:09:00.180 get.

00:09:01.060 I know that claim will be controversial to some of you, and I'll defend it in a few minutes.

00:09:06.000 The important point is that this is what I believed, and this belief explains my behavior.

00:09:11.480 And again, COVID was a moving target.

00:09:13.540 There were many things that more or less everyone got wrong in the beginning, because

00:09:17.740 we didn't know what was going on.

00:09:19.860 Wiping down packages for fear of fomite transmission.

00:09:23.100 You remember that?

00:09:24.080 That was rational, until it wasn't.

00:09:27.000 And I believe I made the switch more or less on time.

00:09:29.700 I can't quite say the same for my wife.

00:09:32.260 But there were many things like that, which were rational at first, and then became irrational

00:09:36.820 once we had more information.

00:09:39.200 So I'm going to take the time in this podcast to explain what I believed at various points during

00:09:43.280 the pandemic, and what I believe now.

00:09:46.180 And I'll explain why I did or didn't say various things about vaccines and lockdowns

00:09:50.440 and other policies.

00:09:51.720 And I'll mention a few things that I think I should have done differently.

00:09:54.620 But first, I want to illustrate how strange the criticism of me has grown.

00:09:59.280 Here's a tweet from Brett Weinstein from last week.

00:10:02.260 This was sent to me by a podcast guest.

00:10:05.000 Sam Harris is not a moron.

00:10:07.620 Thank you, Brett.

00:10:08.220 Which is why his absurd formulations and failure to update is so baffling.

00:10:14.060 Of course he knows better.

00:10:15.660 And yet his positions are fixed.

00:10:17.500 And his half-baked explanations play as if on a loop.

00:10:21.260 I'll get to the substance of that in a minute.

00:10:23.360 But then someone named Jordan Hall responded.

00:10:26.700 Any chance of compromat?

00:10:28.760 For those of you who might not know, compromat is a KGB term for compromising material.

00:10:34.620 They can be used to blackmail or coerce a public figure.

00:10:38.740 The much-discussed pee tape of Trump would have been compromat if it had existed.

00:10:44.180 So Jordan Hall, whoever he is, asked Brett,

00:10:46.780 Any chance of compromat?

00:10:48.680 This is compromat on me, right?

00:10:50.940 That would explain my errant and incorrigible views about COVID.

00:10:55.140 And Brett responds,

00:10:56.860 Of course.

00:10:57.980 Or an even more direct motivation.

00:11:00.640 Of course?

00:11:02.640 What is being imagined here?

00:11:04.940 That Pfizer or Johns Hopkins has got some pictures of me with prostitutes?

00:11:09.400 Or an even more direct motivation?

00:11:12.620 Does this mean that I make a lot of money doing, on average,

00:11:15.960 less than one podcast a year focused on COVID?

00:11:19.500 What, I'm just working the COVID grift by not talking much about it?

00:11:23.960 Or is it by not offending the powers that be,

00:11:26.340 I didn't get demonetized on YouTube,

00:11:28.740 where I don't actually monetize anything?

00:11:30.740 I honestly cannot understand what Brett might be thinking here.

00:11:35.580 Anyway, back to the original tweet,

00:11:37.500 or whatever one calls them.

00:11:40.060 Sam Harris is not a moron,

00:11:41.820 which is why his absurd formulations and failures to update is so baffling.

00:11:45.800 Of course he knows better,

00:11:48.220 and yet his positions are fixed,

00:11:49.840 and his half-baked explanations play as if on a loop.

00:11:53.520 Well, they play as if on a loop,

00:11:56.220 because people keep making clips to this effect,

00:11:58.820 and all you apparently watch are the clips.

00:12:01.560 And they are absurd and baffling,

00:12:04.200 because I'm not saying what you think I'm saying in those clips.

00:12:06.580 Again, that is the purpose of the clip.

00:12:10.540 But I should say that Brett, more than anyone,

00:12:13.600 has supported and amplified

00:12:15.380 the most malicious liars and trolls in this space.

00:12:20.180 And while I'm trying to be charitable here,

00:12:22.840 it really is a stretch at this point for me to believe

00:12:25.000 that he doesn't know that he's engaged

00:12:26.620 in a thoroughly dishonest smear campaign.

00:12:29.960 This is the man who gave us the extremely wise and useful phrase,

00:12:34.080 bad faith changes everything.

00:12:35.700 Well, it does.

00:12:37.920 It really does.

00:12:40.080 Perhaps I should clear something up here for Brett,

00:12:42.380 in case he listens to this.

00:12:44.160 I believe he was once very offended

00:12:45.600 by my summarizing his views about mRNA vaccines inaccurately.

00:12:50.120 This was unintentional.

00:12:52.160 Wherever I have discussed them,

00:12:54.020 and it's only been in a few places,

00:12:55.940 I've said that Brett has called our vaccine policy

00:12:58.160 the crime of the century,

00:12:59.880 which he did,

00:13:00.980 and he predicted that millions might die as a result of it.

00:13:03.720 But the crime, on his account,

00:13:05.840 has been twofold.

00:13:07.560 It entails our releasing dangerous pseudo-vaccines

00:13:10.500 on an unsuspecting world,

00:13:12.200 and it also entails lying about

00:13:14.100 or otherwise obfuscating the life-saving knowledge

00:13:16.620 of the powers of ivermectin,

00:13:18.460 which, on his account,

00:13:19.500 was almost perfectly effective

00:13:20.800 as a prophylactic against COVID.

00:13:23.260 Whenever I've mentioned Brett's views,

00:13:25.240 I've generally been careful

00:13:26.300 to describe this twofold effect.

00:13:28.300 But there have been one or two times

00:13:30.060 where I've said something more abbreviated,

00:13:31.900 either because I was speaking quickly,

00:13:33.720 or at least what passes for quickly,

00:13:35.340 if you're me,

00:13:36.320 or I was interrupted.

00:13:37.800 So I said something like,

00:13:39.420 Brett thinks our mRNA vaccines

00:13:40.820 are getting people killed

00:13:41.700 and might kill millions.

00:13:43.320 Whereas I should have more accurately said,

00:13:46.000 Brett thinks our vaccine policy

00:13:47.600 is getting people killed

00:13:49.020 and might kill millions.

00:13:50.980 I've heard through a back channel

00:13:53.340 that Brett was quite outraged

00:13:55.620 that I gave the impression

00:13:56.960 that he believed that the vaccines

00:13:58.920 by themselves might kill millions.

00:14:01.900 And that was a regrettable mistake.

00:14:04.200 Unfortunately, there was no obvious place

00:14:06.360 to correct it on somebody else's podcast.

00:14:09.420 And again, in most contexts,

00:14:10.480 I've been careful to spell out

00:14:11.520 Brett's less-than-defensible medical views

00:14:13.800 in full, as I just did here.

00:14:16.500 At least this is what they were

00:14:17.460 when he embarked on his crusade

00:14:19.000 to convince the world

00:14:19.960 that no one should get mRNA vaccines

00:14:21.640 and they should take ivermectin instead.

00:14:23.740 So perhaps this slight inaccuracy,

00:14:27.320 which does not at all distort

00:14:28.780 his basic message about public health,

00:14:31.200 perhaps this is what Brett thinks justifies,

00:14:33.660 his sharing and dunking on clips of me

00:14:35.660 that he must know

00:14:37.120 were designed to be misleading.

00:14:39.600 But of course, Brett isn't alone.

00:14:42.140 Ben Shapiro, for instance,

00:14:44.140 understands how misleading

00:14:45.140 these clips likely are,

00:14:46.600 but he just couldn't resist

00:14:47.920 amplifying them anyway.

00:14:49.480 So he released a short video titled,

00:14:51.620 Sam Harris just said something weird

00:14:54.120 where he reacts to one of these clips

00:14:56.420 and then sort of criticizes me

00:14:58.920 for something I never actually said

00:15:00.180 while also wondering out loud

00:15:01.820 whether I was making

00:15:02.460 a slightly different point in context.

00:15:04.860 But of course,

00:15:05.580 he can't be bothered

00:15:06.200 to listen to the podcast itself

00:15:07.840 to figure out

00:15:08.580 what I was actually saying.

00:15:10.320 He was just compelled

00:15:11.180 by an unseen force

00:15:12.840 to release something

00:15:14.200 with my name in the title

00:15:15.420 to further solidify

00:15:16.960 my bad reputation

00:15:18.000 for his enormous audience.

00:15:19.200 Incidentally,

00:15:20.500 that unseen force

00:15:21.480 you feel, Ben,

00:15:22.600 compelling you to do this

00:15:23.960 is a shitty business model.

00:15:26.320 That's what a shitty business model

00:15:27.840 feels like.

00:15:29.640 Anyway,

00:15:30.180 the clip that most people

00:15:30.940 are reacting to

00:15:31.840 of late

00:15:32.560 was from the

00:15:33.560 Impact Theory podcast

00:15:34.840 where I was talking

00:15:36.040 to the host,

00:15:37.000 Tom Bilyeu,

00:15:38.200 a very nice guy

00:15:38.900 whose audience

00:15:39.400 also seems to hate me,

00:15:41.280 who was claiming

00:15:41.740 that where vaccines

00:15:42.500 are concerned,

00:15:43.660 bodily autonomy

00:15:44.420 supersedes everything.

00:15:46.200 On his account,

00:15:46.780 you can never ethically

00:15:47.920 force someone

00:15:48.640 to get vaccinated.

00:15:50.140 Therefore,

00:15:50.500 vaccine mandates

00:15:51.180 are always wrong.

00:15:53.120 Now,

00:15:53.300 I understand the intuition,

00:15:55.040 but I simply pointed out

00:15:56.360 that it was very likely

00:15:57.220 unstable.

00:15:58.580 The moment you dial up

00:15:59.540 the dangerousness

00:16:00.320 of the pathogen

00:16:01.060 and the safety

00:16:02.040 of the vaccine,

00:16:03.540 whatever your concerns

00:16:04.500 about bodily autonomy,

00:16:06.160 at a certain point,

00:16:07.800 the ethics flip,

00:16:09.820 which is to say

00:16:10.360 that it is quite easy

00:16:11.340 to imagine a pathogen

00:16:12.540 so dangerous,

00:16:13.960 especially one

00:16:14.560 that preferentially

00:16:15.160 kills kids,

00:16:16.000 and a vaccine

00:16:17.300 so safe and effective,

00:16:19.200 and if you're worried

00:16:19.720 about needles,

00:16:20.440 just imagine it comes

00:16:21.300 in a pill or a spray.

00:16:23.300 And the moment

00:16:23.880 you imagine this,

00:16:25.180 a virus that will kill

00:16:26.420 tens of millions of kids,

00:16:28.580 and we have a way

00:16:29.300 to prevent this catastrophe

00:16:30.440 that is truly benign,

00:16:32.500 I think any sane person

00:16:33.940 would want the government

00:16:35.120 to force people

00:16:35.900 to be vaccinated

00:16:36.620 and to get their kids

00:16:38.000 vaccinated.

00:16:39.060 I was arguing

00:16:39.980 on that podcast

00:16:40.620 that if you don't believe

00:16:41.860 that's true,

00:16:42.980 if your gut tells you

00:16:44.180 that it just can't be true,

00:16:45.460 you are not thinking

00:16:46.860 clearly enough

00:16:47.580 about what the world

00:16:48.320 would look like

00:16:48.980 in the presence

00:16:49.840 of a pandemic,

00:16:50.780 orders of magnitude

00:16:51.800 more dangerous than COVID,

00:16:53.600 and in the presence

00:16:54.200 of vaccines,

00:16:55.240 again,

00:16:55.760 safe vaccines,

00:16:57.260 that could truly

00:16:58.080 stop the disease.

00:16:59.820 I mean,

00:17:00.040 think of smallpox,

00:17:01.300 which killed

00:17:01.780 500 million people

00:17:03.060 in the 20th century.

00:17:04.880 500 million people.

00:17:07.200 We got rid of smallpox

00:17:08.840 with the smallpox vaccine.

00:17:11.480 Well,

00:17:12.000 it appears that millions

00:17:12.840 of people have watched

00:17:13.880 that clip,

00:17:14.920 and they now imagine

00:17:15.640 that I was defending

00:17:16.340 a paranoid response

00:17:17.740 to COVID across the board.

00:17:19.520 They think I'm claiming

00:17:20.240 that if the pandemic

00:17:21.560 had been much worse,

00:17:23.140 the most extreme things

00:17:24.440 we did would have made sense.

00:17:26.900 So,

00:17:27.820 and I'm not quite sure

00:17:28.440 how they think

00:17:28.860 I'm trying to sneak

00:17:29.560 the rabbit into the hat

00:17:30.680 in this way,

00:17:31.300 but here goes.

00:17:33.280 Therefore,

00:17:34.360 everything did make sense.

00:17:36.480 So Anthony Fauci

00:17:37.360 was right about everything,

00:17:38.280 and the crazy people

00:17:39.240 wearing masks

00:17:39.960 while driving alone

00:17:40.820 in their cars were right,

00:17:42.360 and it was right

00:17:42.900 to close the beaches,

00:17:44.120 and everyone who got

00:17:45.040 demonetized on YouTube

00:17:46.160 should have been demonetized.

00:17:48.020 No mistakes were made.

00:17:50.200 It's quite crazy

00:17:51.020 that people think

00:17:51.640 I was saying this,

00:17:52.820 but it seems

00:17:53.440 that's what they think

00:17:54.160 I was saying.

00:17:55.380 And it's not just

00:17:55.960 randos on Twitter.

00:17:58.120 Joe Rogan,

00:17:59.260 again,

00:17:59.620 a friend,

00:18:00.600 who I just don't happen

00:18:01.220 to talk to very much,

00:18:02.960 he appears to think

00:18:04.100 that this is what I believe.

00:18:05.700 At least that's what

00:18:06.280 I gleaned from comments

00:18:07.240 he recently made

00:18:07.840 on his own podcast.

00:18:09.260 Of course,

00:18:09.600 at first I only saw

00:18:10.400 a clip from that podcast,

00:18:12.260 but then I went

00:18:13.000 and listened to it

00:18:13.600 in context

00:18:14.240 to make sure he was saying

00:18:15.600 what he seemed to be saying.

00:18:17.200 And it really does appear

00:18:18.520 that Joe thinks

00:18:20.220 that I have rationalized

00:18:21.780 my crazy

00:18:22.420 and now debunked

00:18:23.260 positions on COVID,

00:18:24.660 though it's not clear

00:18:25.180 what he thinks those are,

00:18:26.600 by saying that

00:18:27.320 if COVID had been worse,

00:18:29.320 I would have been right.

00:18:31.020 He thinks these are

00:18:31.640 the kinds of contortions

00:18:32.740 I'm making

00:18:33.200 in a desperate

00:18:34.320 and ecocentric effort

00:18:35.780 to save face,

00:18:36.720 where on his account

00:18:37.880 what I should do

00:18:38.700 is just swallow my pride

00:18:40.480 and apologize.

00:18:42.740 Well, I'll get back to that.

00:18:44.880 There's another clip

00:18:45.900 circulating

00:18:46.640 where I seem to be

00:18:47.480 enthusiastically defending

00:18:48.660 the pharmaceutical industry

00:18:49.800 and even its greediest

00:18:51.160 excesses.

00:18:52.660 Again,

00:18:53.400 that's not what I was doing.

00:18:54.840 As I've said many times

00:18:55.860 on this podcast,

00:18:57.000 I am quite worried

00:18:57.960 about the perverse incentives

00:18:59.200 and profit motives

00:19:00.580 of drug companies.

00:19:02.100 In fact,

00:19:02.480 I even said this

00:19:03.140 at considerable length

00:19:04.120 on the very podcast

00:19:05.520 from which this clip

00:19:06.860 was taken.

00:19:08.380 There really are

00:19:09.400 some perverse incentives

00:19:10.660 in the drug business.

00:19:12.240 Forget about the release

00:19:13.200 of poorly tested

00:19:14.240 and dangerous drugs,

00:19:16.000 which of course

00:19:16.560 is worth worrying about.

00:19:18.060 The opposite

00:19:18.720 sometimes happens.

00:19:20.280 There are cases

00:19:20.760 where a company

00:19:21.460 holds back a drug

00:19:22.860 they know to be

00:19:24.020 better and safer

00:19:24.740 than the one

00:19:25.260 that's already on the market

00:19:26.220 because they're still

00:19:27.300 making so much money

00:19:28.400 on its more dangerous cousin,

00:19:30.220 which may have years

00:19:31.060 left to run

00:19:31.740 on its patent.

00:19:33.420 They could be

00:19:34.060 saving people's lives

00:19:35.080 and reducing suffering now,

00:19:36.920 but they're worried

00:19:37.580 about the better drug

00:19:38.500 cannibalizing the profits

00:19:39.720 of the drug

00:19:40.260 that's already on the market.

00:19:42.240 This is just a nightmare.

00:19:44.660 The problem,

00:19:45.880 however,

00:19:46.680 and this is the point

00:19:47.260 I was making

00:19:47.680 on that podcast,

00:19:49.160 there are no obvious

00:19:50.240 alternatives to capitalism

00:19:51.720 when it comes to

00:19:52.660 encouraging and rewarding

00:19:53.900 human ingenuity.

00:19:55.500 If you're going to say

00:19:56.240 that people can't get

00:19:57.100 filthy rich

00:19:57.840 creating new medicines,

00:19:59.420 many of the smartest people

00:20:00.640 will do something else.

00:20:02.300 There's also a weird

00:20:03.460 double standard here

00:20:04.580 that we should reflect on.

00:20:06.500 We appear to be content

00:20:07.600 for movie stars

00:20:08.780 and professional athletes

00:20:10.020 to get rich,

00:20:11.000 but we view it

00:20:11.880 as somehow corrupt

00:20:12.900 for the person

00:20:13.920 who cures cancer

00:20:14.920 to make a fortune.

00:20:16.460 This is weird.

00:20:18.180 Shouldn't we want

00:20:18.740 the person

00:20:19.280 who actually cures cancer

00:20:21.860 to get rich?

00:20:23.820 If anyone should make

00:20:25.220 a billion dollars,

00:20:26.580 shouldn't it be

00:20:27.180 that person?

00:20:28.580 Do we really want

00:20:29.560 someone graduating

00:20:30.300 from Princeton

00:20:31.000 with a degree

00:20:32.020 in biochemistry

00:20:32.900 saying,

00:20:34.760 well, I'd really like

00:20:35.380 to cure cancer,

00:20:36.480 but I also want

00:20:37.280 a beach house,

00:20:38.360 so I'm just going to work

00:20:39.040 for Goldman Sachs

00:20:40.060 for the next decade?

00:20:42.440 I don't think so.

00:20:44.400 But there's no question

00:20:45.460 that the profit motive

00:20:46.420 in medicine

00:20:46.940 can produce some

00:20:48.180 very ugly conflicts

00:20:49.160 of interest,

00:20:49.860 and we need to figure out

00:20:51.040 what to do about this.

00:20:52.440 Strangely,

00:20:52.820 the people who think

00:20:53.340 it's just obvious

00:20:54.020 that the government

00:20:54.540 should control

00:20:55.100 the drug market

00:20:55.760 are the very people

00:20:57.140 who, five minutes later,

00:20:58.860 will tell you

00:20:59.400 that the government

00:20:59.960 is the most corrupt

00:21:00.880 and incompetent

00:21:02.080 institution of all.

00:21:04.000 In any case,

00:21:04.700 I think there is a role

00:21:05.380 for government here,

00:21:06.680 but I think it's probably

00:21:07.300 more a matter

00:21:07.840 of funding research

00:21:09.260 and also creating

00:21:10.380 a guaranteed market

00:21:11.440 for rarely used medicines,

00:21:13.500 like new antibiotics

00:21:14.660 that most of us

00:21:15.300 will take for 10 days

00:21:16.520 once in our lives.

00:21:18.760 Anyway,

00:21:19.300 I want to say a few things

00:21:20.100 about what I believe

00:21:20.740 about COVID

00:21:21.320 and the mRNA vaccines,

00:21:23.540 as well as our collective

00:21:24.380 response to the pandemic,

00:21:25.600 and about what I did

00:21:27.360 or didn't say

00:21:28.020 in recent years

00:21:28.720 and why I did

00:21:29.320 or didn't say it,

00:21:30.580 so as to clear up

00:21:31.420 some of this misunderstanding.

00:21:33.640 First,

00:21:34.120 on this sunk cost point,

00:21:36.160 the notion that I'm

00:21:36.860 so dug in

00:21:37.680 and my ego is so invested

00:21:39.340 in having staked out

00:21:40.300 certain positions on COVID

00:21:41.380 that I just can't admit

00:21:42.640 how wrong I was.

00:21:44.740 This is a total hallucination.

00:21:47.300 I have not talked

00:21:48.240 about COVID

00:21:48.860 or vaccines

00:21:49.800 or specific policies

00:21:51.400 much at all.

00:21:53.280 And this criticism

00:21:53.900 is coming

00:21:54.460 in the cases

00:21:55.280 of Brett and Joe

00:21:56.240 from people

00:21:57.060 who have literally

00:21:57.700 done hundreds

00:21:58.780 of podcasts

00:21:59.640 on these topics.

00:22:01.460 I mean,

00:22:01.640 to my eye,

00:22:02.540 they're the ones

00:22:03.260 invested in a narrative

00:22:04.380 around COVID.

00:22:06.360 The few times

00:22:07.280 I've spoken

00:22:07.780 on these topics,

00:22:09.220 I have clearly stated

00:22:10.820 that,

00:22:12.240 one,

00:22:12.960 I'm not an expert

00:22:14.160 in any of the relevant fields,

00:22:16.480 neither are Joe

00:22:17.000 and Brett,

00:22:17.540 by the way.

00:22:18.400 I'm not an epidemiologist

00:22:19.960 or an immunologist

00:22:21.140 or a virologist

00:22:22.500 or a biostatistician,

00:22:24.380 so I have never

00:22:25.300 pretended to be

00:22:26.600 an authority

00:22:27.120 on COVID

00:22:27.900 or vaccines

00:22:29.120 or public health policy.

00:22:31.420 So my ego

00:22:32.360 really is not bound up

00:22:34.260 in my being

00:22:35.200 a credible voice

00:22:36.160 on these topics

00:22:37.160 because I'm not one.

00:22:39.280 And I have always

00:22:40.300 simply recommended

00:22:41.160 that people follow

00:22:42.040 whatever the most

00:22:42.780 mainstream consensus

00:22:43.860 among experts

00:22:44.680 appears to be

00:22:45.580 at any given moment,

00:22:47.100 all the while

00:22:47.700 bemoaning the fact

00:22:48.620 that there are

00:22:48.940 some very ominous signs

00:22:50.460 that our institutions

00:22:51.660 had become so politicized

00:22:53.280 that we couldn't

00:22:54.200 trust them as much

00:22:54.920 as we should have

00:22:55.420 been able to.

00:22:56.700 That doesn't mean

00:22:57.280 that everything they said

00:22:58.380 was a lie.

00:22:59.820 But it was a bad situation,

00:23:01.640 which I have talked about

00:23:02.700 a lot on this podcast.

00:23:04.960 And second,

00:23:06.000 I've always said

00:23:06.780 that COVID

00:23:07.200 has been a moving target.

00:23:08.900 Our understanding

00:23:09.620 of it has changed

00:23:10.700 over weeks

00:23:11.620 and months

00:23:12.300 and now years.

00:23:14.060 And therefore,

00:23:14.600 what was rational

00:23:15.300 and ethical to do

00:23:16.340 at one point

00:23:17.060 seemed less than rational

00:23:18.800 and ethical

00:23:19.420 later on.

00:23:20.460 And there were

00:23:20.900 definitely instances

00:23:21.820 where the public policy

00:23:23.420 seemed to be out of step

00:23:24.440 with the science.

00:23:25.660 I have never denied this.

00:23:27.800 So, for instance,

00:23:28.520 rather than just

00:23:29.060 uniformly urge everyone

00:23:30.500 to not merely

00:23:31.200 get vaccinated

00:23:31.960 but to be repeatedly

00:23:33.240 boosted,

00:23:34.220 at a certain point

00:23:35.520 it made sense

00:23:36.420 to talk about

00:23:36.960 the stratification

00:23:37.640 of risk and reward

00:23:39.100 as we've come

00:23:39.920 to understand them,

00:23:41.220 making it very clear

00:23:41.920 that the people

00:23:42.380 who would really be helped

00:23:43.420 by being boosted

00:23:44.440 were 65 and older,

00:23:46.480 or people with comorbidities

00:23:47.860 like obesity and diabetes

00:23:49.680 and kidney problems.

00:23:51.700 Did we make mistakes

00:23:53.080 in our response

00:23:53.960 to COVID?

00:23:55.460 Absolutely.

00:23:56.660 But it's important

00:23:57.420 to recognize

00:23:58.000 that some of those mistakes

00:23:59.480 were only mistakes

00:24:00.960 in hindsight.

00:24:02.200 They weren't mistakes

00:24:03.280 at the time.

00:24:04.860 I mean,

00:24:05.060 consider school closures.

00:24:06.980 School closures

00:24:07.840 made total sense

00:24:09.060 until they didn't.

00:24:10.480 I was absolutely

00:24:12.040 in favor of closing

00:24:13.080 the schools

00:24:13.500 in March of 2020,

00:24:14.800 and I was against

00:24:16.100 keeping them closed

00:24:17.100 at some later date.

00:24:19.100 I would have to do

00:24:19.700 some research

00:24:20.220 to figure out

00:24:20.720 when that was.

00:24:22.080 But it was not

00:24:22.880 a mistake

00:24:23.420 to close the schools,

00:24:25.500 given all that we

00:24:26.200 didn't know at the time.

00:24:27.480 It was a mistake

00:24:28.320 to keep them closed

00:24:29.480 once we knew

00:24:30.440 how benign

00:24:31.120 the virus was for kids

00:24:32.460 and how deleterious

00:24:33.840 the effects were

00:24:34.520 of keeping them

00:24:34.980 out of school.

00:24:36.020 The people who were

00:24:37.080 against school closures

00:24:38.260 in March of 2020,

00:24:39.360 given what was

00:24:40.520 happening in Italy

00:24:41.340 and what we didn't

00:24:42.360 know about the virus,

00:24:43.640 were wrong.

00:24:44.940 Those people

00:24:45.340 were against everything.

00:24:47.040 It doesn't matter

00:24:47.840 that they were

00:24:48.300 eventually proven right

00:24:49.620 about school closures.

00:24:51.340 They weren't reasoning

00:24:52.100 on the basis

00:24:52.660 of real health information.

00:24:54.540 They were just

00:24:55.000 recoiling from any

00:24:56.060 intrusion of the government

00:24:57.200 into their lives.

00:24:58.960 And as far as I can tell,

00:25:00.680 there's no clear

00:25:01.460 lesson to draw

00:25:02.360 from our experience

00:25:03.340 with school closures

00:25:04.240 at this point,

00:25:05.580 because it turns out

00:25:06.300 that the SARS-CoV-2

00:25:07.440 virus is unusual.

00:25:09.360 Most flus

00:25:10.320 and other infectious

00:25:11.080 illnesses are worse

00:25:12.580 for kids.

00:25:13.940 So what should we do

00:25:14.480 at the start

00:25:14.920 of the next pandemic,

00:25:16.260 when the epidemiology

00:25:17.280 of the virus

00:25:17.820 is poorly understood?

00:25:19.180 It seems almost certain

00:25:20.600 that we should close

00:25:21.720 the schools again.

00:25:23.500 Of course,

00:25:23.860 there were other things

00:25:24.340 that we did

00:25:24.700 that were quite crazy,

00:25:26.240 and I perceived them

00:25:27.080 to be crazy at the time.

00:25:28.820 Closing the beaches

00:25:29.600 never made sense.

00:25:31.800 Stigmatizing the lab leak

00:25:32.940 hypothesis as racist

00:25:34.280 was obviously insane.

00:25:36.440 Masking very young children

00:25:37.700 always struck me

00:25:38.460 as totally farcical

00:25:39.800 and just depressing.

00:25:41.520 Not counting natural immunity

00:25:43.240 as immunity

00:25:43.960 during the vaccine

00:25:44.980 passport controversy.

00:25:46.560 That always seems stupid

00:25:47.860 to me.

00:25:48.980 So what would I change

00:25:49.840 about my response

00:25:50.920 to COVID

00:25:51.460 related to these examples?

00:25:54.020 Not much.

00:25:55.740 One thing that comes to mind,

00:25:57.460 and I said this

00:25:58.160 when I did a podcast

00:25:58.840 on the lab leak,

00:26:00.160 is that in the beginning,

00:26:01.620 I said that the origins

00:26:02.600 of the pandemic

00:26:03.300 really didn't matter,

00:26:04.420 because we had

00:26:05.720 the genome sequenced,

00:26:06.920 and we were designing

00:26:07.620 vaccines against that.

00:26:09.480 So in my view,

00:26:10.360 the difference between

00:26:11.120 a lab leak

00:26:11.820 and a wet market origin

00:26:12.920 was sort of academic,

00:26:15.280 and I believe I said

00:26:15.980 as much on this podcast.

00:26:17.780 And I never understood

00:26:18.820 why one story

00:26:19.700 was judged to be

00:26:20.460 politically radioactive

00:26:21.480 and the other not.

00:26:23.340 And the truth is,

00:26:23.980 I still don't.

00:26:25.360 In fact,

00:26:25.780 the wet market story

00:26:26.880 has always seemed

00:26:28.400 worse to me.

00:26:29.840 A lab leak

00:26:30.340 could happen to anyone,

00:26:31.740 and has happened

00:26:32.520 in multiple countries

00:26:33.540 in some of the best labs.

00:26:35.180 But only total barbarians

00:26:36.840 are eating bats

00:26:37.840 and pangolins

00:26:38.720 and raccoon dogs,

00:26:40.320 and putting the lives

00:26:41.140 of all humanity

00:26:41.940 at risk because

00:26:42.580 they can't figure out

00:26:43.260 how to eat those

00:26:43.780 nasty things safely.

00:26:45.560 The wet markets

00:26:46.220 are just vile.

00:26:47.820 So the preferred origin story

00:26:49.380 has always seemed

00:26:50.520 more politically invidious,

00:26:52.260 not to say racist,

00:26:53.640 than a lab leak.

00:26:55.020 But at the time,

00:26:55.800 I thought we could

00:26:56.360 wait indefinitely

00:26:57.340 to figure out

00:26:58.380 the origin of COVID,

00:26:59.640 because nothing much

00:27:00.340 churned on it.

00:27:01.600 However,

00:27:01.940 one of my guests

00:27:02.620 on the podcast

00:27:03.420 Alina Chan

00:27:04.620 pointed out

00:27:05.700 that evidence

00:27:06.240 tends to vanish.

00:27:07.720 If you don't test

00:27:08.520 everything in the wet market

00:27:09.580 or the lab immediately,

00:27:11.040 there's not necessarily

00:27:11.780 an opportunity

00:27:12.340 to do that

00:27:13.220 six months later.

00:27:14.820 And that's obviously

00:27:15.720 true.

00:27:16.880 It just never occurred

00:27:17.660 to me at the time.

00:27:19.060 And I think our practices

00:27:19.980 around studying

00:27:20.800 dangerous pathogens

00:27:21.900 require some

00:27:23.160 serious rethinking.

00:27:24.960 I've released

00:27:25.340 several long episodes

00:27:26.280 on this podcast

00:27:27.120 about the dangers here

00:27:28.560 in collaboration

00:27:29.900 with my friend

00:27:30.560 Rob Reed,

00:27:31.080 and I'm happy

00:27:32.100 to say that

00:27:32.500 the podcast

00:27:33.040 we did

00:27:33.600 appear to have

00:27:34.440 helped change

00:27:34.940 the U.S.

00:27:35.380 government's

00:27:35.800 thinking on this front.

00:27:37.380 After one of those

00:27:38.020 episodes,

00:27:38.940 Rob was invited

00:27:39.540 to do a presentation

00:27:40.280 at the White House,

00:27:41.280 and then several

00:27:42.420 dominoes fell

00:27:43.480 after that.

00:27:44.840 And USAID

00:27:45.640 has now suspended

00:27:46.760 the Deep Vision

00:27:48.180 program,

00:27:49.380 which was this

00:27:49.900 fairly terrifying

00:27:50.820 and I think

00:27:51.460 quite obviously

00:27:52.380 misguided project

00:27:53.480 of going out

00:27:54.660 into nature

00:27:55.200 to find thousands

00:27:56.320 of undiscovered

00:27:57.340 mammalian viruses,

00:27:58.280 many of them

00:27:59.480 quite remote

00:28:00.100 and unlikely

00:28:00.580 to ever infect

00:28:01.300 a human being,

00:28:02.540 and to bring

00:28:03.060 them into our

00:28:03.620 cities,

00:28:04.400 into labs

00:28:04.960 with imperfect

00:28:05.520 safety protocols,

00:28:06.720 to characterize

00:28:07.720 them for pandemic

00:28:08.720 potential,

00:28:09.780 and then to publish

00:28:10.680 the genomes

00:28:11.540 of the most

00:28:12.460 dangerous of

00:28:13.140 these pathogens

00:28:13.720 for all the world

00:28:14.800 to see,

00:28:15.920 literally making

00:28:16.820 the recipes

00:28:17.440 for genocide

00:28:18.340 available for

00:28:19.840 all time

00:28:20.600 to any crackpot

00:28:22.040 who might want

00:28:22.760 to weaponize

00:28:23.260 one of them.

00:28:24.320 What could go wrong?

00:28:25.140 I'm happy to say

00:28:27.320 that the US version

00:28:28.220 of that program

00:28:29.020 appears to now

00:28:30.240 be stopped.

00:28:32.120 Anyway,

00:28:32.660 I think it's

00:28:33.020 very important

00:28:33.860 to understand

00:28:34.560 what, if anything,

00:28:35.660 happened at the

00:28:36.220 Wuhan Institute

00:28:36.940 of Virology

00:28:37.660 and how Western

00:28:38.600 governments might

00:28:39.260 have collaborated

00:28:39.840 in it,

00:28:40.880 and whether,

00:28:41.660 to what degree,

00:28:42.220 there's been a

00:28:42.640 cover-up.

00:28:43.540 So if I would

00:28:44.240 change anything

00:28:44.880 about what I said

00:28:45.540 publicly at that

00:28:46.560 point,

00:28:47.180 I would have said

00:28:48.100 that we should

00:28:48.480 have focused on

00:28:49.100 the origins of

00:28:49.700 the virus earlier,

00:28:50.960 because I do think

00:28:52.080 it's ultimately

00:28:52.500 important to understand

00:28:53.360 how this happened.

00:28:54.060 would I have done

00:28:55.660 50 podcasts

00:28:56.720 on the topic?

00:28:58.100 No,

00:28:59.020 but I should have

00:28:59.800 done one.

00:29:00.900 But I was never

00:29:01.620 someone who doubted

00:29:02.720 the plausibility

00:29:03.560 of a lab leak,

00:29:04.800 and I did say

00:29:06.000 as much at the time.

00:29:08.340 I also think

00:29:09.160 I should have done

00:29:09.580 a podcast acknowledging

00:29:10.660 just how different

00:29:11.540 people's experiences

00:29:12.640 were during the

00:29:13.700 pandemic,

00:29:14.780 both in the US

00:29:15.500 and abroad.

00:29:16.920 I touched on this

00:29:17.940 a little,

00:29:18.760 but it really

00:29:19.320 merited a longer

00:29:20.540 conversation,

00:29:21.660 probably several

00:29:22.540 conversations.

00:29:24.060 There were people

00:29:24.600 who lost their

00:29:25.220 businesses through

00:29:26.220 no fault of their

00:29:27.140 own, right?

00:29:27.980 They just happened

00:29:28.500 to be in the wrong

00:29:29.120 spot when lightning

00:29:30.340 struck.

00:29:31.640 If you owned a

00:29:32.320 restaurant or a

00:29:33.420 movie theater,

00:29:34.440 if you made your

00:29:34.880 living doing live

00:29:35.700 events,

00:29:36.600 you were screwed

00:29:37.380 in a way that

00:29:38.340 people who could

00:29:38.860 work from home

00:29:39.780 simply weren't.

00:29:41.600 And this disparity

00:29:42.460 existed at every

00:29:43.460 level of the wealth

00:29:44.240 hierarchy.

00:29:45.580 For instance,

00:29:45.980 I think this

00:29:46.320 probably explains the

00:29:47.500 crazy things that

00:29:48.340 Elon Musk was saying

00:29:49.420 and doing at the

00:29:50.340 time.

00:29:50.580 I think Elon

00:29:51.940 looked deep into

00:29:52.940 the abyss and

00:29:54.220 understood that

00:29:54.860 electric cars and

00:29:55.880 rockets are among

00:29:56.940 the things one is

00:29:57.740 least able to

00:29:58.500 build from home.

00:29:59.880 And so he realized

00:30:00.620 that taking COVID

00:30:01.620 seriously posed an

00:30:03.300 existential threat to

00:30:04.460 both of his core

00:30:05.340 businesses.

00:30:06.120 So he just wasn't

00:30:07.020 going to do that.

00:30:08.820 Okay, I get it.

00:30:10.680 But that doesn't

00:30:11.400 change the fact that

00:30:12.120 what he was saying

00:30:12.860 both in public and

00:30:13.900 in private about

00:30:14.940 COVID was delusional.

00:30:17.180 There are also

00:30:17.780 people who ran afoul of

00:30:19.020 the public health

00:30:19.680 orthodoxy and got

00:30:21.100 censored or

00:30:21.980 demonetized on

00:30:23.140 various platforms.

00:30:24.460 In certain cases,

00:30:25.140 this might have been

00:30:25.760 warranted.

00:30:26.880 Alex Jones is the

00:30:28.120 perfect example of

00:30:29.560 why platforms should

00:30:30.860 retain the right to

00:30:31.780 demonetize or kick

00:30:32.820 people off.

00:30:33.800 Though in his case,

00:30:34.400 it was for lies he

00:30:35.200 spread on topics

00:30:36.020 other than COVID.

00:30:37.320 I'm thinking, of

00:30:37.880 course, about the

00:30:38.400 absolutely ghoulish

00:30:39.700 campaign he waged to

00:30:41.420 bring further misery to

00:30:42.540 the Sandy Hook

00:30:43.100 parents.

00:30:44.020 For that, I think he

00:30:44.800 should have been

00:30:45.200 kicked off every

00:30:45.980 platform under the

00:30:47.020 sun.

00:30:47.680 And the truth is, I

00:30:48.380 think he probably

00:30:49.020 belongs in prison for

00:30:50.660 the harm he caused.

00:30:51.920 But many other far

00:30:53.080 more normal and

00:30:53.980 well-intentioned people

00:30:54.980 saw their livelihoods

00:30:56.460 attacked, and this

00:30:57.920 radicalized them.

00:30:59.500 I think Brett Weinstein

00:31:00.440 probably falls into

00:31:01.380 this camp.

00:31:02.400 I don't recall the

00:31:03.020 details, but I'm

00:31:04.000 reasonably sure he got

00:31:05.020 demonetized on YouTube

00:31:06.280 at some point.

00:31:07.960 There's no question

00:31:09.040 that many of the

00:31:10.180 efforts to silence

00:31:11.140 debate on YouTube

00:31:12.600 and other platforms

00:31:13.620 went way too far.

00:31:15.820 All of this preceded

00:31:16.780 the pandemic, by the

00:31:17.920 way.

00:31:18.720 I remember hearing

00:31:19.340 that episodes of

00:31:20.080 podcasts I was on

00:31:21.180 got demonetized for

00:31:22.660 my criticism of

00:31:23.460 Islam.

00:31:24.320 This is one reason

00:31:25.020 why I built my

00:31:25.660 business the way I

00:31:26.400 have.

00:31:27.360 In addition to my

00:31:28.020 believing that the

00:31:28.660 advertising model is

00:31:29.840 at the bottom of

00:31:30.540 almost everything

00:31:31.100 that's wrong with

00:31:32.000 the internet, and

00:31:32.920 therefore much that's

00:31:33.540 wrong with society.

00:31:35.320 As some of you might

00:31:36.160 recall, I originally

00:31:37.420 launched my podcast

00:31:38.280 on Patreon, but I

00:31:40.440 left when I saw that

00:31:41.240 they were demonetizing

00:31:42.100 people for expressing

00:31:43.100 political opinions that

00:31:44.160 they considered beyond

00:31:44.960 the pale.

00:31:45.380 I think it was

00:31:46.380 around the end of

00:31:47.100 2018 that I decided

00:31:49.160 to consolidate

00:31:49.800 everything on my

00:31:50.440 own platform so

00:31:51.640 that I could be as

00:31:52.100 free from outside

00:31:53.020 influence as

00:31:53.780 possible.

00:31:54.720 But I would be the

00:31:55.640 first to admit that

00:31:56.680 most people are not

00:31:57.560 in a position to do

00:31:58.340 this.

00:31:59.060 Even most podcasters

00:32:00.180 would struggle to

00:32:01.160 make my business

00:32:01.760 model work.

00:32:03.400 So the differential

00:32:04.780 exposure to economic

00:32:06.100 pressure during the

00:32:07.260 pandemic was a big

00:32:08.860 deal.

00:32:09.780 And while I

00:32:10.220 mentioned it, I

00:32:11.160 think I should have

00:32:11.660 spoken more about

00:32:12.560 it.

00:32:13.300 I talk about wealth

00:32:14.180 inequality and

00:32:14.940 economic insecurity

00:32:15.940 a fair amount.

00:32:17.320 Not enough, I'm

00:32:18.220 sure.

00:32:18.920 But I don't think I

00:32:20.040 talked much about

00:32:20.840 them through the

00:32:21.340 lens of the

00:32:21.840 pandemic.

00:32:22.880 That was surely a

00:32:23.640 missed opportunity.

00:32:25.400 Many people who were

00:32:26.220 really struggling were

00:32:27.720 directly targeted by

00:32:28.940 various bureaucracies and

00:32:30.680 made to feel like

00:32:31.360 second-class citizens.

00:32:32.940 There was also a

00:32:33.800 difference between

00:32:34.300 countries.

00:32:35.180 Despite widespread

00:32:35.860 concerns about

00:32:36.680 censorship in the

00:32:37.500 U.S., we have much

00:32:38.860 stronger protections of

00:32:40.260 free speech than

00:32:41.280 exist almost anywhere

00:32:42.100 else.

00:32:42.460 In the U.S.,

00:32:44.040 lockdowns lasted for

00:32:45.220 five to seven weeks

00:32:46.420 on average, depending

00:32:48.000 on the state.

00:32:49.240 Other countries like

00:32:49.960 New Zealand and

00:32:50.720 Australia and Canada

00:32:51.880 locked down much

00:32:53.100 harder than we did.

00:32:54.960 At most stages along

00:32:56.240 the way, I believe I

00:32:57.500 was appropriately

00:32:58.120 worried about COVID,

00:32:59.880 given what we knew

00:33:00.480 at the time.

00:33:01.760 Remember, everyone

00:33:02.700 was in a unique

00:33:03.600 situation.

00:33:05.160 Fairly early on, I

00:33:06.200 knew that I wasn't at

00:33:07.220 high risk of death

00:33:08.300 from COVID, but I

00:33:09.580 have people close to

00:33:10.400 me who were.

00:33:10.980 It was rational for

00:33:12.360 me to worry about

00:33:12.980 them.

00:33:14.040 But once we had

00:33:14.840 vaccines, things

00:33:16.400 really did change.

00:33:18.120 Whatever their

00:33:18.620 flaws, the vaccines

00:33:20.060 really did mitigate

00:33:21.060 risk of hospitalization

00:33:22.380 and death for

00:33:23.340 vulnerable people.

00:33:24.620 And if you don't

00:33:25.600 believe that, if you

00:33:27.060 think I need to

00:33:27.640 publicly apologize for

00:33:29.720 thinking that the

00:33:30.280 vaccines saved lives,

00:33:32.900 well, then we're

00:33:33.340 dealing with a very

00:33:34.140 different set of

00:33:35.000 facts.

00:33:35.800 I'll get into the

00:33:36.680 facts as I think we

00:33:37.440 know them in a minute.

00:33:38.820 But if you think that

00:33:39.780 the vaccines just

00:33:41.280 harmed people on

00:33:42.740 balance, and that

00:33:43.860 ivermectin is an

00:33:44.700 effective prophylactic

00:33:45.700 against COVID, and

00:33:47.300 that the

00:33:47.500 establishment's

00:33:48.380 response to COVID

00:33:49.420 was mostly just a

00:33:50.660 pretext for

00:33:51.360 governments to

00:33:52.060 arbitrarily turn the

00:33:53.280 ratchet of state

00:33:54.120 power toward

00:33:54.940 tyranny, we are

00:33:56.520 living on very

00:33:57.180 different parts of

00:33:58.080 the information

00:33:58.640 landscape.

00:33:59.720 And you're in the

00:34:00.560 shady part, or

00:34:01.700 you're in the

00:34:02.100 climate change as a

00:34:03.260 hoax part.

00:34:04.560 I'm not saying we

00:34:05.440 know everything.

00:34:06.560 I'm not saying the

00:34:07.240 data are perfect.

00:34:08.040 I'm not saying

00:34:09.280 certain official

00:34:10.000 communications weren't

00:34:11.220 untrue or unwise, but

00:34:13.820 billions of people have

00:34:15.540 now been vaccinated, and

00:34:17.160 billions of people have

00:34:18.160 gotten COVID, with and

00:34:19.640 without vaccines, and we

00:34:21.400 have a reasonably good

00:34:22.420 sense of what happened.

00:34:25.280 And consider this fact.

00:34:26.680 Before vaccines, Democrats

00:34:28.780 and Republicans in the

00:34:29.860 United States died more or

00:34:31.640 less at the same rate.

00:34:32.900 But after vaccines,

00:34:34.820 Republicans were 43% more

00:34:36.800 likely to die than

00:34:38.060 Democrats.

00:34:39.200 That's almost all one

00:34:40.260 needs to know about the

00:34:41.220 consequences of

00:34:41.940 politicizing public

00:34:43.080 health information.

00:34:44.860 Vaccine misinformation

00:34:45.980 and vaccine hesitancy

00:34:48.040 got people killed.

00:34:50.200 But that doesn't mean

00:34:51.360 that I supported

00:34:52.160 vaccine mandates.

00:34:53.760 I never supported them,

00:34:55.240 in fact, except for

00:34:56.440 medical workers.

00:34:57.540 It just seemed obscene to

00:34:58.760 me that a person could go

00:35:00.020 into their doctor's office

00:35:01.080 or a hospital and catch

00:35:03.240 COVID from a medical

00:35:04.240 worker who had declined

00:35:05.600 to get vaccinated, not

00:35:06.940 because they're among the

00:35:07.660 tiny minority people who

00:35:08.720 can't actually tolerate

00:35:09.820 vaccines, but because

00:35:11.240 they'd spent too much

00:35:11.920 time on Facebook or

00:35:13.100 YouTube learning from

00:35:14.840 RFK Jr. or Naomi Wolf or

00:35:17.140 some other confabulator

00:35:18.340 that vaccines are

00:35:19.900 dangerous.

00:35:21.160 Of course, this was on the

00:35:22.060 assumption that the

00:35:22.660 COVID vaccines would

00:35:23.720 reduce transmission, and

00:35:25.420 that assumption eroded with

00:35:26.640 the emergence of Omicron in

00:35:28.140 the fall of 2021 and the

00:35:29.580 winter of 2022.

00:35:31.160 But it was still a valid

00:35:32.600 assumption to a

00:35:33.760 considerable degree when

00:35:35.340 the more dangerous delta

00:35:36.380 strain was ascendant.

00:35:38.120 And I'll return to that

00:35:38.960 point.

00:35:39.900 My understanding at the

00:35:40.900 time, and it's my

00:35:42.080 understanding of that

00:35:42.940 period still, was that

00:35:44.660 while the vaccines weren't

00:35:45.720 working as well as we'd

00:35:46.640 hoped, they still reduced

00:35:48.500 transmission.

00:35:49.800 And while natural

00:35:50.720 immunity did too,

00:35:52.520 natural immunity plus

00:35:53.800 being vaccinated was

00:35:55.100 better still.

00:35:56.400 There's this notion that

00:35:57.480 has spread and become

00:35:58.340 indelible right of

00:35:59.560 center.

00:36:00.560 They promised us one

00:36:01.580 thing with the vaccines,

00:36:02.880 no transmission, but

00:36:04.820 that was a lie.

00:36:06.580 But that's just not

00:36:08.100 true.

00:36:09.520 Yes, some politicians

00:36:10.900 and public health

00:36:11.640 officials spoke too

00:36:13.760 categorically and

00:36:14.920 sloppily, saying that

00:36:16.380 if you get vaccinated,

00:36:17.300 you won't get COVID.

00:36:18.220 Full stop.

00:36:19.480 But it was always a

00:36:20.620 story of increased and

00:36:21.720 decreased probabilities.

00:36:24.000 And until Omicron, it

00:36:25.620 was totally valid to

00:36:27.020 claim that the vaccines

00:36:28.160 reduced transmission.

00:36:30.200 And because of our

00:36:31.100 politics, the United

00:36:32.700 States did worse than

00:36:33.880 its peers once vaccines

00:36:35.620 became available.

00:36:36.840 We got them first, and

00:36:38.340 then many millions of

00:36:39.240 Americans decided not to

00:36:40.380 take them, or decided to

00:36:41.880 stop after only one dose.

00:36:44.140 While I didn't support

00:36:45.160 mandates generally, one

00:36:46.800 thing that confused

00:36:47.420 people, I think, was that

00:36:48.360 I did support the freedom

00:36:49.560 of private businesses to

00:36:51.380 require their employees to

00:36:52.640 be vaccinated.

00:36:53.600 But that was not really a

00:36:54.720 position I was taking on

00:36:55.660 vaccines.

00:36:56.760 It's totally of a piece

00:36:57.680 with my free market views

00:36:59.120 about what private

00:36:59.900 businesses should be able

00:37:00.840 to do.

00:37:01.900 In my view, if you open a

00:37:03.340 restaurant or any other

00:37:04.260 business, no one has the

00:37:05.920 right to work there.

00:37:08.220 I think you should be able

00:37:09.140 to open a restaurant where

00:37:10.960 all your employees must be

00:37:12.840 amputees.

00:37:14.180 So if someone who is not an

00:37:15.400 amputee applies for the job,

00:37:17.260 you should be able to say,

00:37:18.680 well, you seem great, but

00:37:19.900 there's no job for you here

00:37:20.840 unless you cut your arm off.

00:37:23.040 So yes, I think businesses

00:37:24.220 should have been free to

00:37:25.060 require that their employees

00:37:26.140 be vaccinated, especially if

00:37:28.040 they wanted to be able to

00:37:28.720 advertise that all their

00:37:29.780 employees were vaccinated

00:37:30.840 when that would have

00:37:31.620 mattered.

00:37:32.640 Of course, it no longer

00:37:33.700 does.

00:37:35.000 This free market view also

00:37:36.340 confuses people on the topic

00:37:37.400 of free speech and

00:37:38.400 censorship.

00:37:39.560 Here I tend to take the

00:37:40.400 side of the entrepreneur

00:37:41.200 who might be starting a

00:37:42.220 social media platform.

00:37:44.080 Should someone starting a

00:37:44.960 new social media platform

00:37:46.040 be forced by the

00:37:47.800 government to publish the

00:37:49.320 conspiratorial ravings of

00:37:50.720 someone like Alex Jones?

00:37:52.520 No.

00:37:53.660 You should be able to start

00:37:54.520 any social media platform

00:37:55.720 you want.

00:37:56.840 Not letting Alex Jones on

00:37:58.140 your platform, as not even

00:37:59.960 Elon does, is not a

00:38:02.160 violation of his First

00:38:03.280 Amendment rights.

00:38:04.800 The First Amendment limits

00:38:06.160 what the government gets to

00:38:07.880 do.

00:38:08.720 I think the terms of service

00:38:09.980 of private platforms should

00:38:11.880 be whatever their owners and

00:38:13.120 employees want them to be,

00:38:14.800 which means I think Alex Jones

00:38:16.120 should be able to start his

00:38:16.980 own social network where he

00:38:18.380 can talk to as many crazy

00:38:19.380 people as he wants.

00:38:21.120 Someone recently sent me

00:38:21.940 another podcast clip on the

00:38:23.200 issue of censorship.

00:38:24.000 It was from Brett Weinstein

00:38:25.680 again, talking to a

00:38:27.840 previous podcast guest of

00:38:29.060 mine, Michael Schellenberger,

00:38:30.820 another person who appears

00:38:32.220 to have lost the plot, or

00:38:34.380 rather now sees plots

00:38:35.480 everywhere.

00:38:36.980 I wind up listening to about

00:38:38.260 30 minutes of this podcast,

00:38:40.400 so I'm reasonably sure I

00:38:41.580 understand what Brett and

00:38:42.460 Michael were saying in

00:38:43.220 context.

00:38:44.620 Brett thought it highly

00:38:45.840 suspicious that Schellenberger

00:38:47.760 had found himself on a

00:38:48.860 podcast with me and Rene

00:38:50.820 DiResta, because they both

00:38:52.640 think Rene is a CIA mole of

00:38:54.460 some kind, and the linchpin of

00:38:56.200 what they call the censorship

00:38:57.380 industrial complex.

00:38:59.340 Brett also found it highly

00:39:00.280 suspicious that Rene got onto

00:39:01.620 Joe Rogan's podcast.

00:39:03.160 He seemed to be suggesting

00:39:04.020 that she's the tip of the

00:39:05.400 spear of some sinister

00:39:06.620 influence campaign.

00:39:08.760 Well, Brett, I can clear up

00:39:09.680 part of this mystery for you.

00:39:12.280 Schellenberger found himself

00:39:13.340 on a podcast with Rene

00:39:14.540 DiResta and me because I

00:39:16.580 invited both of them to appear

00:39:18.240 on that podcast, my podcast,

00:39:20.820 along with Barry Weiss,

00:39:22.720 because I thought the four of

00:39:23.600 us could have a good

00:39:24.220 conversation about the so-called

00:39:25.660 Twitter files.

00:39:27.260 And Rene got on Joe Rogan's

00:39:28.480 podcast because I recommended

00:39:30.420 that he have her on.

00:39:31.980 So, the really vexing question

00:39:33.860 is how did Rene first get to

00:39:36.160 me?

00:39:37.460 Well, I hope you're sitting

00:39:38.940 down, Brett, because I met

00:39:40.920 Rene through your brother,

00:39:42.460 Eric.

00:39:43.520 He first introduced me to

00:39:44.840 Tristan Harris, who introduced

00:39:46.300 me to Rene, but Eric also

00:39:47.980 connected me again with Rene

00:39:49.140 directly through a small

00:39:50.680 conference he organized,

00:39:52.260 which I believe you also

00:39:53.160 attended, though I could be

00:39:54.440 wrong about that.

00:39:56.040 So, Brett, on this particular

00:39:57.800 conspiracy, the call is coming

00:40:00.200 from inside the house.

00:40:02.920 Now, do I think censorship and

00:40:04.440 the stifling of legitimate

00:40:05.460 debate are issues worth

00:40:06.880 worrying about?

00:40:07.880 Of course.

00:40:09.520 So, I understand why so many

00:40:10.500 people were hopeful when Elon

00:40:11.640 bought Twitter and vowed to

00:40:13.380 create something like political

00:40:14.440 balance on the platform.

00:40:15.920 However, we need to support

00:40:18.060 free expression and debate

00:40:20.100 while also addressing the very

00:40:22.020 real crisis of misinformation

00:40:23.480 and disinformation that is

00:40:25.700 undermining public trust and

00:40:27.280 political cooperation across the

00:40:28.760 globe.

00:40:29.800 There are tensions and trade-offs

00:40:31.560 for smart, well-intentioned

00:40:33.480 people to discuss.

00:40:35.540 Buying Twitter, firing 80% of the

00:40:38.400 staff, baselessly accusing your

00:40:40.580 former head of trust and safety of

00:40:42.280 being a pedophile, deleting the

00:40:44.280 accounts of real journalists, and

00:40:46.180 raising the profiles of

00:40:47.380 conspiracists and white

00:40:48.580 supremacists, and then

00:40:50.040 threatening to sue the

00:40:50.900 Anti-Defamation League when it

00:40:52.500 complains about the most

00:40:53.340 nauseating eruption of

00:40:54.640 anti-Semitism to be seen in a

00:40:56.140 generation.

00:40:57.100 This is not how a serious person

00:40:59.140 would address these issues.

00:41:01.620 Okay, back to COVID.

00:41:03.660 As I was saying, after the

00:41:04.560 vaccines arrived, I became much

00:41:06.880 less worried about COVID, as

00:41:08.480 seemed rational.

00:41:09.920 In particular, I was much less

00:41:11.280 worried that I or my kids would

00:41:13.120 kill my mother with it, and I

00:41:14.920 became much more worried about

00:41:16.100 the social pathologies I was

00:41:17.920 witnessing in reaction to the

00:41:19.500 pandemic, and to the vaccines, and

00:41:21.900 the attendant shattering of our

00:41:23.240 politics.

00:41:24.480 What worried me was that we were

00:41:26.400 utterly failing to come together as

00:41:28.380 a society in the face of what was a

00:41:30.460 fairly modest challenge, all things

00:41:33.080 considered.

00:41:34.300 It could have been so much worse.

00:41:37.000 It will, one day, be so much worse.

00:41:39.920 My concern about pandemics, whether

00:41:42.900 natural or engineered, long

00:41:45.300 precedes COVID, and this problem is

00:41:47.900 not going away, and worrying about it

00:41:50.580 is, unfortunately, all too rational.

00:41:54.580 Responding to an emerging pandemic is

00:41:57.180 something that we simply must get

00:41:58.960 better at.

00:42:00.200 Honestly, it's in my top two concerns

00:42:02.300 at this point, dealing with nuclear

00:42:04.480 risk and future pandemics.

00:42:06.780 At a global scale, those are priorities

00:42:08.760 one and two.

00:42:10.340 Of course, I say this as a non-expert

00:42:12.040 in either domain, but I've been

00:42:14.520 paying attention to what the experts

00:42:16.500 have said on these topics for at

00:42:18.960 least 30 years.

00:42:20.740 Anyway, once we got vaccines, the

00:42:23.260 loss of trust in our institutions,

00:42:25.520 again, much of it warranted, is what

00:42:28.020 worried me, and that is what I've

00:42:30.140 spent a lot of time talking about on

00:42:31.500 this podcast.

00:42:32.420 I have not spent the last few years

00:42:34.560 worrying about COVID.

00:42:36.280 I've spent them worrying about the

00:42:37.740 fragmentation of our society, and the

00:42:40.600 main concern about what I did or

00:42:42.340 didn't say during the height of the

00:42:43.640 pandemic appears to be this.

00:42:46.160 Once the vaccine story changed, I

00:42:48.980 never acknowledged it.

00:42:50.280 The original claim was that the

00:42:51.840 vaccine would prevent transmission,

00:42:53.900 and therefore everyone had a civic

00:42:55.500 responsibility to take it to help us

00:42:57.760 achieve herd immunity and protect

00:42:59.740 vulnerable people who can't take

00:43:01.160 vaccines.

00:43:02.080 And then when it became obvious that

00:43:03.620 the vaccines were not preventing

00:43:05.080 infection and transmission, the

00:43:07.220 ethical basis for this argument

00:43:08.580 evaporated.

00:43:09.780 It was no longer rational or ethical

00:43:11.400 to pressure people to get

00:43:12.420 vaccinated, much less force them to,

00:43:14.880 because they should have been free

00:43:15.760 to make a medical choice that only

00:43:17.120 affected themselves.

00:43:18.860 There was also the additional fact

00:43:20.060 that many millions of people were

00:43:21.100 catching and recovering from COVID

00:43:22.620 all the while, and therefore

00:43:24.060 acquiring natural immunity.

00:43:25.960 And perversely, natural immunity

00:43:27.720 wasn't acknowledged.

00:43:29.300 So we had the spectacle of 19-year-old

00:43:31.100 college students who had just

00:43:32.840 recovered from COVID, unable to

00:43:34.800 return to campus until they had

00:43:36.140 been vaccinated.

00:43:37.380 And there were many other

00:43:38.120 permutations of that sort of

00:43:39.360 thing.

00:43:40.580 Well, on the natural immunity

00:43:42.200 piece, right, I've already said

00:43:43.940 that it never made sense to me

00:43:45.040 to ignore it.

00:43:46.440 I think natural immunity should

00:43:47.620 have always counted, though given

00:43:49.480 the cultural resistance to the

00:43:50.860 vaccine, it probably would have

00:43:52.600 been a bureaucratic nightmare to

00:43:54.180 try to count it.

00:43:55.760 Millions of people would have

00:43:56.940 probably lied about having just

00:43:58.600 recovered from COVID.

00:44:00.060 But leaving that aside, it always

00:44:01.940 struck me as dishonest and

00:44:03.280 offensive to disregard

00:44:04.760 natural immunity.

00:44:06.640 However, and this is a much

00:44:07.840 more important point, all of

00:44:09.960 this only became a big deal

00:44:11.700 and contributed to a politically

00:44:13.500 toxic situation because of the

00:44:16.400 background concern on the part

00:44:18.400 of millions and millions of

00:44:19.580 people that there was something

00:44:21.060 especially scary about the mRNA

00:44:23.040 vaccines.

00:44:24.360 And strangely, the people who felt

00:44:25.540 that didn't resort to the other

00:44:27.180 vaccines, like the Johnson &

00:44:28.840 Johnson and AstraZeneca, which

00:44:31.040 ironically appear to have had

00:44:32.020 more complications than the mRNA

00:44:33.280 vaccines, or the Chinese or

00:44:35.300 Russian vaccines that were based

00:44:37.280 on genuinely old technology.

00:44:39.520 People were worried about COVID

00:44:41.180 vaccines in a way that they

00:44:43.000 weren't worried about other

00:44:44.140 vaccines.

00:44:45.020 And in many cases, they were

00:44:46.480 worried about COVID vaccines in a

00:44:48.540 way that they weren't worried

00:44:49.520 about COVID itself.

00:44:52.040 Millions of people were willing to

00:44:53.980 make huge social and even

00:44:55.560 material sacrifices to not get a

00:44:58.460 COVID vaccine.

00:45:00.060 Again, even the non-mRNA variants.

00:45:03.760 Why was that?

00:45:05.620 It's pretty strange.

00:45:07.960 For instance, I've had several

00:45:09.020 friends who've recently gone on

00:45:10.960 trips to East Africa to go on

00:45:13.260 safari.

00:45:14.180 To make a trip like that, you

00:45:15.480 routinely have to get a bunch of

00:45:16.900 vaccines for diseases that you

00:45:18.500 might never even have heard of,

00:45:20.380 like yellow fever.

00:45:21.820 People do this without even

00:45:23.760 thinking about it, just because

00:45:25.500 they feel like going on a

00:45:26.580 safari.

00:45:27.840 When Joe Rogan caught COVID

00:45:29.260 early on, not having been

00:45:30.960 vaccinated, someone recommended

00:45:32.680 that he get monoclonal antibodies

00:45:34.120 immediately.

00:45:35.300 Many people did that.

00:45:37.000 Why were they unwilling to get

00:45:38.440 the vaccine, but more than happy

00:45:40.180 to let someone stick a needle in

00:45:41.400 their arm to give them

00:45:42.180 monoclonal antibodies, which is a

00:45:44.180 medicine that was far less

00:45:45.540 widely tested than the vaccines?

00:45:48.540 I can understand why someone who

00:45:50.760 caught COVID and then recovered

00:45:52.540 didn't want to be pointlessly

00:45:54.800 pressured into getting

00:45:55.720 vaccinated, but I do not

00:45:57.780 understand why someone who

00:45:59.640 hadn't yet had COVID, while we

00:46:01.780 were losing 15 to 25,000 people

00:46:04.300 a week to it, why that person

00:46:06.580 didn't want to get vaccinated.

00:46:09.020 That person, of which there were

00:46:11.120 millions, I believe was being

00:46:13.300 spooked by a very noisy public

00:46:15.200 conversation, born of a breakdown

00:46:17.220 of trust in our institutions, the

00:46:19.360 outrage machine of social media,

00:46:21.700 where lots of scared people were

00:46:23.440 doing their own research, and an

00:46:25.540 anti-vax cult was seizing the

00:46:27.420 moment to spread misinformation, and

00:46:29.620 they were also being spooked by

00:46:30.900 several of my fellow podcasters, who

00:46:33.140 thought it was their responsibility

00:46:34.300 to platform any dissenting voice that

00:46:36.460 seemed remotely credible, at least on

00:46:38.540 paper.

00:46:39.600 I simply did not want to contribute to

00:46:42.340 that noise.

00:46:43.480 It felt irresponsible, because my view of

00:46:46.360 the research, again, as a non-expert,

00:46:49.080 suggested that it was dangerous.

00:46:50.340 So I did just a few podcasts on

00:46:53.380 COVID, and that's where I left it.

00:46:55.960 And then I wasn't really paying

00:46:56.980 attention the way everyone who was

00:46:58.680 worried about the vaccines was

00:47:00.320 paying attention, month after month

00:47:02.660 after month.

00:47:03.680 I certainly didn't listen to the

00:47:05.080 hundred or more podcasts that

00:47:06.400 Brett Weinstein did on the topic.

00:47:08.320 I might do a proper post-mortem on

00:47:10.180 the pandemic at some point, and if I

00:47:12.000 do that, I'll bring on a contrarian

00:47:13.540 medical voice.

00:47:14.620 But despite how many errors we made,

00:47:17.180 I trust the mainstream consensus on

00:47:19.580 most questions about COVID and

00:47:21.300 vaccines, at least to a first

00:47:23.280 approximation, which is how I

00:47:25.360 approach another very polarizing

00:47:26.640 topic, climate change.

00:47:28.540 There are a few caveats here, but I

00:47:31.040 believe that the mainstream picture

00:47:32.820 of COVID is far more likely to be

00:47:35.300 correct than the fringe picture

00:47:37.280 pushed ad nauseum by many people in

00:47:39.600 alternative media.

00:47:41.280 And I'll give you an analogy, which

00:47:42.840 I've deployed in various ways many

00:47:44.320 times before.

00:47:46.160 Consider what it's like to fly on an

00:47:47.720 airplane.

00:47:48.040 I mean, the reason why being on an

00:47:50.200 airplane is often such a good

00:47:52.060 analogy is that almost everyone has

00:47:54.000 done this.

00:47:55.140 And as much as we do it and seek to

00:47:57.400 normalize it, it never ceases to be an

00:47:59.920 extreme situation.

00:48:01.780 There's an extraordinary degree of

00:48:03.120 trust and cooperation required to make

00:48:05.640 flying on a commercial airliner a

00:48:07.700 normal experience.

00:48:09.260 You're putting your very life and

00:48:11.420 perhaps the lives of your children

00:48:12.920 into the hands of two pilots you have

00:48:15.420 never met, the pilots themselves are

00:48:17.940 entirely dependent upon the

00:48:19.240 competence of the mechanics who

00:48:20.620 service the plane, and on the

00:48:22.580 moment-to-moment attention of air

00:48:23.960 traffic controllers, half of whom are

00:48:26.140 probably checking Instagram on their

00:48:27.740 phones.

00:48:28.980 For flying on an airplane to be

00:48:30.840 remotely okay, you have to assume

00:48:33.320 quite a lot about the world, and about

00:48:35.320 the competence of other people, and

00:48:37.140 about the incentives that govern their

00:48:38.840 behavior, and about the redundancy of

00:48:41.100 systems put in place to ensure that

00:48:42.660 everything goes according to plan.

00:48:44.720 If you look too closely at this

00:48:47.020 situation, you can begin to think,

00:48:49.260 what the fuck am I doing?

00:48:51.160 This is crazy.

00:48:52.720 I'm going to get into this tube filled

00:48:54.940 with explosive liquids and gases, and

00:48:57.540 obediently sit side by side with

00:48:59.440 hundreds of other people, and let some

00:49:01.600 frat boys and sorority girls who were

00:49:04.300 probably out partying last night take me

00:49:06.180 up to 35,000 feet, and keep me there for

00:49:08.800 hours, over ground or water where there

00:49:11.160 may be no safe place to land for

00:49:12.780 thousands of miles, and if the poorly

00:49:15.060 paid union workers maintaining this

00:49:16.960 plane didn't do their job, something

00:49:18.820 might break loose, and we could all find

00:49:20.880 ourselves suddenly hurtling toward the

00:49:22.580 earth, and we're running this risk

00:49:24.780 alongside thousands of other planes

00:49:26.600 flown by other all-too-human pilots,

00:49:29.840 risking the lives of thousands upon

00:49:31.660 thousands of other helpless people, and

00:49:33.720 no one has a fucking parachute?

00:49:35.480 This is bonkers.

00:49:37.860 And of course, occasionally, our worst

00:49:39.580 fears are realized.

00:49:41.680 It doesn't happen often, but when it

00:49:43.440 does, millions of people notice.

00:49:46.560 Occasionally, planes crash, due to

00:49:48.800 mechanical failures, or pilot error, or

00:49:51.800 extreme weather, or bird strikes, or

00:49:55.200 bombs placed by terrorists, or even

00:49:57.900 suicidal hijackers or pilots themselves

00:50:00.480 who have deliberately crashed their

00:50:02.200 planes and murdered everyone on board.

00:50:04.520 As scary as this is, these things almost

00:50:07.760 never happen, because most people are not

00:50:10.280 eager to die, and we have systems in

00:50:12.800 place to make flying very safe.

00:50:15.200 Is it as safe as it could possibly be?

00:50:17.780 Absolutely not.

00:50:19.580 A plane ticket could cost one million

00:50:21.660 dollars, and for that price, I am sure an

00:50:25.080 airline could provide even more safety.

00:50:27.620 But given economic reality, and our

00:50:30.580 general need, or even just desire, to

00:50:32.980 travel to places we can't easily reach

00:50:35.120 by walking or driving, we have a system

00:50:38.440 that most people judge to be good

00:50:40.920 enough.

00:50:42.380 Now, good enough just means that most of

00:50:45.640 us are willing to fly.

00:50:47.620 Most of us can get on a plane without

00:50:49.600 worrying that we might die in a ball of

00:50:51.760 fire at any moment.

00:50:53.560 It does not mean that if you do some

00:50:55.620 digging, you won't find evidence of

00:50:57.840 human stupidity and greed creating risk

00:51:00.480 that shouldn't exist and can seem worth

00:51:03.740 worrying about. It does not mean that

00:51:06.760 things couldn't be better. It does not

00:51:08.760 mean things shouldn't be better. It does

00:51:11.000 not mean that the Boeing 737 MAX fiasco

00:51:13.740 wasn't a real fiasco. It does not mean

00:51:16.960 that the person who is blogging at this

00:51:18.560 moment about the unacceptable rate of

00:51:20.120 near misses at our most crowded

00:51:21.640 airports is wrong. And occasionally you

00:51:25.220 do hear about something that really

00:51:26.660 should freak you out. I remember years

00:51:29.460 ago, probably 20 years ago, there was a

00:51:32.500 report I think on 60 Minutes about there

00:51:35.140 being a thriving black market in

00:51:37.520 counterfeit airplane parts. And people

00:51:39.920 were making cheap and defective parts

00:51:42.220 for airplane engines. And these were

00:51:44.940 finding their way into commercial

00:51:46.400 airliners. This made me want to kill

00:51:48.540 somebody. How on earth could that be

00:51:51.080 happening? It's totally intolerable. But

00:51:54.640 what was I going to do about it? Was I

00:51:56.840 going to devote my life to solving this

00:51:58.440 problem? No. And I was going to continue

00:52:01.380 to fly because there was no real

00:52:03.580 alternative. And in fact, I just checked

00:52:06.640 and this is still a problem. Right? As

00:52:10.180 recently as fucking yesterday, United

00:52:14.440 Airlines reported finding bogus parts in

00:52:17.080 some of its engines. I absolutely see how

00:52:20.840 someone could obsess on this and decide

00:52:23.260 that flying just isn't worth the risk. But

00:52:26.260 the truth is, flying has been remarkably

00:52:29.180 safe for as long as I've been alive. And

00:52:32.620 though it is amazing to see that this

00:52:33.800 problem still exists, the truth is, is

00:52:36.220 that I more or less trust that people

00:52:38.480 much closer to this problem than I am will

00:52:41.600 eventually do something about it. The

00:52:43.780 pilots who themselves don't want to die

00:52:46.060 will do something about it. The

00:52:48.060 regulators who also have to fly will do

00:52:50.860 something about it. The airline

00:52:52.800 executives who don't want to be dragged

00:52:54.720 before Congress and told that they have

00:52:56.340 blood on their hands will do something

00:52:58.360 about it. Generally speaking, we can

00:53:01.260 rely on most people most of the time to

00:53:04.260 not be homicidal or suicidal assholes. And

00:53:08.240 the point is, we must rely on that in order

00:53:11.600 to live anything like normal lives. We

00:53:14.740 have to trust people. And even more, we

00:53:17.080 have to trust institutions and the systems

00:53:19.540 we have built to run them. Don't get me

00:53:21.900 wrong. I'm all for improving our systems

00:53:24.400 and institutions. I want whistleblowers

00:53:27.160 at Boeing or Airbus to tell us what's

00:53:29.520 wrong over there. I just don't want them

00:53:31.980 doing it from seat 15A when we're at

00:53:34.640 30,000 feet. This is the crucial

00:53:37.380 difference. Are we on the plane or are we

00:53:40.260 in the airport lounge? This is the point

00:53:43.120 of the analogy. In my view, the pandemic

00:53:45.400 was very much like all of us getting on an

00:53:47.380 airplane together. And it was not an

00:53:49.380 uncomplicated flight. It was one of those

00:53:51.560 flights where you're delayed for bad

00:53:53.000 weather, right? And you wind up sitting on

00:53:54.840 the tarmac for hours. And some people on

00:53:57.280 the plane want to get off because they're

00:53:58.800 now scared. So the plane taxis back to the

00:54:01.920 gate, losing its place in line and delaying

00:54:04.280 the flight further for everyone. And now

00:54:06.440 you have a choice about whether or not to

00:54:07.940 get off, right? By analogy, this might be

00:54:10.040 the question of whether you want to get

00:54:11.080 the vaccine or not. There is some

00:54:13.540 uncertainty. In fact, while you were

00:54:15.320 sitting on the tarmac, you watched a

00:54:16.820 YouTube video of Brett Weinstein, who told

00:54:19.160 you, not inaccurately, that most plane

00:54:21.800 crashes happen because of bad weather. And

00:54:24.620 no one can tell you that this

00:54:26.040 thunderstorm, the one that's delaying this

00:54:28.200 particular flight, won't add some risk.

00:54:31.520 What should you do? After all, this is a

00:54:33.780 forced choice. You need to get home to

00:54:35.580 your family. You could decide to drive

00:54:38.160 home, but the drive is 2,000 miles. And

00:54:41.740 the guy next to you who has a degree in

00:54:43.140 statistics from an Ivy League university

00:54:44.860 assures you that driving that distance

00:54:47.020 is guaranteed to be more dangerous than

00:54:49.240 flying in almost any weather. But wait a

00:54:52.000 minute. Joe Rogan has just released a

00:54:54.660 podcast where he's talking to an

00:54:56.540 engineer with an impressive head of

00:54:58.600 gray hair. And this guy claims to have

00:55:00.780 invented the engine used on the very

00:55:02.960 model of airplane you're now flying on.

00:55:05.140 And what's more, he was denied an

00:55:06.480 engineering award that really should have

00:55:08.600 been his. But now he's saying that the

00:55:10.480 entire concept of the engine was

00:55:13.120 flawed. And it was never supposed to be

00:55:15.040 put into production in the first place.

00:55:16.680 It was just a concept engine. And it

00:55:19.240 doesn't matter how many times these

00:55:20.360 planes have flown in the last year. They

00:55:22.040 should all be grounded. There's been a

00:55:23.860 conspiracy between all the airlines not

00:55:26.140 to admit this because they'd lose

00:55:27.820 billions of dollars. Are you fucking

00:55:29.960 kidding me? I think you get where I'm

00:55:32.800 going. Is the analogy perfect? Probably

00:55:36.260 not. But my point is, there are

00:55:38.900 situations in which there is no

00:55:40.580 substitute for trust in institutions

00:55:43.100 and procedures and aligned

00:55:45.820 incentives. If I'm sitting on the

00:55:48.180 tarmac, wondering if it's too

00:55:49.940 dangerous to take off in this

00:55:51.460 particular rainstorm, I need to trust

00:55:54.220 that the pilots are wondering the same

00:55:56.380 thing and relying on good radar

00:55:58.560 information and other tools. Tools which

00:56:01.140 are getting better every year, not

00:56:03.080 worse. The moment that trust breaks

00:56:06.160 down, the moment I'm asked to consider

00:56:08.540 whether the pilot might be suicidal, the

00:56:11.180 moment Jordan Peterson tells me that

00:56:12.920 this particular airline has stopped

00:56:14.880 x-raying the luggage of Muslims, even

00:56:16.980 if they come straight out of an al-Qaeda

00:56:18.380 training camp, because it's now

00:56:19.940 considered a microaggression and

00:56:21.580 everyone on the airline has gone woke,

00:56:23.840 normal life becomes impossible. And

00:56:28.360 throughout the pandemic, my goal was to

00:56:30.300 help make normal life possible again, and

00:56:34.360 to not add to the cacophony of voices that

00:56:37.140 we're making that harder rather than

00:56:39.060 easier. Yes, there are situations where

00:56:42.360 sunlight is the best disinfectant, and

00:56:45.000 we should talk about absolutely

00:56:46.280 everything for as long as it takes. And

00:56:48.960 there are situations where we all just

00:56:51.280 have to cooperate, guided by the best

00:56:53.800 information available. So no, once we've

00:56:57.140 taxied onto the runway, and the engines

00:56:59.440 have begun to roar, no, I don't think

00:57:01.740 that is the moment to bring RFK Jr. over

00:57:04.040 the PA system to just ask questions. When

00:57:08.400 we're already at 30,000 feet, and there

00:57:10.720 really is no alternative but to land the

00:57:13.000 plane safely, I don't want the guy beside

00:57:15.360 me to start taking a poll of the

00:57:16.960 passengers to see whether we still trust

00:57:19.260 the pilots. Being on an airplane is not a

00:57:22.820 normal situation, and neither was the

00:57:25.300 pandemic. And the truth is, I mostly dealt

00:57:28.000 with this by concentrating on other things.

00:57:30.300 Again, I only did a few podcasts, spaced out

00:57:33.020 by many months, generally recommending that

00:57:35.560 people get vaccinated, whereas I did many

00:57:37.800 podcasts worrying about the fragmentation

00:57:39.880 of society. And if you are still critical of

00:57:42.920 my views about COVID, and you think the

00:57:44.940 vaccines were a bad idea, take a moment to

00:57:47.680 answer the following questions, because we

00:57:49.480 probably have very different beliefs in

00:57:51.000 our heads. How many people have died from

00:57:53.920 COVID in the United States? Do you know what

00:57:56.720 the official total is? I'll tell you in a

00:57:59.040 moment, but what number do you have in mind? Do

00:58:02.100 you know the official number, but just think

00:58:03.580 it's wildly exaggerated, because we didn't

00:58:05.620 distinguish dying from COVID and dying with

00:58:08.080 COVID? Do you think it was exaggerated by

00:58:10.380 20%, 50%, 90%? Do you not even have a number in

00:58:16.640 mind? Do you just think we have no idea what

00:58:19.480 happened? Until proven otherwise, I think the

00:58:24.180 official number is probably approximately

00:58:27.300 correct. What is that number? The CDC currently

00:58:31.660 puts the total U.S. deaths at a little over

00:58:34.440 1.1 million. Do I have to apologize to anyone for

00:58:40.000 thinking that that number is approximately

00:58:42.140 correct? What do I mean by approximate? Well, would I

00:58:45.500 be astounded if it was off by 25%? No. Would I be

00:58:50.420 astounded if it was off by an order of magnitude?

00:58:52.820 Yes, I would. If only 100,000 people died from

00:58:57.700 COVID in the U.S., the world is not the way I think

00:59:01.320 it is. Incidentally, at least two of the guests I

00:59:04.780 had on this podcast in the first month of the

00:59:07.000 pandemic estimated that we would have something

00:59:09.280 like a million deaths in the U.S. before the dust

00:59:12.300 settled. This was at a time when Elon Musk was

00:59:15.500 telling people that COVID would quickly become a cold

00:59:17.560 and that basically no one would die from it. So

00:59:20.560 perhaps it's Elon who should apologize for

00:59:23.220 misleading people about COVID. In any case, until

00:59:26.360 proven otherwise, I accept the CDC data and believe

00:59:29.940 that we had something like 1 million deaths from

00:59:33.040 COVID in the U.S. Next question. How many of those

00:59:37.800 deaths were of people under age 65? Many people

00:59:41.300 imagine that more or less everyone who died was 80

00:59:43.780 years old. Take a moment to come up with a number.

00:59:47.640 Let's stipulate for the sake of argument that a

00:59:50.120 million people died in the U.S. How many do you

00:59:53.100 think were under age 65? I reached out to an expert

00:59:57.480 at Johns Hopkins for a sanity check on these numbers.

01:00:00.840 I won't name him because I didn't ask him if I could

01:00:03.000 publish his responses, but I asked him the very

01:00:05.300 questions I'm asking you now. The current answer

01:00:08.760 seems to be that around 25% were under 65, so

01:00:13.460 something like a quarter of a million people. The

01:00:16.200 vast majority of these would have been over 50. There

01:00:18.880 were some thousands of younger people who did die

01:00:21.100 from COVID, but the majority of those under 65 would

01:00:24.960 have been 50 or above. So my age, Elon's age, Joe

01:00:29.520 Rogan's age, Brett Weinstein's age. Not that old, really.

01:00:34.380 You would think that losing a quarter of a million people

01:00:36.640 in this cohort would be a pretty big deal. Oh, but of

01:00:40.600 course, many of them were fat or had other comorbidities.

01:00:44.740 Everyone in the anti-vax and vaccine-hesitant world seems to

01:00:49.360 emphasize this point, as though it were somehow morally or

01:00:52.140 politically irrelevant. You realize that about half of

01:00:55.240 American society is obese, and a person can't suddenly lose 70

01:00:59.700 pounds at the first sign of a pandemic. I don't actually know

01:01:02.600 what percentage of those in my cohort who died were overweight or

01:01:06.060 had other comorbidities. But you can be sure that some fit and

01:01:09.700 healthy people died too. And I find this fixation on health and

01:01:14.040 fitness in opposition to vaccines to be pretty silly. There's

01:01:18.780 something cultic about it. It reminds me of the cult that has

01:01:22.440 grown up around guns. Don't get me wrong, I like health and

01:01:26.040 fitness, and I even own guns. But an obsession with these things,

01:01:30.740 the cult of self-sufficiency that surrounds them, the notion that

01:01:34.460 each individual can fully protect himself against harm and

01:01:38.460 be absolved of having any stake in the health of society at

01:01:41.240 large. The sense that we don't need functioning institutions and

01:01:45.220 widespread social trust and a government that actually works and

01:01:49.340 a citizenry that isn't totally atomized. The idea that we can

01:01:52.620 all just go it alone with our ice baths and our vitamins and our

01:01:56.380 zone 2 cardio. This is a delusion. And there are viruses that

01:02:01.020 don't even slightly care about how much time you spend in the gym.

01:02:04.460 Or whether you eat only organic food. The 1918 flu killed somewhere

01:02:09.040 between 50 and 100 million people. Mostly young and healthy people

01:02:13.160 between the ages of 20 and 40. As far as I know, the reasons why it

01:02:16.920 preferentially killed the young are not completely understood.

01:02:20.140 It could have been the case that a so-called healthy immune system

01:02:22.640 was actually worse because it set a person up for a severe inflammatory

01:02:26.560 response known as a cytokine storm. Perhaps there are other reasons,

01:02:30.560 right? But this is just to say that staying fit and eating only grass-fed

01:02:36.180 beef isn't a strategy for dealing with pandemics in general. And all of the

01:02:42.440 anti-vax bullshit that has been spun up around this variable could well get a

01:02:46.720 lot of people killed next time. We need a government and institutions that

01:02:51.900 work. We need to be able to trust public health

01:02:54.860 messaging in an emergency. We need an information ecosystem that doesn't

01:02:59.240 amplify baseless conspiracies and lies. Whatever is broken here needs to be

01:03:05.260 fixed. It was my opinion that throughout the

01:03:09.200 pandemic, heterodox thinkers like Elon and Joe and Brett were not making that

01:03:16.020 project easier. Question three, how many lives have been saved by the COVID

01:03:22.740 vaccines in the U.S.? This is actually a question I had no prior intuitions

01:03:27.320 about, but I have since learned that the current model suggests around three

01:03:31.520 million. Just think about that for a moment. It is quite possible that without

01:03:36.720 vaccines, three million more people would have died from COVID in the U.S. If

01:03:43.220 that's remotely true, should anyone be apologizing for strongly recommending

01:03:50.440 that people get vaccinated? Question four, how many people died

01:03:56.040 unnecessarily in the U.S. because they didn't get vaccinated? In other words, how

01:04:00.800 many people did vaccine hesitancy kill? Well, that number is currently believed to

01:04:05.580 be around 300,000. Now, of course, most of those would be in the over 65 cohort or

01:04:11.620 have other comorbidities. Again, put whatever air bars around these numbers

01:04:15.840 you want. It seems rational to believe that they are

01:04:20.200 somewhere in the ballpark. Not all air traffic controllers are

01:04:24.960 smoking crack. Not all the mechanics at Boeing are using the wrong rivets in the

01:04:29.800 fuselage of their planes. Some things are broken, but not everything is. So until

01:04:36.980 proven otherwise, I believe that approximately 300,000 people died in the U.S. who

01:04:43.420 didn't need to die because they came to believe that the COVID vaccines were more

01:04:48.480 dangerous than COVID. As I said on this podcast, once the vaccines arrived, we had

01:04:54.740 a forced choice. We were all going to get COVID eventually. I still know a few people

01:04:59.460 who haven't, but even they will get it eventually. The question was, were you going

01:05:04.760 to get it with or without first having been vaccinated? It seems that around 300,000

01:05:09.860 Americans are dead today who would not be dead had everyone just gotten vaccinated

01:05:15.800 blindly, like obedient sheep. Just following instructions was not a bad heuristic in the

01:05:24.500 spring, summer, and fall of 2021. The voice that came over the PA system that said

01:05:30.560 nothing more persuasive or politically acceptable than fasten your seatbelts, you

01:05:35.500 whiny bitches, was worth listening to. Of course, you might worry that we don't

01:05:40.700 have long-term data on these vaccines, and that's true, but we also don't have

01:05:45.460 long-term data on the consequences of getting COVID without having been

01:05:48.740 vaccinated, apart from the short-term data of watching people die unnecessarily by the

01:05:53.900 hundreds of thousands because they weren't vaccinated. Yes, the future is

01:05:59.440 uncertain, but I continue to believe there is no good reason to be afraid of these

01:06:04.480 vaccines. Again, COVID is a moving target. Will I get the COVID vaccine once a year

01:06:10.220 like a flu shot? I'm not sure. It depends on how these variants evolve. I've now had

01:06:16.020 COVID twice, and as recently as last month, so I feel pretty well boosted at the

01:06:21.440 moment. However, based on current stats, even these more mild strains of COVID

01:06:26.760 appear to be more dangerous than flu, at least for someone in my cohort. So, given

01:06:32.020 that I get a flu shot every year, I suspect that a yearly COVID shot is in my

01:06:36.840 future. Next question. How many people were killed by the vaccines? Well, my contact

01:06:45.200 Johns Hopkins said, quote, I literally know of just two deaths directly attributed to the

01:06:52.080 vaccines in the U.S., one of which was J&J related. No doubt in the informational waters

01:06:58.120 in which my critics swim, that statement is not going to seem credible. Just two? And only

01:07:05.600 one mRNA related? I don't know what to tell you fellows, but where are the bodies? I'll grant

01:07:11.840 you that there could be more than two. Let's put the number at 2,000. What is there to talk

01:07:17.640 about? Let's put it at 20,000, a four order of magnitude error. Given the other numbers I've

01:07:25.820 just cited, what is there to talk about? Next question. What was the difference in the risk

01:07:33.660 of hospitalization or death between those who had been fully vaccinated compared to those

01:07:38.680 who hadn't taken the vaccine? Okay, well, from what I can tell, it was a likely three to four

01:07:44.880 fold reduction in all age groups. And that includes kids who don't see that much benefit not being at

01:07:50.460 high risk. In all adults, it was more like a tenfold difference. And in those over 65, we saw a

01:07:58.140 20 fold difference in the rate of hospitalization or death. Personally, I probably had a low risk of

01:08:04.640 hospitalization and death from COVID, though I did know people with my same profile who did get

01:08:09.200 hospitalized. But would it have been rational for me to have run a 10x greater risk of hospitalization

01:08:15.400 and or death, just because it was a lot of chatter, mostly from non-experts, about how scary these

01:08:21.260 vaccines were? I don't think so. Next question. Is there any reason to believe that ivermectin

01:08:29.200 or hydroxychloroquine are effective prophylactics against COVID, i.e. adequate substitutes for

01:08:35.460 vaccines? Unsurprisingly, this question provoked a one-word response from my guy at Johns Hopkins.

01:08:43.120 No. Next question. What about the risk of myocarditis from the vaccines, especially for

01:08:50.260 young men? This is something that I acknowledged on the podcast as soon as I became aware of it,

01:08:54.740 which no doubt was later than many people who were pretending to be vaccine experts became aware of

01:08:59.780 it. If you're conspiracy-minded, if you assume that everyone is lying, if you're convinced that

01:09:05.600 everything is more dangerous than advertised, well then I'm sure you will detect real conspiracies and

01:09:10.940 real lies and real dangers sooner than most other people. That doesn't mean that you have cracked the

01:09:16.440 code for how to live in this world. Apparently, Brett Weinstein is over there thinking that someone

01:09:20.720 at Pfizer might be blackmailing me with a pee tape. Okay, so yes, if I were into that sort of thing,

01:09:26.840 he will have been the first one to have found me out. Anyway, my contact at Johns Hopkins informed me

01:09:32.200 that the myocarditis that is a potential side effect of the mRNA vaccines is very different from other

01:09:37.480 forms of myocarditis in that there's generally no long-term clinically significant consequence from it.

01:09:43.700 Also, the risk can be mitigated by spacing the two doses of the vaccine by more than three or four

01:09:47.800 weeks apart. Now, I can imagine in Joe and Brett's world, that sounds insane. Well, again, we had a

01:09:54.540 forced choice from the spring of 2021 on. Get COVID with or without a vaccine. The official numbers,

01:10:02.040 if they are remotely correct, still make it look like the right choice to have been fully vaccinated.

01:10:08.320 Is it the clear choice now with the current variants for a 17-year-old boy given the increased

01:10:14.140 risk of myocarditis and the exceedingly low risk of hospitalization and death for that cohort?

01:10:19.720 I don't know. I would have to look at the most recent data and find out what most experts think.

01:10:25.560 Again, I am not a physician, and I have never played one on this podcast.

01:10:30.640 I am not a physician arkadaş but I have no advisor. I am not a physician-trained service call on

Making Sense - Sam Harris - September 22, 2023

#335 — A Postmortem on My Response to Covid

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