Real Coffee with Scott Adams - Episode 1143 Scott Adams： I Tell You How the Trump Diagnosis Changes Everything

00:00:00.000 hey everybody come on in come on in it's another great morning featuring coffee with Scott Adams

00:00:19.720 the best part of the day does it get better than this I don't think so well today I'm doing a

00:00:27.020 experiment in which I am live streaming simultaneously from two devices I've got one

00:00:34.320 device live streaming to YouTube and one live streaming to Periscope per normal just an

00:00:43.200 experiment I don't know if I'll do it again but before we get to the news what do we need that's

00:00:50.500 right it's a it's time for the simultaneous sip and all you need is a cup or mug or a glass of

00:00:55.940 tanker chalice or sign the canteen jug or flask a vessel of any kind fill it with your favorite

00:01:01.120 liquid I like coffee and join me now for the unparalleled pleasure the dopamine of the day

00:01:08.620 the thing that makes everything better it's called the simultaneous sip and you're about to enjoy it

00:01:14.980 I feel my live stream audience is 10% better just because of that sip right there that's called

00:01:31.220 science well let's see what's going on certainly it seems that the vice presidential debate might take

00:01:42.940 on a little bit extra importance but you know what's interesting about the vice presidential

00:01:48.700 debate is that pretty much nobody in the world wants either of those two people to be president

00:01:55.620 so we're in this weird 2020 situation where we're saying you know it might not be Biden so much maybe

00:02:05.240 Kamala Harris is the important one in this race and meanwhile President Trump is in the hospital so

00:02:10.840 people are saying well you know we don't want this to happen but we got to be serious about a

00:02:17.160 vice presidential option how did we get to the point where we spent you know the the most powerful and

00:02:25.720 capable country of all time the United States spent two years scouring the country to find the two best

00:02:36.360 candidates for the two parties and when we were done we ended up with two candidates

00:02:43.720 that probably couldn't win a mayor's race at this point well that's not true both of them could you

00:02:50.120 know they could both be in Congress for sure but I exaggerate the point being I'm not sure anybody wants

00:02:59.640 really to see a president Kamala Harris or a president to Pence but maybe that's what we're talking about

00:03:08.280 now so we'll see how that goes I just read that the Nobel Peace Prize there's of course a betting market

00:03:18.520 so people are trying to bet who will win and two of the entities that are near the top of the betting list

00:03:25.480 for the Nobel Peace Prize are the world health organization not not even joking that this is

00:03:33.720 really happening in the actual reality world if there is reality the world health organization

00:03:42.840 is being considered for the Nobel Prize at least according to the betting markets

00:03:48.840 the other one's even better black lives matter is being considered at least in the betting markets

00:03:56.600 for the Nobel Prize as well in that case I think black lives matter as the movement not the specific

00:04:04.520 organization now how much prestige would you assign to the Nobel Peace Prize if two of the top

00:04:15.560 top top entities under consideration are two of the most discredited entities of all time

00:04:25.160 it's kind of makes the whole thing worthless doesn't it

00:04:29.480 um I certainly don't see black lives matter as pursuing peace even even if you were completely on their side 1.00

00:04:37.720 what does uh no justice no peace mean to the Nobel Peace Prize because to me it sounds like

00:04:48.760 we're kind of a little bit sort of not kidding pro-violence if we don't get our way that feels like if you were

00:04:59.480 going to draw down on paper and you said to yourself hypothetically what would be the least like a

00:05:08.280 peaceful organization that you could imagine what would be the absolute opposite of a peace

00:05:17.800 promoting situation well I would say it would be someone whose famous chant is no justice no peace

00:05:25.960 it's really the opposite uh the world health organization of course is owned by China and 0.65

00:05:32.280 gave us bad advice on the coronavirus which killed a lot of people to the extent that the coronavirus

00:05:39.880 is like a an enemy you know it's like a war and the coronavirus is our enemy which side was the world

00:05:47.240 health organization on it's a little unclear I mean obviously they did helpful things too

00:05:53.480 but uh I would say that situation is a little bit ambiguous I've got a clarification from I think

00:06:00.440 from yesterday's periscope I was talking about the possibility that some people might be genetically

00:06:08.360 inclined to be super spreaders but uh uh I won't name names but I've been uh informed by someone who

00:06:17.480 knows a lot more than I do mostly including reading the actual study that I tweeted around

00:06:23.480 um that the super spreader is more accurately refers to uh a situation than a person so whether or not

00:06:35.000 there are people who are more likely to spread it than other people by something about them uh that would

00:06:41.960 be still unknown but we do know that situations where people are in close contact seem to be the super

00:06:48.520 spreader situations that said does it make any sense to you that a 400 pound mouth breather would be

00:06:57.560 the same amount of risk as a 100 pound person who doesn't breathe as much you know wouldn't it matter

00:07:06.920 how much volume of air you're moving around you makes no difference I mean maybe it makes no difference

00:07:14.200 because it could be that regardless of the volume of air it's the same amount of virus because you

00:07:20.600 only have so much in you maybe who knows but uh I would not rule out the possibility that there's some

00:07:28.200 difference in who could spread it even if the only difference is how big you are and what your lung capacity

00:07:33.720 is it seems just common sense there must be something there all right

00:07:38.600 what um I asked on twitter we'll talk about the president in a minute but I asked on twitter

00:07:48.040 how many people have uh are watching less drama movies or drama tv or reading dramatic books and 62

00:07:59.800 percent of people said they either stopped watching uh fictional drama or they or they cut way back

00:08:08.760 two-thirds of people almost two-thirds of people cut back on their entertainment and drama

00:08:16.440 i wonder if that's a permanent change because it might be now i don't know if it's only because of the

00:08:23.320 the stress there's just too much stress in real life so people don't need any extra that's i would

00:08:29.240 think that's the big reason and uh the reason i asked the question is i've completely eliminated

00:08:35.240 drama from my life in terms of entertainment so i won't watch a drama movie definitely won't read a

00:08:41.720 drama book won't watch a drama tv show just don't need even fictional anything i don't need any of it

00:08:49.240 and when i every once in a while i'll sample something because i'll say to myself well this is

00:08:55.400 this is sort of a light drama you know it's you know it's not really that violent or anything

00:09:01.320 five minutes in i'll say why am i watching entertainment which is literally designed

00:09:08.920 to make me feel tense so that they could make me feel better at the end or feel something or cry at

00:09:15.240 the end why would i want my emotions to be manipulated for entertainment they're they're way attenuated

00:09:24.600 already the last thing i need is a little more piling on to my emotional stability when there's plenty of

00:09:31.400 reasons to be alarmed um another political some other reasons that people have given for watching less

00:09:42.280 tv drama is that it's too politically uh heavy-handed have you had that experience

00:09:50.360 have you had the experience yet where you think oh this might be a good movie and you turn it on

00:09:57.720 and it's so anti-male that you just say uh i don't really want to watch something that's anti-male

00:10:06.280 and then you turn the channel and say oh i'll try something else and you turn it on and

00:10:10.840 it's anti-male and then you think well maybe that's a coincidence and then the insurance

00:10:16.840 commercial comes on and it's anti-male it feels as though all entertainment has turned into anti-male

00:10:27.720 entertainment uh i don't know if i've told anybody this story before maybe i've told this in periscope

00:10:35.720 uh if i haven't this will be i think the first time i might be telling it in public maybe i said it

00:10:42.200 on a podcast somewhere um and it goes like this some of you know i was trying to write a dilbert

00:10:47.640 movie a few years ago i had converted a room into a movie writing room in my house i had notes all over

00:10:55.000 the walls i had the scenes drawn out and i had pretty much the entire plot worked out in my head and i just

00:11:02.440 needed to you know finish the dialogue and pull it all together and i abandoned the entire project after

00:11:09.160 i would say a year of work and i abandoned it cold why did i do that the reason was i had written it

00:11:21.480 to be anti-male and i didn't really realize it because it wasn't any kind of a conscious decision i'd

00:11:28.280 made i had just sort of written it with the influence of the world in my head and and the plot everything

00:11:36.760 was sort of designed so it would it would end up with you don't need to know the details but it was

00:11:41.960 more of a celebration of women and men not being so competent now of course it was in a humorous context

00:11:49.320 and was supposed to be a interesting reveal at the end and everything and when i was done i was actually

00:11:55.640 disgusted with myself and i was also completely conscious that i'd fallen into these these um you know

00:12:04.120 social justice model of how a movie needed to look and when i realized that my creative choices were

00:12:11.640 so compressed that there was only way one way it could be i couldn't just write a movie i couldn't

00:12:19.000 just write it like real life i couldn't write it interesting i couldn't do anything with it unless it

00:12:25.640 conformed to this narrow band of what you know is socially appropriate and when i realized that i had

00:12:32.600 fallen into this super uncreative ditch where i couldn't get out because if i changed it it would

00:12:40.840 no longer look appropriate and so i abandoned the whole thing probably millions of dollars you know in

00:12:48.360 terms of potential uh upside because i could probably get a movie made if i push hard enough you know i have

00:12:54.840 enough connections etc but uh i just couldn't be part of that so that's part of why people are watching

00:13:02.680 less i think uh somebody else suggested that social media is just more inviting so compared to the the

00:13:10.520 quick hit you get on your phone a movie is boring how many of you have had this experience you turn on a

00:13:17.320 movie or you know let's say sports or something that used to completely entertain you you watch for

00:13:24.600 about a minute and the next thing you know you're playing on your phone at the same time and you're

00:13:29.000 sort of watching the movie but the phone is more interesting and then the next thing you know 15 minutes

00:13:34.920 has gone by and you didn't watch the movie because it wasn't as interesting as your phone so that's part

00:13:39.960 of it then somebody suggested that at least when it comes to sports that it's hard to watch uh the blm

00:13:50.600 kneeling sports so there's some people who are turned off by that i i've got a feeling that the entire

00:13:57.720 entertainment landscape is really really in for a shock uh more so than it's already had along those

00:14:07.720 same lines i tweeted a video of uh it was one of the kids who was killed in the parkland shootings from

00:14:17.160 a few years ago and his name is uh joaquin oliver and although the the teenager was killed during that

00:14:26.360 tragedy um they brought him back to life as a deep fake in other words they used computer

00:14:34.680 generated technology they called it ai but i'm not sure exactly if artificial intelligence

00:14:43.160 is really the right term for what they did maybe i mean uh i'm not saying it's not true but i don't

00:14:49.400 know exactly what the ai part would be but here's the thing they created a full a full-sized you know

00:14:57.480 full-body movement uh fake of the deceased teenager talking to the camera and doing sort of an anti-gun

00:15:07.400 presentation and you could if you were looking for it you could tell it wasn't real barely just barely

00:15:19.560 could you tell that this thing wasn't real and here's the question i asked given the weird coincidence

00:15:28.680 that the deep fake technology became mature exactly now at the very time that you can't really easily

00:15:36.440 make a movie because of covet so real actors can't do their work at exactly the same time the digital

00:15:43.880 version of actors became practical that is a weird coincidence isn't it it's almost like

00:15:52.520 why is it a coincidence that the protesters get to wear masks because of covet which really makes the

00:15:59.160 protest more effective because they wear masks that's a big coincidence there's a lot of big coincidences

00:16:06.280 happening with this covet stuff so it could be the end of uh real actors in hollywood or or the beginning

00:16:15.560 of what will obviously be the end of them because why would you hire real actors if you can create

00:16:20.520 digital ones that once created it would be expensive to create them the first time but once you've created

00:16:27.400 a a fully realized digital fake you can make a lot of movies using the the characters that you've

00:16:36.040 already created you know and if it's a sequel let's say the sequel has you know the main characters are

00:16:42.840 just the same ones it could get really really economical how long will it be before there's a

00:16:49.560 digital tom cruise that you know doesn't look like tom cruise but is the let's say the charisma

00:16:55.720 equivalent you know you look at the digital and you say oh that's a pretty good pretty interesting

00:17:00.760 person there not long i think we're about there um

00:17:07.800 all right uh let's see what else is going on of course the president went to uh walter reid you all

00:17:13.800 know about that um

00:17:17.960 and uh there's just so much to say about that so let me just start at the beginning

00:17:24.440 um rasmussen reports did a funny uh tweet this morning and it said they said news alert it has

00:17:32.680 now been over 24 hours since uh potus was asked publicly if he denounces white supremacists

00:17:39.560 a constitutional crisis surely looms

00:17:43.720 so the you know it's funny because it's based on something that feels true the entire uh news

00:17:51.880 industry had completely formed around they were just going to keep asking this one question in

00:17:58.840 different ways and that was going to be the news cycle until the election how many ways could we ask

00:18:04.680 the president does he really seriously denounce white supremacists again well he just did it like five

00:18:13.240 minutes ago yeah well but does he denounce it now because that was five minutes ago and by the way we don't

00:18:21.000 remember it what do you mean you don't remember it here here's a video look i'll play the video for

00:18:26.440 you here watch this i denounce all white supremacists there you see good five minutes ago it's on video there

00:18:32.840 you go does he denounce it now what is wrong with you it's right here from five minutes ago on video you

00:18:42.200 can verify this is real yeah but he said white supremacists but he didn't mention neo-nazis which

00:18:51.400 is kind of striking well but it's all the same thing i don't know is it i think we're going to need a

00:18:58.680 little clarification because you know white supremacists yeah they overlap they overlap with the neo-nazis

00:19:06.440 but we need a little clarification on neo-nazis well here's a video of him denouncing neo-nazis

00:19:14.120 calling them neo-nazis that's a little older that's that's months old does he still i mean how do we know

00:19:21.880 he still denounces them so that was that was the cycle that we were about to be in which was just

00:19:28.280 horrible in terms of boring news it's almost as bad as somebody famous dying and you just have to listen

00:19:35.720 to that for five days yeah we respect the people who died but it ruins the news cycle for a while

00:19:42.680 if we're being honest um so why doesn't the white house get some of those coronavirus sniffing dogs

00:19:54.360 i talked to you about those before so apparently it is actually possible and it has been demonstrated to

00:20:01.400 work you can teach some kinds of dogs to detect coronavirus even before they have symptoms how

00:20:09.880 cool would that be because i can't imagine there would be a faster more reliable way to you know

00:20:16.520 have a continuous checking in the white house than to literally have a white house dog who just walks

00:20:23.080 around and sniffs everybody all day long you know even if they've had a recent test give them a sniff

00:20:28.760 can't hurt so uh i get that there are not many dogs who have been trained yet but if you had even one

00:20:38.840 dog that you were pretty sure it could sniff coronavirus that one dog needs to be in that one place

00:20:46.120 right you know if ever there was a place for a corona sniffing dog yeah you'd like to put them in the

00:20:52.120 you know senior citizen homes and the the elder care homes that's great but let's put one of those 1.00

00:20:58.120 dogs in the white house i feel like we've demonstrated the need for that um and plus it's a great visual

00:21:06.760 how much would the press just love to death a white house dog that was actually protecting the white 0.55

00:21:14.440 house literally an actual dog protecting the white house it would be video candy so let's get let's get

00:21:24.280 a sniffing dog um so let's talk about how any of this is going to affect the election right now i would

00:21:33.000 say first of all that events are are changing and morphing quite quickly so whatever we think is likely

00:21:43.240 to be the outcome of this as of today check back in 10 minutes because there might be so much that's

00:21:49.640 changed that you know any hot take is just obliterated in 10 minutes uh one of the ways that

00:21:56.440 happened is more people getting coronavirus uh diagnoses so it was one thing when the president

00:22:03.960 had it when the president was the only one we were talking about obviously lots of people have it but

00:22:10.520 when he was the one we were focusing on at the white house what what did you feel about that well you 0.99

00:22:17.240 probably thought okay it's a story about you know the left is going to say he's a dumbass he deserved it 0.98

00:22:23.880 by not wearing masks didn't take it seriously it's karma you know got what he asked for uh and of course 0.98

00:22:32.920 the republicans would say some version of uh well he asked the public to go back to work he went back

00:22:41.960 to work he took normal precautions maybe even better than normal precautions and it didn't work

00:22:47.480 out but it was the same risk he asked the public to take so of course you want him to take the same

00:22:52.600 risk that he's asking you to take you know just feels more like leadership so it was going to be spun

00:22:59.240 that way but probably the bigger theme is that there would be empathy for the president you know it's

00:23:06.520 hard to it's hard to dump on somebody when there's when they're down so even joe biden quite cleverly

00:23:13.240 quite cleverly uh announced that they were going to pull all their negative uh campaign ads now that

00:23:20.200 was a really smart thing to do the way the public is going to see it is wow that's that's what good

00:23:26.200 people do you know they they don't dump on people when when they're down but it was of course a brilliant

00:23:33.400 political move because by biden pulling the political ads what does that make you feel about

00:23:41.640 president trump does it make you feel uh more empathy i don't know maybe but what it makes you

00:23:51.320 feel is that he's weak if biden had kept the pressure on uh campaigning at full strength with full

00:23:58.920 negative campaign ads he might get a little blowback for being too aggressive possibly but

00:24:04.840 it would also make trump look strong because you don't make your full court attack against somebody

00:24:11.800 who's weak so biden got this perfect opportunity i think he was well advised unless it was his decision

00:24:18.760 he was well advised that they could save money on tv ads that's good save a bunch of money a week of

00:24:25.720 ads probably a lot of money at the same time by saving the money on the ads he can look like a nice

00:24:33.160 like the nice person in the race that's a bonus saves money looks like the nice person but it's the

00:24:39.880 third thing that's the killer the third thing who is it that you go easy on if you ease up it's because

00:24:49.320 the other person is weak in some way so he's managed to frame the president as very weakened

00:24:57.720 at the same time he's making himself look like a nice guy at the same time he's saving money

00:25:04.040 that's about as good a play as you can get out of a campaign so whoever is advising the biden campaign

00:25:11.240 at least on this stuff very very competent in fact i would say overall the biden advisors

00:25:17.800 have been pretty good i'm gonna sneeze this is gonna be ugly trying to hold it hold it see if

00:25:27.080 i can get past the sneeze okay i think i did all right um now the fact that um so many people

00:25:37.960 have now been diagnosed with the coronavirus i think completely changes the narrative

00:25:43.800 when it was mostly the president you could say a big part of the story is we feel sorry for him

00:25:50.360 there's empathy don't dump on him and you know we hope he does well etc but as soon as you realize

00:25:57.800 that a lot of people in his inner circle got infected and i think it's up to nine people kelly ann conway

00:26:04.360 three senators uh a priest um ron and mcdaniel once you get that many it really changes the story doesn't

00:26:16.840 it in my mind it changed the story from oh you know we have some empathy because the president's sick

00:26:25.080 to wait a minute are you telling me that that because they did not take proper care

00:26:32.520 and because they did not wear face masks as they would like the public to do

00:26:37.160 and because they had a public gathering in tight spaces everything we're not supposed to do

00:26:44.520 and that it worked out exactly the way the experts would say it would if you do these things

00:26:51.160 you're going to have this outcome we experts tell you are there any experts who disagree well not too

00:26:58.680 many you can always find the the skeptics etc about masks and social social stuff but most experts

00:27:08.280 left and right most experts would have said that all of those things the white house did

00:27:13.960 are exactly the things you don't do they did them in public they got pretty pretty big infection rate

00:27:25.320 it could be the end that could be the end for trump the fact that uh this is so um starkly

00:27:38.360 incompetent yeah i don't know if you could use any other word

00:27:42.040 you know you know you know i'd like to put the best spin on it but if it just been the president i

00:27:48.360 would have said bad luck just bad luck and maybe even good role modeling but the fact that the entire

00:27:56.440 events seem to be that um poorly protected now i'd say the narrative has shifted to incompetence

00:28:06.040 it's unfortunately you know now

00:28:12.760 you don't have to like that but i don't know how you can escape it

00:28:18.040 now does that mean that in my opinion that the not wearing masks and the social distancing is

00:28:25.320 definitely the cause of all those infections i don't know i don't know you have to think that

00:28:31.560 anybody who would not wear a mask and would you know hug people in public uh during a public event

00:28:38.360 during a coronavirus they're probably doing similar things at home don't you think don't

00:28:43.800 don't you think it's a group of people who by their nature are either going to be lax with masks all the

00:28:50.920 time you know at least if they can get away with it um or are they only lax with masks at the white

00:28:58.920 house so the first thing you have to ask is is it something about this group of people who are

00:29:05.160 unusually unwilling to take the the precautions that most experts should say all right so i think the uh

00:29:14.440 the president has a big big problem with that now how could that change between now and election day

00:29:21.480 well we could find out that there's more news that's still going to happen between now and election day

00:29:28.760 than we've seen so far all year if 2020 stays in character there's good stuff that hasn't even

00:29:37.640 happened yet like and it might be the big stuff you know who knows what it could be but it could be big

00:29:45.960 and uh we'll wait for that so everything that we think is true on any given day between now and election

00:29:54.040 day just assume that it could be wiped off just the way the coronavirus diagnosis of the president

00:30:00.760 wiped everything else off the off the map

00:30:06.680 all right um one of one of the problems that the public and the press are having with this

00:30:12.440 situation is it didn't fit into any model that we had before you know for almost anything that comes

00:30:19.240 up in the news we can always say well that was like the 1826 gambit the 1968 convention and very

00:30:29.240 similar to the 1979 you know thing that happened and then we say okay is it more like which one of

00:30:35.960 those things and then our brains can wrap wrap around a new thing say okay it's a new thing but it's like

00:30:42.520 these other things the president getting the coronavirus this close to election this is not

00:30:49.720 like any other thing there's no model that you can go to and say all right all right if it worked out

00:30:56.600 this way before and this is sort of similar this is how this will go we got nothing there there's no history

00:31:04.040 that informs us there's no common sense that tells us where it goes there's no road map just don't know

00:31:12.120 in terms of how it affects the election etc so that is unusually disconcerting in a otherwise disconcerting

00:31:23.000 way but here's one possibility

00:31:26.280 let's say that things go the way of the best script you know i've talked about this before

00:31:34.760 there's some reason and i don't know why that uh you often get this situation where

00:31:43.400 real life goes the same way that a movie script would have gone in other words the most interesting

00:31:49.800 thing that could happen actually happens now you're seeing this with president trump getting

00:31:55.720 coronavirus if you were writing the script and this was just a movie would you give president trump

00:32:03.160 coronavirus yes yes you would because that's what would make the story extra you know interesting

00:32:13.880 as sad as it is and tragic extra interesting but what would make it extra interesting from this point

00:32:21.800 on now i'm going to give you some some uh ideas of what that could involve but this is very important

00:32:31.240 before i talk about this i want you to understand i'm not wishing for any of this to happen very

00:32:38.200 important i don't want anything that i'm going to describe to happen it just falls into the category of the most

00:32:46.520 interesting thing that could happen don't want it to happen i'll say that in the middle and i'm going

00:32:53.000 to say it at the end don't want any of this to happen seriously do not want any of this to happen

00:33:00.680 all right now that you're primed you're all adults you can handle this thought right don't freak out

00:33:07.400 and i wouldn't talk about this outside of this periscope too much if i were you it do me a favor

00:33:12.920 don't spread these ideas onto social media let's sort of sort of keep them here for for a while because

00:33:19.240 if you take a better context it'll it'll get ugly number one the best and when i say best i mean most

00:33:28.120 interesting not the one i want to happen the most 2020 like thing that could happen would be

00:33:35.320 biden gets coronavirus and doesn't survive obviously i don't want that to happen obviously

00:33:48.360 but if this were a movie

00:33:51.800 that's the way it would go because the moment biden got coronavirus it would make you say wait a minute

00:33:59.400 wait a minute the entire story has been that the people who didn't wear masks and didn't hide in

00:34:05.160 their basement many of them got coronavirus so that anecdotal bunch of stuff was my entire

00:34:13.080 impression of what's what the risk is you're telling me that biden mr mask hide in my basement

00:34:20.920 do everything right you tell me he got it now again it wouldn't mean anything in terms of your

00:34:27.640 understanding of how risky it is etc it shouldn't mean anything because it would just be one data point

00:34:33.080 anecdotal but it would it would change how you think about it all right so that's one possibility

00:34:41.640 here's another possibility again don't want this to happen really really don't want this to happen

00:34:48.840 and it goes like this president trump takes a turn for the worse i don't think that's going to happen

00:34:55.160 very unlikely but you know in terms of scripts he takes a turn for the worst and it gets so bad

00:35:03.800 that you could argue that he was momentarily dead and brought back what would happen under the unusual

00:35:14.680 situation that president trump became so ill that he was technically dead and brought back

00:35:22.840 back jesus it would be an actual literal not not literal but a resurrection story

00:35:36.680 it you know unlikely very unlikely that things would get to that point i don't even think that's the

00:35:43.160 thing with corona coronavirus patients i don't know if there's any case where that's ever happened

00:35:48.840 that they were technically dead and brought back to life it's probably never happened but again if it

00:35:56.440 were a story that's sort of where the plot might go don't want that to happen don't want that to happen

00:36:04.120 don't even want to put it into the universe we don't want that to happen there's one more

00:36:09.240 more that is so it's so awful i almost don't want to mention it except in the context of telling you how this

00:36:21.240 script idea works there is one outcome don't want it to happen don't want it to happen

00:36:28.280 but in a 2020 world it could happen and it goes like this president trump gives the coronavirus to

00:36:40.920 kellyann conway who gives it to george conway who if i may be unkind

00:36:49.880 has a physical uh look of someone who would have a tough time surviving coronavirus

00:36:55.720 right it's a it's an ugly thought i'm not even going to complete it you can you can complete it

00:37:02.040 yourself but that's one of the possibilities that george conway has a tough time with it and it came from the president

00:37:12.600 right again you don't want that to happen you know you don't want you don't want your your 0.99

00:37:18.360 enemies to get coronavirus certainly not political enemies that's that's just dumb um

00:37:26.280 but it's 2020 along those same lines there are two people that i'm uh in addition to george conway

00:37:34.920 that i am quite concerned about so i would say these three people just raise a little flag of concern for

00:37:42.280 me and i would you know i'm not going to be political about this i would be concerned equally about

00:37:47.240 all of them bill barr chris christie and george conway they are three people who have been close

00:37:56.120 to exposed people and they have a little they've got a little extra weight on them and they're uh you

00:38:03.960 know i would be a little extra concerned about those three and if anything happens to any of the three it's

00:38:09.880 just going to be extra tragic all right um here's a question i have for you um

00:38:19.800 shouldn't we know by now if masks work now i get that all of the the experts not all the experts that

00:38:28.600 the uh consensus of experts is that masks not only work but they're vital to getting to the other side of

00:38:36.120 the coronavirus but here's what i i wonder don't we know by now uh lots and lots of people who got

00:38:44.440 coronavirus don't we know whether or not they wore masks or were around other people who wore masks

00:38:52.440 shouldn't we know by now by talking to all the people who have got coronavirus

00:38:56.520 were they in a mask intensive environment or a mask permissive environment wouldn't that be just

00:39:05.160 about the easiest thing to track at this point because you just talk to the patient and say did

00:39:10.520 you have coronavirus yes would you self-report that you have consistently been in a very mask

00:39:18.440 intensive environment where both you and the people around you were being pretty dedicated about

00:39:25.240 wearing masks yes or no scale of one to ten how masked up were you and socially distanced shouldn't

00:39:33.480 we know by now exactly how effective masks are and the fact that we're even talking about it is just

00:39:43.400 making me think there's some kind of mass incompetence that's going on in in the system in general not

00:39:50.040 just the politics uh i don't know maybe that information is out there somebody says there's

00:39:57.880 not a consensus no you're wrong you're wrong there is absolutely a consensus it is not universal a

00:40:06.920 consensus means that the majority of people agree consensus doesn't mean that there are not notable

00:40:13.000 critics who make a lot of noise i will acknowledge there are notable critics and i will acknowledge

00:40:18.920 that i'm not convinced that i've seen hard data that says that masks are working in this coronavirus

00:40:27.800 i think they are i would say that the smart money says yes i would think that common sense says yes

00:40:34.360 yes i would think our experience from the pandemic in 1918 tells us they work i would think the fact

00:40:41.560 that every single country is using masks if they have a coronavirus problem all of them you know all

00:40:48.520 the experts in all the countries seem to agree that masks work so i'm going to say if you were going to

00:40:54.040 place a bet you know scott you've got to put your money on masks work or they don't i would place a very

00:41:01.080 large bet on that they do work now they may have their trade-offs i wouldn't argue that but i would

00:41:08.280 certainly put a very large bet on they do work speaking of things like that um the president it is

00:41:18.840 reported is let's see he's on regeneron vitamin d uh zinc now remdesivir and i saw speculation

00:41:30.920 from the doctor that he was almost certainly on convalescent serum now what is what is the impact

00:41:38.920 of doing all those things at once i don't know i don't know if anybody's done all those things at

00:41:45.160 once um putting the president on remdesivir which my understanding is is not a hundred percent safe

00:41:54.920 but rather you would want to save that for somebody who's who's looking like they have some real problems

00:42:01.400 what does the fact that the president's getting remdesivir at this stage tell you about the

00:42:06.760 seriousness of his infection i think it's telling us one of two things either the president is being

00:42:16.360 treated as a special case meaning they're treating him more aggressively than they would somebody who has

00:42:23.480 the same amount of symptoms which would make sense that wouldn't be the dumbest thing in the world but

00:42:28.920 remdesivir is my understanding is it doesn't have any impact if you're at the lightly infected stage

00:42:38.280 correct me if i'm wrong i need a fact check but isn't remdesivir

00:42:43.560 understood to be something you would only give to somebody who's in pretty bad shape

00:42:48.200 because at that point the the little bit of risk that comes with it is worth it right

00:42:56.680 i think the melatonin was just for sleeping um somebody's saying in the comments so here's the

00:43:04.600 weird thing about this cocktail that the president's getting there are a few weird things number one it

00:43:11.400 seems like he's taking every drug that's ever been mentioned in a sentence with coronavirus except

00:43:18.440 hydroxychloroquine what are the odds that the white house doctors knowing that hydroxychloroquine

00:43:27.880 has a very safe profile and knowing that the that the president would probably have a bias toward giving

00:43:35.880 it a try if it were not dangerous and maybe it would work what are the odds that they would not

00:43:44.120 prescribe hydroxychloroquine it's a little weird isn't it because even if you thought the doctor said now

00:43:51.720 we're not convinced it works the studies are a little ambiguous you know why bother maybe but even

00:43:58.920 if it was in the gray area for perfectly political reasons don't you think they'd say you know we

00:44:05.400 don't think it makes any difference but it probably won't hurt you do you want to take some hydroxychloroquine

00:44:11.800 because i feel like the president could have a uh enough influence on that that he could just say

00:44:18.200 look if you don't think it's going to hurt me i'd like to take some just for political reasons you

00:44:23.480 you know just just to be consistent so for the first thing i'd ask is maybe he is taking it or

00:44:30.840 maybe he was on it prior to even being diagnosed so i think there's more to learn about that but

00:44:38.840 interestingly he is taking zinc and as you remember the zelensky protocol as it was called

00:44:46.520 required zinc as as well as azithromycin and by the way i haven't heard he's taking azithromycin

00:44:53.000 so they're silent on that so far but maybe maybe the reason that the uh that we think hydroxychloroquine

00:45:03.880 works is that it was used with zinc enough times that maybe it was the zinc that worked maybe who knows

00:45:13.720 but apparently the doctors are convinced enough that zinc won't hurt you and might help that they're

00:45:18.680 giving it to him that's interesting um a little behind the scenes information for you so you all

00:45:27.320 know of dr zelensky and the zelensky protocol which was hydroxychloroquine zinc and azithromycin

00:45:35.400 given early at first symptoms um i will tell you that the doctor has dm'd me a few times two or three

00:45:43.720 times and i haven't responded and he's dm'd me looking for me to um boost you know boost his

00:45:52.280 message about the hydroxychloroquine i have uh declined to do that because i'm not convinced

00:46:01.800 that it's real and i don't think cartoonists should be boosting signals of things

00:46:07.400 uh for doctors i feel as though it would somehow give it more credibility than the story by itself

00:46:16.200 would have now my last estimate prior to this week and i've lowered it over time is that i started with

00:46:25.240 something like a 50 chance i don't know if it was higher it might have been uh early on a 50 chance

00:46:31.640 the hydroxychloroquine might be real and might work and that was based on the fact that there were

00:46:37.160 lots of reports that it was working so that's good but they weren't quite the you know the randomized

00:46:44.280 controlled types and it seemed to me that if it worked the way people said that it would be obvious

00:46:52.840 by now and that it would be in widespread use all over the world there would be more use not less

00:46:58.520 we'd hear more about it not less if it worked now every month that goes by and you don't hear a

00:47:05.400 story like that oh we just discovered it totally works it's being widespread used in elonia and now

00:47:11.960 we're all going to use it every month you don't hear that story lowered my odds that it's working so

00:47:18.520 last week it was a 30 chance meaning there was a 70 chance this is just scott's own personal uh estimate

00:47:27.880 70 percent chance the hydroxychloroquine didn't make a difference 30 chance it did still based on

00:47:34.840 so many anecdotal or not anecdotal but observational studies etc today if it's true that the president is

00:47:43.720 not taking it if that's true we'll wait for that confirmation probably is uh i would take it down to

00:47:52.680 closer to five or ten percent yeah maybe uh i'll go generous 15 percent one five so i think the odds of

00:48:01.720 hydroxychloroquine being a game changer 15 percent one five that's my current estimate subject to

00:48:11.160 adjustment should it ever be needed now the president's also taking vitamin d i would like to

00:48:18.040 um note that it is entirely possible that the very person first person you ever heard

00:48:27.080 say take vitamin d for the coronavirus might have been me because when it first came out i was telling

00:48:34.200 you get in the sun get your vitamin d up because at the very least it's good for your immune system

00:48:39.640 and now there's there seems to be more and more evidence that that's true

00:48:42.920 so if you'd listen to me what good shape you'd be in um so it turns out that the most dangerous

00:48:53.320 job in the world is trump campaign manager do you remember when cory lewandowski was the campaign manager

00:49:01.160 and he got falsely accused of uh aggressively grabbing some woman uh grabbing her arm not not

00:49:10.280 sexually grabbing her and that turned out to be you know fake news but that was pretty tough to be a

00:49:16.440 campaign manager he was replaced by paul manafort who ended up going to jail for unrelated you know

00:49:23.640 crimes unrelated to the campaign then there was brad parscale who recently got involuntarily committed

00:49:31.000 to a hospital after losing his job who knows what's going on there and now bill stepion

00:49:36.760 gets a diagnosis of coronavirus so if you ever had to pick a job that was going to be dangerous

00:49:47.400 yeah if you were going to pick something dangerous it would be that job all right

00:49:55.560 so here's a question that i've been asking for a long time

00:49:58.920 we keep hearing in the news and we're hearing it from both the left and the right sometimes so uh

00:50:07.480 so fbi director ray has said this you kind of feel like he's on the right a little bit

00:50:14.760 or somewhat and uh on the left says that and they say that the biggest uh problem with domestic

00:50:22.360 terrorism is white supremacy now i keep hearing it but i'm trying to connect in my mind why is it that

00:50:30.440 literally every night literally every night i hear about antifa and left-leaning

00:50:37.720 you know people burning things and getting hurt and attacking people and killing people

00:50:41.960 so i'm hearing every night stories about the left and domestic terrorism but i'm not hearing stories

00:50:48.920 about the right and yet the fbi and other important entities are saying the big problem is white

00:50:56.280 supremacy now i'm not doubting it's true so as of today i would say i'm not doubting it's true

00:51:03.800 because there are a lot of people saying it's true but why is it that i'm not hearing about it

00:51:10.520 and i would like to give you a story to prime you before i tell you the rest of my story about

00:51:15.880 uh my search for all of the white supremacy statistics years ago when i was working for

00:51:23.960 pacific bell the local phone company where i lived i had a project to build a laboratory within within

00:51:32.440 the headquarters where we would test our technology our new digital technology for the phone network

00:51:39.640 and we would use the laboratory for customers who wanted to make a buying decision but they

00:51:45.800 needed to test our equipment with their equipment to make sure it worked and i was told by my boss

00:51:52.360 that we just keep getting all these requests from customers and if lots of customers are requesting

00:52:00.040 a laboratory to test the equipment it follows that if we had a laboratory to test equipment we'd sell a

00:52:07.720 lot more equipment because if you could show the customer it works look you know i just hooked it up

00:52:13.240 here's your phone here's our network there it's working now you can feel safe buying it so i was

00:52:19.640 given the task to first build a business case to get the funding and then go ahead and you know be the

00:52:26.280 project manager to build the laboratory so i started out to build my business case by uh collecting data

00:52:34.360 about all of the customers who would ask for this laboratory because it was all based on customer demand

00:52:40.040 right it wasn't something we just sat around and came up with it was just purely responding

00:52:45.400 to this avalanche of customer demand so i would go to you know a manager who was in a relevant place

00:52:51.880 i'd say you know do we need this laboratory for customers and the manager would say yeah yeah we

00:52:58.120 totally need all the customers are asking for it it's high demand and i would say can you give me the

00:53:03.640 name of a customer who asked for it so i could actually talk to the customer and really you know

00:53:09.560 dig down and find out about this demand and the first manager would say well i you know i don't know

00:53:14.840 the name of a specific customer but the there are tons of them so maybe talk to this other manager and

00:53:20.760 he could give you a name of somebody to talk to talk to the next manager he goes yeah it's like the

00:53:26.120 customer demand they keep asking for it i go can you give the name of one customer he's like well

00:53:32.840 you know i can only think of one but why don't you talk to them and maybe we'll kick up some other

00:53:38.360 some other ones you can talk to so what i determined after a long analysis was this there was ever

00:53:47.960 only in the since the beginning of recorded time one customer who asked for it once that was it

00:53:58.520 one customer that asked for it once but because when that customer asked for it they asked probably

00:54:06.360 more than one person and then those people started talking to each other and then people heard about

00:54:11.880 it it became an entire story about a mass request for laboratory resources that literally didn't

00:54:20.600 exist didn't exist it was confirmed and i went back to everybody and said anybody accept this one

00:54:28.600 customer everybody said the same customer that's it and then i asked well what happened with that one

00:54:36.360 customer i assumed that they did not buy the product because they didn't have a lab and then

00:54:42.280 the managers told me oh no they bought the product so i said all right let me get this straight

00:54:49.400 the story that there were lots of customers really boiled down to just one and the reason we needed

00:54:56.920 a laboratory is that they wouldn't be able to buy without the laboratory and the one customer

00:55:02.760 actually bought anyway thus proving beyond a shadow of a doubt we don't need a laboratory

00:55:10.200 now once i presented that to my management do you think they said oh i'm glad you caught that we

00:55:16.040 could have wasted 10 million dollars which was the budget we could have wasted 10 million dollars

00:55:20.680 building a laboratory that nobody needed do you think that happened no no it didn't my my boss said

00:55:31.400 build it anyway make a case for it build it anyway in other words the reason had nothing to do with

00:55:38.040 the decision the data had nothing to do with the decision the logic none of it even revenue

00:55:46.040 none of it had anything to do with the decision i just had a boss who wanted to be the boss of a

00:55:50.840 laboratory because it would be good for his career i guess so so that was the story all right now take

00:55:58.520 that story and that's what i've learned because of my experience how this can get blown up and then

00:56:04.120 i'm looking at this white supremacy thing and i'm saying to myself it's kind of weird this the biggest

00:56:11.080 problem and yet i'm only hearing of these other problems but i don't hear a lot of examples of

00:56:17.560 this so i i go to do a little bit of research and when i say a little bit of research i mean just you know

00:56:23.320 you know one millimeter deep i'm not going to spend a lifetime doing it so i just google some stuff

00:56:29.400 about you know data on white supremacy and uh i i find this

00:56:34.040 um here it says that the threat posed by racially or ethnically motivated terrorism

00:56:42.360 particularly white supremacist terrorism remained a serious challenge for the global community

00:56:48.360 all right so what follows this should be some examples right and here they come

00:56:53.160 continuing a trend that began in 2015 all right so it's a trend so if it's a trend there'll be some

00:56:59.560 data to show the trend there were numerous deadly attacks well okay there are numerous of them so now

00:57:07.080 what will follow will be the list of them so i'll just see how numerous they are and so and it lists

00:57:12.440 three i go okay well it says they're numerous but there are three and there were uh let's see included

00:57:20.840 the christ church uh new zealand okay uh hallie germany holly hallie germany and el paso texas so the

00:57:31.720 first thing i said to myself is oh okay they're talking about worldwide and two under the three didn't

00:57:38.760 happen in the united states so really there's one it was the el paso texas where the guy went into a

00:57:48.360 uh walmart i guess and his complaint he had a manifesto about immigration and i think he shot a

00:57:55.320 bunch of uh presumably mostly targeted people who he thought were immigrants i'm guessing and so i thought

00:58:04.840 okay well that one all right so we have one example but it's real all right there's no question that this

00:58:12.280 guy was a massive white supremacist and i thought this will be obvious when you read his manifesto 0.56

00:58:19.400 because if you read the manifesto it's going to be pretty clear he's a white supremacist

00:58:25.240 so i read some of his manifesto he was anti-immigration because he thought immigration would turn the

00:58:33.240 country into democrats and the democratic system would destroy the country

00:58:38.360 do you know the part where he said i don't like immigration because the people coming across the

00:58:44.840 border are brown that wasn't in there or at least i didn't see it i did i read excerpts from it i would

00:58:52.040 think that they would have pulled that out if that was an excerpt but it turns out his real concern was

00:58:57.800 democrats literally it was about democrats now you could certainly make the argument that he's also a 0.77

00:59:06.840 racist but he didn't write that he he didn't write white people are awesome i don't want any brown people 1.00

00:59:16.120 he wrote that he didn't want democrats because they would ruin the system and we'd all die 0.79

00:59:21.160 under a democrat system basically i'm exaggerating so of the three that were listed of the so-called numerous

00:59:30.200 deadly attacks two of them were in other countries which doesn't make them less important

00:59:36.040 but it makes it less important to the united states and then the one that was listed

00:59:42.280 sort of a little bit of a gray area if you know what i mean now because this will be taken in a context

00:59:50.280 may i say at this point i completely disavow 0.92

00:59:54.040 disavow and rebuke all white supremacists kkk racists white nationalists so i disavow all those 0.92

01:00:04.920 groups i'm just saying that i was sold the story about massive white supremacy problem and the three 0.95

01:00:12.680 examples given are two from other countries and one that doesn't look like it to me i get that it's a

01:00:19.800 gray area but these are your good examples so here's the question i have is it like the laboratory

01:00:28.600 story where there never really was a problem and and because of the telephone effect and somebody

01:00:34.840 talks to somebody and somebody's talking about a gray area and some things in other countries

01:00:39.720 and and and maybe there's more activity online could it be that massive online activity is

01:00:48.040 foreshadowing something that'll that is a really big problem but the actual violence has not been

01:00:54.440 big in terms of numbers is that possible i mean that would still be a major problem i would if somebody

01:01:02.680 described it to me that way and said scott you're not seeing the the big issue here it's not so much how

01:01:08.360 much has already happened it's it's that we can see it brewing very clearly number of people

01:01:14.840 associating with these groups is growing the the rhetoric is getting worse if that's the story i'll

01:01:22.120 say oh okay that's fair i don't want to i don't want to be seeing some big white supremacy movement

01:01:28.520 that's picking up steam in the united states i'd be quite concerned about that as as well you should be

01:01:34.600 but i don't know that that's a story is it the the the news business is so thoroughly broken

01:01:43.400 that you can't even tell if the biggest problem even exists think about that think about the fact that

01:01:51.480 you can't be sure even a little bit if the thing that your government and the fbi is telling you is the biggest

01:01:59.880 domestic terrorism concern you don't even know if it exists much less being your biggest concern

01:02:09.240 you can't even tell now common sense tells me there must be you know plenty of examples there must be

01:02:17.720 but why doesn't the news have a list for me that's handy that i can say now if so by the way if somebody

01:02:23.560 has a more complete list of white supremacist um events in this country i want to see the list of

01:02:32.120 this country uh could you dm that to me or tweet it at me because i don't want to be the guy who says

01:02:39.080 it doesn't exist i want to be the guy who says why isn't the news telling me where it is i'd like to know

01:02:47.480 more about it okay um i'm just looking at your comments now all right i think that's all i got

01:02:57.480 for now and i will talk to you later

Real Coffee with Scott Adams - October 03, 2020

Episode 1143 Scott Adams： I Tell You How the Trump Diagnosis Changes Everything

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript