Real Coffee with Scott Adams - Episode 1149 Scott Adams： Coronavirus Data is All Wrong. Biden is Dangerous. Trump and 25th Amendment

00:00:00.000 Sing with me everybody.

00:00:13.320 Okay, that's not much of a sing-along song, I guess.

00:00:16.660 But we don't need to sing because we've got more fun to do.

00:00:21.460 More fun to have.

00:00:23.540 It's time for Coffee with Scott Adams, the best part of your day, every single time.

00:00:29.320 Every now and then you'll wake up and say,

00:00:31.280 I wonder if today will be the day that Coffee with Scott Adams is not the best part of my day.

00:00:38.520 And then it is, every single time.

00:00:41.340 And all you need to enjoy it is a cup or mug or a glass of tank or chalice or stine,

00:00:45.440 a canteen jug or flask, a vessel of any kind.

00:00:51.480 Somebody's saying that there's no audio.

00:00:55.000 That must be...

00:00:57.340 Why would there be no audio?

00:01:03.300 Let me see if I can fix that.

00:01:07.240 So it looks like YouTube can hear me and Periscope cannot.

00:01:11.720 And it doesn't look like there's any way to fix the Periscope.

00:01:17.940 So, go to YouTube for sound.

00:01:23.340 So, if you can't hear me, go to YouTube for sound.

00:01:40.660 So, I'm just going to...

00:01:45.660 I'm just going to turn off Periscope.

00:01:52.980 All right.

00:01:53.960 Periscope's not working for some reason.

00:01:56.300 That's not obvious.

00:01:58.560 Because everything's the same.

00:02:00.640 So, I guess we won't be doing Periscope today.

00:02:03.760 We'll just be doing YouTube.

00:02:05.160 Because YouTube seems to be working for some reason.

00:02:09.380 Very disappointing.

00:02:11.800 Very disappointing.

00:02:14.580 But I'll wait for a second.

00:02:15.980 The Periscope people will probably jump over to YouTube.

00:02:18.600 All right.

00:02:20.500 There's some breaking news.

00:02:23.140 The Nobel Peace Prize Committee has decided that the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize is going to go to the World Food Program.

00:02:35.700 That's right.

00:02:37.900 The World Food Program is going to get the Nobel Peace Prize.

00:02:42.480 And this is why you should only have originalists on the Nobel Peace Prize Committee.

00:02:47.860 Because who exactly were the runner-ups?

00:02:52.000 Were the runner-ups...

00:02:53.700 All right.

00:02:57.420 I've lost my entire flow.

00:03:00.340 Because the sound problem over on Periscope just blew my entire routine.

00:03:08.440 And we do need to have the simultaneous sip.

00:03:11.180 So, let's do that and maybe I can get back on track.

00:03:14.940 I think the Periscope people are probably waiting for me to reinitiate.

00:03:19.080 But it won't work if I do.

00:03:20.340 So, I'm not going to.

00:03:21.280 So, join me now for the simultaneous sip.

00:03:27.800 Oh, that's a little better.

00:03:30.340 Yeah.

00:03:30.760 Sometimes you need those anchoring things.

00:03:36.580 Somebody says I have a coronavirus misinformation warning.

00:03:42.640 Is that why the sound didn't work on Periscope?

00:03:46.200 Did I get a misinformation warning?

00:03:49.540 Interesting.

00:03:50.580 Maybe.

00:03:51.280 So, maybe this one will get blocked as well.

00:03:54.720 Anyway, Governor Whitmer.

00:03:57.880 Apparently, there was a kidnapping plot.

00:04:01.840 An actual plot to kidnap the governor.

00:04:05.320 Governor Whitmer.

00:04:07.140 And the reporting says that the people involved in the kidnapping were Antifa and right-wingers.

00:04:16.220 What are the odds that Antifa and right-wingers were working together on a plot?

00:04:22.860 I'm going to go out on a limb and say the odds of that actually being true, that Antifa and right-wingers were working together, the odds of that being true are approximately zero.

00:04:36.600 But what if it is true?

00:04:37.840 If it is true, that should be a little tap on the shoulder if you're a governor.

00:04:45.360 If you're the governor, if you're the governor and you find that Antifa and the right-wingers have decided to get together and kidnap you, maybe the problem's on your side.

00:04:55.460 Because how bad a job could you do that you could make Antifa and right-wingers want to kidnap you?

00:05:04.760 Well, that's a pretty bad job.

00:05:08.060 So that would be a signal to look for other work.

00:05:13.180 All right.

00:05:15.820 Let's talk about packing the Supreme Court. 0.98

00:05:18.840 As you know, Biden and Kamala Harris refused to answer the question of whether they would pack the court.

00:05:26.600 Now, if somebody refuses to answer the question, it means they're going to pack the court.

00:05:32.080 Now, some have suggested that Biden doesn't really believe that.

00:05:36.760 So the reason he's not talking about it is so that he doesn't discourage his own voters.

00:05:44.500 So the thinking is that Biden is lying to his own voters by acting as if he might do it.

00:05:52.900 But we also think he might be lying to Trump voters by acting like he won't do it.

00:05:59.840 So he's got this clever little thing where he'll just say, I'm not going to tell you what I'm going to do.

00:06:05.960 It's the most important question in the election, because if the court is backed, it could be the end of the republic.

00:06:15.480 Now, what are the odds that it would be the end of the republic?

00:06:19.340 Pretty good, actually.

00:06:21.060 Pretty good.

00:06:21.780 Because if any administration packs the court, one of two things will happen.

00:06:26.980 Either they will control the government forever, because everything that they try to get away with, the court will back them up, because they packed the court.

00:06:35.840 So it could be the end of the republic.

00:06:37.760 I would say that's at least a 30% chance if you pack the court.

00:06:42.140 And by the way, the Trump campaign should put some odds on this, because if you just say court packing ruins the republic or doesn't, if you make it binary, it's definitely going to ruin the republic, or it's definitely not.

00:06:59.260 Pick one.

00:07:00.680 Well, it's more likely not, because we're actually pretty good at adjusting to just about anything.

00:07:07.280 But I'd say there's a solid 30% chance it would destroy the entire country.

00:07:14.600 So one way to look at it is, you don't know what's going to happen, but there's a pretty healthy chance that that one act of government would destroy the entire republic.

00:07:28.420 And I think that you could make that case pretty convincingly.

00:07:31.740 And I don't think the Trump administration has made that case, or the campaign has not made that case.

00:07:42.400 I also think it needs to be a visual.

00:07:45.840 Somebody probably needs to make whatever is the simple picture of what happens if you pack the court.

00:07:53.160 And if you see it in a picture, and maybe it's a meme or something, that might help, because I feel as if you took a poll of the citizens of the United States and said,

00:08:06.860 how important do you think this court packing is?

00:08:10.040 On a scale of 1 to 10, where does that live in terms of importance?

00:08:14.560 Well, I think people would only answer the question based on whether they wanted Democrats or Republicans to have control.

00:08:23.320 I don't think they would answer the question in terms of it being good or bad for the country in the long run.

00:08:30.120 And that's because they're not educated to think of it in terms of risk management.

00:08:34.880 So if you turn that into a risk management question, and you put a solid 30% odds that it will ruin the entire country,

00:08:42.240 and I feel like that's conservative, there's at least a 30% chance that packing the court would be the end of democracy in this country,

00:08:52.680 for all practical purposes.

00:08:56.400 I guess President Trump's going to do his first in-person interview since contracting coronavirus.

00:09:02.180 He's going to talk to Dr. Mark Siegel on Fox News.

00:09:05.480 I think that might be today.

00:09:09.760 Oh, it's going to air on Tucker Carlson's show.

00:09:12.240 Now, here's what I'm thinking.

00:09:18.440 Don't you agree that President Trump probably needs to do something to shake the box to get elected?

00:09:26.300 At least he's behind in the polls.

00:09:28.260 I'm not sure I believe the polls at this point, because I don't believe any data in 2020.

00:09:33.600 But let's say you believe that he's behind.

00:09:36.860 Let's say you believe the polls, and he needs to do something to change it.

00:09:41.580 Now, let's say that he doesn't have another debate.

00:09:45.000 What can he do?

00:09:46.140 What can he do to shake things up in a political way?

00:09:53.360 Now, of course, he could do something in terms of his job, so he could handle his job better or whatever.

00:09:59.540 And, you know, there might be some surprises.

00:10:02.600 Maybe Saudi Arabia comes out and says, surprise, we want to do a deal with Israel. 0.62

00:10:07.660 You could see something big.

00:10:10.000 I'll just put that out there as one example.

00:10:13.760 Maybe Saudi Arabia says, hey, we're in for the Middle East peace deal.

00:10:18.680 That would seem like a pretty big thing.

00:10:20.340 So there might be some other policy things that could be brewing that might happen.

00:10:26.940 Not necessarily that one.

00:10:29.120 But here is my suggestion for what Trump could do that's practical, that would shake up the campaign.

00:10:36.900 He should do an interview with me.

00:10:38.880 Now, I would be one of 10,000 people who say he should do an interview with them.

00:10:47.940 Yeah, some people say he should do an interview with Joe Rogan.

00:10:50.800 Now, I love Joe Rogan.

00:10:52.420 I think he's, you know, he's approaching national treasure, you know, status as being a, you know, an unusually valuable citizen of the country.

00:11:02.460 Let's put it that way.

00:11:04.040 Unusually, you know, useful and positive, in my opinion.

00:11:09.640 But I could do a better interview.

00:11:12.580 Not even close.

00:11:14.260 Because I could do a better interview than anybody could.

00:11:16.600 Now, I'm not exactly modest about my capabilities.

00:11:23.420 So you need to factor that in, of course.

00:11:26.880 But there are plenty of things I'm bad at that I'll also tell you I'm bad at.

00:11:32.160 I mean, I draw cartoons for a living, and I don't think I'm good at drawing cartoons.

00:11:37.040 So I'm pretty willing to tell you I'm bad at stuff.

00:11:40.480 I'm willing to tell you that I have a face for radio.

00:11:43.940 You know, I sniff too much.

00:11:45.260 You know, I got plenty of problems.

00:11:48.420 So if you're looking for me to be honest about my faults, I got lots of them.

00:11:53.380 You know, how long do you want the list to be?

00:11:55.640 I'll start now.

00:11:56.780 Alphabetical order.

00:11:57.980 All the things that I do poorly.

00:11:59.860 It's a pretty long list.

00:12:02.240 But the fact is, I could give the best interview of President Trump that would happen this political season.

00:12:10.700 And many of you know that's true.

00:12:13.320 You know that's true.

00:12:15.060 Because I wouldn't ask the same questions.

00:12:17.740 And I would find out what the real issues are.

00:12:21.140 And I would help the country understand them in a way that they've never seen them before.

00:12:26.800 And I'm pretty sure I could make that happen.

00:12:28.820 So if the Trump campaign wants that interview, you know where to find me.

00:12:34.960 But I do think Trump needs to do something to shake up the way we're thinking of things.

00:12:42.920 And what's left?

00:12:44.480 If he doesn't do a debate, what's left?

00:12:46.640 It's got to be an interview.

00:12:49.060 It's got to be the right type.

00:12:50.360 All right.

00:12:52.320 I reported Joe Biden's Twitter account to Twitter for inciting violence.

00:13:02.240 And specifically, it's where he continues to repeat the fine people hoax even yesterday.

00:13:09.600 The most widely debunked hoax in the history of the United States.

00:13:14.460 And he repeated it again yesterday.

00:13:17.780 And the maddening thing about it is that there's no reason that he shouldn't keep doing it.

00:13:22.720 Because it works.

00:13:24.880 And the news industry is so broken that they can't expose it.

00:13:30.780 So, you know, the people on the right can yell all day long.

00:13:34.500 But the people on the left will just never hear it.

00:13:36.800 They will be completely unaware that this is a hoax.

00:13:39.600 And if they do hear that it's a hoax, they quite reasonably believe that the news is fake.

00:13:46.620 Right?

00:13:47.660 Because if you don't believe a lot of the news that you see and you don't, why would anybody else?

00:13:54.400 If there's anybody who believes the stories they see on the internet and in the news, well, they've got some explaining to do.

00:14:01.440 I don't know why you'd believe anything these days.

00:14:04.260 All right.

00:14:04.880 So I reported him for inciting violence.

00:14:08.480 Because in my opinion, it's pretty straightforward.

00:14:12.320 In my opinion, if you are accusing the president of complimenting neo-Nazis and white supremacists,

00:14:19.740 and you're claiming that he's never denounced them, although there are compilation clips of him denouncing them all over the place,

00:14:26.380 if you're selling that story, you are also selling violence.

00:14:30.960 Because you can't separate those.

00:14:33.560 If he is the person that Joe Biden says he is, and his supporters, you know, know it, which is what the Democrats would claim,

00:14:43.940 hey, all you supporters, you know who you're supporting.

00:14:48.120 So therefore, you're no better than. 0.98

00:14:52.720 And in other words, you would also be white supremacists or white supremacist supporters. 0.96

00:14:58.820 In this country, is it acceptable to perform violence against white supremacists?

00:15:06.480 Well, it's not legal.

00:15:08.640 It's not legal.

00:15:10.280 You know, unless they're doing some crime against you, I guess.

00:15:12.840 But it's certainly acceptable in terms of moral and ethical acceptability.

00:15:19.440 If you heard a story about a white supremacist or an actual racist who got beat up by somebody else,

00:15:27.640 would you care as much as if it had been somebody else?

00:15:32.980 Probably not.

00:15:34.360 And if you're a Democrat, you would think it was a good day. 0.98

00:15:36.980 You'd say, yeah, glad that white supremacist supporter got beat up.

00:15:42.420 So the accusation itself is a call to violence in a way that any other accusation is not.

00:15:49.700 If you hear President Trump say that Kamala Harris is a socialist,

00:15:54.580 does that make you want to beat her up or beat up her supporters?

00:15:59.280 Nope.

00:16:00.420 Nope.

00:16:01.220 Calling somebody a socialist is not a call to violence.

00:16:04.320 Not even close.

00:16:05.200 Not even a little bit.

00:16:07.780 How about if you say that Joe Biden has some dementia problems?

00:16:12.700 Could be true.

00:16:13.800 Could be false.

00:16:15.260 But it's not a call to violence. 0.94

00:16:17.560 Are you going to beat somebody up because they voted for somebody who had some mental capacity problems? 0.78

00:16:22.820 Nope. 0.99

00:16:24.040 Nope.

00:16:24.460 You don't beat people up for that.

00:16:26.420 But you would certainly beat somebody up if you thought they were Hitler or Hitler supporters.

00:16:31.620 That's beat up material.

00:16:32.800 So I think Twitter should remove any claims from Joe Biden on the fine people hoax on the violence level.

00:16:42.280 And by the way, just so I'm perfectly clear about this, you know, it's hard to tell when I'm joking sometimes.

00:16:48.540 There is no joke in this.

00:16:51.060 That is super dangerous language.

00:16:55.440 You know, perpetuating that hoax.

00:16:57.840 It is absolutely dangerous.

00:17:01.260 Absolutely.

00:17:02.500 100% true.

00:17:03.800 No hyperbole in this.

00:17:06.440 That is dangerous speech.

00:17:08.640 And it shouldn't be on social media.

00:17:12.300 So, Jack, if you're listening, that is completely serious.

00:17:16.180 And I think you should take it seriously.

00:17:17.960 And I don't think there's any other topic like that one.

00:17:21.880 There's nothing else I'd compare it to that is even slightly, you know, that bad.

00:17:27.220 All right.

00:17:29.440 Let's talk about the coronavirus.

00:17:31.600 So all the smart people tell us, and they're probably right about this, that how the country thinks about the coronavirus leadership in this country will determine the election and determine the fate of the United States.

00:17:45.800 So you would all agree on that, right, that it's probably true that how people think of the coronavirus leadership will determine the fate of the United States, because it will determine the presidency and maybe Congress, too.

00:17:59.100 So what if we got that data wrong?

00:18:02.180 Well, if the data is wrong in a meaningful way, not in a slight way, but in a meaningful way, we would be making the most important decision in the history of the United States, or at least in recent years in the history of the United States, and we would be using the wrong data to do it.

00:18:21.880 Here's my problem.

00:18:23.140 And let me give you some context for this.

00:18:25.500 Some of you know, I used to have lots of corporate jobs before I was doing cartooning and before this.

00:18:33.140 And my corporate jobs were based on my background in economics.

00:18:37.540 I have a degree in economics.

00:18:39.120 I've got an MBA.

00:18:40.260 And I spent most of my corporate time looking at spreadsheets and numbers and data.

00:18:45.480 Most of it.

00:18:46.360 All right.

00:18:47.100 And one of the things I discovered when I first took my first serious data analysis job is that I had a boss.

00:18:56.080 Who I would hand her a spreadsheet, like literally a page with just full of numbers.

00:19:02.340 It would just be a blizzard of numbers that I'd done on a spreadsheet.

00:19:05.980 And I would go into my boss and I'd say, all right, I finished this analysis.

00:19:09.280 You want it?

00:19:09.720 Here it is.

00:19:10.860 And my boss would pick up the spreadsheet and in approximately two seconds, she would do this. 1.00

00:19:19.100 Well, that number doesn't look right.

00:19:20.940 Check this number.

00:19:21.780 And remember, the whole page is full of numbers.

00:19:26.400 And in two seconds, she would pick out that one number that looked fishy.

00:19:30.680 And she'd say, go check this one out.

00:19:32.420 And then I'd go check that out.

00:19:33.620 And it would be a typo or bad data.

00:19:37.480 And I would go back to her and I'd say, how the heck do you do that?

00:19:41.520 Because it wasn't like one time.

00:19:43.500 It was like this regular thing she could do.

00:19:45.480 Like the skill she'd developed in doing this kind of work for years.

00:19:51.240 And I said, how do you do that?

00:19:52.840 And she said, I don't know.

00:19:54.340 I don't know.

00:19:54.800 It's just sort of a skill, an instinct, an intuition you develop where you can just look at stuff and you can pick out the air.

00:20:02.140 Well, I did that job for a number of years after having that experience.

00:20:07.740 And I started to develop that same skill to the point where it's a running thing that I talk about with Christina all the time, where she'll ask me to estimate the cost of something that I don't know anything about.

00:20:22.860 And I can estimate it with weird accuracy.

00:20:26.860 So she'll say something like, I'll just make this one up.

00:20:29.900 How much would it cost to send a camel to Mars?

00:20:34.200 Which I'm guessing nobody's ever estimated that cost.

00:20:37.400 And I'll sit there and I'll think, ah, camel. 0.99

00:20:40.520 Camel to Mars, that's about, well, if you start from scratch and you don't use the assets of NASA, let's say a 10-year project, send a camel to Mars.

00:20:52.000 I think that's about $23 to $25 billion.

00:20:55.940 And then someday somebody sends a camel to Mars and it costs $24 billion.

00:21:00.580 It's just this weird ability that you develop.

00:21:04.340 And not because I'm extra smart.

00:21:07.020 You know, the reason I brought up my boss, same reason.

00:21:10.620 You know, if you just do the work, and I'll bet you can find this out from other people.

00:21:16.240 People can smell wrong data if they've worked with data enough.

00:21:21.000 I would imagine that Nate Silver, for example.

00:21:25.440 I would guess that if Nate Silver looks at a big page of data, that because of his experience, he can do that.

00:21:32.160 That, that's wrong.

00:21:34.680 I'll bet he can do that all day long because it's just a skill you develop.

00:21:38.300 So today I went looking at the coronavirus death rates.

00:21:43.680 And let me tell you with all of the intuition and skill that I've developed in finding BS numbers,

00:21:51.640 that the coronavirus death statistics are not just wrong for the United States.

00:21:59.640 They're not just wrong, but they're really wrong.

00:22:04.460 And I'm going to take a stand for that right now.

00:22:09.320 Now, I've talked at great length about why the numbers might be wrong in the past.

00:22:14.540 But this is different because I didn't realize how wrong they were until I looked at them this morning.

00:22:20.040 Our death rates are something like 10 to 20 times worse than countries that you would expect would be similar.

00:22:28.800 Now, I have been saying things like, well, we have more obesity.

00:22:32.940 We have a greater population of African-American citizens and they're greater risk. 1.00

00:22:38.640 And I've been trying to explain it by things like that and, and also by financial incentives and hospitals.

00:22:45.260 Apparently you'll get a little extra money if you say you are treating a coronavirus patient and that's why they died.

00:22:52.840 But here's the new information.

00:22:56.320 The new information is if you took all of those things and said, okay, by coincidence,

00:23:01.600 there's a whole bunch of things in the United States that are different.

00:23:05.360 We got the obesity, we got the, you know, maybe the different drugs.

00:23:10.000 Maybe we've got more international travel.

00:23:12.280 Maybe we're, we have more love of freedom.

00:23:14.240 So less compliance.

00:23:16.120 Maybe we started a little late.

00:23:17.940 Maybe, you know, with, with locking down.

00:23:21.120 Maybe we did bad things with the rest homes, you know, especially compared to other countries.

00:23:26.680 Maybe, you know, maybe it's something about the demographics.

00:23:29.560 Maybe it's our DNA.

00:23:30.440 If you added all of that together, it wouldn't explain how completely wrong our data is compared to other countries.

00:23:42.960 Completely wrong.

00:23:44.340 We're having a thousand deaths a day where other countries that you think would be acting somewhat similarly are having a dozen.

00:23:53.020 Or, you know, a few dozen.

00:23:54.920 It's not even close.

00:23:56.180 All of those other effects put together, even if you can imagine that they were all valid and they all changed the numbers, might move at 40%, right?

00:24:07.080 So everything that we've talked about, that we know of, that we can see, we can, we can verify is true, altogether, it might make our number 40% wrong.

00:24:18.680 And that's not even in the general zip code of the universe of the solar system of how wrong the number is.

00:24:27.260 It's not 40% wrong.

00:24:28.960 It's somewhere like 20 times wrong, all right?

00:24:32.720 There's something missing that we don't know about.

00:24:38.280 I don't know what it is.

00:24:39.720 I'm going to speculate, all right?

00:24:41.740 Here's my speculation.

00:24:43.020 It's based on very sketchy and non-credible information that I saw on the internet.

00:24:48.980 So you should dial back your credibility on this following point.

00:24:54.620 But if you're looking for something that's a gigantic difference, none of the things I've mentioned gets you there.

00:25:01.340 None of it do.

00:25:02.400 Now, a lot of you think it's because the way we code it, there's a financial incentive in the hospital, and that's the big difference.

00:25:08.780 But if you look into that financial incentive, the extra money you get for coding a coronavirus basically pays the extra cost of taking care of a coronavirus patient.

00:25:20.060 Because you can't take care of other patients.

00:25:23.280 You have to decrease your hospital usage.

00:25:26.600 So basically, it's not that you would get a windfall from treating coronavirus patients.

00:25:33.300 It's that they cost more.

00:25:34.540 So all you are doing is getting paid for the fact that they do cost more.

00:25:40.360 So I'm not sure that explains it.

00:25:43.300 But I did hear this explanation that in Germany, for example, and let's use that as a proxy for other countries, that in Germany, which is doing wildly better than the United States, it's not even in the same ballpark, right?

00:25:57.560 That if you have cancer and you have coronavirus and you die, Germany calls it a cancer death and the United States calls it a coronavirus death.

00:26:08.700 Which one of them is right?

00:26:11.140 And by the way, if that's true, I need a fact check on that.

00:26:14.580 But if it's true that Germany would count the underlying condition as opposed to the thing you just got this week, if that's true and we do it the other way, that would explain the entire difference, I think.

00:26:30.320 So I need a fact check on that.

00:26:33.760 But if that's all that's going on and we're going to make a decision about our leaders based on data that is wronged by a factor of 10 to 20, we need to fix that.

00:26:46.040 And we need to fix that right away.

00:26:48.760 And I think that might be the best hypothesis.

00:26:52.980 But if that's not the case, if it turns out that the way we record it is backwards from the way other places do it, if that's the only story, I'd be surprised.

00:27:04.140 I think there might even be something bigger.

00:27:08.700 Somebody says, if that's true, it's mind boggling.

00:27:11.240 Let me ask you this.

00:27:13.120 Take a look at the news on any major story that has a political element to it.

00:27:19.720 The coronavirus obviously has a political element to it.

00:27:23.180 Look at any story that has a scientific element to it.

00:27:27.220 The coronavirus has a scientific element to it.

00:27:30.580 In what situations do we have news about something that is both political and scientific and it's squarely in both domains?

00:27:40.440 It's very political, very scientific.

00:27:44.320 When in those situations do we get accurate information?

00:27:49.100 Maybe never.

00:27:50.660 Maybe never ever.

00:27:52.480 Maybe it's never happened in the history of human behavior.

00:27:57.540 The coronavirus data is exactly the kind of stuff that we're always lying to ourselves about.

00:28:03.560 It couldn't be more perfectly the kind of thing you lie about.

00:28:07.260 So if the coronavirus data is accurate, and by accurate I mean if it's even within 40% of being accurate,

00:28:17.220 I would be amazed because it would be the first time we ever had a situation like this that we were in the general ballpark.

00:28:27.240 Because usually this situation, political and scientific, that takes you to outer space in terms of credibility.

00:28:38.300 All right.

00:28:39.520 Here's another hypothesis.

00:28:42.380 Mike Duesberg on Twitter suggests this.

00:28:45.780 So he knows somebody, an emergency care doctor, who told him personally that, quote,

00:28:53.240 what happened in March wasn't natural, and the night-day difference in the cases I see now compared to then also isn't natural.

00:29:02.280 So there's a doctor who says, I can't really, this doesn't pass the sniff test.

00:29:10.740 Because if you look at what the country is doing, you know, to mitigate the masks and the social distancing and everything,

00:29:17.640 if you look at all that, it doesn't seem to be enough to explain why the cases dropped so fast.

00:29:25.200 And so his idea is that there might have been some targeted release.

00:29:31.180 Targeted release.

00:29:32.580 Let's say you were a foreign adversary.

00:29:36.060 You're a foreign adversary and you learn that every country is going to get the coronavirus.

00:29:41.540 What would you do if you wanted to harm a foreign country in the context of a pandemic where everybody has more coronavirus?

00:29:50.140 What you would do is you would make sure that that country got a little extra infected.

00:29:56.140 How hard would that be?

00:29:57.520 Unfortunately, not hard.

00:29:59.920 Not hard.

00:30:01.040 Because if you had access to the virus and you were a spy organization of some other country that was not friendly,

00:30:10.080 it wouldn't be hard to make sure there was a little extra someplace.

00:30:14.580 Do you remember when Iran first, you know, you first heard the reports out of Iran that there were infections?

00:30:22.480 And the very next thing you heard is that some of the inner circle was immediately infected.

00:30:26.900 You know, Khomeini's inner circle.

00:30:29.320 Immediately there were top clerics who were infected.

00:30:32.140 And I said to myself, it could be a coincidence, but if I were trying to take out a country, 0.89

00:30:39.420 the first thing I would do is make sure that the, you know, the lower level politicians got infected.

00:30:46.920 Because that would change the nature of the whole country.

00:30:51.120 So I'm not saying there's evidence of any of that.

00:30:55.340 And I certainly hope it did not happen.

00:30:57.880 But can you rule it out?

00:30:59.900 Can you rule it out?

00:31:00.800 I don't know how you can, because it's perfectly in the category of things that happen in this world.

00:31:08.180 All right.

00:31:09.620 When I looked at the death rate by coronavirus,

00:31:14.420 I noticed that we track the death rate per million is accumulative.

00:31:21.900 Isn't that exactly the wrong way to measure the death rate per million?

00:31:26.700 Shouldn't we have, you know, one number that is the, you know, from the beginning of time, the death rate?

00:31:33.660 But shouldn't there be another number that's the death rate per million, say, in the last 30 days?

00:31:40.000 Because whatever you're doing lately is likely to be really different from what you did in the beginning.

00:31:45.760 So could you not have a situation where you were really bad in the beginning, but you're doing great now and vice versa?

00:31:52.400 So that missing data feels like the only one that matters.

00:31:56.860 In fact, if you said to me, Scott, we're going to only be able to measure one thing.

00:32:03.000 So you tell us what you need to be measured to handle the coronavirus thing.

00:32:09.740 And I would say, well, the only thing I care about, the only data that would be meaningful to me to see how we're doing is the death rate per million for the last 30 days and then keep a rolling 30 days.

00:32:24.120 It's the only thing that's not available, right?

00:32:28.560 I mean, I guess somebody could calculate it, but it's not the number one thing that's reported.

00:32:34.200 And I'm thinking, that's the only thing I care about.

00:32:37.240 The total number of people is misleading because of different populations.

00:32:42.120 And the cumulative is misleading because you might have gotten a bad start or a good start.

00:32:47.180 But it doesn't tell you what's happening lately.

00:32:49.700 So is it a coincidence that the only useful information is not reported?

00:32:56.800 Is there nobody who reports data who doesn't know what I just told you?

00:33:00.540 Of course they do.

00:33:02.260 Why don't they give you the information that would be most useful?

00:33:05.340 I don't know.

00:33:06.860 I don't know.

00:33:07.900 It has to be intentional.

00:33:12.080 All right.

00:33:15.840 There are two lies.

00:33:17.340 There's one by conservatives and one by liberals that seem very balanced, meaning that it's the same lie.

00:33:27.620 It's just reversed for the other side.

00:33:29.780 And it goes like this.

00:33:33.200 Biden claims that Trump and Kamala Harris claim that Trump wants to get rid of pre-existing conditions

00:33:41.500 or that he will get rid of pre-existing conditions.

00:33:44.460 But Trump says, no, I'm going to get rid of Obamacare, which includes the protection for pre-existing conditions.

00:33:53.280 So that part's true.

00:33:55.280 But we're not going to get rid of all the parts.

00:33:57.900 We're going to keep one of the parts.

00:33:59.880 And that part is maintaining pre-existing conditions coverage.

00:34:03.960 So the president says clearly, consistently, unambiguously, it is his intention to get rid of Obamacare,

00:34:12.940 but to keep that one part of it that people care about the most.

00:34:16.360 Could not be more clear about that.

00:34:19.140 And Biden and Harris say, well, you're going to get rid of pre-existing conditions.

00:34:23.000 Now, what it could mean, and this would be fair, if they were to say it this way, it would be fair.

00:34:28.560 They might say, you have not assured us that you're going to take care of pre-existing conditions.

00:34:35.380 We feel as if we don't trust you to take care of pre-existing conditions.

00:34:42.060 But it's basically a lie because he's simply only made a promise.

00:34:46.620 And you can't say somebody's promise won't be kept until it happens, right?

00:34:53.980 Because it's certainly within the category of things he could do.

00:34:57.300 Would it be impossible to keep pre-existing conditions?

00:35:01.200 No.

00:35:02.360 No, it wouldn't be impossible.

00:35:04.460 So, and the president's pretty darn good at keeping his promises, his campaign promises.

00:35:10.240 So, that's just a lie by the Biden and Kamala Harris people in the sense that they could have said,

00:35:17.700 we don't trust it to happen, but it's a lie to say you're going to do it.

00:35:22.620 Now, reversing this, because the lying doesn't all happen in one direction,

00:35:28.420 the Trump campaign and people who are friendly with it

00:35:34.360 are saying that Biden and Kamala Harris plan to raise taxes on the middle class.

00:35:41.240 Biden and Harris say that's not true.

00:35:44.060 We're going to repeal the Trump tax cuts,

00:35:47.040 but we're not going to change the part that affected the people under $400,000 a year.

00:35:54.260 So, we're saying as clearly as we possibly can,

00:35:57.920 just as clearly as Trump says he's going to maintain pre-existing conditions,

00:36:02.740 just as clearly as that, Biden and Harris are saying,

00:36:06.700 no, we're going to get rid of the tax cuts for the rich people,

00:36:09.800 but we're totally not going to touch the ones at the bottom.

00:36:13.120 Now, again, in similar fashion, you might say to yourself,

00:36:17.080 I know that's what they say, but I don't trust them to do that.

00:36:21.820 I don't believe that they'll do that, which is the real problem, right?

00:36:27.160 So, both sides are lying to you in exactly the same fashion.

00:36:31.780 So, but I would trust that you're smart enough to pick that out.

00:36:35.780 There's a Gallup poll that's kind of interesting.

00:36:38.600 And it said that they, it's being called an incredible finding,

00:36:43.800 and I think it is, that 56% of the public in the US

00:36:50.000 say that they're better off today.

00:36:53.520 56% are better off than they were a few years ago.

00:36:56.640 Apparently, that's a historical record.

00:37:01.120 The number of people who think they're better off today under Trump

00:37:05.320 is at an all-time high.

00:37:08.280 It's never been higher, and it's not even really close.

00:37:12.600 It's substantially higher than it has ever been before.

00:37:18.420 Shouldn't that be the only thing that matters?

00:37:21.740 Shouldn't it be crazy?

00:37:22.960 I mean, let me put it this way.

00:37:27.020 When we're measuring everything from systemic racism

00:37:30.560 to income inequality to just about everything,

00:37:35.860 we tend to look at how much money you're making,

00:37:39.260 whether you're in jail or likely to be jailed,

00:37:42.640 and all these things that could be measured.

00:37:45.400 So, a lot of measurable stuff.

00:37:46.900 But what if everybody's about equally happy?

00:37:50.460 Is there anything to fix?

00:37:53.100 Shouldn't the goal of life be to be happy?

00:37:58.020 Right?

00:37:58.860 If I gave you a choice of, I'll give you a million dollars,

00:38:04.040 and you'll be unhappy, or I'll give you an ordinary income,

00:38:08.660 but you'll definitely be happy, which would you choose?

00:38:11.540 Because I think you'd choose to be happy, right?

00:38:15.220 You wouldn't choose the money over the happiness, I don't think.

00:38:19.740 So, here we have this absurd situation

00:38:24.620 where we can measure people's happiness, apparently.

00:38:29.140 We can measure it in some ways.

00:38:31.260 And it's the most important thing.

00:38:33.020 It's the thing we all want.

00:38:34.500 It's the one thing we agree on,

00:38:35.900 that being happy would be a great outcome.

00:38:38.060 And yet, we measure other things.

00:38:41.280 We can measure it.

00:38:42.920 We know it's the most important thing.

00:38:45.380 And we only measure other things.

00:38:48.520 Why?

00:38:49.360 Why do we do that?

00:38:51.260 What is wrong with us,

00:38:52.580 that we don't measure the only thing that matters?

00:38:54.980 Let me ask you this.

00:38:56.640 If you measured the happiness level of,

00:38:59.900 I'll just pick two groups,

00:39:01.860 Asian Americans and African Americans,

00:39:04.580 and you measured their overall happiness,

00:39:07.180 just, are you happy?

00:39:09.000 You know, just that question.

00:39:10.320 How happy are you?

00:39:11.160 On a scale of one to ten.

00:39:12.920 Would they be the same?

00:39:15.000 I actually don't know the answer to that question.

00:39:17.320 My guess is they'd be kind of similar.

00:39:21.820 And yet, the economic outcomes are completely different.

00:39:28.400 That should matter, but it doesn't.

00:39:30.480 There's another study that says that Fox viewers are less likely than CNN viewers

00:39:39.100 to take preventative measures with the coronavirus.

00:39:42.600 So, Fox News people are less likely to wear a mask,

00:39:46.040 less likely to socially distance,

00:39:47.840 less likely to want to close a business, etc.

00:39:50.780 And that's probably true.

00:39:53.100 I feel like that's true.

00:39:54.200 Now, here's another question.

00:39:57.060 Which group are happier?

00:39:59.160 Are Fox News viewers happier?

00:40:02.720 Or are CNN viewers happier?

00:40:05.320 And isn't the goal to be happy?

00:40:07.780 Right?

00:40:09.580 Well, if you do a little research,

00:40:11.560 you'll find out that conservatives

00:40:12.800 are happier,

00:40:15.620 and substantially so,

00:40:17.460 than people who are not conservative.

00:40:19.320 So, it would be actually accurate to say,

00:40:22.880 almost certainly,

00:40:24.160 that Fox News viewers are happier.

00:40:26.840 They're happier than CNN viewers.

00:40:28.960 And it feels like that's true, doesn't it?

00:40:31.580 When you just see how people are responding to politics,

00:40:36.480 doesn't it, anecdotally,

00:40:38.460 doesn't it look exactly like that?

00:40:40.240 It looks like the people on the left are literally unhappy.

00:40:44.960 It's not just about policy.

00:40:46.840 It's not about preferences.

00:40:47.820 They actually seem unhappy with life.

00:40:51.260 Whereas the conservatives,

00:40:52.420 even when they're complaining,

00:40:54.640 seem kind of happy in general.

00:40:56.820 They're complaining and happy at the same time.

00:40:59.880 So, if the goal is happiness,

00:41:03.520 should the Fox News viewers

00:41:05.080 who don't wear their masks as often,

00:41:07.780 are they making a mistake?

00:41:09.940 Or are they doing more of the stuff

00:41:11.840 that made them happy in the first place?

00:41:13.820 And they understand the risk,

00:41:15.380 and they know that there's a cost to it.

00:41:17.820 I don't know.

00:41:19.860 We'll measure all the wrong things.

00:41:21.820 Speaking of mental health,

00:41:23.580 Pelosi and Representative Raskin,

00:41:27.380 I guess they're going to promote,

00:41:29.860 maybe today this is happening,

00:41:31.300 they're pushing a bill to create a commission

00:41:33.640 on presidential capacity

00:41:35.080 to discharge the Powers and Duties of Office Act.

00:41:41.740 So, Pelosi is going to be pushing on the 25th Amendment,

00:41:45.980 replacing President Trump for fitness for office, I guess.

00:41:51.740 And I'm thinking,

00:41:53.680 could that be a worse thing to do?

00:41:56.620 That's just about the worst thing I could think of

00:41:58.780 when you're only weeks away from an election.

00:42:01.020 Because I don't know how long it would take

00:42:04.160 to do a 25th Amendment thing,

00:42:06.280 but I think we could wait until the election.

00:42:08.860 Now, here's what I would like to do instead.

00:42:11.780 I do think that there are some types of medications

00:42:14.580 that should automatically 25th Amendment to you. 1.00

00:42:20.840 Now, it might cause presidents not to take those drugs,

00:42:23.960 which would be a problem too.

00:42:25.180 But I would think that a doctor should be able to say,

00:42:28.640 you know, this president is taking this prescription drug,

00:42:32.720 and this is on the short list of things,

00:42:34.940 which if you're on these things,

00:42:37.240 you ought to, at least temporarily,

00:42:40.220 turn over, you know,

00:42:41.900 maybe some of the big decisions like nuclear codes.

00:42:45.260 If you turn that over to the vice president,

00:42:47.620 just while you're on that drug.

00:42:49.680 Now, that doesn't mean that you're incapable of functioning.

00:42:53.040 It just means you could be.

00:42:54.180 Again, it's risk management.

00:42:56.920 It doesn't mean there's something wrong with you.

00:42:59.260 It just means you're taking a drug

00:43:00.620 where it would be hard to tell,

00:43:03.140 and you might do something

00:43:04.320 that would be too aggressive, for example.

00:43:07.560 I was just reading up on President Kennedy

00:43:10.160 and how many drugs he was on.

00:43:13.060 President Kennedy was on a lot of drugs.

00:43:16.040 One of them was a steroid.

00:43:18.680 Did it make him more aggressive?

00:43:20.860 Don't know.

00:43:21.420 One of them was Ritalin,

00:43:24.640 which was basically Adderall of the day.

00:43:27.760 So Kennedy was on performance-enhancing drugs,

00:43:31.180 and he was also on something

00:43:33.880 that might have made him a little more aggressive.

00:43:36.340 I'm not a doctor,

00:43:37.360 but I think that would be fair to say.

00:43:39.480 The steroids he was on might have made him more aggressive.

00:43:41.840 Do you think that the Cuban Missile Crisis

00:43:44.740 would have gone the same way

00:43:46.440 if he had been differently medicated?

00:43:49.920 Because it's pretty ballsy

00:43:51.440 to tell Russia

00:43:53.260 that we're going to launch a nuclear attack 0.87

00:43:56.080 if they put some missiles in Cuba.

00:43:58.820 That's pretty gutsy.

00:44:01.240 Is it exactly what he would have done

00:44:03.420 if he had not been on steroids?

00:44:07.580 We don't know.

00:44:08.920 We know it worked.

00:44:10.780 So when we look back at it in hindsight,

00:44:13.420 we could say,

00:44:13.880 well, it worked.

00:44:15.040 Therefore, it was genius.

00:44:16.500 Therefore, it was good leadership.

00:44:18.260 But we didn't know it would work, right?

00:44:21.520 Did we know it would work?

00:44:23.020 I think maybe we didn't know it would work.

00:44:27.580 Somebody says methamphetamines too.

00:44:31.280 Yeah, they do have some effect.

00:44:33.360 So I don't know if that's the right answer,

00:44:35.500 but I'm not completely against the idea

00:44:38.580 that there are some medications

00:44:39.800 that should just automatically

00:44:41.400 take you off the decision-making tree.

00:44:44.420 And I base that on my own experience with medications

00:44:47.140 because there have definitely been medications

00:44:49.180 that made me more aggressive.

00:44:51.980 If you're hearing my cat in the background,

00:44:55.640 she's making noise. 0.56

00:44:57.380 Hey, boo, come on up here. 1.00

00:44:59.940 Yeah.

00:45:03.900 I think one of the reasons

00:45:05.180 that Trump canceled the debate

00:45:07.080 is not just because it would be a virtual debate,

00:45:10.180 and that actually would be reason enough

00:45:12.560 because they would be able to cut off his microphone.

00:45:16.060 I don't think it's just because

00:45:17.940 he didn't gain a lot in his own debate.

00:45:22.200 I don't think it's just because of anything.

00:45:28.320 I think it's just because

00:45:29.440 maybe he wants to make sure

00:45:31.700 he's got a little more time to recover.

00:45:34.400 I think it would be smart for the president

00:45:36.400 to not rush to a debate.

00:45:39.480 Because imagine it's a day before the debate

00:45:41.600 and you're not 100%.

00:45:42.860 Do you want to go up in the debate stage

00:45:45.420 and not being 100%?

00:45:47.340 The worst thing that could happen.

00:45:48.960 Just the worst thing that could happen.

00:45:50.980 So, yeah, I think he needs to be sure

00:45:52.680 that he can handle the debate.

00:45:55.920 And I think you're canceling it

00:45:57.400 for an excuse that it's digital.

00:45:59.620 That's a good play.

00:46:01.440 That's a good play.

00:46:02.440 I think that's the right decision.

00:46:03.520 All right.

00:46:08.620 So there you have it.

00:46:12.740 Somebody says Kennedy pulled missiles out of Turkey.

00:46:16.640 I believe the story about what Kennedy pulled out

00:46:21.520 were obsolete assets.

00:46:24.220 So I think that what Kennedy gave up to Russia

00:46:27.180 was obsolete.

00:46:28.680 What he got in return

00:46:29.860 was taking functional missiles out of Cuba.

00:46:32.600 So I think it was reported

00:46:34.580 in a way that could make Russia 0.85

00:46:36.520 feel like they got something.

00:46:38.100 But maybe they didn't.

00:46:39.920 All right.

00:46:41.020 That is all.

00:46:41.860 I'll try to figure out

00:46:42.560 why I don't have sound on Periscope.

00:46:44.100 And I'll talk to you later.

Real Coffee with Scott Adams - October 09, 2020

Episode 1149 Scott Adams： Coronavirus Data is All Wrong. Biden is Dangerous. Trump and 25th Amendment

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