Episode 1273 Scott Adams： What Conservatives Get Wrong About Masks, How to Legally Fix an Election
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 15 minutes
Words per Minute
146.9384
Summary
On this episode of the podcast, Scott Adams talks about Mike Bloomberg's new stance on the teachers' unions, the growing problem of school closings, and the possible link between COID and the growing death toll from the Black Plague pandemic.
Transcript
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Come on in. Come on in. Come on in. Gather round. There's still plenty of chairs available.
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Get a place up front and you'll get it first. That's right. And if you'd like to make this
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the best Friday you've had all week, all you need is a cup or mug or a glass, a tank or
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chalice or stein, a canteen jug or flask, a vessel of any kind. Fill it with your favorite
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liquid. I like coffee. And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure of the dopamine
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to end the day, the thing that makes everything better. It's called the simultaneous sip. Yeah.
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And it's going to come to you worldwide right now. Go.
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Ah, yeah, that's good. Yes, as one of the commenters noted, Periscope, the service will go away in March.
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When that happens, those of you already watching this on YouTube don't have to do anything. But
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those of you who always watch it on Periscope, you might want to look for it on YouTube and
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just search for Real Coffee with Scott Adams or just look at my Twitter feed. I tweet it
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every day. So how about all the things that are happening? Let's talk about the news. All
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right. Let's talk about, so Mike Bloomberg is saying that Biden needs to do more to fight the
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teachers' unions because the teachers' unions are keeping the schools closed. So Mike Bloomberg now
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recognizes that the teachers' unions are a source of systemic racism. Now, he doesn't use that term,
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but he does talk about how poor people are deeply disadvantaged with this Zoom school situation
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because they don't have necessarily even Wi-Fi or iPads or any of that. And so having Mike Bloomberg and
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maybe more Democrats starting to see that the biggest problem in our country, literally the biggest
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problem is the teachers' unions. It's the biggest problem. There's nothing even close. Everything
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else stems from that. So maybe this is a big deal when somebody as prominent as Bloomberg calls out the
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teachers' unions as being a bad influence on society. Maybe that matters. You know, maybe each of us,
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a lot of us on here, complaining about them. Maybe it mattered. We'll see. I like it when something I've
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been advocating for strongly happens. And then I can tell myself, well, maybe I was, you know,
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some small, tiny percentage of getting this moving in the right direction. Because these things don't
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happen unless lots of people agree. And getting people to agree is kind of what I try to do.
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I tweeted around a video the other day of Tony Robbins making the claim that the overall death
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rate in the United States hasn't changed in 2020. And therefore that the pandemic is maybe not that
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real because the overall death rate didn't change. So I tweeted that around and said, can you give me a
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fact check on that? It took about, well, today I saw a good one, that the 2020 death rate so far,
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and they're not even done counting yet, I guess some of the data lags, but so far it's up 12%
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compared to normal. 12%. That's a lot for the death rate. The overall death rate in the country
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is up at least 12%. They're still not done counting. That's a lot. All right. Something
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happened. Now, is that death all from COVID? Don't know. I think it equated to 300 and some thousand
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people extra. So, you know, we do have a question of how well we're counting the COVID deaths.
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But it does look like something happened that might not be just from the lockdowns itself killing
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people, although we know there's some of that. So when you see people claim that the death rate
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did not change, there's at least one official U.S. source that says it did change and changed a lot.
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Now, I think some other people tweeted this, so just be careful that everything you see has another
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piece of data that says it's wrong. Just a general statement about everything. There's a issue now with
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people who have had COVID and recovered, but have not recovered their sense of smell. And I think we
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don't know at this point if that could be permanent with some people. But I guess some people
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do recover their sense of smell. So we've seen some who did, some who maybe haven't yet. Is it
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permanent? And if it were, how much would it affect you? Well, I can speak to that with great.
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Yeah. Somebody says my smell is slowly coming back. So there will be some people on here who've had
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this exact experience. Oh, I'm seeing in the comments. Mine came back fine.
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Uh, and it sucks, somebody says. Uh, somebody says they know two people and it's been months and
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they haven't gotten it back. It's been over a month for me, no smell. Uh, and then there's some
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people who get smell, but it makes everything smell wrong. So things that used to smell good,
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smell terrible, etc. Uh, my sons came back. It might have to do with age as well. It's called
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congestion. Some, some says it's called long COVID. Yeah. Um, somebody says it's a psychological
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phenomenon. I doubt it. I doubt that. Is it that big of a deal? Well, that's what I'm here to tell
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you. So many of you, my regulars know that, uh, I lost my sense of smell, not from COVID,
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but maybe 10 years ago or longer, 15, I don't remember, but I lost my sense of smell and didn't
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really even know it for a long time because food still had the sensation of having a taste.
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So my brain just filled in what was missing. And the biggest change was that I didn't get to smell
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unpleasant things. That was it. The biggest change in my life is I did not, not smell unpleasant
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things, which was great. Now for every pleasant smell, I don't really notice that I don't smell
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them. And by the way, I've, uh, you know, I got my sense of smell back temporarily with some sinus
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surgery, but I think as of today, it's probably gone again. Uh, I haven't smelled anything in a long
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time. So I think I don't have a sense of smell right now. And I can tell you, it doesn't really
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change much of anything. I like the same foods I liked before. They still feel like they smell.
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I think that it might be a psychological phenomenon, but I, I feel as though they have some kind of a
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taste. So it's not that big a deal, but I think for some people it would be if you're a foodie or
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let's say you're a wine connoisseur or you really, really care what kind of coffee you're drinking,
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that doesn't describe me at all. So for me, it was no big deal. Some people might be a big deal,
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but we don't know yet if it's permanent. So, uh, president Trump has decided that he will not
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testify at next week's Senate impeachment trial. Is that a good decision or a bad decision?
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It's a good decision. Yeah. The less that president Trump, uh, appears in public for a little while,
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right? It'll change over time. But for now, just for now, the less that he appears in public,
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the better for him, I think, because he'll have capable people to defend him and everything that
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he does draws more attention. Uh, and I think his very best play is exactly what he's doing to just
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lay low, let the lawyers do the lawyer thing. And the real big question is, will they put the
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election integrity on trial? Cause how could they not? Right? Because don't you have two completely
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different feelings about what Trump did and the attack on the Capitol, et cetera. Don't you feel
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completely different about it? If you assume that the election was definitely good versus if you
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assume, Oh, we got some genuine questions. We don't know that it was fraudulent. We don't have any proof
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of that, but we've got some questions. Here's one of my questions. Remember when I told you that I'd seen
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stronger evidence, uh, than the public had seen about allegations of election impropriety?
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Well, the things that I'd seen were statistical, meaning that, uh, things that were unlikely to
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happen unless there had been mischief. Now I don't, here's my question to you. Would any of those kinds
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of claims, just the general kind of claim that says something is statistically at a whack, would any of
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them have any power in a court of law? Because I think not, right? If you, if you did not have
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something more than a statistical oddity, you wouldn't have anything, right? Is that, is that fair?
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And as far as I know, the statistical oddities, if they were in fact odd, because some would say
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they're perfectly explained by turnout and whatever else, but if those oddities, um, have no court
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power, but yet they do have, let's say they're persuasive to you just as an individual,
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that's probably how we got here. That's probably how we got here. Um, are we not all probabilities?
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Power as probable cause for inquiry. Looking at your comments. Uh, absolute proof documentary. Look
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it up after the scope. Oh, there's something called absolute proof, a documentary. It's probably banned
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by now. So, uh, as somebody saying, yes, statistical oddity can have evidential value, but if it's the
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only evidence and there's an explanation that could be true, that's an alternate explanation,
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that's kind of the end of it, isn't it? If you bring your statistics in and then the defense says,
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well, yes, these are odd statistics, but it was an odd year. We had lots of turnout and the coronavirus
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caused things to be different. That's it, right? How, how in the world could you ever convict
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or get a, you know, some kind of a positive ruling? As long as the defense has a story that's perfectly
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plausible, perfectly plausible to say, you know, everything about this election was different.
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So yeah, statistical oddities, there are probably lots of them. Doesn't mean anything. It just means
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it was a different year. I think that's the end of it. But, uh, that would be in a court of law,
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in the court of your own opinion, maybe those things have greater weight. So I'm just asking
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the question. Um, well, and then there's somebody who says really, really odd statistics, like one in
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a zillion. The, the statistics that said that the election only had a, I think somebody came up with
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one in a trillion chance that it was natural and, and fraud free. Do you think anybody can calculate
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that? No, nobody can calculate that. That's not a thing. There's nobody who can calculate what are
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the odds that the election was, uh, was real based on a statistical fact or a set of facts. I don't
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think that's a real thing, right? That just sounds like a statistician getting a little attention.
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So, um, what else we got going on? So I'd love to see the president put the, the, uh, let's say the
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transparency of the election system on trial. That would be a good service because right now the
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impeachment thing is a complete waste of time for the public. The public is not being served by any of
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this. I think we know that it's sort of a revenge kind of thing. Um, but if the president says, Hey,
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whether or not the election was fraudulent can't be known because the election system doesn't allow
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you to know it, that would be really useful if the public learned that. Rand Paul's getting some heat
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because he's not wearing his mask during the Senate, uh, floor events. And his reasoning is that he
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already has recovered from COVID and therefore he has antibodies and it would not make sense for him to
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be wearing a mask. What do you think of that? Yes. Dr. Rand Paul. So medical doctor Rand Paul
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says he's not wearing a mask. Unfortunately, I'm going to have to withdraw my, uh, earlier statement
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that he would be a good candidate for president based on this, that this is such a bad idea
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from Rand Paul. And I know he's very popular and a lot of you are loving that he's doing this,
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but I'll tell you why I have a different opinion on it. I think this is disqualifying for
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president, frankly, and which is disappointing because he was my, he was sort of my top pick,
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you know, preliminarily for a, for a Republican candidate. He would have been my top pick,
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but I think the not wearing the mask in this context is disqualifying from my perspective.
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A lot of you like it. Here's my, here's my reason why.
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While we do know that people who have recovered do have immunity, we know this to be true. Do you all
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agree? We are, we all know that a recovered COVID person does have some amount of immunity and that
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it could last well over a year. Everybody on the same page so far. Immunity is a real thing and it
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can last over a year. Well, I guess Rand Paul had his COVID a while ago and the experts are saying that
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you can get reinfected possibly with a different strain, but also possibly with the same strain
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in the, in the amount of time that's gone by. So can Rand Paul infect people the same way that
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other people there who have not had COVID could infect people? Could he? The answer is yes. Yes,
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he could. Now, what are the odds? What are the odds of him infecting you without a mask any different,
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higher or lower than the odds of the other people who have never had COVID or never been tested for
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it, uh, actually having it and then being spreaders? Which one is going to spread it the most? Rand Paul
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without a mask with some of some amount of antibodies. We don't know if it's complete
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or people with the masks who don't know if they've ever had it, might have it right now.
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Somebody says their girlfriend got it twice. That's the end of the conversation.
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That's the end of the conversation. His girlfriend got it twice. She's not the only one. We do know,
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I believe for a fact, I'm sure the medicals, the medical profession has, has pretty much agreed
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that there's no doubt about it. You can get it twice. If you're not wearing a mask and you get it
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twice, you're a little bit dangerous, aren't you? So here's the thing. We don't know Rand Paul's risk
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of transmitting it compared to someone else's. We imagine it's lower. We imagine he has a lower risk.
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Probably. Probably. But as a leader, should he be taking off his mask because he judges without,
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without the benefit of hard evidence, but reasonably, reasonably good judgment would say that he has
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lower risk than other people of transmitting it, but not zero risk. And in the, in the context of
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getting people to wear masks, if masks are a good idea medically, then Rand Paul is displaying
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terrible leadership, really just terrible leadership, because he should not be taking any
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chance. He should mask up so that other people say, yeah, masks are important. Even if you've had it
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once, maybe you need to wear a mask. Why do I think it's a terrible idea to let people who have just
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recovered from COVID go maskless? It should be obvious to you that masks won't work the moment
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you allow some people to go without them. That's the end of masks. Because as soon as some people can
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go without them, everybody's going to say, I already recovered. You'll take it off on the airplane.
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The flight attendant will say, we require masks. And you'll say, no, I don't wear it. Rand Paul doesn't
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wear it. He's a medical doctor. I listen to medical doctors. I'm not going to listen to you frauds on
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this plane. It's a big problem. If you don't just say everybody has to wear a mask. Now, if you, if you
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do say everybody wears a mask, it's a big burden on people who just recovered and really probably don't
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have any reason to wear a mask, or at least their risk is so tiny that, that there's no real reason.
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But as soon as you allow it, the whole system breaks down. And you know that, right? You know
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that. You can't let some people just claim that they recovered. That system would not work. Day one,
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people would cheat like crazy. All right, so I think that's a bad move by Rand Paul. He's making news
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for all the wrong reasons. It might make him, it could easily get him the nomination, but it's
00:19:00.120
going to make it harder to win. Democrats are split on how to cancel student debt. So it looks like
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that's going to happen. One of the weird side effects of running up our national debt so high
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is that any new thing you want to add to the national debt doesn't seem like a big deal anymore.
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Because remember, if you had said two years ago, if you had said, let's cancel $2 trillion, or let's
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say $1 trillion of student debt. If you had floated that idea a year ago, people would have said,
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we're not going to cancel a trillion dollars of debt for people who willingly took it on and then make
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other people pay their debt. We're not going to do that. That's a trillion dollars. Are you kidding me?
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But now, because we're spending a trillion every few weeks on the coronavirus, it seems like,
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just mentally it seems like that, you can throw this in the mix. And people say, it's just another
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trillion. You got $23 trillion debt or whatever the heck it is. Another trillion, get rid of student
00:20:11.360
debt. Why not? It's just another trillion. So, of course, the big problem with getting rid of student
00:20:18.700
debt is that people who have paid off student debt, they got a lot to complain about, don't they?
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If you just paid off your own student debt, and then you find out that your sibling just had theirs
00:20:33.340
canceled for free, you're going to be pissed off. I don't know how they're going to deal with that.
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I don't know how leadership could possibly deal with that. Here's the way I think it should be done.
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I think the forgiving of the debt should be on the colleges. Because if you went to a college that
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accepted your payment via student loan, and then gave you an education that doesn't allow you to get a job
00:21:03.980
that could pay off your debt, I feel like the colleges have a little bit to explain, too.
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They've got a little bit to explain. So I don't know any way that this college debt thing can be
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handled in a way that doesn't make a big part of the country really mad.
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So Marjorie Taylor Greene, you're all following this story. She said provocative,
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QAnon-like crazy things in the past. But she claims she hasn't said any of that since she ran for
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office. And so it shouldn't count what she said in the past. But she has been stripped of her
00:21:39.340
committee memberships for being too crazy. Imagine being too crazy for Congress.
00:21:47.660
It's just a funny concept. How crazy do you have to be, to be so crazy that members of Congress even
00:21:57.380
say, whoa, we're pretty crazy. But you just crossed even our line. Now, is she crazy? Well, she has said
00:22:08.340
things which I don't think leaders should say. So I'm not going to be a supporter of hers in any way.
00:22:15.100
But I think it's interesting to see that the Democrats have successfully made her the
00:22:20.820
poster child of Democrats. They kind of did that successfully, wouldn't you say? Because now with
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Trump off the stage, at least a little bit, they need some new Republican to paint as the face of the
00:22:36.760
Republicans. So it looks like the least important person in Congress, a freshman representative,
00:22:44.440
is being put forward as their leader. Now, might be a problem. It might be a problem. Because I
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listened to her speak when she was defending herself. And I got to say, I didn't quite understand how she
00:23:04.980
could have got, how she got elected, given that she had this history of conspiracy theory stuff.
00:23:10.280
And then I heard her speak. She's actually pretty good. You know, as a public personality,
00:23:19.660
somebody who can just say what the base wants to hear, she's actually pretty good at it. You know,
00:23:28.500
in terms of just skill, for giving a speech, connecting with people, she sounded like she has
00:23:35.020
some real skill. So that's something to look for. But I don't really care about her story too much.
00:23:45.400
I mean, her story is mostly a fake story. So the Democrats can paint all Republicans as looking
00:23:52.480
like clowns. They succeeded, completely succeeded, in painting all Republicans to look like clowns,
00:23:59.760
because of this one Republican. So it was a good play. Persuasion-wise, the Democrats get the win
00:24:05.460
for that persuasion. All right. Smartmatics is suing Fox, and it looks like they might have a pretty
00:24:17.220
good case here. So they're suing Fox and three of the hosts, Lou Dobbs, Maria Bartiroma,
00:24:24.640
and Janine Pirro. Now, they're also going after Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell separately. But
00:24:38.260
What exactly is the standard for this lawsuit? Is the standard that these claims are not proven?
00:24:47.560
Or do they have to prove that the claims are not true? How does that work?
00:24:52.400
Would it be enough for smartmatics to say there's no proof of the claims? Or do they actually have
00:25:00.680
to prove that their system has no problems? How does that work? So some smart people are saying that
00:25:09.520
Fox News is in trouble. So they're acting like maybe it's a pretty good case. Somebody said it was
00:25:14.880
sort of a textbook exact case of defamation. Maybe. But here's my question. Couldn't Trump or
00:25:24.360
Trump supporters sue CNN and the other networks for promoting the fine people hoax and the drinking
00:25:32.540
bleach hoax? Because the claim is that the network knew these things were not true, or at least these
00:25:40.540
hosts knew they weren't true, but said them anyway as if they were true. Because I think you have to
00:25:46.160
you have to demonstrate that they know it's not true. Because I don't think you can get a defamation
00:25:52.280
I'm not a lawyer, so help me on this. But I don't think you can get a defamation win
00:25:57.880
if it was an honest mistake. If somebody actually just believed what they were saying. I think you
00:26:04.200
don't win that way. But how would you possibly prove that Lou Dobbs didn't know that what he was
00:26:13.300
saying? Or how do you know what Lou Dobbs was thinking? How can you possibly prove that? That's
00:26:21.620
weird. Now, if they could win this, why couldn't Trump or even Trump supporters sue over the fine
00:26:27.540
people hoax and the drinking bleach hoax? Because they both look like they were not said with any
00:26:33.860
honesty. It does look like the network was intentionally lying about those things. And
00:26:39.740
they're extremely, extremely defamatory. I mean, extremely, way more than the example with the
00:26:49.380
machines. Although Smartmatics has a good business case in terms of it hurting their business. I think
00:26:54.700
they'll be able to demonstrate that. So I think either everything has to be suable or nothing.
00:27:02.460
You have to use the same standard, right? So if Smartmatics wins this defamation,
00:27:08.340
I think Trump should sue CNN for the fine people hoax and the bleach hoax. There's talk about Biden
00:27:16.740
wanting to establish a realities R. A realities R. Are you kidding me?
00:27:26.140
Every time you think that things couldn't get more ridiculous, then they do. And I guess the reason for
00:27:36.500
this is that they believe there's too much right-wing disinformation and they need somebody to clear
00:27:44.420
that up. But again, who gets to be in charge of what reality is? I see a problem there. Because
00:27:54.340
the, the, the, what they're selling right now is that disinformation only comes from one side.
00:28:01.840
Just think about this. The, the Democrats have created a generalized belief in this country
00:28:09.580
that incorrect information only comes from the right.
00:28:13.660
What world are they living in? There are plenty of examples of disinformation coming from the right,
00:28:23.880
plenty of it. But there's a lot coming from the left. And if you were to actually add it up and make a
00:28:32.340
list, do you think there would be more on the right or the left? I think it would be such a long list in
00:28:39.020
both cases that to imagine that one side is controlling the truth and the other side is not,
00:28:46.080
is pretty absurd. But I think they might actually believe that they have the truth
00:28:51.440
and the other side doesn't, which is scary in itself.
00:28:56.780
Tucker Carlson tonight reported exclusively that Bank of America apparently was helping law enforcement
00:29:03.860
identify who attended the capital assault or a capital protest, whatever you want to call them.
00:29:10.700
How do you like the fact that a major bank is giving the, I don't know, FBI or law enforcement,
00:29:17.500
whoever is asking anything they want about who was there and how, what they spent and how they spent it
00:29:24.620
so they can know who was there. Pretty scary, isn't it? On the other hand,
00:29:29.020
it's just basic police work, isn't it? Can't the police look at your financial records if they
00:29:36.660
have cause and they get a warrant? I'm not sure. I don't know if there's anything really different
00:29:43.080
happening here, but just hearing about it happening on a large scale is pretty scary.
00:29:47.440
Yeah. And then Snopes decided to weigh in on the story about AOC and whether she was, quote,
00:29:57.820
in the capital when the assault happened because she had her story about how scared she was.
00:30:03.580
Now, some say, and I guess some say in this case accurately, that her office was a few blocks away
00:30:10.100
from the capital building and therefore, some say, she was exaggerating what danger she was in.
00:30:17.080
Now, I think that that's subjective, right? It's sort of up to AOC to decide how much danger she
00:30:23.500
thought she was in because it's her story. So I think she gets to say how much, how dangerous it
00:30:28.640
felt. You know, it's not for us who weren't there to say how dangerous she felt it was. So,
00:30:35.580
but it is nonetheless true that she sold her involvement as being closer to the action
00:30:46.680
than it actually was. But Snopes decides to have her back and say that it was mostly false that she
00:30:55.320
wasn't in the capital because she was in the capital complex a few blocks away. And watching this
00:31:03.600
happen in real time, you know, just watching a fact-checking organization clearly just backing a
00:31:09.520
candidate. It just makes a little fact-checking idea kind of crazy. Here's the weirdest story. Tim
00:31:18.040
Poole was calling this out. Time magazine is doing a story about a secret cabal of people behind the
00:31:27.780
scenes who influenced the election. They didn't rig it. Oh, no. No, no. They didn't fix the election.
00:31:35.240
Everything that this secret cabal of people behind the scenes did was, as Time magazine calls it,
00:31:43.460
they were fortifying it. They fortified the election. And they did a number of things. They
00:31:48.680
did, here's what Time reports. It was a well-funded cabal of powerful people ranging across industries and
00:31:56.640
ideologies working together behind the scenes to influence perceptions. What? Influence perceptions.
00:32:04.740
That's propaganda, isn't it? So influence perceptions. Change rules and laws. For whose benefit?
00:32:14.860
Weren't all of the rules and laws that were changed for the benefit of Democrats? Like every single one?
00:32:20.440
Coincidence? Maybe. Steer media coverage. What? Steer media coverage. There was a secret cabal of
00:32:29.900
wealth-funded people and powerful people who were steering media coverage. Completely legal. Right? So far,
00:32:40.860
this is all legal. And control the flow of information. What? Seriously?
00:32:50.440
There was a well-funded cabal of people changing the election rules, influencing our perceptions,
00:32:58.420
and steering media coverage and controlling the flow of information. But Time says this. The very next
00:33:07.100
sentence wants to make sure that you're very clear on that, that although they are working behind the
00:33:14.280
scenes to influence perceptions, change rules and laws, steer media coverage, and control the flow of
00:33:19.560
information. Next sentence, period. They were not rigging the election. No, they were not rigging the
00:33:26.860
election. Semicolon. They were fortifying it. So all of you people who think that sounds like rigging an
00:33:36.540
election, you're also wrong. That's fortifying it. Now, why do you call it fortifying it? Because in their
00:33:44.720
opinion, they made the outcome the one they wanted and the one they expected. So it was the one they
00:33:51.780
wanted and the one they expected, so therefore it must have been fortified, not rigged. Because when
00:33:57.940
things go the way you don't want them, that's rigged. When things go the way you do want them to go,
00:34:03.320
well, that's fortified. That's pretty fortified. Now, I've been telling you for a while that democracy
00:34:09.900
is an illusion, but a useful one. It's a useful illusion that your vote matters. And the reason
00:34:18.140
that's useful is that it allows you to buy into the system and say, oh, my candidate didn't win,
00:34:24.360
but at least my vote counted. It was a fair process. So I guess I'll live with this leader that I didn't
00:34:30.200
choose. So we need a system that's credible, of course. And here we have a situation in which
00:34:41.540
according to time, their reporting is telling us that the outcome was influenced by a secret cabal of
00:34:50.040
powerful people. In other words, while they did everything that was everything they did was legal,
00:34:56.600
there's no accusation that they broke any laws. But they're saying very clearly, the article,
00:35:03.960
it changed the outcome of the election. So what kind of a democracy is it in which the election,
00:35:12.060
which was legal before, in other words, the way it was before any of these things happened,
00:35:17.040
was completely legal. It was changed to another situation, which was also completely legal,
00:35:22.640
because they used legal processes to change laws, etc. But that's what made the election outcome,
00:35:31.900
was these changes. It wasn't your vote. Now, we live in a country in which our media can tell us
00:35:41.020
right to our faces that we didn't have a real election. What we had was a number of people working
00:35:47.880
behind the scenes, whose collective actions determined who your president is. But not rigged,
00:35:59.080
I don't even know what to add to this story. Usually, I'll tell you what's in the headlines,
00:36:04.960
and I'll give it my humorous or insightful spin. There's nothing to say about this.
00:36:11.700
Everything that needs to be said about this is being said openly, that this group of people
00:36:18.420
behind the scenes determined the president. Now, he may have also got the most votes. That appears to
00:36:25.420
be the case. But what kind of system are we living in? It's certainly not a republic. I don't know what
00:36:33.500
this is. What would you call it? It's sort of a contest of behind the scenes, well-funded cabals,
00:36:42.240
right? So there's your system you're living in. All right, I promised you that I was going to give
00:36:48.440
you what conservatives don't understand about masks. You ready for this? This will be draft one.
00:36:56.580
All right. So the first draft of this is just to give feedback. So if I say something that doesn't
00:37:04.260
pass the fact check, you'll get back to me. And then if I get the energy, I'll write this up so it's
00:37:10.380
maybe one better document. Starting with this, here's what conservatives tend to not know about masks.
00:37:18.900
Number one, there has never been a randomized controlled study of mask effectiveness for
00:37:26.180
coronavirus. It hasn't happened. So when you send me a link of all the studies that show that masks
00:37:35.660
don't work, you haven't sent me anything because that doesn't exist. There has never been a randomized
00:37:43.800
controlled trial of mask effectiveness for coronavirus. If you think that's ever happened,
00:37:53.120
you're misinformed. There has never been one. So what can you conclude if there's never been
00:37:59.340
the gold standard kind of trial where you've got a randomized controlled trial and you're comparing it
00:38:05.640
to something? Now, the first thing you need to know is that there can't be a trial like that
00:38:10.200
because it would be unethical. You wouldn't send people into a virus situation without masks
00:38:17.540
if the entire medical community, most of them, think that masks can save lives. So there's no way to test
00:38:24.820
it. So what are all these studies that people keep sending me saying that masks don't work? Well,
00:38:32.600
they are studies of other studies, which are none of them being the randomized controlled type.
00:38:37.620
So it might be a, let's say, after the fact study that says this group wore masks, this group wore
00:38:44.960
masks, let's say, later or differently or didn't, and then you just see how they did.
00:38:51.760
What would you know for sure if you compared two groups and one had a good result and one didn't?
00:38:57.640
If it's not a randomized controlled trial, if it's not that, what have you learned by comparing these
00:39:05.060
two situations? And the answer is nothing. If you think that those other kinds of trials
00:39:11.060
are telling you something useful, then you don't understand how any of this works.
00:39:17.320
There are also, try this experiment, go to Google and do a search on this. Masks work
00:39:27.480
for coronavirus. And just see how many studies will tell you that masks do work. Then do the same
00:39:36.100
study, same search, except masks do not work for coronavirus. And you know what you'll find? A whole
00:39:43.900
bunch of studies, none of them randomized controlled studies, that say masks don't work. So now you've
00:39:50.940
got a list of studies that did not study coronaviruses specifically, did not, because it wasn't a
00:39:59.020
randomized controlled study that studied coronavirus and masks. Usually it's something else. They'll
00:40:04.560
study something in the laboratory, or they'll look at a different kind of study, or some other example
00:40:10.660
from the past, etc. If you were to add up all of the ones that say masks maybe don't work, but they're
00:40:17.600
not the good kind of studies. And all the ones that say masks probably do work, but they're also not
00:40:24.080
the good kind of study. How do you weigh those? A whole bunch of trials, a whole bunch of studies
00:40:31.000
that say they do work, a whole bunch of ones that say they don't work. So that's all you know. How do
00:40:37.120
you weigh it? Now, I'm not going to tell you that masks work or don't work. If you think you're going
00:40:43.580
to get that out of this presentation, you're not. I'm going to tell you how to think about it.
00:40:49.360
The actual answer of whether masks in the end are better or make things worse, I don't know. And I
00:40:56.320
would suggest that if you think you know that, that's stupid. You don't know that. You don't know
00:41:04.420
for sure that masks work. You don't know, and you can't know for sure that they don't work. It is
00:41:12.440
completely unknowable. So if one of your opinions is they definitely work, or they definitely don't
00:41:18.880
work, those opinions are both stupid. A smart opinion would be something about probability.
00:41:26.400
All right? So you can tell right away whether you're stupid or smart by whether you're talking
00:41:31.800
about absolutes definitely don't work or definitely do work. Those are the stupid opinions. Okay?
00:41:38.460
Everything in between is smart. Even if you said 95% chance they work or 95% chance they don't work,
00:41:45.580
you're in the smart zone because you're talking about probability. And that's all we can do
00:41:49.980
because we don't have what? Randomized controlled trial. Don't have it. If we did,
00:42:00.260
and we had maybe more than one of them, so it could be repeatable, well, then we'd have something
00:42:05.040
pretty good. But we don't. So all we have are studies that say probably they work, studies that say
00:42:13.200
looks like probably they don't, and none of those studies have any value at all. In fact, what would
00:42:22.360
be the value of a study that got peer-reviewed and accepted for publication if you're going to put
00:42:28.760
some odds on it being true? You don't even know what the study's about. I just say, I just tell you
00:42:35.000
there was a study, it was peer-reviewed, it was accepted for publication in a major scientific
00:42:41.560
publication. What odds would you put on it that the result in that study is actually true? The answer
00:42:48.760
is, coin flip. That's it, coin flip. No better than a coin flip. The fact that it was peer-reviewed,
00:42:58.300
published, and you read it online, is a coin flip. You should put no more odds on it being true than a
00:43:06.760
coin flip, all right? So those of you who are saying, look at all these studies that show masks don't work,
00:43:12.880
what you don't understand is that all of those studies put together and even analyzed by really
00:43:18.240
smart people know better than a coin flip. Likewise, the ones that say that they do work know better
00:43:25.740
than a coin flip. So that's what we're working with, with the quality of information. All right,
00:43:30.540
let me go on. So what about herd immunity? Oh, here's one that conservatives think. Conservatives
00:43:44.140
say that masks don't work because the areas that have the strictest mask mandates and lockdowns,
00:43:53.100
people throw those together like it's the same issue. I separate lockdowns from masks. I think
00:43:59.220
there's less evidence for lockdowns being a good idea than there is for masks. So for me, those are
00:44:05.720
just separate questions. I'm pro-mask. I'll tell you why when we're done. I'm anti-lockdown,
00:44:14.600
except for some businesses that make sense. Maybe gyms can't open yet, for example. But I'm pro-opening up
00:44:21.940
and pro-opening the schools, in case you want to know where I'm at on this. All right, so
00:44:27.540
do mandates of masks work? Because we see that where the mask mandates are the strongest,
00:44:34.420
you also have the worst infections. So a lot of conservatives have said to me, obviously the
00:44:40.480
masks don't work because wherever there are the worst infections, there are also the most mask
00:44:45.720
mandates. It's obvious. And look at the curve. Here's where the mask mandate came in. You see the
00:44:52.260
curve still went up? Duh. Duh. If mask mandates happened on this date and the infections just got
00:44:59.700
worse, proof that masks don't work. That's what conservatives tell me. But it doesn't work that
00:45:07.380
way. You've got causation backwards. The reason there's a tough mask mandate is because they know
00:45:14.780
the infections are going to be impossible to control, even with masks. It's the best you can
00:45:20.440
do. But nobody says the masks stop the virus. Nobody says that's, oh, we got our masks on. We're
00:45:27.320
all good now. It's just to slow it down. So what you don't know is what that curve would have looked
00:45:33.120
like without masks. There's no comparison. You know that they did mask and you know that the
00:45:39.000
infections increased. But what would the infections have been without masks? It's unknowable because
00:45:46.580
that was never tested. So the fact that infections keep going up when mask mandates are in place
00:45:52.320
means nothing about the effectiveness of masks. Nothing. You should take nothing from that.
00:46:00.840
Except one thing. You can conclude that masks do not stop the virus. Right?
00:46:08.000
Can we agree that we can conclude that a tough mask mandate will not just stop the virus?
00:46:16.720
Because the curves are pretty clear on that. But we don't know if they would have been worse.
00:46:22.580
We don't know. All right? So you have to make your decision without knowing that.
00:46:28.140
I've heard also recently that what about herd immunity? Shouldn't we let the kids get it because
00:46:35.820
they won't be that likely they won't be that hurt by it? And then you get herd immunity. You keep the
00:46:41.140
old people home. Bada bing. Wouldn't that be good enough? Kids get herd immunity. Eventually hide the
00:46:51.060
old folks. Build up enough herd immunity. You're good to go. Well, here's the problem with that.
00:46:57.540
Kids bring the infection back to the family and then the old people get it and they die.
00:47:06.600
That's a problem. So if you don't want that problem where the kids get it, bring it into the family and
00:47:13.560
then old people die, then I hear conservatives say, but Scott, personal responsibility. Let the people
00:47:21.500
who don't have a risk live their lives or the ones who want to take the risk and let the people who
00:47:26.900
need to socially isolate, just do it better. Just do it better. Socially isolate better and you won't
00:47:34.340
have a problem. Except that's not the real world. Have you seen real people act in the real world?
00:47:44.200
People don't socially isolate at home. I'm sorry, they don't. And when the kid comes home,
00:47:50.500
they're going to interact with the parents every time. No parent is socially isolating from their
00:47:57.860
own freaking kid. That's not happening. Now the parent has it because of course they're not socially
00:48:04.480
isolating from their own children. What if the grandparents live in the house? Then mom and dad
00:48:11.180
talk to the grandparents, blah, blah, blah. Dad dies. Now, if you think that personal responsibility
00:48:18.320
is sort of the beginning and end of the conversation, I would say that's certainly a
00:48:24.860
philosophy that I could get behind as a consistent philosophy. But you have to know it is a decision
00:48:33.240
to kill lots and lots of old people because that's what would happen. There's nothing you can do to
00:48:39.760
protect the old people if the kids are running around getting infected. Nothing. You could say it's
00:48:45.760
their responsibility, but they're not going to act that much differently. You just have to accept
00:48:50.920
that from a legal perspective, saying who's responsible makes a lot of sense. You have to
00:48:56.940
have a system where somebody is responsible. But when you're talking about a disease,
00:49:03.200
responsibility is irrelevant if nobody's going to act any differently. And they're not.
00:49:08.200
So imagining that letting the kids get herd immunity would not kill millions of seniors is not
00:49:19.580
realistic. It would. It would kill millions of seniors if you got to herd immunity. So it's better
00:49:25.520
to prevent herd immunity and hope that the vaccines can make up the difference as opposed to infections
00:49:32.140
giving you the herd immunity. So herd immunity by vaccinations could be really good. Herd immunity
00:49:39.860
by people just getting it could be very bad. And here's why. Not only because of the old people
00:49:45.960
dying, because you can't socially isolate that well, but also because of the long haul problem.
00:49:53.100
So a lot of people are not familiar, a lot of conservatives for some reason have not heard
00:49:57.840
that there's a big concern about some kind of permanent or long, long damage from getting
00:50:05.440
the coronavirus. Now, it doesn't happen to most people, apparently, but there are enough stories
00:50:10.300
of it. Even some famous people who are having very long term problems. Maybe some of them will lose
00:50:18.680
their smell permanently. We don't know that yet. But how much weight should you put on the long haul
00:50:25.980
problem? Let's look at the randomized controlled study of the long haul problem. Oh, it doesn't
00:50:33.240
exist. So if we don't have a randomized controlled trial to know what this long haul problem is,
00:50:40.040
what can you do about it? You just have to use your judgment. You're going to have to say,
00:50:46.780
we think this is a risk, but we don't know how big it is. And that's like the real world. You have to
00:50:51.520
make judgments without really knowing the risk of each one. Personally, I think that's a big enough
00:50:58.360
risk that I would, I would be pretty extreme about avoiding that. Because I don't know if it's a
00:51:09.380
problem. But if it is a problem, it's a problem for the rest of your whole life. So it's not a risk
00:51:15.360
that I would take. So if you said, Scott, do you want to just get the coronavirus and get it over
00:51:21.120
with? Like Rand Paul, I would say, I don't know if I'm going to be the one who recovers well. So no,
00:51:29.080
I would rather not get it. And if you think that getting it is the right play, well, you could get
00:51:36.120
lucky and just get your antibodies and no symptoms. But it's not a risk I'm willing to take. The long haul
00:51:43.160
risk, it's a pretty big risk, at least in terms of if it if it's real, it would be the rest of your
00:51:50.620
life. That's a big risk. People lose limbs to sugar abuse. Well, of course, it depends on the size of
00:52:00.620
the problem, right? So if the long haul problem is 10 people in the United States ever, then I'm not
00:52:07.000
going to worry about it. If it's millions, if it's hundreds of thousands of people, which it well
00:52:13.460
could be, we just don't know. Well, then I'm pretty worried about it. I'm not I'm not feeling the same
00:52:18.940
as if about people eating sugar, as was said in the comments. All right. So you don't want herd
00:52:27.440
immunity to happen naturally. Some people still say that Sweden is a success story. But you should
00:52:33.380
update your information on Sweden. Apparently, Sweden has decided that their their technique of
00:52:40.000
being a little bit loose about this was probably the wrong technique. And I believe that Sweden is
00:52:45.180
is moving closer to the European model, having believed that they did not use the right model.
00:52:52.500
That's where I think it is right now. But don't don't use the Sweden example in your arguments because
00:52:58.340
that's changed. All right. How about here's some other things that I noticed conservatives don't
00:53:04.740
know. They've seen studies that say that the holes in the mask, any kind of mask are bigger than the
00:53:11.380
size of the virus. So the hole, if you were to go microscopic and look at the mask, there'd be,
00:53:17.240
let's say, holes this big, depending on your, you know, magnification. And then the virus would be like
00:53:22.620
a, you know, a little dot going through this big hole. So then conservatives, some conservatives say,
00:53:28.220
well, a mask is useless, because this virus will fly right through that gigantic hole.
00:53:35.180
Here's what people who make that argument miss. Viruses don't travel by themselves. They travel
00:53:44.180
attached to water particles. Try this experiment at home, go up to your mirror and put on your mask,
00:53:51.600
and then blow on the mirror. See how much of a, you know, water vapor film is there. Then take the
00:54:01.140
mask off and do the same thing. Just go on your window or mirror and see if there's a difference
00:54:08.000
in the water vapor. If there is, that means that the mask is stopping some amount of water vapor.
00:54:15.360
We're not trying to stop it all. I'll get into that. You're trying to reduce the amount that's
00:54:20.880
floating around. Now, if you put your mask on and you went into a phone booth with one person,
00:54:27.120
let's say one of you is infected, and you stayed in the phone booth for a couple of days,
00:54:32.600
would the mask help you avoid infection? No. No. Because you went into a phone booth
00:54:39.600
and whatever air got past the holes in the mask would stay in there and you'd be marinating in it
00:54:45.920
until you got it. So under that situation, would a mask work? No. A mask would be completely useless
00:54:55.380
if you were trapped in a phone booth for two days with somebody infected. But that's not the real
00:55:01.480
world. Most of the real world is small interactions. Could having a mask that we know stops some amount
00:55:08.500
of water vapor, which we know is what is carrying some amount of the virus, could that make a difference
00:55:14.240
for small interactions? Well, here's the other thing that conservatives seem not to know, which is
00:55:21.340
that the viral load makes a big difference. So in other words, if one particle of a virus got on you,
00:55:30.240
you'd probably either not get it, or it would start slowly, because it's starting from such a small
00:55:37.920
number of virus, that your body would have a little more time to organize its defenses. And that although
00:55:44.180
you might get symptoms, they might be more mild because of your low viral load. So in other words,
00:55:50.600
the person who's marinating in the phone booth with an infected person for two days is going to get a lot
00:55:57.540
of virus. That person is more likely, say the scientists, say the doctors, to get a worse outcome.
00:56:04.480
Now, is there a randomized controlled trial on viral load to show us for sure that getting more of it
00:56:14.840
is going to make you sicker than getting a little of it? No, no, there is not a randomized controlled
00:56:22.680
trial of coronavirus showing you that a greater viral load will give you a worse outcome. But it would
00:56:30.740
be consistent with what medical professionals know about viral loads. So it could be that coronavirus
00:56:39.480
is the exception to the rule. But that's not a smart play. In other words, if you're doing risk
00:56:45.980
management, again, you don't know, you've got all these unknowns, you would assume the, let's say,
00:56:53.280
the smartest way to approach it is that this virus is similar enough to other viruses that the amount
00:57:01.460
of viral load probably makes a big difference. Not every time, maybe you can't prove it for sure,
00:57:08.920
but it's the smart play. All right. So if the amount of virus you're infected with makes a big
00:57:15.660
difference, we don't know it, but it's a smart play that it would be. Assuming it's true would be the
00:57:22.980
smart way to think of it, even if it turns out it's not true later. So therefore, masks stop some
00:57:32.000
amount of moisture. That means they're stopping some amount of the virus. And if viral load matters,
00:57:39.500
there's your argument for why masks probably work, even if you can't measure them. What about the
00:57:47.140
problem of, here's some other points. Somebody said to me, if there's no strong evidence that masks
00:57:56.620
work, and that's true, there is no randomized control trial to say masks work. And since that,
00:58:04.020
we don't have that, we don't have that. And since we do know that masks could cause problems, might
00:58:10.100
reduce your oxygen, fog you glasses while you're driving, give you panic attacks, you can think of
00:58:17.180
a hundred ways that masks are definitely bad. So here's the argument. If we don't know they're good,
00:58:24.260
but we definitely know there's a cost to using them, why would you do it? You know, shouldn't you
00:58:30.260
know they're good before you take the harm of wearing them? And I would say, you might want to,
00:58:38.340
that would be a good point. It would be a good point under the condition that you don't have vaccines
00:58:47.780
coming, and that you don't have basically all medical and scientific organizations telling you to wear masks.
00:58:55.300
Now, the fact that every modern country is recommending its citizens wear masks, if the virus is present,
00:59:05.460
and every medical organization is saying the same thing, and probably 99% of doctors and experts
00:59:15.140
are saying the same thing. Does that mean they're all right? It doesn't. No. Because, again,
00:59:23.780
we're doing risk management, we don't know what's true. It is still completely possible that masks make
00:59:30.820
things worse. It is still completely possible that masks really, really make a big difference.
00:59:37.460
We don't know. And if you think you know, you're in the dumb world. You don't know. So you have to make
00:59:44.420
your decisions based on these factors. So when do you trust the doctors, and when do you be skeptical?
00:59:52.420
Because you've seen me be skeptical of experts a lot of times, right? So what am I looking at to
00:59:59.140
decide when to be skeptical, and when to say, yeah, I'm going to go with the experts on this one?
01:00:04.900
Well, one of my rules is how much complexity is involved. When you're looking at, say,
01:00:10.740
an 80-year prediction of climate change, that's, first of all, more economic than medical.
01:00:17.540
It's too complicated to do. That's just not something I would trust an expert with.
01:00:22.260
A 20-year, you know, 80-year projection of anything. I wouldn't trust any expert with that.
01:00:29.460
But when you have a really limited question, which is, do you think these masks probably help
01:00:37.700
with the coronavirus? And you have massive agreement among all the people who would understand this
01:00:45.380
field the best. And it's a pretty simple question. Now, there's a little bit of complexity to it,
01:00:50.900
but well within, you know, the expert range, right? So under the condition that it's a simple question,
01:00:57.460
and you have every country, every major medical organization, all the people who are the smartest
01:01:04.820
about this, 99% of them are on the same side? I take that pretty seriously, right? If it were 50-50,
01:01:14.820
I'd feel differently. If it were 90-10, I'd feel differently. But it's more like 99-1, I think,
01:01:21.620
at least observationally. When you see somebody disagreeing, it's a doctor with weird hair,
01:01:30.020
usually. Am I wrong? If you see somebody who's like the rebel doctor who's got his own little
01:01:37.040
video on YouTube, and he's the rebel, and he's saying that the medical community is all wrong,
01:01:43.180
look at his hair. Hi, I'm the medical community, and my hair looks like I've never
01:01:51.140
had a mirror in my entire life. Right? I'm just saying that when you see the doctor with the weird
01:02:03.160
hair, and he's the rogue, like he's the only one who thinks the masks don't work,
01:02:10.860
I'm not going to go with the weird hair guy every time. I love my skeptics, and I'm completely biased
01:02:18.500
toward wanting to believe the skeptic. Because I think half the time, at least, the skeptic is
01:02:24.460
right. But somebody says, I don't buy the long hair argument. Well, don't take the long hair
01:02:31.480
argument to be too serious. But the majority of medical professionals are on the same side of this.
01:02:39.560
All right, here's some other objections I hear from conservatives.
01:02:42.040
is that touching your mask, which people do, is going to reduce the whole point of a mask.
01:02:50.160
Because I don't know about you, but my hand is all over my face mask when I'm using it. So does that
01:02:56.100
make it worse? Well, I think not. Because when this first started, we thought that surfaces are where
01:03:05.140
you get your coronavirus, like touching a surface. But we have learned more recently that the surfaces
01:03:11.840
are not nearly the problem that we thought. It's pretty much an airborne problem. It doesn't seem
01:03:16.920
to be surfaces related. It's still smart to sanitize everything and wash your hands, because there's got
01:03:22.960
to be some effect from surfaces. But I think the thinking is that there's not enough of an effect
01:03:31.740
that touching your mask is going to increase the risk more than having a mask decreases it. Now,
01:03:39.540
could I be wrong? Sure. Right? It's risk management. It's not certainty. So could I be wrong that touching
01:03:48.660
your mask makes it worse? Maybe. Maybe it does. But I would say that my judgment on this is that since
01:03:56.500
touching surfaces seems to be not a big issue. I mean, your grocery store lets you touch everything.
01:04:04.280
You know, they don't love it. But, you know, are a lot of people getting coronavirus from grocery
01:04:08.840
stores? Because the grocery store is nothing but people touching common items all day long.
01:04:15.000
It doesn't seem to be a problem. So there's that. I'm touching. All right.
01:04:22.700
Conservatives also say that... All right. So getting back to the point of should you do something where
01:04:34.820
the mask benefit is not proven by a good trial, but there are lots of doctors who say, yeah,
01:04:41.800
our judgment is it's probably going to help because water particles are bigger than the mask
01:04:48.360
goals, etc. All right. What about opening businesses? I'm in favor of opening businesses
01:04:56.880
and then just tracking them. Because I think the only way that we can get opened, given that this
01:05:04.940
coronavirus is going to linger for God knows how long, I think you just have to open businesses. And
01:05:09.980
then when people get infected, ask them where they've been. And as soon as you see a correlation,
01:05:15.900
let's say, let's, we don't think restaurants are going to be the big problem, but let's say they
01:05:21.780
were. Well, then you close them up. So I think you just have to experiment with it. So I'm pro
01:05:28.160
opening businesses, just in case you wondered. All right. And kids in school, I think that the,
01:05:35.220
the harm to kids of keeping them out of school is probably exceeds the benefit. So I'm very pro
01:05:41.840
putting kids back in school with all the safety that we can bring them. But you should be aware
01:05:47.880
that that does mean grandma is more likely to die. There's just nothing you can do about it.
01:05:54.060
You can try to socially distance all you want, but people are going to die if kids go back to school.
01:06:00.720
I just think that's the trade-off that's worth it. I think killing, I'm going to say it directly.
01:06:05.780
I think that getting kids back in school is more important than saving, I don't know,
01:06:13.260
100,000 old people's lives. You know, if you can't say that out loud, you probably shouldn't
01:06:19.420
be involved in decision-making. But I'm going to say it out loud. Getting kids back to school
01:06:24.660
would be worth 100,000 senior citizens dying. You know, if you can't say that out loud,
01:06:32.480
you just don't belong in the conversation. You should be able to say it. Do I like that? No.
01:06:39.520
I'm one of the people who might be dead. I'm sort of rapidly approaching the high-risk category of
01:06:47.000
life. I don't like the fact that I might be dead, or there's somebody I love might be dead. But yeah,
01:06:54.120
I'm still going to say we should get the kids back to school. The other things that people say is that
01:07:00.380
the masks are really some kind of a control thing, and that really it's the global conspiracy to
01:07:10.620
make us all agree to anything. So the masks are really just a way to manipulate us into
01:07:17.840
higher control later. I would call that just crazy. There's some things that you don't need an argument
01:07:23.940
against. You know, if somebody says a UFO landed in their backyard, I'm not going to go check,
01:07:31.420
right? If somebody says Bigfoot ate the cupcakes that were on the counter in your kitchen, I'm not
01:07:39.560
going to check the video. I don't think Bigfoot ate the cupcakes. There's some things you don't need
01:07:44.440
to research. And I don't need to research that the masks are some kind of a global control
01:07:51.580
conspiracy thing. That's just crazy. All right? So somebody here says masks don't work.
01:08:02.800
So whoever it is who says here masks don't work, did you hear anything I said?
01:08:10.840
Was there anything I said that you listened to, or did you just sign on? Masks don't work.
01:08:18.500
So just in summary, for those of you who signed in later, I can't know, nor can you, if masks work
01:08:27.620
or they don't work. It's not knowable. We don't have a randomized control trial. We're not going to
01:08:33.820
have one because you can't ethically do it. You're going to have to use the information you have,
01:08:38.620
and it's all unreliable. So how do you make a decision with all unreliable information?
01:08:44.900
Well, all you can do is figure out which of the unreliable information is the worst.
01:08:51.440
All those studies that are not randomized controlled trials? Worthless. Ignore them all.
01:08:58.340
Size of the whole of the mask compared to the size of the virus? Worthless. That won't tell you
01:09:04.280
anything. The real world would tell you something, but those two different sizes don't tell you
01:09:10.160
anything because of the water vapor, blah, blah, blah. And then somebody had the argument that the
01:09:15.860
mask would rip off the water vapor and aerosol the virus, and it would actually be making the virus
01:09:22.820
more transmissible because the mask would carry it, would make it go from larger particles to smaller
01:09:31.720
particles, to which I say, I suppose anything's possible. Maybe. I wouldn't rule it out, but I
01:09:40.560
don't think we have evidence of it. So I would throw that in the mix and say, I can't judge that one.
01:09:46.520
I don't know. But there's certainly a risk both ways.
01:09:51.760
Somebody says, we found out that COVID is on vapor, not droplets. Well, vapor is still,
01:10:00.940
it's got to be on droplets as well. How can it not be on droplets? That doesn't make sense.
01:10:11.060
Are you for tagging people, Scott? You mean tagging the people who have been vaccinated?
01:10:15.720
I think we may have no choice at one point. I think we'll probably have no choice.
01:10:24.600
But it's not ideal. You know, I think that we've reached the point where our loss of privacy is
01:10:32.420
largely just guaranteed. So to me, I tend not to argue the privacy stuff too much because it would
01:10:40.320
be like arguing against rain. It's going to rain. You could argue against it, but it's still going
01:10:47.120
to rain. Privacy is like that. You're going to lose all your privacy. I don't see, there's just no way
01:10:54.000
around that in the long, long run. In the short run, you could, you know, claw it back a little bit,
01:10:58.920
but in the long run, there will be no privacy. Let's see. Somebody had COVID and donated plasma. Yeah.
01:11:12.520
How about tattoos? What about tattoos? Oh, tattoos to show that you've been vaccinated.
01:11:20.680
Somebody says the American Academy of Pediatrics study shows zero child to adult transmission.
01:11:27.500
Was that a randomized controlled trial? No, it wasn't. So what kind of credibility do you put on
01:11:36.300
that non-randomized, non-controlled trial? Coin flip. It's a coin flip. You shouldn't put any
01:11:45.460
credibility on it. It's just a coin flip. Now, this study like that could tell you there's something to
01:11:52.020
look into. It could tell you that you do want to do a randomized controlled trial, but if you don't
01:11:57.960
have one, you really don't know anything. All right. And there's a reason that we require the
01:12:05.700
randomized controlled trials. It's because without them, you're, you're so often wrong.
01:12:12.740
We will know who has been vaccinated once the side effects start happening. Well, no report of bad
01:12:21.140
side effects yet, except people getting sore and tired for a few days.
01:12:25.560
I'm just looking at your comments today. There's no randomized control for Bigfoot. Yeah, there's
01:12:35.380
some things that are just too obvious. You don't need a randomized control study.
01:12:41.300
Why do I think the time article came out? Well, it could be that the time article was to tell us
01:12:48.380
something that we would have found out a different way. So it could have been inoculation so that they
01:12:53.780
could spin it the way they wanted to spin it. And then the next time you hear it, you already have
01:12:57.860
this, this framework built and you go, Oh, they are, they already told us about that.
01:13:04.700
Somebody says some of these periscopes are good and others are like this one. Well,
01:13:09.440
the thing that you don't know is that it's when I disagree with you, that is where you find value.
01:13:18.360
So agreeing with you doesn't help you that much. Feels good. Feels good. But I think you'll like it
01:13:31.300
Superbowl. Is there a Superbowl this weekend? Not paying attention.
01:13:40.440
Randomized control study. People don't know what it means.
01:13:43.060
Well, it just means that it's a high quality study that you could largely, largely trust.
01:13:51.520
All right. Give me a feedback. How, how many things did I tell you that you had not heard
01:13:58.280
before? So just in the comments, tell me what I said about masks today that you had not heard
01:14:05.480
before. Now forget about whether it's true. Cause remember we don't have certainty about any of this.
01:14:13.060
Um, let's see, looking at your, so some are saying none, nothing, nothing, nothing. Well,
01:14:21.240
you're a smart group. Uh, so most of you are saying that none of it, none of it is new. I guess what I
01:14:30.140
don't know is how many heard nothing new and, uh, didn't change their minds.
01:14:35.940
Okay. Interesting. So almost universally people are saying that, uh, there was nothing new there.
01:14:46.240
Now there may be nothing new in terms of the facts, but the way to think about it,
01:14:51.220
I think is not common to the way I'm seeing people thinking about it.
01:14:54.900
All right. So let me, give me some feedback on what points I may have gotten wrong on my mask
01:15:03.320
stuff. You can send it to me one way or another and I will revise and then we'll see where we go
01:15:09.700
from there. Bye for now. All right. Did anyone change their mind? I doubt it. Usually you don't
01:15:18.540
change your mind on one take. It's something that has to, it would take a while to filter in and sink
01:15:26.060
in. Do any masks stop water vapor? They all do. Every mask stops some water vapor.
01:15:37.260
All right. So I think, uh, I made my case. If somebody has a counter argument with the same
01:15:51.160
facts, that would be interesting. And I'll, I'll look for that on Twitter and elsewhere. And I'll talk