Real Coffee with Scott Adams - Episode 1368 Scott Adams： Virus Conspiracy Theories, Trump the Kingmaker, CNN's Slide to Oblivion, More

00:00:00.660 Oh, wouldn't it be good if I had more than one piece of paper in my hand?

00:00:04.960 Oh, because if I did, that would indicate that my printer was working

00:00:11.420 and that my notes for today would be in my hand.

00:00:14.340 But no, I have two fairly new printers in my home.

00:00:19.060 At least one of them is going to be sacrificed today.

00:00:22.120 I don't know which one.

00:00:23.660 So they're both new. They should both work.

00:00:26.180 But I'm going to take one of them and throw it off the balcony.

00:00:29.320 But you have to make the other one watch. 0.92

00:00:32.220 So one of them will be executed today because they've been way out of line.

00:00:37.540 I mean, they just don't like to print anything anymore. 0.93

00:00:40.300 And so I'm going to destroy one of them for my pleasure while making the other one watch.

00:00:44.780 But before I do that, wouldn't you like to enjoy this episode of Coffee with Scott Adams

00:00:51.540 like you never have before?

00:00:54.020 Well, that's not going to happen.

00:00:55.280 But you could have a cup or a mug or a glass, a tank or gels or a canteen jug or a glass.

00:00:59.340 It's a vessel of any kind.

00:01:00.940 You could fill it with your favorite liquid.

00:01:03.320 I like coffee.

00:01:04.820 And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure of the dopamine hit of the day.

00:01:08.060 The thing that makes everything better.

00:01:11.060 It's called the Simultaneous Sip and it happens now.

00:01:14.740 Go.

00:01:15.000 Now, I've been told that sometimes you can't see the Simultaneous Sip because you're getting

00:01:27.480 here too late and there's a commercial running on YouTube when it live streams.

00:01:32.900 You could, you could subscribe to YouTube and then you don't see the commercials.

00:01:37.920 Or you could, if you don't want to watch it live.

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00:01:51.560 Available everywhere.

00:01:53.220 All right.

00:01:53.460 Let's talk about the news, which I'm going to be looking in the wrong direction at my glowing

00:01:58.560 screen because if I haven't mentioned this yet, printers, printers don't work.

00:02:05.800 Now, if you have a printer at home, one of those things that tries to put ink on paper,

00:02:11.780 just unplug it, carry it to the window and just throw it out the window because printers

00:02:17.660 don't work.

00:02:19.700 They are just a source of annoyance.

00:02:22.020 So I'm going to be reading off of this other screen here, annoyingly not looking at you.

00:02:26.320 So there's something that, uh, the fake news does that, you know, the fact that they can

00:02:35.940 get away with this is amazing, but here are the two ways that they prove things.

00:02:39.940 So they can prove something doesn't exist through the process of not looking for it.

00:02:46.600 That's it.

00:02:47.660 That's their investigative process for the fake news is don't look for it.

00:02:53.340 And then you can prove it doesn't exist.

00:02:55.060 Well, I didn't look for it and I didn't find it.

00:02:58.260 Therefore it doesn't exist.

00:02:59.520 But the other thing is they can prove something does exist by finding some anonymous sources

00:03:05.560 who have no credibility and are known to hate the person that they're, they're talking about.

00:03:12.680 That's how you prove something does exist.

00:03:15.360 Talking to people who hate the person you, you want to report on.

00:03:18.360 Uh, but here's the example of this.

00:03:20.900 Chris Eliza today in CNN has an opinion piece and he says this following, quote, facts say

00:03:28.860 the election was one fair and square by Biden.

00:03:32.780 Facts say that.

00:03:34.340 Do facts say that?

00:03:36.260 Are, this is CNN.

00:03:37.900 They're, they're a news organization.

00:03:39.300 And apparently this got past the editors.

00:03:43.580 So they, they must agree that this is true enough.

00:03:46.460 The facts say the election was for one fair and square.

00:03:50.900 Which facts are those?

00:03:52.240 This is an example of, of proving a negative.

00:03:58.520 You can't prove something didn't happen because you didn't look for it.

00:04:03.540 Why, why would there be an Arizona audit?

00:04:07.460 What would be the point of an Arizona audit if everybody's already looked at everything?

00:04:13.280 Wouldn't the audit just be, oh, just show us your documents.

00:04:16.720 We'll just look at the documents because we already know everything.

00:04:19.720 You wouldn't have to do an audit if you knew everything you needed to know.

00:04:26.840 So it would be true.

00:04:28.780 And I, and I would agree this is true.

00:04:31.240 This might be the last time you see me on social media.

00:04:34.520 It's true that there's no proof of any widespread fraud.

00:04:39.940 There's no proof, at least what I would consider proof.

00:04:43.980 Certainly not court blessed proof.

00:04:47.020 Oh, there are, you know, there are statistical arguments and there are questions and things like that.

00:04:52.880 And plenty of things we haven't looked into.

00:04:55.700 But there are no facts that prove it's, that the election was fair and square.

00:05:03.040 That just doesn't exist.

00:05:04.960 And the fact that somebody could say that in public is just mind boggling.

00:05:10.080 Because you can completely get away with that.

00:05:16.100 This is one of those times where I wonder, does Chris Silliza believe what he's writing?

00:05:22.960 And I think the answer is yes.

00:05:25.680 Which is scarier than, you kind of hope he's lying.

00:05:28.920 Because if he's not, if he's not doing it intentionally, and I don't think he is.

00:05:34.620 You know, I don't have any evidence to say that he's doing it intentionally.

00:05:38.220 Lying, I mean.

00:05:39.520 He actually believes, if this is true, you know, if you take him at his word,

00:05:44.840 he believes that not looking for it proves it doesn't exist.

00:05:48.720 Isn't that weird?

00:05:51.220 That like, we really live in that world.

00:05:53.040 That that's just, that's just a fact that's out there.

00:05:56.100 And we're like, oh, okay.

00:05:57.260 Didn't look for it everywhere, so it must not exist.

00:06:03.560 So yesterday, I had an interesting, interesting situation.

00:06:08.560 So I'm doing some home renovations.

00:06:11.100 And if you do home renovations, there's this continuous stream of people that you didn't know before coming in and out of your house.

00:06:19.740 Usually doing work or delivering something or whatever.

00:06:23.020 And it has become so easy to identify Trump supporters versus Democrats by the mask.

00:06:33.320 You know, the people who show up.

00:06:35.080 So yesterday, there was a, let's just say a couple of people showed up.

00:06:40.840 And immediately, I looked at them and saw them, you know, maskless in the driveway.

00:06:47.040 Now, it's the driveway.

00:06:49.360 They're not inside.

00:06:51.260 And they're not standing near anybody.

00:06:53.960 They're outdoors.

00:06:56.240 The only ones who would take their masks off outdoors were the vaccinated Trump supporters, basically.

00:07:05.080 So it was pretty easy to tell who's who now.

00:07:07.800 Now, I don't think that was always the case.

00:07:09.900 We're going to be passing through this weird period of time where you can just identify somebody's political leanings just like that.

00:07:19.320 Has that ever been the case before?

00:07:21.680 I mean, I suppose if somebody had blue hair, you could say they're probably a Democrat.

00:07:25.620 But maybe it's a little more obvious now.

00:07:27.680 Here's my persuasion suggestion for Republicans who are trying to argue that changes to the voting rules in their states, Democrats are saying any change to the voting rules, such as Georgia or Florida or Texas or wherever it happens, that any change is designed to restrict voting.

00:07:50.620 And specifically restricted against minority voters, I guess.

00:07:56.480 And suppose you're the GOP and you want to persuade against that.

00:08:02.220 And you want to make it seem as though the only reason you're doing these things is to make the voting system more secure.

00:08:08.420 First of all, what is true?

00:08:13.120 Is it true that these changes are to make the voting system more secure, to make sure only the right people vote?

00:08:20.400 Or is the secret real reason to suppress the vote of minorities and keep Republicans in power?

00:08:29.380 Why can't it be both?

00:08:32.160 Why can't it be both?

00:08:34.900 It's not even unethical.

00:08:36.460 Well, it could be both.

00:08:39.160 And I think Republicans should just say it.

00:08:41.420 Oh, totally.

00:08:42.220 This will definitely keep us in power.

00:08:44.260 That's one of the reasons we're doing it.

00:08:46.420 It's also true that we should do it no matter what.

00:08:51.780 Because protecting the integrity of the election is really important.

00:08:56.460 And other countries and states are doing what we want to do.

00:09:00.040 We're just conforming to best practices.

00:09:02.060 But if you're asking us, do we also have a motive that we think will win more elections?

00:09:07.900 Totally.

00:09:09.080 Yeah.

00:09:09.700 Yeah, that's one of the reasons we're doing it.

00:09:11.720 But that doesn't change anything from the fact that it should be done.

00:09:16.540 Just frickin' tell us.

00:09:19.880 Can you imagine how that would sound?

00:09:22.380 Like you would get chills on your arm if you heard a politician tell you the truth.

00:09:28.820 Because it's just so unusual.

00:09:30.340 You would say, what are you saying?

00:09:32.860 You wouldn't even know what was coming out of their mouth.

00:09:35.300 There is no shame in saying, yeah, we totally are motivated to win elections.

00:09:39.520 And you should be motivated to have a good election that you can trust.

00:09:45.080 We're on the same page.

00:09:47.500 It just isn't good for Democrats.

00:09:49.580 And we fully admit that.

00:09:51.540 I think you can just say it.

00:09:53.140 People would appreciate it.

00:09:54.640 I always tell this story about Willie Brown, the politician, Democrat, politician in California for many decades.

00:10:03.220 And there was this one situation where he was asked to vote on something about smoking in public or public places.

00:10:12.260 And somebody pointed out, how could he be a legitimate politician on the question of smoking when he had accepted money from tobacco companies?

00:10:26.540 And Willie Brown, to his enduring glory, I think I'll always love him for this.

00:10:33.220 He said, he looked at whoever asked him the question, and he said, I'm paraphrasing, but he said, if you can't take money from somebody and then turn around and screw them, you're in the wrong business.

00:10:47.480 Am I right?

00:10:49.640 When somebody says something that honest sounding, you just go, okay.

00:10:55.100 It just completely throws you off your game.

00:10:57.980 And for a moment, you don't know who you are or what you're doing.

00:11:00.560 It's like, ah, you weren't supposed to answer that honestly.

00:11:04.300 Now, I don't know which way you voted, but that's like the most transparent answer I've ever seen. 0.99

00:11:09.680 Yeah, I could take their money and I can screw them.

00:11:12.600 If you couldn't do that, you don't belong in this job. 0.96

00:11:15.940 That's a great answer.

00:11:17.900 But here's what I think the GOP should do.

00:11:20.580 Instead of arguing that, you know, it's good for their elections and it's good for the country, too, or it's good for the state, they should do the opposite.

00:11:33.380 And fund...

00:11:35.580 Well, actually, let me change the topic a little bit.

00:11:41.460 No, let's do this.

00:11:43.760 Sorry, I don't want to think out loud while I'm doing this, but sometimes it happens.

00:11:47.080 That's because I don't have a printer that works.

00:11:49.700 If it were written down on my little piece of paper, I wouldn't have any problems at all.

00:11:54.560 So imagine if the GOP funded some commercials or some ads, some viral ads, ideally viral,

00:12:03.500 that opposed any restrictions on illegal voters.

00:12:10.460 Let me say that again.

00:12:11.580 Suppose the Republicans funded commercials that are not branded Republican, so you can't tell who made the commercial.

00:12:20.560 And it just promotes trying to protect the votes of illegal citizens.

00:12:27.120 I'll say undocumented, but people are not citizens. 1.00

00:12:29.620 What would you do if you saw a whole bunch of commercials supporting the right of undocumented people or even illegal votes?

00:12:41.000 Just say Americans who are Americans who are not legal to vote in that state. 0.68

00:12:47.060 What would happen if you saw a bunch of push for illegal votes to be counted?

00:12:52.120 It would sort of change the argument, wouldn't it?

00:12:57.340 Because the Republicans could make it, turn it into an argument about whether illegal people should be,

00:13:05.640 people who are not legal to vote, should be able to vote.

00:13:10.140 And I think that would just mess with people's minds.

00:13:12.480 But anyway, that's just speculative.

00:13:13.780 That's never going to happen.

00:13:14.620 There's a great piece of writing that I tweeted.

00:13:21.540 You'll see it at the top of my Twitter feed this morning.

00:13:24.920 And it talks about the question of whether the virus was engineered in a lab,

00:13:32.360 be it the Wuhan lab or other, but mostly the Wuhan lab.

00:13:36.720 And here was the outcome.

00:13:39.780 So basically, the article, a very smart article, talked about how completely doable it would be

00:13:47.920 to engineer a virus that nobody could tell was engineered.

00:13:52.940 Now, you're mostly not experts here.

00:13:56.300 Most of you are not experts on virology.

00:13:59.660 Let me ask you, just common sense.

00:14:02.740 Do you believe, without knowing anything about viruses,

00:14:06.880 do you believe that somebody who does know about viruses

00:14:11.820 could make a new virus that's more powerful in some way

00:14:17.080 and that other people couldn't tell that it was engineered?

00:14:21.480 What do you think?

00:14:22.920 Do you think that you could always tell if something is an engineered virus?

00:14:28.660 Yeah, right?

00:14:30.260 Your common sense tells you it's possible, right?

00:14:35.560 Just common sense.

00:14:36.880 Now, I have to tell you that early on in the pandemic,

00:14:39.940 I privately, because I didn't want this to be public speculation,

00:14:44.320 I privately asked the smartest people I know,

00:14:47.720 doesn't it seem obvious that you could make a virus that's engineered

00:14:53.140 that doesn't look like it's anything but natural?

00:14:56.400 Every smart person I asked that question to said the same thing.

00:15:00.900 Oh, yeah, you could do that.

00:15:02.680 All of them.

00:15:03.440 But yet the news was consistently reporting that these experts could tell if there was an engineered virus.

00:15:10.980 Now, again, I don't know anything about anything,

00:15:14.880 but if you said to me, Scott, how could you engineer a virus that looked natural?

00:15:20.400 I would say, well, I would just make it natural.

00:15:24.780 All you'd have to do is, you know, get some viruses together to mutate or evolve,

00:15:31.020 then test the different ones that evolve until you've tested and found the one that's the most badass version of all the naturally occurring things that you sped up the evolution of.

00:15:43.460 There would simply be speed evolved, but nobody in the world would be able to tell.

00:15:49.320 Now, apparently there's also another technical way to do it that doesn't involve just natural mutations.

00:15:55.820 But common sense tells you that was doable, right?

00:16:02.220 I mean, did you really need to be a virus expert to know that you could mutate some genes and then pick the good ones?

00:16:08.120 You know, maybe you needed to mutate it through some different species, which is part of the process, right?

00:16:14.560 You know, bats to pangolins or bats to anything else.

00:16:17.980 But it's all doable.

00:16:19.400 It's understood, known science.

00:16:22.720 And then apparently we do know that some people who are saying it wasn't doable had some connection to the Wuhan lab.

00:16:30.060 What?

00:16:30.940 That's right.

00:16:31.520 Some of the experts saying that it wouldn't be possible to do this without being detected had a little connection to the lab.

00:16:40.480 Did you know that?

00:16:41.840 Well, read about it in that article who's the author whose name I didn't write down, but I should have.

00:16:49.380 All right.

00:16:51.420 Jen Psaki, apparently, you know, the spokesperson for Biden,

00:16:55.300 apparently said on the David Axelrod show that, and this is a quote,

00:17:04.420 talking about Biden taking impromptu questions for reporters.

00:17:09.240 Psaki said, it is not something we recommend.

00:17:13.620 So even the spokesperson says they don't recommend Biden just take random questions from reporters.

00:17:21.400 Now, on one hand, that's just being smart.

00:17:27.800 If you could have controlled Trump, which obviously was impossible,

00:17:33.560 but if his staff could have controlled him, would they have told him to not take questions, random questions?

00:17:40.940 Probably.

00:17:42.300 Probably, right?

00:17:43.220 Because answering random questions from reporters rarely is going to help you,

00:17:49.060 but, you know, I would think four to five times it's going to hurt you.

00:17:52.640 So just mathematically speaking, you know, playing the odds,

00:17:56.300 you probably shouldn't take random questions from reporters.

00:18:00.520 But we all appreciated that Trump did, right?

00:18:03.300 It made news.

00:18:04.280 It was fun.

00:18:05.440 It was provocative.

00:18:06.160 And it was really transparent.

00:18:08.820 And we learned probably more than we would have if it had been some, you know, more organized scenario.

00:18:14.780 So, thank you, James.

00:18:19.560 I actually would not criticize Jen Psaki for saying out loud what I think is just common sense.

00:18:27.600 You don't want the boss answering random questions.

00:18:30.680 It's just not a good idea.

00:18:31.820 You want preparation.

00:18:34.220 You want to control your situation as much as possible.

00:18:37.080 So I think he would have said that about anybody.

00:18:39.780 But when he said about Biden, it just sounds a little extra bad.

00:18:43.900 All right.

00:18:46.700 Let's talk about that VAERS database.

00:18:49.940 You probably, a lot of you saw Tucker Carlson talking about a database called VAERS, V-A-E-R-S.

00:18:57.380 And apparently anybody, literally anybody, can enter a report that says I got a vaccination and then some bad adverse effect happened or somebody died.

00:19:10.660 Now, the trouble is that these are unverified reports.

00:19:18.520 So some of them might not be true.

00:19:20.840 That's a problem.

00:19:21.580 And others might be just correlation without causation.

00:19:28.920 Now, you saw Tucker report that if it's true that 30 people a day are dying from the vaccination, which, by the way, I don't have any evidence that that's true.

00:19:38.840 That if that were true, that would be a big problem and we should know about it and somebody should be doing something about it.

00:19:45.720 But this database does not have that kind of credibility.

00:19:51.760 What it does do is say that reportedly, and again, you don't know that the reports are true, but there's somebody got a vaccination and then somebody died.

00:20:00.720 Let me put this in context using the argument on a tweet from Aaron Blake, who writes for The Fix and other things, I think.

00:20:09.900 So he says, Tucker cited unverified data that 30 people who got vaccinated die daily.

00:20:18.240 The unverified part, meaning it's in that VAERS database.

00:20:22.240 And then Aaron points out that 8,000 Americans die every day.

00:20:26.320 I had to, I Googled it to make sure that's in the, that's in the ballpark.

00:20:30.280 So that's in the ballpark.

00:20:32.620 High 7,000s, close to 8,000 people, Americans die every day.

00:20:38.040 More than 40% of the population has received one dose of vaccine.

00:20:44.100 So if you took 40% of 8,000, you'd expect more than 3,000 people a day would die in America soon after getting a vaccine.

00:21:00.280 Now, these are, you know, back of the envelope numbers, so, you know, you could refine these quite a bit.

00:21:07.820 But in general, in a general sense, if the math works the way math works, you should see something like 3,000 people a day dying not long after, you know, within some period not long after they got a vaccination.

00:21:26.340 But the, but the number is 30.

00:21:30.640 We should see 3,000.

00:21:32.820 In other words, if there's no problem at all with vaccines, if the vaccine problem were zero, and it's probably not zero, right?

00:21:42.300 But if it were zero, you would still see 3,000 people a day dying soon after they got a vaccination.

00:21:51.180 Now, if you didn't know that, what would you think when you heard 30 people a day are reportedly, again, not verified, reportedly dying of soon after getting a vaccination?

00:22:07.160 Yeah, it's completely misleading, and I think you have to keep that in context.

00:22:10.260 All right, have you noticed that there are a lot of people hiring, and yet the unemployment rate actually got a little worse?

00:22:21.100 So we have tons of open jobs, and we got more people looking for work than ever.

00:22:28.100 How can that be true?

00:22:29.120 Lots of open jobs, but more people unemployed.

00:22:34.980 And the answer is that they don't have the right skills, or they're not in the right area for the jobs.

00:22:40.820 Now, I've been telling you that we're in a golden age.

00:22:45.280 Try to think of any problem you would rather have than this one.

00:22:51.180 I mean, I hate to be an optimist about everything.

00:22:53.700 I tend to be.

00:22:54.720 But seriously, if you could pick a problem, because you don't really get to have no problems, that's not one of your options.

00:23:03.480 If you could pick the problem you had to have among all the problems there could be, I'm going to take that one every time.

00:23:11.380 I want the problem that we have more jobs than we have people trained to do them.

00:23:17.340 Because you know how to fix that, right?

00:23:20.240 You train more people to do those jobs.

00:23:22.540 So we know how to fix that.

00:23:24.460 That is your best situation.

00:23:26.720 I always say that about health.

00:23:29.040 Your best situation is not that you're perfectly healthy, because nobody gets that.

00:23:34.460 It's not an option.

00:23:35.960 You can't be perfectly healthy.

00:23:37.840 Nobody gets that.

00:23:39.240 The best thing is you can have a health problem that has a pill.

00:23:44.640 For example, I have acid reflux.

00:23:47.540 Fairly common.

00:23:49.100 But I'm lucky.

00:23:51.000 There's a pill.

00:23:52.540 I just take a little pill.

00:23:54.900 Basically, no harmful side effects.

00:23:58.220 So if you've got an economic problem that's as easy, relatively easy, and straightforward to fix as this one, you're in a really good place.

00:24:07.520 And we might be.

00:24:08.440 Let's talk about the ratings of the news, according to Rasmussen.

00:24:15.600 Now, this would be a poll of likely voters.

00:24:18.260 So this is not a poll of ratings the way ratings companies do their own ratings.

00:24:22.640 But this is likely voters.

00:24:25.980 Here's the change recently.

00:24:27.940 I forget which time period, but this is a recent change to the ratings.

00:24:32.160 I guess CNN lost 22% of likely voters from their viewership.

00:24:41.100 I don't know if this might be in the last year or something.

00:24:43.700 I forget the time period.

00:24:44.700 I forget the time period.

00:24:45.380 But 22%.

00:24:47.780 Now, my first thought was, you know, you don't want to take a run at the king unless you can finish him off.

00:24:55.640 And Trump, although he's out of office at the moment, he's definitely not finished off, if you know what I mean.

00:25:04.440 So that was my first thought.

00:25:05.940 It's like, oh, they went after Trump, but they didn't finish him off, so now they're paying for it.

00:25:11.120 But then I saw that MSNBC is up 5%.

00:25:14.920 So CNN is down 22%, but another left-leaning entity, MSNBC, is up 5%.

00:25:22.560 And then Fox News, the juggernaut, which is Fox News, they're up 9%.

00:25:29.460 I'll tell you, say what you will about Fox News.

00:25:36.720 And I've said this a number of times, and I'm going to double down on it.

00:25:40.480 Fox News is the best produced show for the news.

00:25:45.420 I mean, they just clean the table with MSNBC and CNN just on production.

00:25:51.060 And production, I'm going to include talent selection and the way they organize shows.

00:25:58.640 If you look at the engineering behind The Five, you know, that show on Fox, if you look at

00:26:05.420 Goffeld's new show, if you look at Hannity, if you look at Tucker, they're just really well-produced

00:26:11.040 shows.

00:26:12.520 And so politics aside, I think it's just a higher-quality product.

00:26:18.380 I think people are just drawn to a higher-quality product.

00:26:20.560 So I say this all the time, but as often as I, especially recently, as often as I will

00:26:28.320 criticize Fox News if they get a story wrong or there's some bias, there's always plenty

00:26:33.560 of that.

00:26:34.420 But boy, the people that you don't see on screen, the producers, the people who do everything

00:26:41.300 from the color to the, you know, just the look of it, everything, it's just really well

00:26:46.840 done.

00:26:50.060 So I see in the comments somebody's mentioning Fox babes. 0.67

00:26:54.340 Now, we do not be, we're not sexist here, but it is nonetheless true, it is just a fact

00:27:01.000 that Fox hires probably a little bit on sex appeal.

00:27:05.220 If we're being honest, it's a little bit about sex appeal, at least for the female talent. 1.00

00:27:13.420 Is that wrong?

00:27:14.520 No.

00:27:15.580 No.

00:27:16.220 Because I think the news is an entertainment product.

00:27:19.780 And in the context of entertainment, because it really is, I mean, we watch the news for

00:27:24.240 entertainment, especially the opinion shows.

00:27:26.300 I think that's perfectly fair.

00:27:29.140 And the fact that they don't ignore human motivation, how often have I told you this,

00:27:36.380 right?

00:27:37.120 That the difference between the left and the right is that the right understands human

00:27:42.140 beings, like how we're motivated, what makes you turn the channel, what makes you watch.

00:27:47.960 And then they just build a product around human motivation.

00:27:52.380 Yeah, Roger Ailes was the mind behind that.

00:27:55.240 So, no, I don't have COVID, it's just allergies.

00:28:02.640 All right, and then I got this question, a lot of you were asking it, from a persuasion

00:28:07.760 viewpoint, when we see our top officials who are vaccinated, wearing masks, let's say Joe

00:28:15.020 Biden, classic example, if you see somebody who's fully vaccinated and still wears a mask

00:28:20.800 outdoors, in public, what do you think of that?

00:28:27.440 Does that tell you the vaccination is less effective?

00:28:30.500 What is the persuasion on this?

00:28:33.500 I say this doesn't hurt persuasion.

00:28:37.100 I get the argument.

00:28:39.160 But here's the counter argument.

00:28:41.020 The counter argument is that everybody understands the leaders are modeling.

00:28:45.080 They're modeling, they're modeling, the epitome of what they would like to show you is the

00:28:51.060 safest thing you could be.

00:28:52.880 But I feel like we understand that, right?

00:28:56.460 When you see Biden wearing a mask in every situation, even though he's vaccinated, do you

00:29:02.320 say to yourself, oh, that's how I will act?

00:29:04.480 You don't really do that, do you?

00:29:07.780 Or do you say, oh, I get it, he's just modeling the extreme, because the extreme of safety is

00:29:14.480 sort of a good thing for a government to model.

00:29:17.460 Let me give you an example.

00:29:19.120 This will be the weirdest, this will be the weirdest analogy ever, and therefore invalid.

00:29:26.740 But I've stated before that the federal government, the president in particular, let's just say

00:29:32.700 the president, I've said before that the president of the United States is the only person who

00:29:38.120 should not be in favor of abortion, regardless of what he personally thinks of abortion.

00:29:45.000 Here's why.

00:29:46.540 You never want the leader to be in favor of anything that even comes close to a gray area

00:29:52.560 of maybe killing people that are citizens.

00:29:56.640 That's the one person.

00:29:57.940 You don't want the president ever to be in favor of anything, in any scenario, that's about killing

00:30:06.580 a person who is an American citizen, or even maybe, you know, just is a resident here.

00:30:12.840 Everybody else, fair game.

00:30:15.380 State, individuals, okay.

00:30:19.260 They can talk about the pros and the cons, and they can treat the nuance.

00:30:22.960 But I feel like the president should just say, nope, if it's a question of killing Americans,

00:30:28.660 I'm out, because no way.

00:30:31.300 Doesn't matter what the argument is.

00:30:33.160 Even capital punishment.

00:30:34.900 I think the president should stay out of capital punishment.

00:30:37.980 Let the states do it. 0.96

00:30:39.780 You just never want a leader who ever can say, I have a good reason to kill an American.

00:30:46.620 Never.

00:30:47.900 That should be an absolute for the president.

00:30:50.220 Governors, you got to, governors got to get some business done, right?

00:30:55.160 If it's not the president's job to make decisions on abortions, for example, just stay out of it.

00:31:01.760 That's my opinion.

00:31:03.120 All right.

00:31:03.420 But same with, so here's the analogy to masks.

00:31:11.300 Just as I say, the president's the one person who should stay out of life and death questions

00:31:16.320 about Americans, the president's the one person who should be able to wear a mask even if you don't

00:31:22.660 need to, right?

00:31:24.460 The president is just sending a message.

00:31:27.340 It's not so much about the president's opinion.

00:31:29.860 It's not about the president's sense of the science.

00:31:33.180 It's just sending a message.

00:31:34.360 So, I get the logical argument where you say, hey, he's making it seem like the vaccines

00:31:40.940 are not effective.

00:31:43.060 You know, it's a bad message.

00:31:44.300 I get that.

00:31:45.200 I mean, it's a reasonable, that's a reasonable critique.

00:31:48.420 But I just don't know anybody's actually persuaded by it.

00:31:52.680 Are you?

00:31:54.260 Do you know anybody who was persuaded by it?

00:31:56.120 I'm feeling, I saw a comment yesterday that hit a little bit too close to home.

00:32:07.200 I was making a comment that Democrats are wearing masks even when they don't need to

00:32:11.400 and Republicans are not.

00:32:13.680 And somebody who shall remain nameless said that it might be true that there's a large 0.95

00:32:20.800 segment of the population who is ugly, and that ugly people don't mind wearing masks.

00:32:27.780 And when I first heard that, I laughed, because it's like, ha ha, you know, nobody's going

00:32:32.100 to want to wear a mask just because they're not confident with their looks.

00:32:36.300 And then I realized that I like wearing a mask because I'm not confident of my looks.

00:32:42.760 It's true for me.

00:32:43.860 I could say absolutely, absolutely, that I feel more comfortable wearing a mask in public

00:32:52.060 just in the terms of people judging me, you know, how old are you, or how do you look,

00:32:57.680 or do you have some wrinkles, or anything, anything.

00:33:01.480 I absolutely feel that. 0.96

00:33:03.640 So as a representative of ugly people all over, I feel these are my people. 0.85

00:33:09.320 You know, I'm not a big joiner. 0.93

00:33:10.520 Like, I don't consider myself a Republican or a Democrat or even a white person.

00:33:16.660 You know, I just don't, I'm not a joiner.

00:33:18.340 I don't like to be in a team.

00:33:20.180 But I'm definitely in team ugly.

00:33:22.560 You know, the people who are short and bald and wear glasses and, you know, and every other

00:33:27.520 kind of thing that's, you know, off standard.

00:33:30.680 These are my people.

00:33:32.660 I understand ugly people better than, better than you beautiful people ever could.

00:33:38.800 So I get that.

00:33:40.520 And I think there's something to it.

00:33:42.100 I do believe that some people are, just want the mask thing to last them a little bit longer.

00:33:47.880 I think that's real.

00:33:49.940 All right.

00:33:51.980 That is about all I wanted to talk about because somebody says, I am not an animal.

00:33:59.000 Well, Sandra, you're probably also attractive. 0.93

00:34:00.940 If you look at the people who are fighting the hardest to get rid of masks, it's not a perfect correlation.

00:34:08.760 But ask yourself if they're attractive.

00:34:11.400 I'm sure you're going to see the, I'll bet you're going to see the correlation.

00:34:15.900 I'll bet you attractive people want to leave, lose the masks first. 0.99

00:34:21.380 Right?

00:34:21.820 I'll bet that's true.

00:34:29.700 That's what Elephant Man said.

00:34:31.120 I can't, I can't bring this up without Elephant Man coming into the conversation.

00:34:38.060 Somebody says, I want to wear a lipstick again.

00:34:40.880 How many of you have thought I'd better brush my teeth before I leave the house?

00:34:44.640 And then you said, oh, I don't need to.

00:34:46.140 How many of you have done that?

00:34:50.060 How many of you have eaten, eaten something that like, you know, is all in your teeth?

00:34:55.140 Like a, like a cookie or something that's just all in your teeth?

00:34:58.180 And you go to walk out the door and normally you'd be like, I don't know, brushing your teeth

00:35:02.260 or something.

00:35:03.060 And you say to yourself, ah, I'm not going to be within six feet of anybody and I've got

00:35:08.040 a mask.

00:35:09.240 I'm good to go.

00:35:11.600 How about Great Britain?

00:35:12.760 Great Britain, Great Britain with, let's say, less, less dental care than the United States.

00:35:19.880 Maybe they like their masks a little bit longer than we do.

00:35:22.600 We'll see.

00:35:26.620 Somebody says, I've skipped shaving.

00:35:29.240 I've, I've heard that people are wearing, I think this is a real fact.

00:35:33.900 I don't think I imagined this.

00:35:36.120 Was it Ulta or one of the makeup companies said that there's way more sales of eye makeup

00:35:42.620 makeup?

00:35:43.500 So, you know, they're, they're selling less makeup.

00:35:45.980 That's like below the nose and more makeup. 0.93

00:35:48.300 That's above the nose.

00:35:49.840 Just like you'd expect.

00:35:53.680 Yeah.

00:35:54.340 You want to go to, do you want an investment advice?

00:35:58.460 All right.

00:35:59.940 Let me stop here.

00:36:01.020 I don't give investment advice.

00:36:02.540 So what I say next will be more because it's fun.

00:36:07.500 All right.

00:36:07.720 So this is for entertainment. 0.99

00:36:09.500 If any of you bet on this and lose your money, it's your own damn fault. 0.99

00:36:14.740 Don't blame me. 0.98

00:36:15.720 Here's my investment advice.

00:36:17.140 That's not really advice.

00:36:18.520 So don't do this.

00:36:20.540 What's going to happen to a company like Ulta?

00:36:22.940 It's a big makeup company.

00:36:25.640 Well, what will happen to them when the masks go away?

00:36:31.020 Isn't it going to double their income?

00:36:34.080 I mean, not double, but shouldn't they have a substantial, like a really good quarter the

00:36:40.660 first time the masks are really, really gone?

00:36:43.080 Now, maybe it'll be too gradual.

00:36:44.700 There'll never be a day when they're gone.

00:36:46.260 But I don't know how that's possibly not going to sell more lipstick and more whatever the

00:36:53.260 hell you do below the nose. 1.00

00:36:55.320 Seems to me.

00:36:58.180 Somebody says, I need some sun.

00:37:00.460 That could go a long way.

00:37:01.680 Well, you know what this is?

00:37:02.540 There's a lighting problem, which is when you use any of the Apple products, they're so

00:37:09.860 good on light that they just brighten everything.

00:37:12.640 I'm actually sitting in the dark.

00:37:14.160 Weird, isn't it?

00:37:17.060 But it's almost, the lighting in my room, it would be late twilight right now.

00:37:24.480 But if you look here, it looks like I've got a daytime window right in front of me.

00:37:30.700 Yeah, even, I've got light rings turned way down and facing the other direction.

00:37:35.600 So it's like dark in here.

00:37:39.620 All right, that's all I got for now.

00:37:41.680 And I will talk to you tomorrow.

00:37:44.160 All right.

00:37:45.160 I think I've got light rings.

00:37:46.160 All right.

00:37:46.840 All right.

00:37:53.520 All right.

Real Coffee with Scott Adams - May 07, 2021

Episode 1368 Scott Adams： Virus Conspiracy Theories, Trump the Kingmaker, CNN's Slide to Oblivion, More

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