Real Coffee with Scott Adams - Episode 1395 Scott Adams： Fauci versus Tucker, Biden Goes Full Racist, Veg o Matic Greenwald Versus Potato Stelter, More

00:00:00.000 Hey, everybody. Come on in. Come on in. I'm still alive. That's right. I got my second

00:00:13.220 vaccination the other day. Let me tell you, it was Moderna, second vaccination. And let

00:00:19.200 me tell you, that second vaccination sometimes can kick your ass. But it's about 24 hours 0.99

00:00:27.860 of unpleasantness. I'm back. I would say, I think I'm 100%. I don't feel any lingering

00:00:36.280 carryover. But if you'd like to know how yesterday went, yesterday was not fun.

00:00:45.160 Yesterday was not fun. The discomfort never got higher than, say, a 4 out of 10. But it's all day.

00:00:53.560 And if you've got a discomfort that's a 4 out of 10, and it lasts all day, you're not going to have

00:01:01.340 a good day. But it's also not the biggest problem in the world. And I knew it'd be gone in a day. And

00:01:06.100 everything's good now. And I am protected. Protected. Allegedly. We'll find out.

00:01:14.760 But why are you here? Why are you here? Probably because you want to enjoy the simultaneous sip and

00:01:21.660 all the goodness that comes with it. And if you'd like to do that, all you need is a cup or mug or

00:01:25.800 glass, a tank or chalice, a stein, a canteen jug or flask, a vessel of any kind. Fill it with your

00:01:31.120 favorite liquid I like, coffee. And join me now for the dopamine hit of the day with just a little bit of

00:01:38.540 oxytocin this time. A little bit of flavoring. It's called the simultaneous sip. And it happens

00:01:44.860 now all over the world. Go.

00:01:51.360 Mmm. Yeah. Well, that'll make the news go down better, won't it? So if you would like to feel

00:01:59.740 good and don't you, don't you want to feel good? Let me tell you how to feel good. Find my Twitter

00:02:07.520 account. And near the top of it, you'll see I retweeted from Axios at that article with one of

00:02:14.700 the best graphics I've seen of the trend line of the coronavirus. And watching that virus go up in,

00:02:23.280 you know, January and peaking and then down, you know, because it's animated. And then you see it's

00:02:29.560 we're actually at the lowest point since the pandemic began. Let me say that again.

00:02:37.160 We're at the lowest point in the United States. Since the pandemic began in March 2020.

00:02:47.180 Huh? Did you know that? Did you know that we reached our all time low? Just now we just did it.

00:02:55.380 Let's have a hand for the United States.

00:02:58.840 And all the other countries around the world who are doing a great job, Israel in particular,

00:03:05.400 doing great. And I got to say that just playing that little graphic and watching that go up and

00:03:14.380 then watching human ingenuity drive that freaking thing down to the down into the dirt. It's really,

00:03:22.840 really good feeling. And I got to tell you, being fully vaccinated in this context. And I know there

00:03:30.600 are some skeptics out there and I'm not discounting that, but it feels really good. So today, I would

00:03:37.100 say my attitude about the pandemic is by far the best it's ever been. Now, as somebody saying it's not

00:03:46.000 over yet, Dr. Fauci thinks that maybe it'll last forever, you know, maybe there'll just always be

00:03:50.960 some stuff out there. Now, I don't want to be a, let's say a doubting person, a skeptic, if you will. But

00:03:59.200 have you had any questions about why it takes two vaccinations for this vaccination, but it feels like

00:04:08.520 everything else in the past was one vaccination. Have you ever asked yourself, what's up with that?

00:04:16.680 Well, I'm going to just speculate, right? So there's no, no facts or evidence behind what I'm going to say

00:04:23.280 next. But I have been in meetings at big corporations where I've worked. So I've had lots of experience at

00:04:31.800 two major corporations where I was behind the door helping to make some decisions. So I kind of know

00:04:40.760 how things go in a corporate environment. And I think it goes like this. Hey, we're going to need to

00:04:46.760 rush to make a vaccination. What should we do? Well, the best thing we can do is make it like every other

00:04:56.900 one. But we don't know the exact thing to test, because you could test everything from one small

00:05:05.720 shot, small dose, to one large dose, or two smaller doses, one after the other. And you can't test them

00:05:14.660 all. So you're going to have to test something, right? You're going to have to pick one or maybe

00:05:20.720 two, but probably just one approach and just see if you can warp speed it through. And because you can't

00:05:26.620 test everything, there's just no way to do it all. So you got to pick, you got to guess. I think this

00:05:33.400 is our best bet. And then just test that one thing and hope you get it. Now that's what happened.

00:05:38.580 They largely tested one approach, the double vaccination, at least for the two vaccinations.

00:05:44.700 And it seemed to get a good result. So they went with it. My understanding is they're going to test

00:05:50.900 lower doses for the two vaccines. But imagine you're behind the door and you're one of the

00:05:58.340 vaccination companies. Do you think that you charge the same for one dose versus two? Now,

00:06:06.980 of course, you and I are, if you're in America, you're getting it for free, but the government's

00:06:10.960 paying, right? So I assume that the government is writing a check for each dose, right? Now,

00:06:18.140 you're a corporation and you could say, we could test one dose and we might get like greater than 90%,

00:06:25.820 but we could also test two doses, make twice as much money, right? It's twice as much money.

00:06:37.580 Would the government not pay for the second dose in a pandemic? Put on your negotiating hat.

00:06:44.920 I can save the world, but just, just one wrinkle. Unlike all of the other vaccinations,

00:06:52.600 this one's going to take two doses. Each of those doses will cost as much as a regular one dose,

00:06:59.820 but now there's two of them, twice as many doses.

00:07:02.840 So do you think that science drove the decision for two doses? Do you? Do you really think that

00:07:16.480 science drove the decision for the two doses? No, no, no, it did not. I had a ruined day yesterday

00:07:29.220 because I got the second dose. I'm following the guidelines. Maybe I shouldn't, but I'd like to

00:07:36.500 travel and I'd like to have fewer restrictions on me. So I did it. Yeah. I don't think that that was a

00:07:43.060 science decision. Now it could have been a good risk management decision because maybe the two doses

00:07:48.300 is closer to a guarantee that it works than the one dose. You could make the argument that it was risk

00:07:55.340 management. But I feel like money is always predictive. And if there's one approach that

00:08:03.200 gives you twice as much money and the other side can't even negotiate because it's a pandemic,

00:08:08.860 what are you going to do? Can you lower the price on that? No, not really. They're going to get any

00:08:15.200 price they want. So they just make it two doses instead of one. I think that's what happened,

00:08:19.020 or at least you have to worry about that. If you're not watching the interplay between

00:08:25.900 one of China's, I assume, professional trolls named Chen Weiwao. I don't know if I'm pronouncing

00:08:37.460 right? W-E-I-H-U-A. Weiwao? I don't know. But Twitter brands his Twitter account as China

00:08:49.900 State Affiliated Media. So according to Twitter, this guy works for the Chinese government,

00:08:57.600 but he says he doesn't. He says his opinions are his own. So he's been coming into tweets that I've

00:09:05.180 been involved with. And he and I have become acquainted online. So Chen and I sometimes

00:09:11.240 trade tweets like yesterday, traded a few tweets. And here's the thing. Is this going to work out

00:09:19.380 well for him? Because I'm a professional, meaning that I'm a professional communicator

00:09:29.300 and a professional humorist. Beyond that, I'm skilled in persuasion. Chen is a guy on Twitter.

00:09:41.220 And I was actually worrying today that I could get him executed, like actually executed. Because 0.82

00:09:49.960 it isn't hard to completely humiliate him online. I mean, he doesn't act humiliated, of course.

00:09:56.400 But it's pretty easy to make fun of him and to call out what's happening.

00:10:05.060 There's no such thing as science, only mass hysteria, Maple Bob says. You're not far off.

00:10:13.680 And so I was worried that if I get too much of these exchanges, that China will just execute this

00:10:20.000 guy for embarrassing their country. But so far, Chen is a great representative of what we call

00:10:29.660 West Taiwan. Some people call it China. But I saw somebody on Twitter refer to China as

00:10:36.900 Western Taiwan, to which I said, hmm. Hmm.

00:10:42.980 Hmm. Okay. Speaking of persuasion, have you all been following Corey DeAngelis, who's been persuading

00:10:52.560 against the teachers' unions to try to get more competition in schools? And Corey did a little

00:11:00.520 poll today. Now, of course, this is highly unscientific poll. But he asked this question,

00:11:07.980 how have your views about teachers' unions changed since March 2020? Now, of course, that's the

00:11:15.920 beginning of the pandemic. So this is how people's views about teachers' unions have changed. The number

00:11:22.180 who have a less favorable view, 89%. 89% have a less favorable view of teachers' unions. But there are also

00:11:34.280 people who have a more favorable view. One percent. One percent. One percent. That's it. And 10% think

00:11:46.220 it's the same. Now, I don't know what this would have looked like a year ago. Maybe teachers' unions

00:11:53.900 were always a little disliked. But it feels to me that he's moved the bar a lot. And of course, the

00:12:00.840 pandemic helped, right? Because there was something specific that you could watch the teachers' unions

00:12:06.840 be unhelpful. And somebody says one percent are in the teachers' unions or maybe married to a teacher.

00:12:13.700 That's probably true. So as I've pointed out before, the way our system has evolved is that there are a 0.95

00:12:26.340 number of decisions that seem to grow out of the public, as opposed to the politicians making

00:12:32.040 decisions and debating them. It seems like there are some topics that our politicians just can't

00:12:37.100 handle for whatever reason. And then the public has to take it on themselves. I think the question

00:12:42.520 of wearing masks has already transferred into the public. We just haven't seen that expressed yet.

00:12:48.700 So the public will decide when masks are done. They won't be the experts at this point in the

00:12:53.600 pandemic, end of the pandemic. And likewise, I think the public will decide whether they can put up with

00:13:02.660 a lack of school options and whether they can put up with the teachers' unions. And, you know,

00:13:10.200 it's not that the public can directly make them go away, but certainly the public can force more

00:13:14.780 competition. And it looks like Cory DeAngelis is making this happen. Now, I, of course, have been boosting

00:13:20.960 him as much as possible. So, you know, you know, when I retweet him, it's another 600,000 plus people

00:13:28.060 who see it. So I'm doing what I can to help. But man, that's some seriously good persuasion.

00:13:36.680 And like I said, the pandemic helped. Are you watching the battle between Glenn Greenwald and Brian

00:13:42.900 Stelter? You know, so what's happening is Glenn Greenwald, he appears more on Fox News than on other

00:13:54.300 major outlets. And the reason is that Fox News invites him. That's why he appears on Fox News,

00:14:01.540 because he's invited. Do you know why he doesn't appear on CNN? They don't invite him. Do you know

00:14:09.040 why he doesn't appear on MSNBC so much? I mean, he has in the past. But do you know why he doesn't

00:14:13.800 do so much now? They don't invite him. And I guess the problem is that he says things which are, you

00:14:20.860 know, true and not specific to any left or right side. And that makes him a right wing, according to

00:14:28.640 the left, they're trying to brand him as right wing. Now, what makes him effective, besides the fact

00:14:35.440 that he's hilariously, let's say, biting in his commentary. I mean, he just writes well, and it's

00:14:44.180 fun to watch. He's provocative. But he also is making a huge dent. And the Democrats are taking

00:14:53.080 a beating from some of his writing and commentary. And so it looks like they've decided to target him

00:14:59.160 for elimination. So now CNN went after him, and Brian Stelter in particular. And I can't stop seeing

00:15:07.540 in my head a potato on a vegematic. Do you know the vegematic? Or is anybody old enough to remember

00:15:15.140 that? It was a thing for slicing vegetables. And I just see a potato, you know, Stelter. And I see

00:15:24.560 Greenwald as the vegematic. It doesn't look like a fair fight. And then I looked at the Daily Beast

00:15:32.580 as a big, you know, a hit piece on him. So if the Daily Beast is going after him, and CNN is going

00:15:39.120 after him, and they're trying to paint him as a right wing, crazy person, which isn't working,

00:15:44.480 because he doesn't say anything that's even a little bit crazy. He's not even close, right?

00:15:50.100 So he doesn't buy into the conspiracy theories or anything else you would imagine could be in the

00:15:57.300 far right wing anyway. But here's the thing. There's this long criticism of Glenn Greenwald,

00:16:06.180 and I read it, and I'm looking for the criticism. Now, generally, if there's a criticism piece,

00:16:13.020 it would include some criticism. But instead, it was all things like,

00:16:17.620 he's associated with Tucker Carlson, and he's been on Laura Ingraham's show, and Fox News really

00:16:24.120 likes him. Yeah, Fox News really likes him. And the entire thing was just a smear by association.

00:16:31.760 There was no content. I don't believe there was anything that they said about him where he had

00:16:36.680 lied or cheated or gotten something wrong. Nothing. There was actually no criticism.

00:16:42.440 They actually wrote a hit piece without any hits, because they didn't have anything. It was

00:16:48.920 because they were completely empty. So this tells you that he's certainly making a dent,

00:16:54.900 and they're trying to mute his attacks. But he's also in this weird situation because he's on

00:17:01.520 sub-stack, which means that the more attention he gets from his critics, the richer he gets.

00:17:07.560 Because people will say, who are you talking about? Oh, Glenn Greenwald? What's he saying? Oh,

00:17:14.300 he's saying interesting things? Oh, he has his sub-stack account? Next thing you know,

00:17:19.020 they're subscribing to his sub-stack account. So while CNN's ratings are down 70% from whatever

00:17:26.540 their high was during Trump, and I guess Brian Stilter's show is struggling as well,

00:17:31.940 every time that they fight, CNN loses viewers and Greenwald gets richer. So go ahead and fight

00:17:41.960 with him, I guess, if you want. I've got a question about all these ransomware attacks.

00:17:48.980 And by the way, Gordon Chang had a good framing for this. He said in a tweet that President Biden

00:17:55.500 is not responsible for the colonial pipeline hack. You know, that was just a criminal act,

00:18:00.180 or maybe Russia was behind it. We don't know. But Gordon says he is responsible,

00:18:06.940 meaning Biden, for the recent ransomware attack on JBS, the meat processing company.

00:18:15.260 And Gordon says it's because he invited this new attack by allowing Colonial to pay a ransom.

00:18:20.380 What did he think was going to happen next? Good question. So here's my question. Number one,

00:18:27.040 is there an industry, let's say, an industry economic opportunity here? Don't you think that

00:18:37.480 somebody should be making a product that is the backup of all backups? Something that can zero out

00:18:44.800 a system completely, and then reboot it with a mirror image of the software as it existed on

00:18:51.540 whatever day? It seems to me that somebody needs to invent the ransomware correction software.

00:19:02.020 There's got to be a way to simply wipe all systems and then repopulate them. Somebody says that would

00:19:11.060 also be hackable, of course. Yeah, I mean, if they manage to get their software into the copy as well.

00:19:18.600 Somebody says it's just expensive. I'm just looking at some of your comments because most of you are

00:19:24.460 smarter than I am about technology, or many of you are. And somebody says blockchain, I don't know.

00:19:32.560 Already exists. Companies just don't use it, somebody says. Well, that's what I would expect.

00:19:37.440 So here's my question to you. Find me the software company.

00:19:41.800 Find me the company. Find me the company who does this. Find me the company who protects against

00:19:48.040 ransomware, because I'd like to invest in that company. I'm hearing that YouTube is throttling my

00:19:57.980 audience. Is that happening? I don't know that that's happening. You can't really tell.

00:20:03.280 Yeah. All right. So, and I wonder at what point, given that Russia actually warned us that they were

00:20:13.140 going to make us uncomfortable, and that these are Russian hackers, and it's hard to believe that

00:20:18.600 Putin can't find a Russian hacker. Do you believe he can't find a Russian hacker? I feel like he could,

00:20:25.140 right? So he's at least allowing it to happen. And it makes me wonder what we're doing in return.

00:20:31.800 It better be something. You know, I was reading an opinion that the only way these ransomware

00:20:38.280 attacks will stop is if we take down a country. Take down a country to make them stop. And I would

00:20:46.400 say that maybe the second time, you know, this meatpacking company, maybe this isn't time to take

00:20:52.700 down Russia. But at some point, you have to turn the lights off in Russia, if only for an hour,

00:20:59.160 just to let them know that we're not screwing around anymore.

00:21:06.320 So I don't know, I just don't know what you do about this, but we need to put some pressure on

00:21:10.680 Russia like they've never seen before, because I don't think anybody believes they can't control

00:21:15.460 these criminal gangs in Russia. Kristen Sinema, Democrat, Arizona, is kind of interesting.

00:21:25.340 Here's something she said that you'd never see. It's just like, well, not never, but it's so rare

00:21:32.480 to see somebody say something honest in politics, that it really caught my attention. So first of all,

00:21:41.440 she says she likes the filibuster, which is not really a Democrat view at the moment, because they'd

00:21:47.860 like to get rid of it so they can pass a bunch of legislation just by a simple majority. But the

00:21:53.920 filibuster makes for many of the bills, they have to have, you know, 60%, 60% support. And so the

00:22:02.860 filibuster can basically effectively stop anything that doesn't have overwhelming support. And she says

00:22:08.680 that's good, because you don't want things like ricocheting back and forth every time the political

00:22:13.820 leadership changes. You want it hard to change anything. That's her point of view, and I agree

00:22:19.700 with it. You do want it hard to change anything, because then you know you're only getting the

00:22:25.500 changes that matter. But here's the part, the interesting thing she said. I'll read it as a

00:22:30.600 quote. So Kristen Sinema says, I do not believe the additional extraneous commission. Now this is

00:22:36.920 talking about the proposed commission for looking into the January 6 events. She says, I do not believe

00:22:43.380 the additional extraneous commission that Democrat leaders want would uncover crucial new facts or

00:22:49.960 promote healing. Oh, I'm sorry, this is not her quote. This is actually, never mind. It's actually

00:23:00.400 McConnell's quote. Damn it. They stuck a McConnell quote in a Kristen Sinema thing, and I thought it was 0.99

00:23:08.640 hers. So I'm sorry I just wasted your last minute. There's nothing we can do about that. It's 0.99

00:23:15.760 completely, it's gone now. We can't get it back. So I apologize for that minute that you completely

00:23:22.620 wasted. So forget about this story. There's nothing here. President Biden has gone full racist.

00:23:31.560 Here's a quote from Jeffrey Dove Jr. Now Jeffrey Dove is a black American, which is important to the

00:23:41.040 story. When can I stop saying that? Please, please. When can I stop telling you what somebody's ethnic

00:23:51.180 affiliation is before I tell you the news? Like, my God, how can we get past that? It's just, it's the

00:24:00.920 most ridiculous thing. But here we are, so I'm still doing it. So Jeffrey Dove Jr., who is a black 1.00

00:24:07.840 American, says about Biden in a tweet, he says, why is it that every time he speaks about the black

00:24:13.080 community, he makes us seem incapable of the simplest tasks? Whether it's getting an ID card,

00:24:21.060 using the internet to make an appointment, or now this. And this was, Biden said, young black

00:24:27.800 entrepreneurs are just as capable of succeeding, given the chance as white entrepreneurs are. But 0.99

00:24:34.240 they don't have lawyers, they don't have accountants. And as Jeffrey points out, why is it that you think

00:24:42.100 black people can't get an ID, or that black people can't use the internet, or that black people can't 1.00

00:24:51.520 find a lawyer or an accountant? I'm pretty sure that's a problem with all poor people, right? 1.00

00:24:58.420 Did it have to do with being black? Or does it have to do with being poor? How many people in 0.95

00:25:04.380 poverty can get themselves a lawyer and an accountant? Zero? Zero, maybe? But the way Biden talks about this

00:25:16.180 stuff, it just screams racist, doesn't it? Doesn't it? If he's calling out that black people have trouble

00:25:28.340 getting IDs, but nobody else does, right? Nobody else has trouble getting an ID. But according to Biden,

00:25:35.220 this is like a special problem for black people. That's got to be racist. Are you telling me there 0.99

00:25:41.780 are no poor white people in whatever circumstance who also have trouble getting an ID? Of course there

00:25:48.600 are. I mean, if anybody has trouble, it's going to be everybody who's poor or in a bad situation.

00:25:53.180 And for some reason, Biden thinks that he needs to tell us, and here's the one that just like

00:26:00.200 slaps you in the face. Biden thinks he needs to tell us that young black entrepreneurs are just as

00:26:07.440 capable of succeeding as white entrepreneurs. I feel like I knew that. Is there somebody who doesn't 0.98

00:26:15.980 know that? It's 2021. We had a black president for eight years. I think people understand that black

00:26:24.400 people can do stuff. Why are we even talking like this? Can you imagine, just imagine Trump saying any

00:26:35.080 of these things. Can you imagine Trump saying that black people have trouble getting ID? I mean, seriously. 0.84

00:26:42.020 Imagine him saying that. And he never did, did he? Have you ever heard Trump say anything like these

00:26:49.640 three different things that Biden has said, in which he has to remind you that black people could do well

00:26:55.760 too? Of course not. Trump would never say that. And I mean, if you were likely to say it, he would

00:27:03.160 have said it by now. And you know why he wouldn't say that? Because it's fucked up. It's fucked up.

00:27:10.040 This is totally fucked up. Oh, yeah. Black people can do just as well as white people. Did you know? Have you 1.00

00:27:17.920 heard the news? This is like, you know, usually I don't get like offended on behalf of other people,

00:27:26.460 because they think it's stupid. You know, you should get, you can get offended on behalf of yourself. And 0.90

00:27:32.160 probably you don't need to do that either. But being offended on behalf of somebody else. That's a waste of

00:27:39.120 time, usually. But I gotta say, like, I'm literally, I feel offended that my president, Biden,

00:27:47.880 that he talks this way. It's offensive. So I agree with Jeffrey Dove Jr. on this. All right.

00:27:56.400 here's a little update clarification. Remember, I talked yesterday, if you saw it, that Texas was

00:28:07.300 noodling on some legislation, I don't know where it stands now, that would change the voting

00:28:12.620 availability on Sunday in Texas. And there's a weird little story here about that, that I learned

00:28:20.700 since then, that I don't know what is true and what is not. So you, you make the decision. It goes

00:28:28.280 like this. Apparently, the law change was going to suggest that you couldn't vote on a Sunday before

00:28:37.240 1pm. You could vote from 1 until like 9 at night. But you couldn't start before 1pm. Now, the thinking

00:28:43.840 was that this was a voter suppression. Because traditionally, the black churches would get 0.98

00:28:50.600 everybody excited in church and say, hey, let's all go vote. And they would, they would get a really

00:28:55.160 good turnout. Because they would go from church to voting booth. And, and it was just a good way to

00:29:01.060 get everybody on board. But if they had to wait till 1pm, that's way too long after church. So it doesn't

00:29:08.720 really work, right? People are more likely to go home. And then you lose the energy, etc. So it was

00:29:16.500 suggested that this was overtly racist and intending to suppress the vote of black church going people.

00:29:24.800 And that was an argument I was willing to listen to. Right? It's a reasonable argument. But today, we

00:29:33.480 learned that according to at least some politicians in Texas, it was a typo. A typo. That it was always

00:29:44.340 meant to be 11am. But it was a typo that turned it into 1pm. Or, you know, miscommunication, not

00:29:52.320 necessarily a typo. But the claim now is that it was always meant to be 11am, which would probably work

00:29:58.460 perfectly with the church thing. And that the Republicans, not the Democrats, the Republicans

00:30:04.320 are saying, Oh, we'll change this back to 11. That that was not intended. I don't know, you buying it?

00:30:12.900 Yeah, and there's a, was there a typo that went from am to pm? Now, you can you can imagine the am pm

00:30:21.560 thing happening. Because if anybody said it's, it's one o'clock, your brain would say, Well, it's not 1am.

00:30:28.320 So you might just automatically change it to pm. When you wrote it. Yeah, I'm not sure I buy the story.

00:30:35.820 Right? Yeah, your skepticism is warranted. But my guess is there may have been some people who

00:30:43.520 were trying to be clever, and maybe other Republicans who would not have done that. And when they saw that

00:30:50.520 it was done said, No, we're actually trying to fix things, not suppress things. So I think there might

00:30:57.140 have been a little difference of opinion there. If you're following persuasion, the vaccination

00:31:05.520 persuasion game is really interesting. Because now all of the easy to vaccinate people are getting

00:31:11.440 vaccinated. You're down to the the tough cases, the people who are on the fence, the people who maybe

00:31:16.800 don't want a vaccination. Now, separating from the question of whether they should be vaccinated,

00:31:22.500 let's hold that separate. If you wanted them to be vaccinated, how would you persuade them? Well, one of the

00:31:29.680 things is, I guess Budweiser is offering a free beer for anybody who gets a vaccination. Now, what's your first

00:31:37.320 impression of that? Right? What's your first impression? Well, my first impression is, gosh, nobody's going to risk

00:31:49.200 their life for a beer. And nobody's even going to risk having 24 hours of discomfort, like I had

00:31:58.180 yesterday. Nobody's going to risk that for a beer, like one beer, right? And then there are all these

00:32:05.940 other offers that different states are doing, like black owned barbershops, I don't know, they get a free 1.00

00:32:12.080 haircut. Parents who get the shots, get free childcare, while they're inoculated. And so there are various

00:32:20.860 little tax credits and things like that. Now, here's the thing, not one of these incentives is

00:32:27.900 anywhere near the value of the vaccination. It's like getting a, I don't know, just a grain of sand.

00:32:37.700 That's a terrible analogy. But it's a terrible reward, because the thing that you're being

00:32:43.760 rewarded for is way more important than a beer or a haircut. So is it good persuasion or bad? Go.

00:32:51.620 In the comments. In the comments. Is it good persuasion or bad to offer rewards that are trivial?

00:33:00.160 Good persuasion or bad? I see bad, bad, bad. Bad, good. Somebody said good. Contrarian. 0.83

00:33:07.700 I'm seeing bad, bad. Bad, bad. We got a good. Stefan says good. Bad, bad. Depends. Good. Bad.

00:33:18.660 Here's the answer. Good. It's good. It's unambiguously, absolutely, totally good. And here's why.

00:33:26.300 It's something I learned in dog training class. Seriously. I took a class to train my dog Snickers.

00:33:35.700 And the professional trainer taught us this trick. She said, dogs can't do fractions. Meaning,

00:33:44.940 you can get a dog to do a trick for a nice big treat. But you can get that dog to do exactly the

00:33:51.540 same trick for a little piece of that treat. Just like so little that you can barely hold it into

00:33:57.760 your thumb and finger. And that dog will do the same trick for a fraction of the treat. 0.93

00:34:06.580 Do you know who else does that? People. Human beings. Right? Human beings will do tricks

00:34:15.440 four treats, no matter how big the treat is. The treat can be trivial. And you'll still do it.

00:34:25.620 Why? Well, my best interpretation of this is what I'd call the fake because. Meaning that there are

00:34:32.860 people who are on the fence about the vaccination. And maybe there's a little peer pressure. Maybe

00:34:38.420 their friends are saying, I'm not getting it. And you're like, I don't want to do what my friends are

00:34:42.980 not doing. If my friends say they're not getting it, maybe I won't get it. You're sort of on the

00:34:48.100 fence. In persuasion, there's something called the fake because. I named it actually. And the fake

00:34:55.200 because is a reason that's not a real reason. It's the reason that's not a real reason. And when you

00:35:02.100 use that is when somebody is already leaning in your direction. They're already halfway there.

00:35:07.820 They're like leaning. And all you need to do is like, tap, and they go over. Right? The fake because

00:35:15.660 doesn't work at all. If somebody is completely opposed. Right? You're not going to change anybody's

00:35:20.860 mind with a fake because if they're really, really solid on the other side. The only time you use it

00:35:27.040 is if somebody is like, well, I'm uncertain. I'm uncertain. I have a beer. I'll have a beer. Oh, okay.

00:35:34.120 Get a vaccination for a beer. Because, you know, I was thinking about it and I probably would have

00:35:40.080 said yes. I don't know. I probably would have said yes. But one way I get a beer, the other way I don't

00:35:45.080 get a beer, I'll take a beer. How about a free haircut? Sure. So here's the tricky, here's the part.

00:35:53.040 If you look at all these incentives and you're not a persuasion, you know, trained person, you'd say to

00:35:59.940 yourself, this can't work because the incentives are way too small. You're wrong. You're wrong.

00:36:07.340 Those tiny little incentives will move a lot of people who just wanted any reason. Just give me

00:36:13.640 any reason. Doesn't have to make sense. Doesn't have to be a big reason. Doesn't even have to.

00:36:18.660 It could be irrational. Completely irrational. I'll still do it. Yeah. So that's good persuasion. And

00:36:25.820 when my government is, and governments, because the states are mostly doing this, when I see my

00:36:31.220 governments doing this kind of stuff, I like it. This is a confidence builder for me because this is

00:36:38.140 the right thing to do. This assumes that you think also that people should get vaccinated.

00:36:43.760 Let's talk about Fauci versus Tucker. How many of you believe in the comments, I want to see this, in the

00:36:52.060 comments, how many of you believe that the Fauci emails have shown that he lied on something important?

00:37:03.100 How many of you think that the Fauci emails are like a smoking gun? And when you look at those emails,

00:37:08.760 it's plain as day that he fooled the country. I'm going to look at your comments. I see no, yes,

00:37:15.660 yes, no. Maybe not sure. No. Nope. It doesn't doubt it. 50-50. Don't know. You're all over the place,

00:37:23.920 aren't you? How could you be so all over the place? How is that possible? Because the news has been out

00:37:31.240 there for a while, right? And you're seeing very prominent people saying, yes, he lied. I'm seeing yes,

00:37:38.240 yes, no smoking gun. Yes, he did. No, he didn't. You're all over the map. Why is that? Well, let me

00:37:46.360 tell you how to sort this out, okay? Here's how you would approach this question because it is, it's a

00:37:51.280 little confusing. No, it's not a little confusing. It's really confusing. And I'm going to take you

00:37:57.320 through it a little bit and try to sort this out. The number one thing you ask yourself is,

00:38:01.840 where is the news that Fauci lied or that he did something horrible? Where is it being reported?

00:38:10.800 If you go to CNN, is CNN reporting that Fauci's emails have a smoking gun and a problem in them?

00:38:18.800 Is CNN reporting it? No, no. CNN doesn't see any problem. How about MSNBC? Is MSNBC reporting that a

00:38:29.100 problem has been found in the emails? Nope. Nope. Is Fox News reporting that there's a problem in the

00:38:38.760 emails? Let me ask you this question. Is Fox News reporting it? That's the only question I want to

00:38:44.080 see the answers. Most of you probably watch it. I see a yes. Is Fox News reporting it? Yes, yes, yes.

00:38:52.180 I'm looking at your comments. Yes, Fox is reporting it. Yes, yes, yes. You're all wrong. I think you're

00:38:59.640 all wrong. I don't believe Fox News is reporting it. You're seeing the opinion people, right? Now,

00:39:08.900 Fox News might have some guests on, and the guests are saying stuff, but are any of the news people on

00:39:16.100 Fox? The news people, not the opinion people. Remember Tucker is opinion. Remember Laura and

00:39:22.520 Graham is opinion. So somebody says Brett Baer reported it. What did he report? Did Brett Baer

00:39:32.800 report that there's a controversy? Because that would be true. Did he report that people are looking at

00:39:38.620 what Fauci said, and they're questioning whether it is compatible? Because that would be true.

00:39:45.280 People are questioning it. But did Brett Baer report that Fauci lied, and the email proves it?

00:39:54.880 I haven't seen all of Brett Baer's reports, but I'll bet now. I'll bet now. So I'm going to take you

00:40:02.320 through it. As you know, Tucker has got some comments. Adam Townsend, if you don't follow him on

00:40:09.740 Twitter, you're missing a good show. So Adam Townsend tweeted this about this controversy. He

00:40:15.080 says, you're all going to look like tinfoil hatters to any normies. You'll say, quote, but the Fauci

00:40:24.500 leaks. They'll say, okay, show me the email that sends Fauci to jail. And then you start rambling

00:40:32.580 crazy. So find me the part in Fauci's email that is your problem. Find it. Just show it to me.

00:40:41.200 Here's what happened when Tucker tried to do this. Here's something that Fauci said, and I'm going to

00:40:52.120 compare this to Tucker's interpretation. All right. So Fauci did say, a group at one point during the

00:41:01.180 pandemic, he said this, a group of highly qualified evolutionary virologists looked at the sequences

00:41:06.620 there and the sequences of bats as they evolve and the mutations that it took to get to that point

00:41:13.200 where it now is totally consistent with the jump of a species from an animal to human. All right.

00:41:20.620 So what he's saying is that the possibility that it was just a naturally occurring virus,

00:41:27.620 that what they knew at the time is totally consistent with that hypothesis. All right. Now,

00:41:34.060 when you say something is totally consistent

00:41:36.880 with a hypothesis, are you saying that hypothesis is definitely true? Is that the same thing?

00:41:47.720 Something is consistent with a hypothesis. Is that equal to it's true? No, no, those are not the same.

00:41:57.680 It's just, it just fits the hypothesis. If there's another hypothesis that also fits the facts,

00:42:03.340 then you have two hypotheses that both fit the facts. Here's how,

00:42:09.120 here's how I think it was a Tucker or Fox news in an opinion piece. They changed consistent with

00:42:19.580 to decided conclusively. So consistent with is what Fauci said. It's consistent with,

00:42:28.240 and then it looks like Tucker changed that to decided conclusively, or somebody did on Fox news.

00:42:37.160 And is that the same? They're not even close. Decided conclusively is not even close to consistent

00:42:46.620 with a hypothesis. So watch the really specific language that you're saying. All right, let's do another

00:42:53.340 one. Uh, there's this question of who funded this quote gain of function stuff. So Fauci said,

00:43:01.220 and there's this Dr. Barrick, who apparently is, uh, central to the question of whether there is gain

00:43:06.880 of function research and whether Fauci helped, uh, get the funding for the Wuhan lab, et cetera.

00:43:12.640 So Fauci said, Dr. Barrick does not do gain of function research. He doesn't do it. All right.

00:43:20.520 That's the first part. And if it is, oh, so the very next thing is he softened it. He says he doesn't

00:43:26.860 do it, but if he does, all right, if it is, it's according to the guidelines. So what Fauci is saying

00:43:36.040 is that as far as he knows, Barrick doesn't do gain of function, but if he did, it would be

00:43:42.000 according to the guidelines. So is that saying he doesn't do it? No, he's not saying he doesn't do

00:43:48.520 it. He's saying if he did, it would be according to the guidelines and it would be done in North

00:43:53.300 Carolina, which is a pretty important point. Uh, and he says, and if you look at the grant and you

00:43:59.740 look at the progress reports, it is not gain of function despite the fact that people tweet that.

00:44:06.160 And so I said to myself, what does gain of function mean exactly? We all, we all think we know what it

00:44:11.940 means, right? Don't you think you know what it means? But apparently there are two reasons to do

00:44:17.460 gain of function. Do you know what the two reasons are? You know, one reason, which is to turn it into a

00:44:23.640 weaponized, uh, virus, right? What's the other reason to develop a vaccine? Yeah. There are two

00:44:31.680 reasons to do gain of function. One is to make a weapon, which we don't know for sure anybody's doing

00:44:39.140 that. We assume they are, but the other is to figure out more about the virus by, uh, making it a pass

00:44:47.260 to, I guess the example given was, and this is from Wikipedia by the way. So here's an example. Uh,

00:44:52.920 say you have an influenza B that can only infect humans and harbor seals. So you've got this virus

00:44:59.620 does humans, it does harbor seals. You're trying to find out more about the virus because that will

00:45:05.100 allow you to make a vaccination. And so if you did a gain of function, you could introduce a mutation

00:45:12.000 that would allow it to infect a rabbit. So now you've taken something that infects two, only two

00:45:18.180 species. And you've made it infect rabbits in addition. That's gain of function. Now, are you

00:45:24.400 going to die because they figured out a way to infect rabbits? No, I don't think so. I mean, unless it

00:45:31.320 gets from the rabbit to humans, but that would not be anticipated in this sort of thing. Uh, but of

00:45:36.600 course there's always risk. So here's the thing. When Dr. Fauci is saying that Dr. Barrack is not doing

00:45:45.960 any gain of function stuff. What's that mean? Because remember, a gain of function is two things.

00:45:53.040 It's not one thing. So is he ruling out both things? Or is he saying, as he said, if it is,

00:46:00.120 it's according to the guidelines. The way I interpret that is according to the guidelines,

00:46:04.860 it might be okay to do like this example of figuring out how to infect a rabbit.

00:46:10.280 That might be according to the guidelines. I'm just speculating, but it might be. What would not

00:46:16.240 be according to the guidelines is figuring out how to weaponize it to kill people. Probably not

00:46:21.480 according to the guidelines. So there's one kind of gain of function that you want, and scientists

00:46:28.740 would agree. And there's one kind that nobody wants. So when Fauci says Dr. Barrack is not doing

00:46:35.440 gain of function, what's he mean? What's he mean? Sounds like there's a little gray area about

00:46:41.500 whether you've, you've gotten into that or not. So, um, so that one's hard to hear. All right,

00:46:50.100 here's another one. Um, did Fauci lie about the vaccinations needed for recovered people? Go in the

00:46:58.180 comments. Do you believe that Fauci lied when he said he wasn't sure if, uh, people who had been

00:47:04.960 infected with the COVID, he wasn't sure if that gave them lasting immunity? Was that a lie?

00:47:11.920 He wasn't sure because they didn't have data. He wasn't sure that it would give lasting immunity,

00:47:18.300 but there was a good chance that it would. Uh, look at your comments. Some of you say he's lying,

00:47:24.620 lots of yeses, but lots of noes. You're all looking at the same news. It's the same news.

00:47:31.560 Why are half of you saying yes and half of you saying no? Let me read his exact statement.

00:47:39.900 Um, the question was, are people who are recovering from COVID generally immune from

00:47:44.720 reinfection? It's a big question, right? And Fauci's response was, uh, quote, no evidence in this regard,

00:47:52.120 but you would assume that there would be substantial immunity post infection. Is that a lie? He said,

00:48:00.280 there's no evidence in this regard. Is that part of a lie? Nobody had studied it yet. By now they have

00:48:07.760 studied it and they know that they know that it does give you pretty good protection. But when he

00:48:12.360 said it, there was no evidence, but he also said, but you would assume that there would be substantial.

00:48:19.020 So he's assuming it's true because it's always true, but this virus has been a little bit different

00:48:26.700 and maybe engineered. So maybe there's something different about this one. To me, this just looked

00:48:33.240 like a standard scientific statement that we don't have any evidence, but if it's like all the other

00:48:39.460 situations, you would expect it to work this way. That is exactly true. Completely, completely compatible

00:48:47.540 with what we later learned, which is that his assumption was correct. It does give you lasting

00:48:53.540 immunity. This is called a lie. Not one part of that was wrong. None of it. Right. All right.

00:49:04.940 Then what about the masks? Uh, in Fauci's email to Zeke Emanuel, he admitted something else. Uh,

00:49:13.540 this is Fox story about this, that a surgical masks, the paper kind that all of us wear don't really

00:49:20.180 work. I think this is from Tucker, right? Um, now do you believe that that's true? That is it obvious

00:49:27.880 that Tucker would say the surgical masks, the paper kind we all wear don't really work.

00:49:34.720 And then the next sentence is they offer very little protection from COVID, but wait a minute,

00:49:40.140 those are opposites. Those aren't the same thing. These two sentences in the same paragraph are opposites

00:49:47.720 or not compatible. Let's say that they don't really work. Is that the same as they offer very little

00:49:55.100 protection? Because in a game of pandemic, if something offers you very little protection,

00:50:03.040 you should do it. Right? Because you're trying to get that reproduction rate under one. So every 0.96

00:50:10.840 little bit helps. How about, uh, social distancing? Is that something that, uh, let's say to use the

00:50:17.260 words, uh, doesn't really work? Or is it something that has very little protection? Maybe you would

00:50:24.900 do it anyway, if it's a pandemic, because everything that would help a little, maybe you should try it.

00:50:32.220 Now, uh, apparently Fauci said in the beginning that those masks don't make much difference and that

00:50:38.620 it's more for the person who's, uh, who might be infected to keep them from spreading it. So

00:50:44.280 Fauci said that people agreed. Um, he admitted, he lied about the masks in the first place.

00:50:52.220 And let me ask you this, that in the comments, would you say that it is now demonstrated

00:50:57.460 that those kinds of masks work or don't work? And let me put this out to you. I believe I haven't

00:51:06.820 researched this, but I'm pretty sure it's true. There is no industrialized country in which the

00:51:12.720 medical experts for that country oppose masks for the pandemic. Fact check me on this. But I don't

00:51:20.600 believe there's any country whose experts did not recommend masks. True? So if you think this is some

00:51:28.780 kind of weird Fauci only problem, it's the whole world, every major industrial countries, medical

00:51:36.700 experts say the masks work and that the data is unambiguous. What news are you watching? Are you

00:51:46.000 watching the news that says none of that's true? Every major industrial country says masks work.

00:51:52.940 Now, somebody says not India. Um, I would, I would be concerned about maybe supply. That could be a

00:52:01.320 problem too. Um, somebody says there are a lot of European countries not recommending masks.

00:52:11.040 I'll bet that's a lie. I'll bet that's a lie. Certainly there are different, um, mask recommendations

00:52:16.660 for situations, right? And whether we needed them outdoors or not, that changed over time.

00:52:22.380 But I don't believe there's anybody who believes that the following is not a good idea. If you're

00:52:27.760 going to spend time with somebody who has some comorbidities and you're going to spend an hour

00:52:32.640 indoors in the same room, would a mask be a good idea according to all of the experts of all the

00:52:40.040 industrialized countries in all the world? And I think the answer is yes. That in that situation,

00:52:45.880 that all the country experts would say yes. Not just America, not just Fauci, all of them.

00:52:52.740 Check me on that. Now you could have differences on, you know, uh, how long you are, you know,

00:52:58.780 which situations, but basically they're all pro mask. In fact, check me on this. If you can find

00:53:06.000 another industrialized country that doesn't think masks ever work in any situation, let me know.

00:53:11.900 Tweet that at me. Okay. So, um, there's now this, this thing that I'm going to call pandemic zombies.

00:53:22.280 So a pandemic zombie would be somebody whose belief of what happened is forever wrong. And

00:53:29.940 they'll just be going through life like a zombie. And one of these beliefs is that the pandemic never

00:53:35.040 happened. So I see quite a few tweets from people who believe we didn't have a pandemic and that the

00:53:42.480 only thing happened was we were testing things wrong and that no, we didn't have any excess deaths.

00:53:48.600 We just didn't even have a pandemic. And there are a lot of people in that camp and they're going to

00:53:54.080 be walking through the world like regular people, but they believe no pandemic happened.

00:53:59.200 There are also people believing that masks don't work. Um, I would say that that's a zombie belief.

00:54:07.460 Now you can be right, by the way, you can be right, but it's not because you're smart.

00:54:14.060 If you're right, it's just an accident because as I said, all of the industrial countries,

00:54:20.940 all of their experts agree that masks work in some situations, all of them. So you're the only person

00:54:27.940 in the world who thinks masks don't work. You're, you're a zombie. Uh, and then I'm hearing people 1.00

00:54:33.600 say that the vaccinations are not making any difference to the virus level and that it's

00:54:38.860 really, it's just warmer weather and vitamin D really. You don't think we can tell that the

00:54:46.300 vaccinations work. Now, if you're saying you're afraid that there's some, you know, there might be

00:54:51.400 some medical problem down the line from the vaccination. Well, that's a, at least a legitimate worry.

00:54:57.940 We don't know if it's true, but it's a legitimate worry. Is it, is it really legitimate to think the

00:55:05.020 vaccinations are not decreasing the amount of, uh, the amount of, uh, infections? That's not really

00:55:12.220 a question anymore. So I would say that you're a, you're a COVID zombie. If you think the pandemic 0.99

00:55:17.680 never happened, it was just a testing artifact that masks don't work and that it's proven

00:55:22.860 we've got the proof they don't work or the vaccinations didn't make any difference to the

00:55:27.980 pandemic. Those things are, those things are not good thinking. Yeah. And I see people saying,

00:55:37.940 well, I'm a zombie. Sorry. Yeah. I mean, there's nothing you can do about it. People are going to

00:55:42.620 believe that. And so I would like to put this request down to my critics because I'm seeing,

00:55:47.820 I'm seeing all the narcissist trolls come in and here's how you tell a narcissist troll versus some 0.71

00:55:55.700 other. The narcissist troll will misremember what you said once they find out they're wrong. 0.98

00:56:04.000 So I'm having a number of people come at me on Twitter saying, well, Scott, you said from the 0.60

00:56:09.600 beginning. And then what they say is just ridiculous. Something I never said, but they really 0.95

00:56:14.440 think I did. They're pretty sure that I said, you know, something like drinking bleach is good for

00:56:21.180 the, whatever, whatever they say. So they're literally hallucinating that I got a bunch of

00:56:25.880 stuff wrong about the pandemic. In some cases, things I never even commented on. Somebody said,

00:56:32.660 Glenn says, but you did, but you did. Yeah. If you remember me getting something wrong about the

00:56:38.800 pandemic, probably it's a false memory. Probably. And actually we can test this out. Let's see how

00:56:50.800 many people we have here. What, what do you believe in the comments? What do you believe I got wrong

00:56:56.140 about the pandemic? Let's see if anybody can actually accurately say what I said and then also

00:57:02.300 demonstrated it's wrong. Go ahead. Net deaths was wrong. Exactly. Now the net deaths estimate was

00:57:11.200 based on a two week shutdown. So if it had been two weeks, I think I would have been right or close to

00:57:20.760 right. But when it turned into a year long pandemic, then of course that didn't make any sense. The net deaths

00:57:27.020 were, were, were irrelevant once it became a long-term problem. Now the part I got wrong was

00:57:33.260 believing that it would be a limited lockdown or that it would take care of the problem. So I didn't

00:57:38.500 have, I don't think I disagreed with it working or agreed with it working. I didn't really have an

00:57:43.680 opinion on that. Uh, I just said Fauci didn't lie. Well, show me how I'm wrong. Tell me what he lied

00:57:53.360 about. He did lie about masks not working so he could protect the supply, but he's admitted that

00:58:00.000 that PCR tests are valid for testing. I've never given you an opinion on PCR tests.

00:58:06.540 You're imagining that. So that's a perfect example. So somebody says I'm wrong about PCR test accuracy.

00:58:13.100 I've literally never had an opinion on that because to me, I wouldn't know. I don't have,

00:58:17.620 I still don't have an opinion on it. Um, Michael Lindell says there's a big announcement coming.

00:58:26.880 That'll be fun. Uh, spoken terms of numbers when you should have specified percentages.

00:58:33.860 You're going to have to do better than that. Uh, lying about masks to protect supply is still bad.

00:58:42.160 Um, seen the recent, uh, Brett Weinstein presentation about ivermectin. I have. Yes. That's very

00:58:50.400 interesting. Yeah. The ivermectin story. Keep an eye on that. You know, I still bet against it

00:58:57.480 working just based, follow the odds. But, but if it does, that's a big story. Um, YouTube gave him a

00:59:08.440 warning and removed him. My God. Uh, let's see. I want to see if anybody else thinks I got anything

00:59:16.020 wrong. Uh, I don't see any here. Interesting. Sweden is a disaster. Somebody says, no, that's not true.

00:59:28.800 Um, you don't mind read, which is great. Well, I try not to, but everybody does.

00:59:36.140 Everybody does a little bit of mind reading. They just don't admit it. All right. Um,

00:59:45.160 all right. Uh, you have no data on the shot working. Of course we do. Somebody says there's

00:59:55.000 no data that the vaccinations work. Are you, are you freaking kidding me? There's probably

01:00:01.100 nothing we have more data on than whether the vaccinations work. I don't think there's anything

01:00:05.860 more documented than that. Um, why did Amazon cancel? Well, I don't know if it was Amazon,

01:00:19.700 but, um, Dr. Fauci's book has some delay. I don't know what that's about. We just have to

01:00:25.440 wait and see on that. That Biden handled the pandemic. I didn't say anything about that.

01:00:34.320 Uh, happy birthday to Miguel Sanchez. All right. Well, interesting. I thought you would have more

01:00:44.160 criticisms of me, but I'm glad that they're not. And on that note, let me tell you that I'm feeling

01:00:49.760 great today. Uh, one day after suffering from the second Moderna shot, if you're joining me late,

01:00:55.800 but as of today, I feel terrific and I'm fully vaccinated and you can make your own decisions.

01:01:01.520 I won't tell you what to do, but, uh, I'll talk to you tomorrow.

Real Coffee with Scott Adams - June 03, 2021

Episode 1395 Scott Adams： Fauci versus Tucker, Biden Goes Full Racist, Veg o Matic Greenwald Versus Potato Stelter, More

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