Real Coffee with Scott Adams - Episode 1442 Scott Adams： Blue Origin, Pandemic Persuasion, and is Fox News Killing People

00:00:00.000 Hey everybody. Good morning. It's time for coffee with Scott Adams, the best part of your day.

00:00:11.720 And it just keeps getting better. Even when you think it can't, it does. And all you need is a

00:00:18.080 cup or mug or a glass, a tank or gels or a canteen jug or a flask or a vessel of any kind. Fill it

00:00:22.840 with your favorite liquid. I like coffee and the tears of my enemies. But join me now for the

00:00:31.460 unparalleled pleasure that you don't meet here. The day thing makes everything better. It's called

00:00:35.680 the simultaneous sip and watch it happen right now. Go. Hello, Northern Colorado. Good to have you in

00:00:45.980 the house. Well, as you know, I have sometimes had some issues with my audio on these live streams.

00:00:54.200 And somebody was nice enough to send me a sign that I could hold up so that it wouldn't slow down my

00:01:02.100 flow. But before I show you the sign, I have to give you a warning. The sign has some offensive

00:01:13.100 words on it. And offensive concept too. So if you would be offended by some words that are pretty

00:01:23.860 offensive, you don't want to watch this next part. So I'm going to show you the sign, but I'm not going

00:01:30.920 to read it out loud. So if you're home, you'll just have to guess. If you're listening and not

00:01:36.820 watching, you're going to have to guess what it says. Well, I'll probably tell you. All right, so here's

00:01:41.100 a sign, but we're going to, we're going to modify it a little bit. Okay. Do you think

00:01:49.600 this is funny? How many think this is funny? All right. It's very offensive, right? So what

00:01:57.020 we're going to do is we're going to have to modify it a little bit. So this is very, very bad. So we're

00:02:15.520 going to cover it up a little bit. Some of the bad parts so I can use it. And I think we're almost

00:02:25.660 going to get rid of that. And if you're at home listening to this, I must be so disappointed

00:02:42.640 because visually it's stunning. Well, there you go. So now I've turned it into a Yoda version.

00:02:52.160 So it says, Jesus King is, the audio is fine. That's right. Jesus King is. Now, before I

00:03:04.260 modified it with the sticky notes, for those of you who are just listening at home, it did

00:03:08.800 say something about the Lord and his name being taken in vain. And you know, that's inappropriate.

00:03:15.040 So if anybody has problems with the audio, remember, Jesus King is, the audio is fine. Okay.

00:03:26.560 Taking care of that little business, let's move on. Have you all seen the launch of Jeff

00:03:33.280 Bezos' rocket? The Blue Origin. Now, I don't know if you've seen a picture of the rocket. Have

00:03:42.660 you seen a picture of the rocket? Because the picture of the rocket, I don't know this to

00:03:49.300 be true, but I think it's a fair assumption, that it was designed based on Stormy Daniels' 0.99

00:03:56.300 description of Trump's penis. Now, that doesn't sound funny until you see the rocket itself. 0.99

00:04:04.360 Trust me on this. Stormy Daniels' description of Trump's penis, there's your rocket. There's 1.00

00:04:12.700 your rocket right there. Now, I tweeted cleverly, I thought, that all it needs is a scrotum, otherwise 0.99

00:04:22.000 it's on model. But I was one-upped in my witticism when I noted it doesn't have a scrotum, as 0.98

00:04:30.640 Dr. Sexy on Twitter said, and I quote, that's because the nuts are on the inside. Dr. Sexy, 0.99

00:04:43.980 not often do I get bested in humor on my own topic. I'm a professional. But this time I've

00:04:52.980 got to admit, the nuts are on the inside. Pretty good. Pretty good. All right. Now, here's a

00:05:01.580 question for you. If you were trying to race into space, and you were a billionaire, and

00:05:07.460 the billionaire who beat you into space was in a rocket called Virgin, how would you design

00:05:15.860 your rocket to one-up a Virgin? Well, you could make it shaped like a gigantic penis, because 0.99

00:05:26.200 maybe the Virgin got there first. But I think the Blue Horizon may have penetrated space a 0.99

00:05:35.580 little faster, if you know what I mean. And it puts a lot of pressure on Elon Musk to design

00:05:41.540 his next rocket to look like a giant baby bottle, really just to keep the theme alive. You

00:05:47.780 know, the Virgin, then the giant penis, then maybe the baby bottle. Give the whole space 1.00

00:05:54.000 thing maybe a narrative. You know, a meta-narrative. Well, here's a story about the worst wife ever. 1.00

00:06:02.020 Now, you might think to yourself that you have marital problems. Maybe your spouse is not

00:06:10.420 perfect. But I'd like to read a story to you about somebody who's got it worse than you do.

00:06:16.760 Ex-MLB star Ben Zobrist. He's got a little issue. It's reported in the paper that his wife

00:06:24.900 had an affair with their pastor. Now, if you have an affair with your family pastor, pretty

00:06:37.040 bad, right? I don't know if that would be the worst wife ever, because, you know, people 0.54

00:06:42.100 have affairs. But to cap it off, apparently the wife, while she was having the affair with 0.96

00:06:50.060 the pastor, threw him a retirement party, which cost her husband $30,000. Husband didn't know

00:06:58.900 which account it came out of, so he didn't realize how much it cost. And while they were

00:07:03.500 giving the retirement party for the pastor, who the wife was having an affair with, she

00:07:11.180 danced suggestively with the pastor in front of all the guests. Not an ideal wife, really.

00:07:25.200 And now, she's suing her husband for millions of dollars, so that her contribution to his life 0.98

00:07:36.480 will be to pastor him because he quit, because he wasn't making enough money, having an affair

00:07:42.240 with the pastor, using his $30,000 to throw a party for the pastor that she was having the

00:07:48.460 affair with, and dancing suggestively with him in front of all their friends. Then, taking

00:07:55.700 millions of his dollars and leaving him a shell of a man. I'm only telling you this story so

00:08:03.560 you feel better about your own life. Do you feel better now? You know, your spouse is maybe

00:08:10.200 not putting the top on the toothpaste, right? Doesn't seem so big now, does it? Yeah. Your

00:08:17.020 spouse gambled, lost some money. Doesn't seem like such a big deal now, does it? Bought a boat

00:08:24.000 without asking? Not such a big deal. You're welcome. Well, the Huffington Post has some

00:08:31.620 fake news, and it's reporting, fakely, fakely but truly, strangely enough. Sometimes the

00:08:38.980 news is true and fake at the same time. How is that possible? Well, it can be true, but

00:08:44.960 because the context is manipulated, it could give you a false story. And that's happening

00:08:52.820 here. The Huffington Post is reporting that Texas, or at least maybe it's one county or

00:08:58.120 something, wants to ban the teaching that the Ku Klux Klan is morally wrong. Does that sound

00:09:06.200 like real news? It's in the Huffington Post. So it must be real, right? The Huffington Post

00:09:13.260 wouldn't try to fool you and tell you a story like that Texans are trying to not teach that 0.85

00:09:20.480 the KKK was morally wrong. They wouldn't say that, would they? Yeah, the whole story is

00:09:27.060 bullshit. So here's what really happened. What really happened is that there was some changes 0.99

00:09:33.880 to how history was taught, and a bunch of things were removed, including the way they were teaching

00:09:41.400 about slavery and eugenics and Ku Klux Klan and stuff like that. But does that mean that

00:09:47.620 they're not going to teach that stuff? Or is there just removing the lesson the way it

00:09:52.740 was? Let me ask you this. If your children are old enough to learn about the KKK, because

00:10:02.480 you know you're not going to teach a two-year-old about the Klan, but if your kid is old enough

00:10:07.980 to learn about the Ku Klux Klan, aren't they already old enough to know it's wrong? Is anybody

00:10:16.520 sending their kids to school, and they see a lesson about the Ku Klux Klan, and is that

00:10:21.180 kid sitting there and thinking, well, that looks pretty good? Where'd all that go? We

00:10:26.160 need some more of that. If your kid is having those thoughts, maybe the problem isn't Texas.

00:10:34.900 Maybe it's not the school system. I'm just wondering, when World War II and the Holocaust 0.95

00:10:40.360 is being taught in schools, do they specifically add the lesson that the Holocaust was morally 0.80

00:10:47.980 wrong, or do they kind of make the assumption that you'd figure that out on your own? Was

00:10:54.880 there a time in American history where you had to tell kids that the KKK was wrong? Yeah,

00:11:01.480 yeah, yeah, there was. A horrible time in history where you actually had to explain that that

00:11:06.360 was wrong. But today? Today? Do you have to explain to a kid today in 2021 that the KKK is

00:11:15.340 not your ideals organization? I don't think so. So I'm going to call this fake news. I don't think

00:11:22.940 anybody needs to tell anybody that the KKK is a bad deal. And it was just part of a larger lesson

00:11:29.140 that got readjusted, I guess. All right. There's a fascinating compilation clip. No,

00:11:37.680 not that kind, you dirtbags. A compilation clip on politics this time. And it shows a bunch 0.87

00:11:45.160 of Democrats. Jack Posobiec was tweeting this. In 2018, talking about the lack of security in voting,

00:11:53.160 specifically with voting machines, electronic ones. Now, is it persuasive to see the same

00:12:02.140 people who are saying the elections are fine just a few years ago complaining that they're

00:12:07.300 totally not fine? Does hypocrisy persuade anybody? Nope. It's the weirdest thing. You would think

00:12:17.760 that pointing out that somebody used to say the opposite of what they're saying today and nothing

00:12:22.360 changed. You know, it wasn't because it was new information or something. They just decided to say

00:12:27.200 the opposite because it was good for politics. There is no way that pointing out hypocrisy has ever

00:12:35.180 changed anybody's mind. I've never seen it happen. Have you ever had an argument where you say,

00:12:40.360 well, yeah, your side says X? But last week they were saying Y? So now change your mind. Has it ever

00:12:47.800 worked? No. No. In the history of the world, pointing out hypocrisy has never changed anybody's mind. I

00:12:54.340 don't think. I mean, I've never seen it. Maybe somewhere. I can't say zero people have changed their mind, but

00:13:00.180 I've never seen it. So it's great to look at that, but it doesn't really, it doesn't penetrate. So

00:13:11.760 there's your persuasion lesson for the day, is that you are sure hypocrisy would change minds, if you

00:13:18.820 can point it out how starkly it is, but it doesn't. It just doesn't change anybody's minds. And the reason

00:13:24.260 is that nobody, nobody formed their opinion based on facts. If they had ever made their opinion based

00:13:30.600 on facts and reason, maybe they would change their opinion. If you showed them something changed or

00:13:36.220 there was hypocrisy. But since it's not a legitimate opinion in the first place, nobody's going to change

00:13:42.180 it. Rasmussen reports that they asked this question of likely voters. Are we facing the most significant

00:13:51.580 test of our democracy since the Civil War? And 56% agree. That's the most significant test of our 0.63

00:14:03.480 democracy since the Civil War. What is? What exactly? Which part is the test of the democracy?

00:14:12.320 Is it that the vote wasn't trusted? Is it the way the social media companies are manipulating

00:14:23.800 communication? Is it the news telling us fake news? What exactly is it? Oh, is it the insurrection with the

00:14:33.600 guy with the hat? The Viking hat? So how do 56% of the public think that we're having the most

00:14:43.020 significant test of our democracy since the Civil War? Based on what? To me, everything looks sort of

00:14:52.120 the way it's always looked. Oh, oh, you're thinking that elections used to be fair, and then now they're

00:15:00.100 not. I don't think that's the case. Do you think that elections are less fair now than they were

00:15:07.960 around the Civil War? Check out some history. Our elections have been pretty sketchy for a long time,

00:15:16.620 right? The Kennedy election being a classic one. So I have to say that the number of people who think

00:15:22.500 that things are the worst since the Civil War for our democracy are just being persuaded by the press,

00:15:30.840 by social media. I just don't think the evidence is suggesting that at all. How many people think election

00:15:37.360 reform is needed? 61% agreed. But what do I tell you about the 25%?

00:15:44.400 on almost any kind of poll question, 25% will have the dumbest answer you could ever have. 0.59

00:15:53.040 You could ask people, is oxygen good? 25% will say, no, no, oxygen's bad. We don't want that. 0.82

00:16:03.000 So 25% strongly disagreed with the idea that election reform is needed. What?

00:16:10.160 How could you possibly think that election reform is not needed? Even if you believe the election was

00:16:19.680 perfectly fair, can you not at least observe that half of the country isn't so sure? Wouldn't a

00:16:28.680 better system be one that you could audit easily and right away? Why is it we can count the votes in

00:16:37.440 a day or two? But you can't audit it for months? Don't you think you need a little election reform

00:16:44.760 so that you could audit it more easily? At the very least, make it more auditable so people's

00:16:51.160 complaints go away. But 25% of the public says, nah, we don't need that. 25%. It's so consistent.

00:17:01.200 All right. So we're seeing a new cottage industry by CNN and MSNBC, which is misinterpreting Fox hosts

00:17:12.500 to make them look worse than they are. Now, of course, that's the game they all play because

00:17:18.420 they're in competition. But the current move is to say that Fox News is killing its viewers by giving

00:17:26.640 them misinformation about vaccinations and whatnot. But what exactly is that misinformation? Because

00:17:35.340 if you actually look for an example, it's not really there. So you'll see Tucker Carlson asking

00:17:42.460 questions. For example, he said, how do we know the vaccines work if a person who's fully vaccinated

00:17:49.320 can get it and give it to somebody else who's fully vaccinated? Is that saying the vaccines work?

00:17:55.640 Well, it does keep them out of the hospital, so I would say it works. But the question is a

00:18:00.640 reasonable question. Now, if somebody asks reasonable questions, but the viewer comes to a wrong

00:18:08.720 conclusion about those questions, what they mean and how important they are, is that Fox News?

00:18:14.880 Is that on them? Because here's the thing. Is Fox News your doctor? CNN and MSNBC have decided

00:18:24.500 they're your fucking doctor. And that you should get your information on medical stuff from them, 0.99

00:18:31.500 from watching CNN. You should make medical decisions. Literally. That's what CNN's telling

00:18:36.680 you. Watch our show and then make a medical decision based on that. Not just what CNN is giving you as

00:18:43.880 facts, but also their opinion. That CNN's opinions should form your medical advice. And MSNBC, the same

00:18:53.160 thing. Now, Fox News, I would say, is a little bit more transparent about saying we're going to look

00:19:00.320 at all the questions, even if that maybe influences you a different way. Because it's up to you to decide

00:19:07.700 whether you get vaccinated. It's not up to Fox News. They're not trying to be your doctor. So CNN

00:19:15.340 and MSNBC are trying to be your doctor, giving you actual advice on what to do. Fox News isn't doing

00:19:22.160 that. Does that mean that Fox News is the bad one? I suppose that's more of an opinion than a fact,

00:19:31.560 right? Because I do think you could make the argument that maybe the way Fox News treats these

00:19:37.940 topics might influence people to get fewer vaccinations than otherwise. So would that make

00:19:44.900 a difference to how many people live and die? It might. It might. But is it Fox News's job to be your

00:19:54.760 doctor? Or could they just say, hey, we've got a question about this, a question about that.

00:20:01.420 Here's a skeptic who has an opposite view of this. And then you talk to your doctor and make up your

00:20:06.460 own mind. It's an interesting ethical and moral question. I don't think we would ever ask this

00:20:13.120 question, except in the context of a pandemic where the stakes are so high. But, you know, just ask

00:20:21.880 yourself, is your news source trying to substitute for your doctor? Now, one of the things I find most

00:20:29.560 interesting about this whole pandemic is that the two worlds interpretation is going to survive

00:20:35.540 long after the pandemic. And what I mean by that is that some people are living through a non-pandemic,

00:20:43.700 meaning that as far as they are concerned, there was never a real pandemic. Over 600,000 people

00:20:50.260 reportedly died in the United States alone. But there are going to be a lot of people who lived

00:20:55.080 through all of that and said, no, it was basically just the flu. It was a bad flu. It was basically

00:21:01.080 the flu. And other people will say it was a pandemic. And then, of course, there will be people

00:21:05.580 who say masks worked. People will say it didn't. People will say vaccinations worked. People will say

00:21:11.200 it didn't. And there's no data, no facts, no news that will come out of this that will change the fact

00:21:18.200 that we're all going to live through this thing, or most of us will live through this thing.

00:21:23.020 And we won't even agree on what it was we lived through. It's not like a war where at least you

00:21:28.900 agree you all went through the same war. Some people are going to say there wasn't even a pandemic. It

00:21:33.960 was just a pretend pandemic. And it's amazing to me that I can predict this so far in advance

00:21:43.140 and be entirely confident that that's what's going to happen. So how many of you

00:21:49.460 have checked your predictions since the beginning of COVID? I'm going to run through some of mine just

00:21:56.720 so you can see how well I'm doing. And if I forgot some, you'll remind me because I was just running

00:22:03.140 from memory. I'm sure I predicted a lot more things than this and probably forgetting the ones I got

00:22:07.940 wrong, which would be normal. So I remember people saying that it wasn't going to be worse

00:22:14.100 than the regular flu, but now we have 600,000 or more Americans who died from it, allegedly.

00:22:20.560 Now, even if you took off 25% for miscounting, let's say you were super conservative and said,

00:22:28.780 I think 25% of these are BS. You still got a lot, right? So I would say I was right that it was a

00:22:36.420 real pandemic, as opposed to the flu. I've always been on the side that says it was at least possibly

00:22:43.480 engineered. So I would say I was right on that. Because at the moment, the experts still say,

00:22:49.500 well, it's possible, but we don't know for sure. I told you early on, and notably, that we would not

00:22:56.080 run out of food and that the economy would not completely crash, and that we'd be fine. And we are.

00:23:02.300 I would guess that that maybe was my best prediction, that we wouldn't run out of food,

00:23:07.560 because it was the most important one. It's the one that would contribute the most to reducing the

00:23:12.920 panic. I predicted very early on that our medical health science people would not only rise to the

00:23:22.040 challenge, but would impress you at how quickly they did it. In other words, I predict that therapeutics

00:23:27.540 would come on fast. I was less sure that vaccinations would eradicate the problem,

00:23:34.860 but I thought they too would come on faster than normal. So my prediction that we would be surprised

00:23:40.680 on the upside, that our science would do so well with the therapeutics, etc., I would say that was

00:23:46.860 right, wouldn't you say? I said early on that genetics would matter. We know that now. I said vitamin D is

00:23:54.820 probably a big variable. We know that to be true. I said that when the experts said masks don't work,

00:24:03.240 I said they do. You still think they don't, and that will never change. We will never settle

00:24:10.820 whether masks work or don't. I'm very comfortable knowing that it's almost certain that they do.

00:24:17.980 But there are no guarantees in this world. Hydroxychloroquine, I was open to it working,

00:24:25.840 and as if you watched, you saw that I dropped my percentage of likelihood that it worked every day

00:24:32.540 that we didn't have confirmation of it working, and now it's basically zero, or close to zero.

00:24:38.600 And so far, I have not been proven wrong about that, but I could be.

00:24:42.520 I said that America would surprise the world by performing better by the end, but not until the

00:24:52.420 end where we'd see it than it did at the start, because you could say we had a bad start,

00:24:57.480 but I think you could say that we're doing well now, because the vaccinations are going well

00:25:02.280 compared to other countries. And I was never for full lockdowns as long as they lasted. You know,

00:25:10.040 I thought it was worth a try for a few weeks, but that didn't work. And I think I was most wrong

00:25:15.800 about how long anything would last. I didn't think it would last two years, so I was wrong on that.

00:25:23.220 All right.

00:25:27.260 I said, show me the under-70-year-old celebrity death rate. Yes, that's right.

00:25:32.520 And so far, none, right? There's nobody who died of COVID who's a celebrity. I think I used

00:25:40.060 different years. I might have said under 65. But I don't think there's been one. Has there?

00:25:47.500 All right.

00:25:50.740 So here's some fake news.

00:25:55.380 So there's fake news that says that Fox News is now requiring vaccine passports when their hosts

00:26:05.000 rail against them. Is that real news or fake news? That Fox News is requiring vaccine passports for 0.57

00:26:13.320 their own employees at the same time that their hosts are talking against having vaccine passports.

00:26:21.000 And the answer is fake news, because it's just an option. So now if people are vaccinated at Fox News,

00:26:28.160 then they don't have to go through the other protocols. But if they're unvaccinated, they go 0.96

00:26:32.540 through the other protocols. So basically just fake news.

00:26:40.940 So let's see what else we got. Question. Can a vaccinated person 0.58

00:26:46.580 give the virus to another fully vaccinated person? Now, the technical answer is yes,

00:26:54.380 because vaccinated people can get it and vaccinated people can spread it.

00:26:59.720 But how often has it ever happened? Because you've got two factors here. One is that if you're

00:27:04.720 vaccinated, it's hard to get it. But the other is it's really hard to give it. Those are two hard

00:27:10.640 things. And if you put them together, how often does one give it to the other? Now, I saw an

00:27:16.420 anecdote in which there was a wedding in which a bunch of vaccinated people still got infected,

00:27:21.740 which would suggest that the vaccinations are not as effective as maybe you hoped. But when you read

00:27:27.880 in the article, there was a guest who came from India, had been vaccinated with one of the Indian,

00:27:33.820 whatever they were using in India, maybe not as effective as the Moderna and Pfizer, for example.

00:27:38.800 So do we have any example? I'd like one example of a Moderna vaccinated person giving it to another 0.90

00:27:47.880 Moderna vaccinated person. Now, probably we can't really know. Just be hard to know for sure if it

00:27:55.520 was that's where somebody got it from. But you could maybe have some good guesses. Because if you

00:28:01.900 notice that whenever we talk about the weakness and the vaccination or we need a booster or whatever,

00:28:06.760 it feels like it's never the Moderna shot. Am I right about that? That every time we hear about

00:28:13.580 the Moderna shot, it's a positive? Have I missed any stories? Because we've heard about the Pfizer

00:28:20.480 shot and some questions. We've heard about J&J and having some questions on that. As far as I know,

00:28:26.280 I've not seen a negative Moderna story. Yeah. So I wonder about that. And just keep an eye on that.

00:28:41.180 Now, let me give you some vaccination persuasion. If I were the news business, let's say I were CNN or

00:28:53.720 MSNBC. And it was, I thought it was my job to convince people to get vaccinated. Now, you could

00:29:02.180 argue whether they should do that or not. But let's say you thought you should. How would you modify

00:29:07.840 your news reporting to get the best vaccination result? Well, here's what I wouldn't do.

00:29:16.860 258 people on average in the United States are dying from COVID every day.

00:29:27.320 So that's what's reported in the news. 258 people dying of coronavirus every day. Therefore,

00:29:34.500 you should go get a vaccination. Is that persuasive? 258 people every day in the United States of

00:29:43.280 370 million people, whatever. Does that make you want to get a vaccination?

00:29:49.240 Probably not, right? Not by itself. Because that's actually not very many people compared to 370

00:29:55.780 million. And then, of course, in your mind, you're saying, yes, but they're 100 years old and they're

00:30:00.780 obese and that's not me. Right? So I would say that when they report it this way, they're not really

00:30:06.920 encouraging people to get vaccinated at all. Now, here's an alternative way to report the news.

00:30:13.280 Two statistics. Number of unvaccinated people who died today and number of vaccinated people who

00:30:21.060 died. Because the number of vaccinated people who died is close to zero. At least the number of

00:30:28.760 vaccinated people who are even in hospitals in LA and San Francisco, at least the other day,

00:30:33.800 was zero. There weren't any. Now, imagine those two numbers being reported every time by every

00:30:43.240 entity. Now, keep in mind, I would also say you should report any vaccination side effects.

00:30:51.020 Because that's part of the story, right? You can't leave it out. Now, you might not know your

00:30:55.920 number about side effects is accurate, but you could put a range on it, you know, maybe modify the

00:31:00.720 reporting a little bit and say, well, we don't know what it looks like. Here's some questions.

00:31:05.340 Because you don't want to leave out the side effects. You don't want to leave out the risk

00:31:09.440 of the vaccinations. But if I were trying to persuade, I would not report the total number

00:31:15.440 of people dying per day ever again. Let me say that again. If I wanted people to get vaccinated,

00:31:23.420 I would never again report the number of people dying from COVID. I would only report the number

00:31:31.740 of vaccinated people dying per day and the number of unvaccinated people dying per day. Don't do the

00:31:38.120 whole year. Doesn't make sense. Just per day. Correct. Just those two numbers and just leave and just let

00:31:45.160 it go. Because if you see the news every day, it's like 300 unvaccinated people and one vaccinated

00:31:51.380 person died. It's going to wear you down. It's going to wear you down. But it wouldn't be fair

00:31:59.040 persuasion unless you also showed the risks, right? As best you could.

00:32:05.720 49% of people in the U.S. are fully vaccinated. At least two shots for the two shotters. And

00:32:13.500 I don't know. Is that good? 49%? It isn't bad. It's not as good as it could be.

00:32:22.680 The YouGov Economist poll, and I think the press secretary, Psaki, mentioned this.

00:32:31.600 Apparently 20% of the voting public, or not the voting public, but 20% of whoever they talk to

00:32:38.000 in the United States, 20% think it's definitely or probably true that there's really a microchip

00:32:45.340 in the shots, and that the government is trying to chip you, put a microchip in you via the shots.

00:32:54.360 20% almost, yeah, there's the 25% rule, right? So I've told you before that somewhere in the

00:33:02.520 neighborhood of 25%, you know, ranging from, say, 20 to 30%, somewhere in that range will have the 0.97

00:33:09.780 dumbest opinion on every question. It's just, it's very consistent. Makes me wonder if it's the 0.74

00:33:15.840 same 25%. Like, are there, is it true that a quarter of the country gets every question wrong?

00:33:23.360 Or is it just no matter what the question is, you always have a quarter of the people who are on the

00:33:27.360 wrong answer? Isn't it weird how often that 25%-ish thing comes up for dumb people? Well, 0.97

00:33:37.060 I don't know for sure whether there's a chip in the vaccinations or not. But if I had to make a

00:33:47.160 guess and bet my life on it, bet not. I think the safe money says no microchip in the vaccination.

00:33:58.020 And if you're not convinced because of me saying it, ask yourself this. Do you think you could get

00:34:04.780 exactly one chip into each vaccination? And what happens if you get two shots? Do you get two

00:34:11.580 chips? Somebody says that's just the chip talking, Scott. Yes, the chip is running my voice. I can't

00:34:20.960 make my own decisions anymore because the microchip is in my body. Two of them. How do you know you

00:34:27.840 don't get hundreds of microchips? How many of them do they put in each shot? There are no

00:34:32.560 microchips in your vaccine. If there's anybody listening to this who thinks there's a microchip

00:34:37.240 in their vaccination, maybe you need to watch something else. Because there are no microchips

00:34:45.980 in your vaccination. Really not. All right, I'm going to change the topic here. Well, actually,

00:34:53.820 before I do that, it's reported that the people who watch the most conservative news also have the

00:35:02.560 lowest rate of vaccinations. So does that mean that watching conservative news causes you to be less

00:35:10.500 likely to be vaccinated? It might. But it also probably means that people who are the most conservative

00:35:17.980 are the least likely to trust the government putting a chemical in their body. So I'm not sure

00:35:25.420 that watching the news makes you less likely to get the vaccination or that it's just people who are

00:35:31.400 less likely to get the vaccination are watching the most right-leaning news. So you trust the news,

00:35:39.440 somebody says? Well, I don't. All right, another topic. Who can tell me what an atom is made out of?

00:35:49.780 A-T-O-M, not Scott Adams. You already know I made it. I'm full of shit. So that was an easy question.

00:35:56.360 But what is an atom made of? Well, it's made of neutrons and protons and electrons. What's an electron

00:36:06.220 made of? Well, I believe it's a fundamental element, which means it's not made of anything except itself.

00:36:15.860 Neutrons and protons are made of what? Quarks. Right. So the atom is made of these three things, and two of

00:36:24.800 these three things are made of quarks. What are quarks made of? So if the atoms are made up of quarks, what the hell is

00:36:35.440 a quark? Somebody says the quark is made of God. Yeah. Well, strings. Good answer. Whoever said

00:36:45.080 strings, you've been following your news. Well, even if it's made of strings, what are the strings

00:36:51.100 made of? So my point is, if you keep going down and down, what is everything made of? And I've got a

00:37:00.620 feeling that the answer, it's got to be ones and zeros. Yeah. As Sour Patch Rash is saying in the

00:37:07.040 comments here, it's got to be ones and zeros. Because what if you drilled all the way down to

00:37:12.960 the lowest level of reality and found out it was all the same? What if it's all the same? And how can

00:37:21.140 there be, let's say, different kinds of quarks? Because you've got your charms and your up quarks and

00:37:28.880 your down quarks. But what are they made of? What's a quark made of? And if they're fundamental, how could

00:37:35.800 there be more than one kind? If a quark, if whatever a quark is made of is itself, you can't have multiple

00:37:43.340 different quarks. Could you? Well, now, of course, I'm way into territory that I don't understand.

00:37:50.360 But my point is that you reach a point in physics where they replace understanding with just words.

00:37:57.640 And the words are just placeholders because we have no idea what's happening down there.

00:38:01.640 Just no idea.

00:38:02.560 I'm seeing a comment about vaccinations and Pfizer. Israel used Pfizer exclusively and it isn't keeping

00:38:15.720 vax people in the hospital. Well, but I think it's eliminated their deaths, right? I think the death 0.51

00:38:25.340 rate is basically close to zero. So anyway, my point is, how can anything move or

00:38:32.540 how could there be any energy in the world if you went down to the lowest level of material

00:38:38.440 and it was all the same? It wouldn't do anything. It would just sit there. The only way that things

00:38:46.560 happen is if things that aren't the same are near each other, right? Now, let me ask you,

00:38:52.620 is that simplification too much? I'll say it again. The only way anything moves in this world

00:39:01.600 is if different things are near each other, such as wind and a sail, right? If you got down

00:39:09.580 to the lowest level, it would just be things that are exactly the same sitting next to each

00:39:14.620 other. It wouldn't have any effect, would they? Except, I don't know, gravitational pull.

00:39:20.740 So my point is that the more we know about the nature of reality, the more likely we are going

00:39:28.820 to get close to the idea that we are a simulation. There's now a big project going on to map the

00:39:35.100 entire universe. So to get these big telescopes that can look at stars so far away, you can find out

00:39:42.000 what the universe looked like 11 billion years ago. And apparently they'll be able to actually create a

00:39:47.640 three-dimensional map of the actual universe. Not only where it is now, but apparently how it

00:39:53.500 started. What do you think is going to happen when we can map the whole universe?

00:39:59.640 I think we're going to find out we're a simulation. I think all of this ends in the same place.

00:40:05.100 I think every mystery in physics, every mystery in the cosmos just ends in the same place,

00:40:11.420 that we're obviously a simulation. But somebody says the universe is currently collapsing.

00:40:17.300 Untrue. Not only is the universe expanding, but the rate of expansion is increasing.

00:40:24.940 Do you know why the rate of expansion is increasing? Because that's how you program gravity.

00:40:32.820 I said this years ago, probably nothing has gotten me more trouble. So here's a little mental

00:40:39.400 thing for you. Imagine there are only two things in the universe. Let's say,

00:40:46.080 let's say this yellow sticky pad and this stylus. And they're touching. And then let's say the

00:40:55.720 stylus jumps, jumps up, but everything in the universe is getting bigger at the same time.

00:41:01.920 What would be the impression of the stylus that it jumped up off of this yellow sticky pad

00:41:07.520 if both the stylus and the thing got bigger at the same time? They would touch again. Because the two

00:41:14.740 objects would grow in size until the distance that it jumped had closed. And it would look a lot like

00:41:20.000 gravity. Wouldn't it? So one way to create gravity that nobody can identify, like you can't get a handful of

00:41:31.220 gravity. You can't block gravity. Did you know that? There's nothing you can put between the earth

00:41:36.980 and an object that would make the gravity lessened. So what the hell is gravity if you can't block it?

00:41:45.880 It's probably just an impression. It could be that everything is just getting larger programmatically.

00:41:51.480 And that's what causes you to have the impression of gravity.

00:41:57.160 Now you say to yourself, but wait a minute, Scott. Here are all my exceptions where your model doesn't

00:42:02.840 work. To which I say, just like a software program. You catch the exceptions and then you just deal with

00:42:10.040 them programmatically. So yeah, you could have some exceptions where it wouldn't work that just making

00:42:15.840 everything bigger gives you the same result as gravity. By the way, there are real people,

00:42:21.240 physicists, who have done the math and found out that if you model the universe as everything

00:42:27.160 expanding, you get a very similar output to if you imagine there's gravity. Now, yeah, the exceptions

00:42:36.760 are now bugs. Exactly. Eventually it will stop expanding and collapse. Will it? I'm going to say it'll

00:42:44.260 never stop expanding. Because if it never stopped expanding, the illusion of gravity might disappear.

00:42:52.820 All right. So all that's just for fun. Don't take any of it too seriously. If you haven't noticed,

00:42:58.720 my grasp of science is less than complete. And is there anything that I missed today?

00:43:05.200 That would make volume more important than mass. That is exactly the correct thing to note. However,

00:43:16.760 you could correct for that programmatically. And most things do have... Most things, the mass

00:43:25.780 and the volume at least have some correlation. All right. Would I do a simulation live stream

00:43:35.820 for locals only? Well, I've done a few topics on the simulation. Oh, the audit? Well, every day that

00:43:43.980 we go without hearing some real audit issues, as opposed to issues that apparently can be explained

00:43:53.120 away pretty easily, the less I would think that you're going to find anything. So I'm still

00:44:00.500 open-minded. But every day that goes by, the odds of that we find something goes down.

00:44:04.680 So... Comment on the rise of de-economics in the National Review. Don't know what that

00:44:16.220 means exactly. Why do you mind if others are vaccinated? Well, you know, I'm not the one

00:44:27.140 who minds that. All right. Stock market. Stock market always goes up and always goes down.

00:44:34.680 If you have cash on the sidelines, a good time to buy, and this is not investment advice. Don't

00:44:44.460 get your investment advice from me. But as a general statement, if you can identify times

00:44:49.980 when the market is going down irrationally, with emphasis on irrationally, that's a good

00:44:56.800 time to buy. Now, so the question is, is the market going down irrationally because of the

00:45:03.120 delta variants? To which I say, good chance. Don't know for sure, because maybe the delta

00:45:11.840 variant is the thing that recrashes the economies. But I don't think so. I feel as if our learning

00:45:18.940 curve and our vaccinations and everything are going to head that off. It'll be a big problem,

00:45:24.180 but I don't know that it would change your investment decisions. So I feel as if this

00:45:30.620 is a buying opportunity, but don't take your, don't get any investment advice from cartoonists.

00:45:37.380 You talk about it as if you do care. Oh, let me explain that. So people saying, if it feels

00:45:44.620 as if I'm persuading anybody about vaccinations, let me clarify. When I talk about what is good

00:45:53.140 persuasion versus bad, that's to teach you. That doesn't mean anybody has to use it, right? So the

00:45:59.560 government need not use any of my suggestions. I'm just teaching you how to persuade, and I'm using the

00:46:04.780 headline topics to do it. The other thing is, I think everybody should have the best thinking

00:46:09.980 and data to go into their decision about vaccinations. So, you know, whenever I can help

00:46:16.780 clarify the thinking, I'll do that. But whether you get a vaccination, I'm vaccinated. I don't care.

00:46:24.000 You know, if you're not affecting my economy, and I can still use my hospital if I need it,

00:46:30.520 do what you want to do.

00:46:31.520 All right. What is the simulation use of COVID? It feels like a reboot. It feels like almost a

00:46:44.440 system upgrade, the whole COVID thing. Because the COVID changed so many things in our reality.

00:46:51.060 It just feels like a, like a major software upgrade with lots of feature changes. So maybe

00:46:57.740 it's just that. All right. How did the simulation get made? By somebody who lived before. Now,

00:47:07.120 that still, still begs the question, how did the first person get here? But that's a different

00:47:11.580 question. All right. That's all I got for now. And I will talk to you tomorrow.

Real Coffee with Scott Adams - July 20, 2021

Episode 1442 Scott Adams： Blue Origin, Pandemic Persuasion, and is Fox News Killing People

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