Real Coffee with Scott Adams - Episode 1449 Scott Adams： Comparing COVID-19 Skeptics to the Experts, Biden and the Wall, The Big Lie and More

00:00:00.000 Hey everybody, good morning and welcome to the best part of the entire day, week, month, I don't know, it couldn't be that good.

00:00:13.400 But today will be, well, let's just say provocative. Are you ready for provocative?

00:00:21.380 Well, you know what goes well with provocation? You probably do.

00:00:26.040 All you need is a cup or a mug or a glass, a tank or a chalice or a canteen jug or a glass of a vessel of any kind.

00:00:31.520 Fill it with your favorite liquid. That's right, coffee.

00:00:35.900 And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure, the dopamine hit of the day, the thing that makes, well, just about everything better.

00:00:42.800 It's called the simultaneous sip and it happens now. Go.

00:00:49.400 Oh, that's so good. So good.

00:00:53.940 Well, there was a shocker in the Olympics last night.

00:00:58.240 The American basketball team lost to France.

00:01:03.940 I'm supposed to feel bad about that, right?

00:01:07.960 Is there anybody here who looked at that story that the American basketball team,

00:01:13.000 I guess they lost, they had a 25-game Olympic winning streak, counting prior Olympics,

00:01:19.100 and this snapped it.

00:01:21.720 They lost 83 to 76.

00:01:23.060 How many people have said to themselves, LOL?

00:01:29.560 I hate the fact that I'm rooting against my own country.

00:01:35.680 But I am.

00:01:38.440 I am.

00:01:39.640 I'm rooting against our basketball players. 0.98

00:01:42.260 Because they've made such fools of themselves with the protests and stuff. 0.97

00:01:49.200 And by the way, I agree with their point. 0.97

00:01:51.660 You know, I don't have any conflict with what they're trying to do.

00:01:55.900 I'm all on board.

00:01:57.220 But the way they've done it has so discredited their sport and them as athletes

00:02:03.340 that I kind of am glad that France won.

00:02:06.540 And I'm not, I don't know, should I feel good about that?

00:02:10.500 I don't think I should.

00:02:12.120 On the other hand, it's kind of healthy that, you know,

00:02:16.580 that you're not obsessed with your own team winning all the time.

00:02:20.360 There's probably something a little bit healthy in that.

00:02:23.220 Well, the Tokyo Olympics, the broadcasters are trying to curb the sexualization

00:02:30.380 of the female athletes.

00:02:31.660 Apparently, in past Olympics, it was, this is even, it's funny to even think

00:02:39.440 that this happened just a few years ago, literally the last Olympics,

00:02:44.880 that the camera people would focus on female body parts, just, you know,

00:02:50.140 totally sexualizing the athletes. 0.93

00:02:52.440 And I'm thinking to myself, okay, I get, I get that they want to be less,

00:02:57.380 you know, on the nose about it.

00:02:58.760 But let's be serious.

00:03:01.660 Can we be serious?

00:03:03.600 Can we all be serious for a moment?

00:03:06.380 The Olympic athletes are literally chosen to be the best mating prospects

00:03:14.160 on the planet Earth.

00:03:17.440 That's not the point of it.

00:03:18.900 The point of it is the sports, et cetera.

00:03:21.020 But the effect of it is you pick the most genetically superior people who have also shown dedication

00:03:30.740 and all these qualities.

00:03:32.260 They are literally the people you most want to have children with.

00:03:35.740 If I were a woman and I could have a child with anybody and you said, well, how about an

00:03:41.820 Olympic athlete, somebody who won a gold medal?

00:03:44.760 How about that?

00:03:45.320 You'd probably just say, okay, I'm done searching.

00:03:48.520 I'll take the Olympic gold medal winning person because that's going to be some pretty good genes.

00:03:53.900 They've all been tested, right?

00:03:56.240 I mean, tested through sports.

00:03:57.620 So how in the world can you desexualize an event where all the most sexually desirable people

00:04:08.380 from a mating perspective, you know, not from a purely recreational point of view,

00:04:12.400 but your most basic mating instinct is set on fire when you see the most perfect humans.

00:04:20.380 That's how it works.

00:04:21.740 You can't take the biology out of it.

00:04:23.500 Who in the world can look at the most perfect specimens all within this, you know, this reproductive age 0.97

00:04:31.240 and have no effect?

00:04:33.740 I mean, really, if you can look at Olympic athletes and not get a boner, good for you.

00:04:41.820 I'm not sure I've ever done it.

00:04:44.040 Just, I mean, I'm exaggerating a little bit, of course.

00:04:47.420 All right, here's the fake news of the day.

00:04:49.600 You ready for the fake news?

00:04:50.820 President Biden is spending more than $2 billion to halt border wall construction.

00:04:56.800 Apparently it costs $3 million every day to hire contractors to guard the steel and concrete

00:05:02.820 that they're not going to use because he's not going to build the wall.

00:05:06.960 Now, is that real news or is that fake news?

00:05:12.260 What do you think?

00:05:13.040 Do you think that Biden is really spending $2 billion to halt the construction of the wall?

00:05:18.360 It's true news that's fake.

00:05:23.200 It's the worst kind.

00:05:25.020 It's probably, I'm guessing, it's probably a completely true statement of fact, but it's

00:05:30.660 also fake news.

00:05:32.320 Here's why.

00:05:34.120 Everything you shut down costs money.

00:05:37.280 That's it.

00:05:38.860 Any project you shut down costs you extra money for the shutdown for all the normal things,

00:05:44.660 exactly what you would imagine.

00:05:45.840 You've got contracts, maybe you have to pay people off, you've got to guard your assets,

00:05:50.560 you've got to get rid of them, you've got to move stuff.

00:05:53.000 It's expensive.

00:05:54.380 So why should you think about the fact that Biden is going to spend $2 billion to avoid

00:05:59.740 spending, what, another $25 billion?

00:06:03.540 Unfortunately, unfortunately, that's how it works.

00:06:07.240 So to report this as some kind of like bad news where he's doing the wrong thing, no, the

00:06:12.680 story is he halted the wall.

00:06:15.780 Once you say the story is we've halted the wall, it's going to cost you $2 billion just

00:06:20.960 to stop it.

00:06:22.400 So pretending that there's something wrong here, when the Democrats would say, oh, that's worth

00:06:27.840 $2 billion.

00:06:28.280 Somebody says the money is already approved, but that's irrelevant.

00:06:34.040 You can unapproved money.

00:06:37.500 What exactly is the COVID strategy for the country?

00:06:41.060 Do you remember, was it a year ago or plus, a year and a half ago, when the strategy we

00:06:47.440 thought was to flatten the curve?

00:06:49.740 Now, flattening the curve didn't work, as we all can observe, but was it a reasonable

00:06:57.100 strategy to give it a test?

00:07:00.080 I say yes.

00:07:01.820 I would say that the flatten the curve was, number one, a very clear statement of intent.

00:07:08.220 That's A+.

00:07:08.960 It was very clear.

00:07:10.860 It was a guess because we were in a pandemic and we didn't know exactly what was going to

00:07:16.420 work, but it was a logical thing to try.

00:07:19.740 It didn't work.

00:07:21.500 But was it reasonable to try it?

00:07:24.320 Absolutely.

00:07:25.460 See if it did work.

00:07:26.940 We didn't know what else to do.

00:07:29.140 So what is our strategy now, now that that strategy didn't work?

00:07:36.220 It looks like the strategy is to get to 90% vaccination and call it a day.

00:07:40.900 But I feel like that's just one off from where it needs to be.

00:07:47.440 I feel like the strategy should be to get everybody infected, but after vaccination.

00:07:55.840 Because we know now that vaccination doesn't stop the spread.

00:07:59.440 And I think we also know that everybody's going to get infected, but you don't want to get

00:08:05.900 the long haul, you know, the bad version and die from the virus.

00:08:09.540 So the very best situation would be to get lots of already vaccinated people also infected.

00:08:16.400 And to get maybe children infected if they're better off that way.

00:08:23.080 You know, there's some controversy about that.

00:08:25.260 But they might be better off.

00:08:26.740 Just give them the real coronavirus protection and maybe the next one doesn't hurt them as much.

00:08:35.220 So I'll just put that out there, that I believe that the government's strategy is not articulated.

00:08:42.500 But under the Trump administration, the flattened the curve, I think, was well articulated.

00:08:49.580 Like you knew exactly what that was.

00:08:51.520 It just didn't work.

00:08:52.680 Good try.

00:08:53.860 Smart to try it.

00:08:55.020 Just didn't work.

00:08:55.640 I would take no credit away from anybody who tried something reasonable just because it didn't work.

00:09:02.860 All right.

00:09:03.340 Rasmussen is reporting.

00:09:04.780 They did a poll on the media's reporting on COVID-19.

00:09:09.140 And asked this question.

00:09:10.300 Do you think the media are reporting accurately on safety and effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines?

00:09:17.080 50% of Republicans said no.

00:09:20.160 What?

00:09:22.020 50%.

00:09:23.340 50% of Republicans said the news is basically lying to them on vaccines.

00:09:31.840 Now, that's no surprise, right, because it's fake news.

00:09:34.720 But this is a scientific thing, or it should be, as opposed to a political thing.

00:09:40.380 You'd expect the news to lie to you on political things.

00:09:43.100 That's just our daily experience.

00:09:45.960 But on science?

00:09:46.800 Do you really expect the news to lie to you on science?

00:09:51.600 Well, half of Republicans say yes.

00:09:53.900 Even 26% of Democrats say that the media isn't doing a good job on reporting on vaccines.

00:10:01.560 So I asked this question on social media.

00:10:03.980 I said, I wonder if the reason that people don't trust vaccinations is that the people promoting the vaccinations are the four least credible entities in the United States.

00:10:16.840 Who is less credible than, number one, our government?

00:10:21.640 Nobody trusts the government.

00:10:23.380 I mean, I'm sure that's true in every country, right?

00:10:25.760 How about the news, the fake news industry?

00:10:29.020 You can't trust the news.

00:10:31.180 The news absolutely can't be trusted.

00:10:34.180 We don't have many alternatives, but you definitely can't trust the news.

00:10:37.960 If you've been awake for the last two years, that should be obvious.

00:10:42.740 How about the social media companies that are deciding what messages get out and which ones are suppressed?

00:10:48.720 Can you trust them?

00:10:49.580 No, no, no, you can't.

00:10:53.980 It's not like they're scientists in the first place.

00:10:57.660 And number four, scientists themselves.

00:11:00.940 Can we trust science? 0.99

00:11:02.440 Well, 50% of peer-reviewed studies end up being bullshit. 1.00

00:11:10.040 50%. 0.98

00:11:10.440 And even the things that science gets right, which is lots of stuff.

00:11:15.280 You know, science is a miracle, and we all love science.

00:11:18.840 But even when it gets something right, it's the exception.

00:11:21.940 I mean, most things are bad hypotheses, theories that don't work out, tests that don't quite prove what you wanted them to prove.

00:11:30.040 Science is pretty messy stuff.

00:11:31.760 So should you trust it?

00:11:34.380 Well, you can certainly trust that it's a good process and a good system.

00:11:39.820 I think that's fair.

00:11:41.180 But what you can't trust is that you know it got it right at any moment in time.

00:11:46.120 Because science will conclude things and then find out they were wrong and then change their mind, which it's supposed to do.

00:11:52.940 All right, I'm looking at a very funny meme on Locals right now.

00:11:56.120 If you're watching the stream on the Locals platform, you're seeing the comments have images as opposed to YouTube where you can just do text.

00:12:06.380 And somebody's showing a meme of me doing the impression of one of the Democrats on the Texas bus, the ones who escaped.

00:12:13.280 It's pretty hilarious.

00:12:16.200 You have to trust me on that.

00:12:17.240 Anyway, should you be surprised that there are so many people who don't want to take a vaccination when the people telling you to take it are government, the fake news industry, social media companies, and scientists who haven't done so well lately in terms of credibility?

00:12:32.800 Science is still great.

00:12:34.560 Science is still great.

00:12:35.720 We're not anti-science.

00:12:37.040 It's just that it's a messy process, and everybody understands that now.

00:12:42.060 So let's take this as our major theme, the credibility of our institutions, right?

00:12:49.480 Because I'm going to talk about this in other stories.

00:12:52.800 Nancy Pelosi just put Adam Kinzinger on the January 6th committee.

00:12:58.000 Now, if you don't follow politics, that doesn't mean much to you.

00:13:02.240 You just said to yourself, oh, there's a committee to look into the January 6th riots at the Capitol, and you want some Democrats and you want some Republicans to make it bipartisan.

00:13:13.640 And so Nancy Pelosi put a Republican on there. 1.00

00:13:16.680 If you didn't know anything about the backstory, you'd say, oh, well, that looks pretty good.

00:13:20.780 Got some Republicans.

00:13:21.860 You got some Democrats.

00:13:22.960 You're all set, right?

00:13:23.880 There is literally nobody in the Republican Party who is less credible on this question than Adam Kinzinger.

00:13:35.700 Literally, Nancy Pelosi reached into the void of, you know, 300-some million Americans and found the one least credible person on this specific question.

00:13:47.720 Because he's a Trump-hater, and he's making his brand as being anti-Trump and talking about this issue in particular. 0.94

00:13:54.780 He's literally the last fucking person you'd want to put on the committee if you're even a little bit serious, right? 0.98

00:14:02.300 He's the last person you'd put on it. 0.98

00:14:05.140 But, of course, she's responding to McCarthy, who pulled all of his five nominees off because they didn't like two of them because they were too political.

00:14:12.420 And then she goes and puts the most political person on there that you could possibly put on there.

00:14:17.740 Is she even trying? 0.98

00:14:19.980 Is the government even trying to be credible?

00:14:23.840 This doesn't even show, like, a little bit of effort.

00:14:27.400 There's no effort here at all to be credible.

00:14:31.100 So, and do you think that Pelosi is complaining about people not believing the government that they should take vaccinations?

00:14:39.560 Of course she is.

00:14:40.420 Does she not realize that she's the source of the lack of credibility?

00:14:44.960 Or one of the biggest ones, right?

00:14:47.500 You can't have it both ways.

00:14:49.100 You can't do ridiculously non-credible things and then ask people to put a needle in their arm.

00:14:55.760 No.

00:14:56.780 No. 0.99

00:14:57.100 The person who puts Adam Kinzinger on the January 6th committee can't tell you a fucking thing about your health. 0.99

00:15:04.940 Can we get that clear? 0.99

00:15:05.800 Anybody who would be this ridiculous to put Adam Kinzinger on this committee, completely non-credible thing to do. 0.99

00:15:14.660 And that's the dumbass that's going to tell you what to do with your health. 0.98

00:15:18.260 I'm sorry. 0.99

00:15:19.480 You have to be a little bit, a little bit credible.

00:15:23.420 Just a little bit. 1.00

00:15:24.960 Before we're going to listen to your bullshit. 1.00

00:15:26.420 I'm not telling you not to get vaccinations, by the way. 0.99

00:15:31.700 So here is a little thread that I found so interesting that I wanted to share it to you.

00:15:38.320 Some of you know I've had some back and forth with a Twitter user named Anamali, or at Legendary Energy is his Twitter.

00:15:46.780 And he's, I guess you'd put him in, I don't like to label people if they don't label themselves, but for the purpose of this story, let's say a skeptic of some of the COVID-related vaccines and masks and stuff.

00:16:00.980 So we'll put him in the skeptic category.

00:16:02.900 I'm not sure if he would label himself that way, but just for this story.

00:16:06.960 And he said that, we're talking about the vaccinations and why there's some hesitancy, he suggests it's not because of the credibility of the people recommending it, but he says most people are smart enough to do the research on how the companies manufacturing them have zero liability for side effects,

00:16:27.580 while they quietly take their past products off the market for cancer-causing carcinogens and settle big cases for fraud, foreign bribery, and false marketing.

00:16:38.200 So the implication here is that you could do your own research, and then when you did that, you'd be all set.

00:16:45.400 You could make a reasonable decision.

00:16:47.660 How many of you would agree with the basic setup?

00:16:53.840 How many would you agree that you could do your own research and come to a reasonable good opinion?

00:17:02.340 I'm seeing in the comments, it's true.

00:17:04.860 Yes, I knew all of that, somebody says.

00:17:07.560 Over on Locals, where people are much better informed, they're almost all saying no.

00:17:13.620 So we've got a little dichotomy here.

00:17:15.860 The people on Locals who have been watching my content more, probably, are more likely to say, no, you can't do that.

00:17:22.820 And the people on, now on YouTube, most people are saying no.

00:17:28.780 All right, so it looks like we're closer to agreement now, just watching the comments go by.

00:17:33.520 All right, thank you.

00:17:35.180 So the people watching me have gotten the message, and what I responded to was,

00:17:39.980 zero people are smart enough to do that kind of research.

00:17:44.080 Now, do you notice the persuasion?

00:17:45.560 Do you think that zero people in the whole world can do this kind of research?

00:17:53.200 It's sort of like an over-claim, right?

00:17:55.320 That's what gets your attention.

00:17:57.040 Because I thought hard about saying almost nobody could do this research.

00:18:02.700 And then I thought, no, nobody can.

00:18:05.560 Like, literally nobody can.

00:18:06.920 There are people that you think can, but you don't know.

00:18:09.780 You might say to yourself, yeah, a person with certain qualifications could totally do their own research

00:18:14.820 and come to a good decision.

00:18:16.640 No, they can't.

00:18:18.020 No, they can't.

00:18:19.200 Because the things you would need to research don't exist.

00:18:22.480 You would be looking at unknowns.

00:18:25.220 So how do you compare one set of unknowns to another set of unknowns, the unknown risk, that is?

00:18:31.840 What's the risk of long COVID for you?

00:18:34.280 You don't know.

00:18:34.900 What's the risk of getting the vaccination if it's the Pfizer versus the Moderna versus the J&J?

00:18:42.140 Well, you don't really know.

00:18:43.580 I mean, you might know some statistics, but it doesn't apply to you, right?

00:18:48.360 So everything that you can look up doesn't quite work as a statistic or it doesn't apply to you.

00:18:54.940 You'd just be guessing.

00:18:57.080 So, and then I got some agreement from some smart people.

00:19:03.280 If you've, here's a good recommendation for a Twitter follow, Machiavelli's Underbelly.

00:19:10.280 So just Google that, Machiavelli's Underbelly.

00:19:13.780 And the Twitter handle is at MMM3Ms underscore Machiavelli.

00:19:20.200 And he says, agreed, agreeing with me that zero people could do this.

00:19:25.860 And he adds that Google's very existence gave people the wrong impression that they're capable of doing their own research.

00:19:32.460 For whatever reason, people don't understand that Google is a product where one of its features is making you feel like your search was successful.

00:19:43.460 Now, when you first hear that, it doesn't quite register.

00:19:49.240 You have to think about it just for a moment.

00:19:51.640 That Google wouldn't have a product, like you wouldn't use it, unless when you used it, you felt successful.

00:19:59.880 Do you buy that?

00:20:01.460 Then nobody would use a Google search engine unless using it made you feel you got good results.

00:20:06.680 So the entire product is designed, by its nature, to make you feel you got good results and that you're a good researcher.

00:20:17.100 Yeah, it is a good insight.

00:20:18.740 That's why I read it.

00:20:20.660 And Adam Dopamine, also on Twitter, says, Google search equals confirmation bias generator.

00:20:29.680 Right?

00:20:30.320 When you Google things, how often does it come up with the answer you wanted?

00:20:36.160 Pretty often.

00:20:38.000 You think that's a coincidence?

00:20:40.780 Do you think that if somebody who is against masks and thought they didn't work, if they did a Google search on do masks work, what result would they get?

00:20:51.240 A skeptic would get results that say masks don't work.

00:20:54.420 Suppose you believe masks do work, and then you Google it.

00:21:00.220 What do you think the Google search would tell you?

00:21:03.000 It would tell you they work.

00:21:05.040 You doubt that?

00:21:06.320 Try it yourself.

00:21:07.640 If you doubt that what I just said is true, just try it.

00:21:11.280 If you're a mask skeptic and you say they don't work, just Google it.

00:21:16.780 And watch how you can prove that you're right.

00:21:18.680 And then ask somebody who's a mask believer to just separately do their own Google search and simply tell you if they found what they thought was true.

00:21:31.120 Watch how both of you will say, I Googled it, and I'm right.

00:21:36.220 Google is a confirmation bias generator.

00:21:40.960 That's what it does.

00:21:41.940 Now, if you don't realize that it's doing that in addition to also giving you good information, I'm not saying it's all like fake information or something.

00:21:50.940 It's all real.

00:21:52.240 It's just that you can look into any corner of it that you choose, and your confirmation bias will tell you you found what you needed.

00:21:58.840 Now, people who don't understand these human, let's say, foibles, the way we think and the way we are so easily fooled by confirmation bias, would imagine that you can do this thing called research.

00:22:15.040 Do your own research.

00:22:16.480 I tell you this example all the time.

00:22:17.900 There used to be a low-cost stock brokerage service that used to, its main advertisement, you probably saw it on TV, was that you could do your own research.

00:22:30.860 And it would show all these really wise-looking regular people, like, hmm, I'm going to do my own research on these stocks.

00:22:39.740 Ah, yeah.

00:22:41.520 You know, because I'm pretty smart.

00:22:42.640 I've got a four-year degree in marketing, so if I just do my own research, I'm going to know how to invest like Warren Buffett, because I just looked for stuff, and I found it, put it all together with my big brain, and then I figured out how to research, how to invest better.

00:23:01.480 Do you know how many people are capable of doing their own research and then beating the averages over an extended period of time?

00:23:11.420 None.

00:23:12.640 It's not even a thing.

00:23:14.760 You couldn't find one investment expert in the world who would tell you that's a good idea.

00:23:20.220 None.

00:23:21.740 Zero.

00:23:23.220 Let me say it again.

00:23:24.840 There is no financial expert who would tell you that you can do your own research.

00:23:30.540 It's just not a thing.

00:23:31.920 Do you know who else can't do their own research and come up with good individual stock recommendations?

00:23:37.640 The experts.

00:23:38.440 There are two categories of people who can't do that ever.

00:23:42.640 It's just not a thing.

00:23:44.180 One is people who have no experience.

00:23:46.960 The other is the people who have the most experience in the world and everybody in between.

00:23:52.140 It's just not a thing.

00:23:54.240 You can't just Google up some research on a company.

00:23:57.600 It's all just a bunch of lies and guesses and probability and we're not smart enough to do any of that.

00:24:03.200 So instead, all of the experts, and again, all of them, would tell you don't do that.

00:24:09.640 They tell you just diversify.

00:24:11.380 That's the only thing you can do, which is what I'd tell you to do.

00:24:13.780 All right.

00:24:15.060 And then Anomaly, Legendary Energy, came back at me after I made my comment.

00:24:21.280 And he said, zero people?

00:24:23.400 LOL.

00:24:24.980 Okay.

00:24:26.180 I had to add the attitude to it because I feel that was in there.

00:24:31.180 Okay.

00:24:32.320 Yep.

00:24:32.720 Zero people can do their own research.

00:24:35.320 Now, let me say it again.

00:24:37.320 Zero people.

00:24:38.060 Literally, if you think you're the one, you think you're the golden child, the first person in the world who was able to do this thing that nobody's ever done, okay.

00:24:51.480 But you're probably not the golden child.

00:24:55.520 And you probably can't do magic, just like everybody else.

00:25:00.060 So that's when I showed him an article in The Atlantic.

00:25:03.940 Well, first of all, he said, this is Anomaly again, Legendary Energy, said Alex Berenson, who you know as a well-known critic on masks and vaccines and stuff.

00:25:17.820 He said, Alex Berenson would run circles around you, Scott.

00:25:21.320 You have possibly the most embarrassing takes on the pandemic, and you've been consistently wrong.

00:25:27.340 Not sure if it's your ego, your fear, your desperation to justify your decision to get inoculated.

00:25:32.740 Or you know you're lying.

00:25:35.460 Well, at least I have options.

00:25:37.340 It could be my ego, my fear, my desperation to justify my inoculation.

00:25:41.840 Or it could be my lying.

00:25:44.940 Are there any other possibilities that he left out?

00:25:49.160 Or we've covered them all.

00:25:50.580 It's just my ego, my fear, my desperation to justify my decision.

00:25:54.640 Or my lying.

00:25:56.120 It's going to be one of those.

00:25:57.440 So what have I taught you about how narcissists respond to being shown they're wrong?

00:26:06.660 How do they respond when you show they're wrong?

00:26:11.060 They attack the messenger, don't they?

00:26:14.840 Where in here is somebody, where is Anomaly mentioning what I got wrong?

00:26:19.980 If he did mention what I got wrong, do you know what would be on the list?

00:26:23.040 I think it's the only thing that would be on the list.

00:26:26.280 I believe it's the only thing.

00:26:28.060 The only thing that would be on the list of things I got wrong would be that I said early on that the WHO and the CDC were lying to you and that masks do work.

00:26:37.600 And now, the top experts of 100% of industrialized nations agree with me.

00:26:44.340 Now, could I be wrong?

00:26:46.260 Absolutely.

00:26:47.820 Yeah.

00:26:48.020 Someday, could we find out the masks made things worse or didn't work at all?

00:26:52.420 Absolutely.

00:26:53.700 I keep that possibility completely open.

00:26:56.500 But at the moment, every expert in every industrialized country agrees with me.

00:27:04.600 So if I'm wrong, I'm open to that.

00:27:07.600 I'm open to it.

00:27:08.700 Could be.

00:27:09.400 I mean, I've been wrong on things where I agreed with the experts before.

00:27:13.320 How weird would that be?

00:27:14.400 Not weird at all.

00:27:15.100 But I believe that would be his only example.

00:27:19.980 And yet, he's sure that I've got all kinds of problems with vaccinating.

00:27:23.700 I guess he thinks I'm wrong on vaccinations as well.

00:27:26.600 But how can I be wrong on vaccinations when my opinion is this?

00:27:30.860 You can't weigh the risks or the benefits.

00:27:34.040 Nobody can.

00:27:34.540 So I took a shot at it based on the fact that I couldn't compare the risks. 1.00

00:27:40.800 But the coward. 1.00

00:27:43.760 I like to call out the fucking idiots when they make comments. 1.00

00:27:47.440 In this case, Tyler Pankratz. 1.00

00:27:50.760 He goes, the coward, Scott Adams. 0.97

00:27:53.200 Try to justify your opinion. 0.97

00:27:55.500 You believe that the vaccinations are dangerous, right? 0.64

00:27:59.140 And you think that I got the vaccination because I'm a coward.

00:28:05.600 So you believe that I did the more dangerous thing because I'm afraid.

00:28:11.340 Is that your opinion?

00:28:12.860 That I consciously took the more dangerous path, according to you, because of my cowardice. 1.00

00:28:19.880 Make a fucking decision. 1.00

00:28:22.240 Either I'm a coward and I'm afraid of the vaccination, or I'm not. 1.00

00:28:27.300 Just be consistent.

00:28:28.860 That's all.

00:28:30.520 All right. 1.00

00:28:31.580 Coward. 1.00

00:28:32.120 I would say that the lowest level of thinking is that somebody made the decision to get a vaccination because they're a coward. 1.00

00:28:39.160 That is so fucking dumb. 1.00

00:28:41.380 Like, you know, if you were looking at levels of awareness, that would be like, you know, 1.00

00:28:46.700 your faces in the water on the bottom of the street kind of awareness.

00:28:50.680 But everybody's welcome here, so hang around.

00:28:54.620 All right.

00:28:57.300 Here are some reasons given by another Twitter user who weighed in on this and said a reason why people might not be getting vaccinated.

00:29:05.760 He said, yeah, that, talking about the credibility of the people recommending it.

00:29:09.180 He goes, that and vaccines are still in the third stage of trials.

00:29:14.000 I don't know if that's true.

00:29:16.600 Is that true?

00:29:17.980 But I'm just reading the tweet now.

00:29:19.500 Cannot sue pharmaceutical companies directly if adverse reactions.

00:29:24.680 Myocarditis, blood clots, thrombosis, Ghislaine-Barr syndrome.

00:29:28.300 And yes, the VAERS received 6,270 reports of deaths due to the vaccines.

00:29:33.880 All right.

00:29:34.180 So this is good.

00:29:36.820 This is somebody who said, here are a bunch of risks that should be considered when you get the vaccination.

00:29:43.320 Is that good thinking so far?

00:29:46.340 Is that good thinking? 1.00

00:29:49.500 Elle Green says, your arrogance is disgusting. 0.99

00:29:53.580 It's called show business, Elle. 0.99

00:29:55.720 If I didn't have an opinionated take on this, you wouldn't be watching it.

00:30:00.620 Let me understand.

00:30:01.520 Let me explain how this works.

00:30:03.260 It's the irritation that makes you come back.

00:30:05.440 If I didn't show this level of annoying certainty, you wouldn't be addicted to it.

00:30:14.020 Maybe not you personally.

00:30:15.460 But it's the spice in the food that makes you eat it.

00:30:22.000 Even though the spice is really an allergy that just makes it hurt in your mouth.

00:30:26.580 Right?

00:30:27.380 So don't throw away the feature.

00:30:31.340 You think the flaw is the flaw, but it's the feature.

00:30:33.620 And I do it intentionally.

00:30:35.940 Because I could easily present myself in a different fashion.

00:30:40.560 And then you wouldn't watch.

00:30:42.240 So just learn what the show is.

00:30:44.320 And then learn what the facts are.

00:30:46.040 And know that they're different.

00:30:47.400 Right?

00:30:48.020 Sometimes the show is the show.

00:30:50.260 And you just have to know what the show is.

00:30:52.060 And then it won't bother you as much.

00:30:54.060 All right.

00:30:55.500 So how do you compare a bunch of risks?

00:30:58.280 So Unhoodwinked is the user that said that, you know, the third stage of trials.

00:31:05.440 And you can't see them.

00:31:06.480 And there have been bad reports.

00:31:08.860 Let's say that's all true. 0.61

00:31:10.280 I don't know if it's all true.

00:31:11.280 But let's say it is.

00:31:12.700 How could you compare those risks, which are enumerated, with the risks of getting the COVID and long haul and dying on a ventilator?

00:31:21.600 You can't.

00:31:23.080 These are all unknown risks.

00:31:24.400 You couldn't put a number on them for the average person.

00:31:29.180 And you certainly couldn't put a number on it for yourself.

00:31:32.220 Somebody says that 12,000 dead is less than 600,000 dead.

00:31:42.000 Well, but again, that's not an apples and oranges comparison.

00:31:45.500 I see what you're saying.

00:31:46.140 So somebody on local says, Scott did his own research, took a vaccine, and won't stop talking about how he's not an advocate for it.

00:31:58.080 But don't you understand that a person's personal risk is a separate topic from advocacy?

00:32:08.420 You get that, right?

00:32:10.020 Like if one person decides to get an abortion or not get one, how does that affect you?

00:32:15.020 Like how does my decision about my health become persuasion for you?

00:32:22.660 Because I will tell you directly, you shouldn't follow my example.

00:32:27.240 I mean, you can, but you shouldn't.

00:32:30.360 Because why would I assume that my experience or my risk profile is like yours?

00:32:35.600 Probably one of the biggest factors is what it does in your head, right?

00:32:40.220 Like whatever's happening in your head, about what fear you have, what freedom you want, whether you want to be helpful to other people, potentially, or not.

00:32:51.300 All of those things are big variables, like what your head is doing.

00:32:56.920 Because this isn't just physical, right?

00:32:59.020 You're not managing just your physical health.

00:33:01.740 You're managing your mental health.

00:33:03.660 So how could I make a recommendation that you should or should not get vaccinated when one of the biggest variables is a thing that's only in your head?

00:33:13.660 I can't see it.

00:33:15.200 If what your head, if your head makes you deathly afraid of one of the options and not afraid of the other for irrational reasons, you know what I would tell you?

00:33:24.820 Do the thing that makes you less afraid if you have that fear.

00:33:28.780 Now, in my case, I didn't have a special fear of the vaccination or a special fear of the COVID, really, because the odds of me specifically dying from it are pretty hard, pretty low.

00:33:44.020 But the reason that I don't recommend it is because that would be irrational.

00:33:49.200 And I have a real ethical and moral problem about that.

00:33:52.280 So I can only tell you what I did, and I can tell you if it worked or not, right?

00:33:57.020 So I got the vaccination, and in my opinion, it worked, in quotes.

00:34:03.300 Now, it worked means that it made me feel better.

00:34:06.920 So if not getting the vaccination makes you feel better, you might have a different decision than me, and I don't care.

00:34:15.760 I'd be fine with that.

00:34:17.400 Please make your own decision.

00:34:18.700 As long as people can get vaccinated who want vaccinations can do it.

00:34:22.440 Go ahead.

00:34:22.720 All right, so when Alex Berenson was mentioned as someone who gets it all right, and I'm mentioned as someone who got it all wrong, I wondered to myself,

00:34:34.060 I wonder if anybody's done a detailed analysis of Alex Berenson to see, you know, if he's more right than wrong.

00:34:42.320 Have you ever done that?

00:34:43.240 Have you ever Googled Alex Berenson and criticism to see if there's somebody who's looked at all of his claims and just sort of evaluated them to see how accurate they are?

00:34:54.860 Is there anybody who just follows Alex Berenson but has never done that, has never Googled to find out if the critics are saying he's wrong?

00:35:02.780 Because if you haven't done that, maybe you ought to, maybe you ought to.

00:35:09.700 All right, here's what happened when I did that.

00:35:12.280 One article that came up was from The Atlantic.

00:35:15.720 Or actually, the first one that I looked at was from Vanity Fair.

00:35:20.260 And it was an article in Vanity Fair saying that Alex Berenson was, you know, basically a critic of vaccines and masks and whatnot,

00:35:28.840 and that he gets everything wrong.

00:35:31.640 And then I looked for the reasons.

00:35:34.260 It didn't have any. 0.99

00:35:35.720 What the fuck? 0.99

00:35:36.860 It's an article about how he got everything wrong without mentioning what he got wrong. 0.99

00:35:41.580 So this is making me think, is he getting a lot of stuff right?

00:35:47.640 And I see you laughing at Vanity Fair in the comments, because they're not really a credible publication.

00:35:54.040 But then I looked for another non-credible publication, because it didn't look like any credible ones were writing about it, called The Atlantic.

00:36:02.980 Would you consider The Atlantic a credible publication?

00:36:07.200 No.

00:36:08.140 No.

00:36:09.360 I don't think you could consider them credible at all.

00:36:13.680 So staff writer Derek Thompson went through a bunch of claims that Alex Berenson had made.

00:36:20.220 Now, I'll tell you in advance that Derek says, you know, here's the claim and how he got it wrong.

00:36:25.880 Now, what have I told you a billion times?

00:36:28.400 If you hear one person making a bunch of claims, what have you learned?

00:36:32.520 Nothing.

00:36:33.560 Nothing.

00:36:34.220 If you hear one person making a bunch of claims, no matter what the claims are, you've learned nothing.

00:36:40.260 Because you haven't heard the other side.

00:36:42.280 And we don't live in a world where people tell you the truth.

00:36:45.100 They give you a biased, you know, hyperbolic version of something.

00:36:48.680 And if you haven't heard the other side, you haven't heard anything.

00:36:51.440 It's like exactly like hearing nothing.

00:36:53.960 So if you've only heard Alex Berenson's stuff, you've heard nothing.

00:36:58.020 Because you haven't heard the other side.

00:36:59.600 Likewise, when I tell you what the criticisms are against Alex Berenson, you're going to hear one view of the criticism.

00:37:06.600 And you should give it exactly zero credibility.

00:37:09.560 I'm going to read it anyway, just so you see both sides.

00:37:11.640 But don't take sides, because neither the Atlantic nor Alex Berenson by himself is credible.

00:37:20.680 We don't live in a world where you can say either one of them is just automatically right.

00:37:25.080 But I'll tell you what the criticism is, all right?

00:37:29.340 According to Derek here, on Tucker Carlson, Berenson predicted that the vaccines would cause an uptick in cases of COVID-related illness in the U.S.

00:37:41.600 And I guess the claim is that didn't happen.

00:37:45.480 So first of all, I don't know if that's an accurate statement of what Berenson claimed.

00:37:50.600 And neither do you, probably.

00:37:51.700 And I guess Berenson also claimed that we would not reach half a million deaths, and we were well over 600,000.

00:38:02.860 But is that a big problem?

00:38:04.440 If somebody said we won't reach half a million, but the real number might be 600,000 or 700,000, that's not a big deal.

00:38:12.040 Like, nobody was accurate about the death count, right?

00:38:14.460 I wasn't.

00:38:15.100 I don't think anybody was.

00:38:16.020 So I'd say, okay, that's a fair statement, but that's not really much of a criticism.

00:38:22.660 And then they say that Berenson has argued that cloth and surgical masks can't protect against the coronavirus.

00:38:28.900 And then he links to science that says the masks do work.

00:38:33.760 Now, what did I just tell you before?

00:38:36.140 If you believe masks don't work and you Google it, you'll find all kinds of proof that you're right.

00:38:40.860 If you believe they do work and you Google it, you'll find all kinds of science that says they do.

00:38:46.700 Try it yourself.

00:38:47.900 I mean, if you don't believe that, just try it.

00:38:50.460 So we have two views of this.

00:38:54.280 We'll leave that there.

00:38:55.980 All right.

00:38:57.080 Apparently, Berenson, according to Derek, claimed that he blamed the vaccines for suppressing our immune systems,

00:39:04.160 and that he did that because he misrepresented some immune system behavior.

00:39:09.100 In other words, it was just a misinterpretation of how immune systems work.

00:39:12.940 Who's right?

00:39:14.300 Berenson or a guy who wrote an article in The Atlantic?

00:39:18.220 Which one of them is right on this scientific question?

00:39:22.500 Well, aren't they both right?

00:39:24.060 Because you can just Google and do your own research.

00:39:27.780 So since they both Googled and they both did their own research, they must both be right, right?

00:39:33.620 No, they have opposite opinions.

00:39:35.580 I don't know.

00:39:36.020 But Berenson suggested that countries such as Israel have suffered from the early vaccine rollout.

00:39:45.460 And Derek suggests that the deaths have plummeted and the vaccines are successful.

00:39:52.260 Israel is having some problems now.

00:39:54.320 I'm not sure we have full visibility on that, but that may have changed since this article.

00:39:58.740 And Berenson implied that for non-seniors, the side effects of the vaccine are worse than the COVID itself.

00:40:11.280 And Derek points out that, according to the CDC, the pandemic has killed tens of thousands of people under 50,

00:40:18.340 and the vaccines have not conclusively killed anybody.

00:40:21.400 Well, you're dead, but not conclusively because of the vaccine.

00:40:33.160 Now, I feel that this is a responsible statement because it isn't conclusive.

00:40:39.020 I mean, I don't even know how you would know exactly.

00:40:40.840 But I do think that you can conclusively say that vaccines in general do kill people.

00:40:46.600 You know, almost every new medication of any consequence kills somebody.

00:40:51.140 So it's probably true.

00:40:52.660 We just don't know how much.

00:40:54.580 So Berenson claim in country after country cases rise after vaccination.

00:41:00.700 Do you think that's true?

00:41:01.980 Did he, first of all, did he claim that?

00:41:03.480 I don't even know if he claimed that.

00:41:07.300 And I guess on Twitter, the author talked to Berenson and Berenson claimed that a Denmark study,

00:41:13.980 an excellent Denmark study, showed there's a 40% rise in infections immediately after nursing home residents got their first shots.

00:41:22.780 And so the writer of the article reached out to the author of that study, the reference study,

00:41:28.560 and asked, and the author of the study said that Berenson had mischaracterized her findings.

00:41:36.920 Okay.

00:41:40.880 And another claim that the vaccines are, their own data proves that they don't work.

00:41:49.380 And according to the author, the reality is that he just mischaracterized the trial data.

00:41:54.780 So the claim is that Berenson, who graduated from Yale, is a published author of great success,

00:42:04.700 and wrote for the New York Times for years.

00:42:07.900 So we're talking about a very smart, educated person.

00:42:10.840 The claim is that he's not educated enough to look at the, to do his own research, basically.

00:42:15.940 Because he did his own research and he did it wrong, according to the claim.

00:42:20.640 All right.

00:42:21.520 Berenson's claim, in Israel, the shots are causing a scary number of deaths.

00:42:24.600 And hospitalizations, the reality, according to the author, is that none of that's happening.

00:42:30.740 So what, so what do you think?

00:42:33.220 Do you agree with the Yale educated ex-New York Times reporter, who unambiguously is very smart?

00:42:42.980 We'd all agree with that, right?

00:42:44.740 There's no, there's nothing wrong with Alex Berenson's IQ.

00:42:48.380 He's a really smart, educated, well-informed guy.

00:42:51.320 Do you think he's capable, with all of those qualifications, of doing his own research?

00:42:58.160 I would say obviously no.

00:43:00.700 Obviously no.

00:43:01.980 Because the people who did the research say you misinterpreted our research.

00:43:08.480 I mean, that's pretty clear.

00:43:09.380 All right, here's the scariest story that I'm going to say is probably fake news, right?

00:43:18.340 So before I tell you this story, and you get all worried about it, maybe you shouldn't worry about it,

00:43:23.280 but I'm going to tell you it smells like fake news, like really hard.

00:43:28.360 So keep an open mind on this one.

00:43:31.060 But anyway, there was a study that showed that if you've got COVID-19, especially if you've got the bad version of it where you get on the ventilator,

00:43:40.400 and then survive, I don't know how many people that is, but your IQ could drop seven points on average. 0.99

00:43:48.620 Holy shit. 0.99

00:43:52.900 Now, you've heard about the brain fog and the long COVID, and it can maybe make your brain swell or something. 1.00

00:44:00.500 I don't know what the hell it's doing to your organs.

00:44:02.700 But scientists tested 81,000 people between January and December last year.

00:44:09.380 This is in Great Britain.

00:44:10.780 And then they gave them IQ tests.

00:44:13.040 And there were people who recovered and gave them IQ tests.

00:44:15.780 And there was a big difference.

00:44:20.540 There was a big difference.

00:44:23.040 I just saw that story.

00:44:25.840 I call it BS.

00:44:26.680 All right.

00:44:27.700 Why would it be BS? 0.99

00:44:29.620 Number one, how many studies that are peer-reviewed end up being bullshit? 0.99

00:44:36.220 Just in general. 0.99

00:44:37.740 About half.

00:44:39.220 About half of all studies end up being wrong.

00:44:43.280 So you've got a 50% chance it's wrong before you've even looked at the topic.

00:44:49.500 Right?

00:44:50.680 Do you agree with that?

00:44:51.960 That there's a 50% chance it's wrong before you've even looked at it.

00:44:56.660 But then let's look at it.

00:44:58.720 Do you believe that they got the causation right?

00:45:02.680 Do you believe that it was the virus that made these people who got extra sick? 0.99

00:45:07.440 It was the virus that made them dumber? 0.99

00:45:11.960 Or was it that dumb people are more likely to have a bad outcome with the virus? 0.99

00:45:18.560 What do you think? 0.99

00:45:19.880 Now, they did control for factors including age, sex, first language, and education level.

00:45:28.540 Okay. 0.99

00:45:29.080 But within a given education level, there are people who are much smarter and dumber, right? 0.69

00:45:37.140 So even if you've controlled for the education level, there's still a pretty big range, at least a seven-point IQ range, within any educational level.

00:45:46.500 I think you'd agree with that.

00:45:47.580 So I have a speculation that people who are smarter are better at everything.

00:45:56.940 Would you agree with that?

00:45:58.600 That on average, just on average, that people who are smarter are better at everything, all of the things being equal?

00:46:07.740 Would you agree with the basic assumption?

00:46:11.700 People who are smarter in general are better at everything in general.

00:46:15.120 Not every person in every situation.

00:46:16.960 I just mean on average, right?

00:46:19.540 Now, if that's true, would it be a stretch to say that the smarter people are going to have better outcomes with coronavirus?

00:46:28.500 Yes.

00:46:29.680 I mean, it's not a stretch.

00:46:31.560 Do you think that the smarter people were more likely to take vitamin D?

00:46:36.600 Maybe, right?

00:46:38.440 Do you think the smarter people got a little extra exercise and got some sun during the pandemic?

00:46:45.240 Maybe.

00:46:45.680 Do you think the smarter people stayed out of the room that had a whole bunch of people in it without masks for a long time?

00:46:54.480 Maybe.

00:46:55.460 Right?

00:46:56.200 You can imagine a whole bunch of decisions that all of us are making every day in the pandemic.

00:47:02.940 You know, do I go to that place without my mask?

00:47:05.540 Do I, you know, put on a new mask?

00:47:07.760 Do I get the vaccine?

00:47:08.840 You know, all kinds of stuff, right?

00:47:11.160 And you can imagine very easily that being smart improves your odds of just everything. 0.98

00:47:17.300 So I would call bullshit on the study just because most studies are bullshit and then secondly because I don't know if they got the causation right. 0.95

00:47:25.340 But just a big question. 0.99

00:47:27.600 Now, that would be another example.

00:47:28.920 Let's say you did your own research.

00:47:31.000 You did your own research and then you saw this study.

00:47:33.760 What do you do with it?

00:47:36.520 Because you did your own research, right?

00:47:38.480 Anomaly, legendary energy.

00:47:40.380 And you saw this.

00:47:41.220 What did you do with it?

00:47:41.840 With your own research.

00:47:43.620 Did you say that I'll incorporate this into my thinking or not incorporate it?

00:47:47.800 Which one's right, right?

00:47:51.220 Not so easy to do your own research.

00:47:53.220 All right.

00:47:54.600 There's an update on the big lie.

00:47:56.200 You know, CNN and the left-leaning anti-Trump media came up with this great brand, the big lie, to refer to Trump saying that the election was stolen.

00:48:06.360 Trump, of course, flipped it around, as you knew he was going to do.

00:48:10.840 And he says the big lie is that the election was fair.

00:48:13.280 And this caused Stephen Cullinson, the designated CNN anti-Trump troll, to have to write another article, another article today, in which he mentions the fact that Trump is trying to flip it around and turn the big lie into something else.

00:48:29.720 To which I say, the more you talk about it, the more you talk about it, the better it works.

00:48:37.940 So apparently Trump has at least scared CNN enough that he can pull this off, the flipperoo of turning the big lie into the opposite of what they're using it for, just like he did with fake news.

00:48:51.240 And they should be worried, because he does have the skill to do this.

00:48:55.800 He still has enough of an audience that he could totally make this transition.

00:49:00.900 And I wouldn't be surprised if it happens.

00:49:03.140 All right, that is what I wanted to talk about today.

00:49:09.500 And I know you've got all problems with mask talk, et cetera.

00:49:15.500 I get that.

00:49:16.680 But I'm actually surprised at how often there's a new angle on it.

00:49:21.780 Because when I talk about masks and vaccines, I'm really talking about the human decision-making process.

00:49:29.200 I'm not really talking about whether the vaccine works.

00:49:31.380 I don't know.

00:49:33.060 How the hell would I know?

00:49:34.780 I'm not talking about whether masks definitely work or not.

00:49:39.640 We'll find out someday, maybe.

00:49:41.460 Maybe not.

00:49:42.100 I don't know.

00:49:43.020 It seems like they work to me.

00:49:44.880 But I could be wrong.

00:49:47.100 And I would further say that if you talk to anybody who shows positivity about vaccines or masks or coronavirus,

00:49:55.040 any amount of certainty is a guaranteed tell for somebody who's not thinking.

00:50:01.380 If you're thinking about this pandemic at all, you're thinking in probability.

00:50:07.180 Because we've all been wrong.

00:50:09.740 Right?

00:50:10.640 Haven't we all been wrong about really basic stuff?

00:50:14.520 So, oh, I hear Locals is working very well today.

00:50:19.240 Even Anatoly.

00:50:23.520 Somebody's mentioning one of my favorite Twitter follows.

00:50:28.160 So, Anatoly is just great at ripping apart data and studies.

00:50:33.960 But, yeah, I would say that no matter how good you are, you're just kidding yourself if you can do your own research on stuff like this.

00:50:42.380 All right.

00:50:47.420 Amazon has no cheap rapid tests for COVID.

00:50:51.780 Why?

00:50:54.020 Good question.

00:50:55.780 Why does Amazon not yet have a whole bunch of cheap, maybe not as accurate, but cheap tests?

00:51:01.700 Because if they're cheap enough, they work anyway.

00:51:04.120 All right.

00:51:04.640 That's all for now.

00:51:05.460 And I will talk to you on YouTube tomorrow.

00:51:09.160 So, let's go.

Real Coffee with Scott Adams - July 26, 2021

Episode 1449 Scott Adams： Comparing COVID-19 Skeptics to the Experts, Biden and the Wall, The Big Lie and More

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