Real Coffee with Scott Adams - Episode 1460 Scott Adams： I Admit I Was Wrong About the Pandemic

00:00:00.000 YouTube that the sound isn't good? I know. I actually gave you bad sound today. So I took

00:00:06.540 the good equipment out of the mix and if you're on YouTube, your sound will be bad. If you're on

00:00:14.000 Locals, your sound might be good. I don't know. We'll find out. Hey, even your video is bad on

00:00:21.060 YouTube. All right. Well, today's going to be one of the best days you've ever had and it's

00:00:28.220 going to start with a little something I call the simultaneous sip and all you need is a

00:00:32.480 cup or a mug or a glass, a tank or a chalice or a canteen, a jug or a flask, a Vassalavati

00:00:37.860 guide, fill it with your favorite liquid. I like coffee. And join me now for the best,

00:00:48.140 the best thing that's ever happened to you today. It's called the simultaneous sip. It happens now.

00:00:54.800 Go.

00:00:58.220 Well, which of my faulty equipment would you like to see me throw out a window? I've got

00:01:07.060 one of these I can throw out the window. I've got, let's see, I've got one of these. I've got two

00:01:19.860 printers that aren't working. So I think I'm just going to have one day where I just take all my

00:01:25.260 broken technology. Just throw it out a window just for entertainment. And if you don't think

00:01:32.380 that's serious, well, you don't know me because yeah. So I was going to read this yesterday,

00:01:40.080 but it's still news. There were big headlines yesterday that Bill Gates says he regrets

00:01:46.660 the time spent with Jeffrey Epstein. He says, quote, it was a huge mistake. Now, there are some kinds of

00:01:56.780 stories that you can write without research. This would be one of them. Could you imagine the person

00:02:04.640 who was assigned to this story? Can you give us a story about Bill Gates? Ask him if he has any

00:02:11.700 regrets about being spending time with the most famous sexual predator of all time. What do you

00:02:19.220 think he'll say? I don't know. Somebody's going to have to ask him because maybe, maybe he would say

00:02:27.460 it was the best idea he ever had. Could surprise you. Could be news. But you send out your reporter

00:02:35.300 and say, Bill Gates, what do you think about spending time with the most famous sexual predator of all

00:02:42.280 times? And it turns out, he regrets it. I know that comes as a big surprise to all of us. But yeah,

00:02:50.880 he probably got together with his advisors and said, how do we handle this? Should I, should we just say,

00:02:58.820 you know, we really like the time we spent with him? And it was awesome. I'd do it again. What do

00:03:05.640 you think? How do you want to play this? But he played it a huge mistake. That was probably the right

00:03:11.720 way to go. So are you waiting for the part where I admit I'm wrong about the pandemic? Does anybody want

00:03:21.480 to see me eat crow? Tell you how wrong I was? Here it comes. I was very wrong about the pandemic in a

00:03:31.740 particular way. So a one of my friendlier critics explained this to me today. He said, Scott, when

00:03:40.900 you talk about the statistics that don't agree with you, you say that they're low quality and you point

00:03:47.440 out how unreliable data is and how unreliable our professional sources are. Do I do that? First of

00:03:55.680 all, do it, if something doesn't agree with me, if I see a statistic, do I tell you that the statistics

00:04:02.560 are bad? I do. If you see statistics from me that coincidentally agree with my point of view, do I tell

00:04:12.780 you those statistics might be wrong? What do you say? What do you say in the comments? Do I as often

00:04:20.380 tell you to be skeptical of stuff I disagree with as stuff I agree with? Huh? Huh? Well, a lot of it

00:04:31.740 depends on which window you're looking in. Because people don't consume my content the same way. Some

00:04:38.700 people watch every day. Some people just dip in and they'll see a certain story. And so watch

00:04:45.320 carefully as I admit that I was wrong. Because later you'll say I've never done it. And by the

00:04:52.640 way, I don't know if anybody's ever admitted they're wrong more often than I have in public. Literally

00:04:58.600 wrote a fucking book about it. A whole book of stuff that were mistakes and things I did wrong. A whole 0.64

00:05:05.780 book. And the most common claim, you never admit you're wrong. All right, here it comes. Here's me

00:05:11.420 admitting I'm wrong. I'm reasonably sure that I don't question the things that agree with me,

00:05:20.980 the statistics, as often as the things that don't agree with me. I feel like that's actually a valid

00:05:30.280 statement. Now, the reason I don't do it is that I tell you all the time that half of all data is

00:05:36.380 incorrect, don't trust anything. And I figure that covers it. But if I also say that the things that

00:05:42.760 don't agree with me are sketchy, but the thing, I don't mention that when the other things are,

00:05:47.080 that can be misleading. So I'll give you some examples.

00:05:51.520 Let's see. Here's one. Experts say masks are safe to wear. That was the big trending thing on Twitter

00:06:02.260 today. A bunch of sources saying that they did a bunch of studies and found out that masks don't

00:06:09.840 make you short of oxygen. They don't give you any problems. All right. Now, does that point of view

00:06:19.300 agree with my point of view or disagree? Well, I'm anti-mask at the moment for freedom reasons and

00:06:26.760 because I think the risk is a certain size. But my earlier statements that masks work and would be

00:06:35.720 better on than not, not sure how much they work, but that they work, would be supported by these

00:06:43.080 stories. So this is the sort of story that my critics would say, Scott, I don't think you're

00:06:49.620 critical enough about these statements that they don't, they don't have any negative effects. So

00:06:55.740 let me say, I don't believe this. Do you? I mean, I don't believe it's false that masks have no

00:07:05.040 negative impact. But I don't believe that the data is credible or reliable. Now, here's one of my

00:07:13.460 little tricks for knowing what is BS. Look for when the science says one thing, but your personal

00:07:23.280 observation is different. That doesn't mean you're right. It could mean the science is right and your

00:07:28.500 personal observation is wacky. But if they're out of whack, that should be at least a little flag

00:07:33.900 that says dig a little deeper. I wear a mask. And I have asthma. There's no fucking way I can

00:07:43.100 breathe the same with a mask on. No fucking way. Now, I saw all the doctors putting the oxygen

00:07:50.640 meter on. And then they put the masks on. One of them put like six masks on and was still able to

00:07:56.820 breathe. And his oxygen meter still set 100%. So you saw a bunch of doctors do that, right? Put

00:08:03.760 on the mask, oxygen meter was fine. Therefore, breathing is just the same with a mask on. Are

00:08:10.260 you convinced? They did it right in front of you. No, because when I put the mask on, I can't fucking

00:08:17.000 breathe. Does anybody have a different experience? You know, I have asthma, so I've got a little extra

00:08:24.420 going on there. But does anybody have the experience that you can breathe the same with a fucking mask

00:08:29.180 mask on? No, no, this is obviously fake news. It happens to agree with my viewpoint. But it's also

00:08:38.580 fake. Right? So here's an example where something agrees with my general view of life. But it's

00:08:46.480 obviously fake. Now, here's what's probably going on. I don't know this for sure. So this is speculation

00:08:53.760 hypothesis. We know, for example, that people who have COVID and their lungs are degraded don't know

00:09:00.720 it often. Do you know why they don't know it? Because they compensate. They breathe harder.

00:09:07.460 But they don't kind of realize it. So they're getting enough, but not each breath. But then they

00:09:14.000 don't realize it. Do you think that people who wear the masks have the same breathing pattern

00:09:19.380 as someone who doesn't? In other words, if you went for a run with a mask on, would you have to

00:09:25.900 work harder to get the oxygen you need? Probably. But it wouldn't be a problem of you not getting

00:09:33.380 the oxygen. It would be a problem of you having to work harder to get it. Exercise would be kind

00:09:38.660 of degraded. So I would say that that's not credible information. But I also don't have any reason to

00:09:46.800 think that masks do hurt you. So I have no reason to think that masks are dangerous, at least in terms

00:09:52.960 of science, but also no reason to think that they're safe just because this recent information says so.

00:09:59.620 How about this one? The CDC estimated a one-year decline in life expectancy in 2020. A one-year

00:10:10.300 decline, that would be gigantic. It would also agree with my worldview. Because I say the pandemic

00:10:18.560 was real. We may have miscounted by 20% or something, but that wouldn't change the big picture.

00:10:24.280 So I say the deaths are real, and it's a real pandemic, and it's not like a regular flu. That's

00:10:29.240 my worldview. So this should agree with me, right? The CDC estimating there's a one-year decline in life

00:10:34.860 expectancy. It's exactly what I'd expect, except it's bullshit. They just calculated it wrong.

00:10:41.460 So Peter Bach goes through it in a publication, basically saying that they just made a bad

00:10:49.340 assumption that it's just all bullshit. They just didn't know how to calculate it right.

00:10:53.860 So here's an example of something that agrees with me. Well, two examples. Two data points that

00:10:59.900 agree with me that I tell you, I don't think either of them are credible. They just happen to agree

00:11:04.540 with me. So I don't think that I can keep this up, meaning that I doubt I will be as good as I was

00:11:12.060 today, and tell you the things that agree with me are also wrong. But I'll try to do better. So I'm

00:11:18.120 going to say that the criticism that I haven't done that enough in the past, probably valid.

00:11:24.020 So here I am admitting to an error. All right. Well, actually, here's another example.

00:11:30.300 There was a study, 80,000 people, I think, in the UK, and it said that long COVID, or just COVID,

00:11:39.260 if you get COVID, your IQ will be lowered on average. And it's quite measurable. It's like a few points.

00:11:47.880 Now, does that agree with my worldview? It does. If this were true, that getting COVID lowers your IQ,

00:11:59.880 that would be right on point with my worldview, which says that the long COVID, you know, the risk of

00:12:05.800 getting COVID is bad, not just because you might die, but that the long term consequences. So it

00:12:13.900 agrees with my worldview, but is it accurate? Well, it took all of about a minute for somebody who's

00:12:21.340 good at looking at looking at stuff. Donald Luskin, a practicing economist, looked at it and said,

00:12:27.260 you know, there's 81,000 people you studied. They looked at 81,000 people and eliminated almost all

00:12:35.760 of them from the study, because there wasn't any previous IQ information about them. So they could

00:12:43.140 only find hundreds of people in the 81,000 that were even worth studying. So when the headline says

00:12:51.320 81,000 people were studied, that's just bullshit. They started with 81,000 and then threw out almost

00:12:58.820 all of them, because the only ones they could use were the ones where they had a fairly recent IQ test

00:13:04.920 so that they could measure any difference. The whole story is just bullshit. It just happens to agree

00:13:11.540 with me. So would I have been harsh to it, had it, you know, before this conversation? I don't know.

00:13:18.960 You have to wonder. But here was a comment that I'm sorry I missed, but one of my, I think somebody

00:13:27.240 who follows me said this on Twitter, that's a little too, a little too on the nose, right? Isn't it

00:13:36.140 convenient that, you know, the powers that be want you to get vaccinated? And then conveniently,

00:13:45.260 there's a study that says if you don't, your IQ is going to go down. Now, would you know if your IQ

00:13:52.280 went down two points? Because it's, you know, sort of in that range, two, three points. Would you know?

00:13:56.780 No, you'd think you did, right? Talk to somebody who's had COVID. Tell them that there's a study

00:14:04.300 that says your IQ goes down two points. And then ask them, having primed them for the question.

00:14:10.320 Now, now you've, you've biased them. Hey, there's a study that says your IQ goes down. Have you felt

00:14:15.700 any difference since you got the virus? What are people going to say? Two points? Yeah, I feel like I

00:14:23.640 feel that. Got a little brain fog. It was that time I tried to calculate a tip on, on the restaurant

00:14:30.680 and, you know, I didn't get it on the first try. You're right. My IQ did go down, right? Yeah. And

00:14:38.440 in the comments, somebody says with age. What, doesn't your IQ go down with age anyway? I had the same

00:14:44.660 question. So if you studied people who, let's say, took an IQ test 10 years ago, isn't their IQ lower?

00:14:53.640 You know, depending on which age group is getting the most COVID, if they tend to be skewing older.

00:15:00.440 If you look at a 60-year-old compared to a 50-year-old, same IQ? I don't, I don't think so.

00:15:08.760 I think it goes down a couple of points, I think, but I'm not sure. So I don't believe the story that

00:15:15.480 COVID lowers your IQ. There were only a few hundred people tested. And I don't think any of this sounds

00:15:21.800 credible to me. It just happened to agree with my worldview. There's a story that kids, teens are

00:15:28.460 beating COVID tests, well, in the opposite way. They're giving it a false positive intentionally

00:15:34.300 by putting cola, and I guess some fruit drinks, into the test. And it makes it seem as if you have

00:15:42.860 COVID and then you can get out of school. So you get two weeks off of school by putting some soda in

00:15:48.940 your COVID test. Now, I don't know if that's true. Just like every other story. I don't know.

00:15:57.540 Is that true? Do you think so? Somebody says, I'm not a psychiatrist, but I can bet Scott is a

00:16:08.520 narcissist. You don't have to bet. I can confirm it. The thing people don't understand about narcissists

00:16:14.700 is that there are two different kinds. One kind likes to get its supply, as it were,

00:16:22.820 its supply of praise and feeling of worth from doing good things for other people.

00:16:30.880 Is that a problem to you? Is it a problem to you that I would like to get my feeling of self-worth

00:16:36.480 and any praise that society wants to give me, that I would like to get that by doing good things

00:16:42.900 for other people to earn that praise? Is that a mental condition? Do you think I'd need hospitalization

00:16:50.680 for that? Because that's one kind of narcissist. There's another kind that just, and they overlap,

00:16:56.920 of course, but there's another kind who just thinks they're a little bit better or a lot better

00:17:00.560 than they really are. I'm also one of those, intentionally. I always set my, you know, my expectations

00:17:09.180 of what I can accomplish. I set it higher than reasonable because it gives me something to

00:17:14.700 shoot for and it lets me perform better. So you don't have to wonder if I'm a narcissist. I can

00:17:21.140 confirm it. Absolutely. I mean, a hundred percent. Everything about me fits those categories, but you may

00:17:28.160 not know that there's more than one kind. The malignant narcissist is just a whole different deal.

00:17:34.960 And I may be one of those. If I am, I wouldn't know it. You know, I certainly have the other kinds

00:17:42.540 for sure. But am I also malignant? I don't know. Could be. I'm not the one who would be able to know.

00:17:51.800 Anyway, here's what I was going to say. So COLA causes false positives on tests. And it makes me

00:17:59.900 wonder this. Are you ready for some deep conspiracy theorizing? I know you are. You love conspiracy

00:18:07.500 theories. Admit it. Admit it. You love them. Here's one. What if, wait for it, what if a lot of the COVID

00:18:19.540 positive tests were people who just had a diet Coke and read a Dilber comic and snorted Coke out of their

00:18:29.220 nose? Yeah. If you laugh Coke out of your nose and then do a COVID test, aren't they going to get a

00:18:36.840 little Coca-Cola on their swab? It's going to look like a false positive. Now, wait, wait, there's more.

00:18:43.500 What if, what if there's a high correlation between the people who would drink a COLA drink,

00:18:52.820 not exactly a health food, and the people who would be unhealthy and have comorbidities are likely to die

00:19:00.280 anyway? Hmm. Hmm. What if it's a soda pandemic? Huh? Huh? What if the false positives are soda in the nose,

00:19:14.380 and the people dying were going to die sooner than other people anyway because they have unhealthy diets,

00:19:19.560 as indicated by their soda consumption.

00:19:27.720 Now, I don't think any of that's true, but wouldn't it be easy to start that rumor?

00:19:38.280 None of that's true. Don't take any of that seriously, okay? But I do wonder if it's true that

00:19:45.820 these types of drinks can cause a false positive. Are you telling me that never, that never a person

00:19:53.120 who just had a soda tested positive with a swab? Because if you've got the soda in your mouth,

00:20:00.720 doesn't at least the, I don't know, the fumes from the soda get in your nose or something?

00:20:06.920 No, just a question. Here's a question. Do vaccines work? Today there's a information that

00:20:19.640 the people who have the Delta infection, you can get the same amount of virus

00:20:24.220 regardless of vaccination status, early analysis suggests. What do you think of that? Now,

00:20:32.820 those of you who believe that the vaccinations are not credible, did this information agree with what

00:20:42.060 you already thought? It was pretty convincing, wasn't it? Because you already thought it was true.

00:20:48.600 If you think that the vaccinations are sketchy and you don't trust them, you almost certainly believe

00:20:55.340 that it didn't change the level of infection for Delta variant. But is it true? Well, even the people

00:21:03.840 who did the study say don't believe us. Let me say that again. Even the people who said, who did the

00:21:11.040 study, the people who did the study say in clear language, don't believe this is true until it's

00:21:18.660 confirmed because they didn't do the kind of study that they are confident you can conclude it would be

00:21:23.120 reproducible. So the first thing is, even the people who did it don't say you should believe

00:21:28.060 it. All right? So should you believe it? Well, if they say don't believe it, should you? Now,

00:21:36.640 they do say there's enough of an indication that it's a real worry. Should you be worried? Of course.

00:21:43.620 you should be worried. Somebody says, what about anal swabs? That is a good question. Because 1.00

00:21:52.500 wouldn't that pick up some Coca-Cola? Good question. So what, so listen to the exact language. Delta

00:22:02.820 infections may produce similar virus levels, regardless of vaccination study status. They may produce it.

00:22:12.560 What does that tell you? Doesn't that tell you that it's like that with some people, but not with

00:22:18.720 others? And didn't you already know that? Did you not already know that some people can get a

00:22:27.520 vaccination and get just as much COVID as if they had no vaccination at all? You all knew that, right?

00:22:33.000 Because for some people, for whatever reason, the vaccination just doesn't work. You know, they have

00:22:37.380 some weird situation with their immunity. So is it telling us that everybody has the same virus level

00:22:45.980 and that it lasts the same amount of time? We don't know. So we don't know anything. Because what if you

00:22:54.340 do have the same virus level, but only during this shorter period, and then it goes away fast? Do we know

00:23:01.820 that having the same amount of virus in you makes you just as transmissible? We don't. Because what if

00:23:10.240 you're not coughing? You know, what if you're vaccinated? So you're not getting symptoms. So

00:23:15.380 you're just not coughing and you're not breathing extra hard, which is what happens when your lungs are

00:23:21.380 degraded. I mean, do you think that vaccinated people transmitted as much? Don't know. That's worth 1.00

00:23:29.480 studying. But we do know that they, at some point, some of them might have a lot of virus in them,

00:23:34.160 which I think we already knew. But it's being presented like new information.

00:23:39.960 So if you don't get sick, and by the way, I think we've all, we all agree that these are not

00:23:45.180 vaccinations in the classic sense of preventing. They're more like therapeutics that come in a needle,

00:23:50.960 which is good, which is good. All right. I'm seeing some charts go up on the locals platform.

00:24:03.200 Somebody's making an argument with charts. Let me tell you what you should believe when somebody

00:24:08.740 puts a chart on the internet. Nothing. Nothing. If somebody gives you a really convincing chart,

00:24:16.680 even with sources on the internet, what should you say to yourself? You should say, I have seen no

00:24:23.240 information here. Nothing. Because you probably don't know the context, blah, blah, blah. All right.

00:24:31.980 Rasmussen has a poll asking people if Cuomo should resign, Governor Cuomo, because of the report saying

00:24:39.080 he had a number of highly credible sexual improprieties in the workplace. 73% said he should

00:24:49.360 resign. Huh. 73% think he should resign. So roughly 25% of the public thinks that a guy who is a serial

00:25:03.780 sexual abuser should keep his job as a leader of the state. What have I told you about 25% of the

00:25:12.100 public? On every poll. It's not every poll, but it's so consistent, it's hilarious. 25% of the public,

00:25:20.460 and I hope it's a different 25% every time, are idiots on every question. It's just so consistent.

00:25:27.320 But here's the weird part. 77% of conservatives think Cuomo should go, but only 69% of moderates and

00:25:36.280 73% of liberals. So in other words, conservatives are more me too on this than liberals. Or they just

00:25:46.580 don't want a Democrat to be governor. So of course that's in there too. So in this particular case,

00:25:54.020 one could interpret this as conservatives believe women and liberals, not as much. But of course,

00:26:03.060 it's the politics that's pushing those numbers, not anything else. How many of you know internet user

00:26:09.880 Zuby, who is a, do you say hip hop star or rapper? I'm not sure because I'm not young and I'm not cool.

00:26:19.640 I don't know if I know the right words for that, but many of you follow him. He's a great follow,

00:26:25.060 great guy. And a lot of fun, very talented, talented in a number of areas. He's a classic

00:26:31.860 talent stack kind of a guy that if you looked at any one talent, you'd say, oh, that's, that's,

00:26:38.920 that's good. That's not the best one in the world, but he's got a whole bunch of them.

00:26:41.860 Like everything from fitness to media to marketing to music to just a whole bunch of shit. So Zuby is

00:26:52.760 pretty impressive as a human being, but he's got one very provocative belief. I'm going to dig into

00:27:00.380 it a little bit, which is that the pandemic wasn't a real pandemic. We just, we just got too excited

00:27:08.240 about it and that, uh, yeah, people are dying, but it's closer to a flu level problem and we should

00:27:14.600 not have changed the world for it. Now here's the question. Can you, and I guess part of this belief

00:27:23.200 was that the total number of deaths from COVID are not real, that they're more about comorbidities

00:27:29.640 and stuff. But here's my question. Can't we know for sure by just looking at excess,

00:27:35.360 more, more, excess deaths compared to the trend line for the last few years and say, well, where

00:27:42.960 did all those people die from? It wasn't the lockdown. I mean, I don't, I don't know too many

00:27:49.020 people who died from the lockdown. There are more suicides. So maybe that counts more people drinking

00:27:54.580 themselves to death, more, more opioids. That probably counts, but it doesn't explain all of

00:28:00.540 it. So here's the most basic question I asked if you're trying to trust numbers. Uh, number one,

00:28:09.920 well, let's give us some context. We've seen some reports lately that COVID deaths have been

00:28:14.740 overcounted in hospitals. Everybody agrees with that, right? There's nobody here who thinks

00:28:19.120 that COVID counts are accurate, right? Nobody believes that. But how, how accurate they are

00:28:27.160 is a subject of dispute. My sense of it is they're probably with it. It's probably 80% accurate,

00:28:33.620 which would give you the same strategies for everything as if they're 100% accurate. But

00:28:39.820 suppose they were only 10% accurate. Well, then all your policies would be wrong, probably.

00:28:46.260 Right? But how do you tell? How do you know if you're 80% accurate or 20% accurate? Well,

00:28:51.820 one way is to look at the total deaths, because there's no other explanation for the total deaths

00:28:58.260 after you've taken out the suicides and the overdoses, the things that clearly are,

00:29:04.340 you know, more related to that lockdown than the pandemic. If you, if you do that comparison,

00:29:11.720 shouldn't you know for sure if your COVID estimates are at least within the ballpark,

00:29:17.260 right? And have people done that? Well, so when I asked that question, what do you think happens?

00:29:23.700 When I asked the question, have we compared COVID deaths the way we count them to the overall

00:29:29.760 mortality? And the answer is, you will be sent many graphs on Twitter. If you'd like to know the

00:29:37.620 answer to that, look at my tweet, and you'll see that people have sent you a lot of graphs.

00:29:42.600 Now, what is the credibility of a graph on Twitter, regardless of the source? Zero. None. So,

00:29:52.900 believe it or not, it's the simplest question in the world, or feels like it. It can't be answered,

00:29:58.680 because we don't have any credible sources of anything. It's just all bullshit on bullshit on

00:30:03.280 bullshit. Now, some people said, but Scott, it has been studied. Here's my graph.

00:30:12.880 No. No, it hasn't been studied. Because if you haven't studied next year, you don't know what

00:30:21.080 the fuck happened. Because if next year, if deaths are way down, then you would know that all you did

00:30:26.680 was, you know, push some deaths into a prior year, and that the total number of deaths maybe is the same

00:30:32.060 as if no pandemic had happened at all. You know, if you looked at two or three years on average.

00:30:38.240 So, no, we don't know the answer to this question, because we don't know the future.

00:30:42.620 We don't know what the measurement will be next year. And if you don't know that, you don't know

00:30:47.460 what happened this year. It can't be known. In my opinion, it can't be known. So, is Zuby right

00:30:53.860 that the pandemic is fake, and when it's all said and done, we won't see the excess deaths

00:31:00.000 that could be attributed to it. Only excess deaths, or mostly excess deaths. I don't want

00:31:05.700 to be an absolute about somebody else's opinion. But mostly excess deaths from other means,

00:31:13.020 the lockdown. Don't know. We actually don't know. The biggest question in the world,

00:31:20.680 we actually don't know. But I do think that the data shows that the excess deaths are hard

00:31:28.340 to explain any other way. But we'll know in a year or two.

00:31:35.100 Why is it that when humans are, you know, accused of something, we say they're innocent

00:31:41.080 until proven guilty. But should we say that about an election? It makes sense to say a human

00:31:49.420 is innocent until proven guilty, even when we know that's not true. It's just the way we want

00:31:56.340 to manage the way we live with each other, is that until it's proven, you're not guilty

00:32:02.280 according to the law. That makes sense. But what about an election? An election is not a person.

00:32:09.460 Right? You can't hurt its feelings. You can't put an election in jail. Should an election be

00:32:14.080 innocent until proven guilty? Because that's the approach we've taken. We've taken the approach

00:32:20.800 that the 2020 election had to be fair, or at least this is the mainstream narrative. It had to be fair

00:32:29.220 because there's no evidence it's guilty. That only makes sense for people. It doesn't make sense

00:32:37.980 for a system. For a system, you should look at the whole situation and then decide if it's innocent

00:32:45.460 or guilty. So here's my take. If you have an election that's designed in a way that prevents

00:32:54.900 audits from happening, and I think that's the case, our election seems to be designed in a way

00:33:00.300 that at least part of it, the electronic part, is not auditable in the classic sense. So if you design

00:33:08.400 a system that's not auditable, you know you've done that, right? During the design phase, you would

00:33:13.760 certainly know if you designed it to be auditable. You have to assume it's fraudulent. Don't you?

00:33:22.020 Doesn't that reverse the burden of proof? I would say if a system is designed so it can't be audited,

00:33:29.440 you've also designed a system that guarantees fraud. You just don't know when. That's the only

00:33:36.220 question. It's guaranteed by the design because they're hiding places. Whenever they're hiding

00:33:42.020 places, parts you can't audit, you always get fraud. You just have to wait long enough, right?

00:33:47.980 It doesn't mean it happened today, and it doesn't mean it happened in 2020, but it'll happen. It's

00:33:54.780 guaranteed. It's built into the system. It's literally designed to guarantee fraud. So shouldn't

00:34:01.480 our default assumption be that it was fraudulent? Because remember, the election, you can't hurt its

00:34:06.900 feelings. It's not a person. You can't put it in jail. You can't give it any legal rights. It's

00:34:14.460 just a system. And if a system is designed to guarantee fraud, that should be your default

00:34:20.120 assumption. Even if you're wrong, it should be your starting assumption. All right. Or to put it more

00:34:28.180 cleanly, you get what you design. You get what you designed. And we designed a system that you

00:34:37.720 can't check. That's what we got. All right. Let's talk about persuasion again. It was pointed

00:34:47.860 out, Mark Schneider said this, and some other people were weighing in on this on Twitter, that

00:34:53.640 showing pictures of people getting the actual needle is anti-persuasive. Because there are

00:34:59.520 enough people who have a needle phobia that just the picture of it is such a turnoff that you don't

00:35:06.800 want to get the vaccination. Number one, is that true? I would say that's probably true.

00:35:13.600 That seems, you know, you have to test this stuff to really know. But, you know, with any, you don't

00:35:19.300 even have to be experienced in persuasion to know this is true. That if you show the scariest thing,

00:35:24.100 and you show it in a visual form, you've made visual a concept. What happens when you make visual

00:35:31.380 something scary? It gets worse. Right? It gets worse. Showing all these celebrities who are not

00:35:38.860 afraid of the needle getting a needle is the worst thing you could do. And that's a good observation.

00:35:44.500 And I didn't make it myself. And I'm, I'm embarrassed because I should have seen this.

00:35:49.760 So what should you do instead? Let's say you wanted to persuade. Stop, stop. I'm not persuading you

00:35:57.900 because I don't, I don't try to persuade you to make medical decisions. That would be unethical of me.

00:36:03.300 So I don't do it. But talking about persuasion is what I do do. And so we'll talk about it in this

00:36:08.520 context. If you wanted people to get the vaccination, knowing that a lot of them have needle phobia,

00:36:14.040 how would you do it? Here's how I'd do it. I would show somebody who's getting a vaccination,

00:36:21.020 but I would just show them the face. All right. So look at, look at me in the camera,

00:36:25.580 if you can see this. So if you can see my big old head and you can see me worrying about getting the

00:36:31.660 shot, and then I get the shot and then I say, when are you going to give me the shot? And they say,

00:36:36.540 you just got it. And then I go, oh, I just got it. I didn't even feel it. And then you show another

00:36:42.280 one. You just do a compilation clip of just faces of people saying, was that it? Did I get

00:36:49.160 the shot? And you have them looking away because this is what I do. I don't have a needle phobia,

00:36:55.920 but I don't like seeing it either. So I have never looked in the direction of the person who gives me

00:37:01.520 the shot. I sit on the chair and I go like that. I look to the left or right because I usually get a

00:37:07.560 shot in the other arm. So I usually look that way and I just keep looking that way the entire time

00:37:12.840 because the last thing I want to see is the fucking needle. I don't want to see it. No,

00:37:21.000 no. If you showed people getting open heart surgery, I think fewer people would get it.

00:37:29.440 You don't want to see it. You want to see the happy face of the person who recovered from the

00:37:34.840 surgery. So show me faces. Faces are the most persuasive. So visual and faces, and you show

00:37:43.420 people being surprised that they could barely feel it. That's it. That's your persuasion.

00:37:52.220 And if you show enough people, the more you show, the more persuasive it gets.

00:37:56.100 Here's an interesting thought. Getting the COVID shot will cure you of being afraid of needles.

00:38:08.540 Because a number of people have said this, that for whatever reason, the COVID shot,

00:38:12.300 you barely feel it compared to other vaccinations you may have experienced. I don't know if it's

00:38:17.740 because the needle is thinner, it doesn't go in as far, it doesn't catch a vein. I don't know what,

00:38:21.900 but if you compared it to anything like having your blood drawn, it's not even close. You just

00:38:27.500 barely feel it. You hardly know it's even happening. So here, I would go right at this. And I'd say that

00:38:34.780 getting a COVID shot will fix two problems. You'll be vaccinated, and it will help you with your fear

00:38:42.000 of needles because you're not even going to feel this freaking thing. So now, is that true? We're

00:38:48.580 talking only about persuasion, so it doesn't need to be true in this context. All right.

00:38:55.560 That is largely what I wanted to talk about today.

00:39:04.000 Damn news is straight up boring now. Yeah. Yeah. Did you see the...

00:39:10.060 So, Biden was answering a question about Ron DeSantis today. Did you see it?

00:39:17.480 And somebody said, what about Ron DeSantis? Yeah, I'm paraphrasing. He, you know, he says he's going to

00:39:23.360 block your, you know, rules or whatever, your federal rules. And here was Biden's... Biden looks at the

00:39:30.460 reporter. He goes, Governor who? And he laughs and walks away. Governor who? Now, it's kind of genius.

00:39:39.720 It's kind of genius. Biden's strategy of not engaging sometimes is just brilliant. Because

00:39:51.020 whatever he said would be a headline, right? Because it's the president versus the governor.

00:39:56.100 And instead of engaging with it, he just blows it off. But here's the best part. When Biden jokes

00:40:04.840 that he can't remember something, it starts creating this context where the next time he

00:40:11.460 can't remember something legitimately, he can joke about it. He's creating a context in which

00:40:17.420 he can hide his dementia. It's really clever. Now, is he doing it intentionally? I don't know.

00:40:22.880 It could be. But it's having that effect.

00:40:25.580 All right. Let me... Let me pause here. I'm seeing in the comments a picture of somebody

00:40:35.860 who had an adverse effect from a vaccination. Do we all agree that there are adverse effects

00:40:43.600 from vaccinations? Nobody says they're not, right? So how many individual examples would

00:40:52.680 you need to see to convince you one way or the other that you should get a shot? Well,

00:40:59.000 here's the last thing you should do if you want to be helpful. Show people pictures like

00:41:05.100 this of people who had a bad effect. That's almost criminal. It's almost criminal. If, well,

00:41:13.500 let me make an assumption. If the vaccinations are good overall, and I'll allow that some of you

00:41:19.120 are not convinced of that. But if the vaccinations are, as the experts say, the only way we can get

00:41:26.760 past this, then showing an individual picture, because remember, pictures are very persuasive.

00:41:33.220 A picture of somebody with a bad outcome from a vaccination, which we know happens. Statistically,

00:41:38.220 we know this for sure. It's just the worst thing you could do. Now, if you're convinced that

00:41:43.660 vaccinations are definitely worse than not getting vaccinated, well, then you're persuading exactly

00:41:51.440 the way you want to. But man, you better be right. I would say that if you take the risk of

00:42:00.140 showing a picture of somebody with a bad outcome from vaccinations, you better fucking be right 0.98

00:42:05.740 that vaccinations are worse than not getting vaccinated, because you're taking that responsibility.

00:42:11.260 When you persuade that hard, because most of us are just chattering on Twitter, right? It's not

00:42:18.360 terribly persuasive. Oh, there's a tweet with some words in it. But as soon as you take that to the

00:42:23.860 next level, and show me the picture of somebody with a bad outcome, and you can really see it,

00:42:30.000 you're a doctor. You've sort of crossed the line. You've crossed the line into making medical

00:42:37.560 recommendations, and you're not a doctor. It's one thing when we talk about the doctors, and we

00:42:42.800 question them, and we're skeptical. That's all good, to be skeptical. But once you show that picture

00:42:50.200 of the person with a bad outcome, you're a doctor, because you're really telling people what to do with

00:42:55.020 their medical situation at that point. That's not just talk. So just be careful of it. All right,

00:43:01.080 I don't mean to come down on a subscriber, Daniel, because I know that you're trying to be useful

00:43:06.800 here, and let people know what the risks are. And I appreciate that. So I believe the intention

00:43:13.160 is all good. No doubt about that. I don't question the intention. So good intentions,

00:43:19.440 but just be careful. When you go visual, especially like scary visual, fear and visual persuasion are the

00:43:27.940 two strongest things. So I mean, that's what we're just talking about with the showing people getting

00:43:32.680 vaccinated. It changes behavior. A scary picture changes behavior. I would argue that the video of

00:43:40.660 Wuhan with people collapsing in the streets had a lot to do with, you know, behavior. And that was

00:43:49.420 probably not even true. All right. Dr. Johnson says, Scott, don't want to upset your big pharma bosses,

00:44:00.500 sheep. Well, Dr. Johnson, let me speak to you directly. Fuck you. Fuck you for imagining that I

00:44:10.260 would take money from pharma and give people medical advice based on being paid for it. Fuck you and

00:44:17.060 everybody in your family. Fuck you, your dog. Fuck your house. Fuck your car. Fuck your bank

00:44:23.700 account. Fuck your stupid fucking ugly head. Fuck everybody you've ever talked to. Anybody who likes

00:44:29.900 you. Fuck you completely. No, I don't take money from pharma. I don't take any secret money from anybody

00:44:40.980 you're not aware of, right? I take subscriptions from individuals who would like extra content that's

00:44:48.100 a little too edgy for the public. I definitely do that. But if you imagine that I'm taking money from

00:44:54.780 anybody, especially pharma. I fucking hate big pharma, just like most of you, right? I think pharma is

00:45:02.460 largely a criminal organization that also does good things, right? Like the food industry. The food

00:45:10.600 industry is, at least the grocery store industry, it's a criminal organization. If you've ever dealt

00:45:16.940 with it, they're just fucking criminals. But we also need food, so there's a good side to it.

00:45:24.300 Anne-Marie says, Dr. Johnson has a PhD in social work. Well, maybe that's why you're so fucking stupid,

00:45:30.300 Dr. Johnson. Dr. Johnson, you are one of these smart idiots I keep hearing about.

00:45:38.460 Like, why would you even really think that I would take money from pharma to sell a drug?

00:45:45.720 I can't even think of anything less ethical than that. Can you? Think of something less ethical than

00:45:52.780 that. I can't. I can't think of anything that would be worse than that. And by the way, I'm saying this so

00:45:58.860 clearly that my life would be completely over if somehow, like, later information came out, and it

00:46:06.000 always does, right? You always get caught. If information came out later that I've been paid

00:46:10.420 by somebody to do something, I'd get caught. You know, there'd have to be somebody else who knew

00:46:15.500 about it who would want to talk about it later. So no, it would be a stupid risk. Only an idiot would do

00:46:22.820 that. And you'd have to be a really unethical idiot who wants to just have no credibility

00:46:29.840 whatsoever in their life. So Dr. Johnson, fuck you and everybody who looks like you. And please 1.00

00:46:35.740 never, never consume any of my content again. All right.

00:46:47.020 You and Bill Gates are buddies. Local, somebody's saying, no, I've never met Bill Gates. I always

00:46:54.820 wanted to, but now it would be too dangerous. I always thought it'd be fun to be Bill Gates.

00:47:00.940 At the moment, not the right time. So probably won't be following up on that.

00:47:14.140 Let's see. People are trying to reconcile how they agreed with you on Trump and not on the

00:47:19.340 vaccines. Yeah, you know, there's a strange phenomenon where people can think that I was

00:47:29.800 reasonable and smart on, on one topic that's in the news that has, you know, same information

00:47:35.180 we're all looking at, right? I don't have special information usually. And then I'll be all smart

00:47:41.560 and rational on that topic. And then the very next topic, like I'll lose my mind. And, and the only

00:47:48.660 way you can explain it is that I must be bought off by a big pharma company. It's like, there's only one

00:47:53.680 one way to explain it. Do you ever consider the alternative explanation that I'm right twice?

00:48:03.180 Is that, I mean, the, the people, the people who are sure I was right before, but now I'm wrong.

00:48:09.020 Do you ever even consider the possibility that I was just right twice and that maybe you were wrong?

00:48:14.140 Um, some people look, suffer from a lack of imagination. Yeah. So that's, uh, I often say

00:48:25.900 that if you can't think of any other reason for why you see something, um, that's a lack of

00:48:33.340 imagination. It doesn't mean you've determined that there's only one possibility because the

00:48:39.060 possibility is that you're just wrong or you're experiencing cognitive dissonance, um, or somebody

00:48:47.140 says, you're not right about everything. So here's somebody who's joining this late, who's accusing

00:48:52.320 me of pretending I'm right about everything. When the entire theme of my show was how wrong I am.

00:49:01.240 Um, see the problems. Um, uh, 90% are moderate and 10% chasing a joke. I'm not sure I get that.

00:49:17.360 Dr. Johnson says we have an intervention plan for you. I'm talking to Christina about it now.

00:49:23.000 Yeah. Maybe I do need an intervention. Uh, but Dr. Johnson, fuck off. Uh, I don't like you. You're not

00:49:34.500 a good person. And that is my show for the day. Let me ask you something. Um, I know that you,

00:49:45.660 you hate the COVID content. I do too. Like I really want to talk about other stuff like

00:49:52.760 politics and world events and stuff, but the news industry has decided we can only care about one

00:49:58.140 thing. And so there's not much else to talk about. Uh, when there is, I'll be talking about it and

00:50:04.440 then things will get back to normal. But my God, can this pandemic ever get over? It doesn't look

00:50:10.380 like it, nor do we have a strategy to get past it. Yeah. If there's one thing that bothers me the most

00:50:15.680 about the way the government is handling this, it's that they're not telling us the truth.

00:50:20.880 They're not telling us the truth that at our current rate of vaccinations, we're not going to get

00:50:27.000 there. And we have to just figure out what life looks like without getting there. So, um, that's

00:50:35.420 all for now. And I'll talk to you tomorrow.

Real Coffee with Scott Adams - August 06, 2021

Episode 1460 Scott Adams： I Admit I Was Wrong About the Pandemic

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