Episode 1463 Scott Adams： Viruses, Climate, and Other Scary Persuasion
Episode Stats
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Summary
Scott Adams is back with another blast from the past, this time about the coronavirus outbreak in the U.S. and the hypocrisy behind it, and a new drug being developed to fight it. Plus, a new kind of robot.
Transcript
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Well, well, well, you have come to the right place.
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This is the place for coffee with Scott Adams, the best time of the whole day.
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And all you need is a cup or mug or a glass, a tank or jalous or a dine, a canteen, a jug
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And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure of the dopamine hit of the day.
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Oh, good drawing of a robot there in the comments.
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Well, well, well, let me start with the funniest tweet of the day from Glenn Greenwald.
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You all know about Obama having a big birthday party, his 60th birthday party, and he invited
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a lot of what the New York Times call sophisticated vaccinated people.
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So unlike your Sturgis, where there's a bunch of unsophisticated people, Obama's birthday had
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Well, Glenn Greenwald tweeted on this perfectly and said, there was a photo attached, and he
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said, here's Biden's climate crisis czar, John Kerry, arriving on his private jet to attend
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Everything you need to know about the world in one tweet.
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The climate czar is on a private jet, and Obama's got a maskless mass gathering.
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So everybody's mad about the hypocrisy, and I guess they should.
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There's some CDC official, but not all of them, finally said this.
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He said that we will all be exposed to the coronavirus by the end of the year, maybe next year.
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Does exposed mean that if you have a vaccination, and you are exposed to it, do you carry any
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Still a little bit uncertain, because we know that vaccinated people do not only carry the
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virus, but can have as much viral load as someone who's not vaccinated at all, at least
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But, does that mean that, let's say you're vaccinated and you don't have any symptoms,
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but you've got some virus, are you going to put off as much?
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Because if you're not coughing, you're not spreading it as much.
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And if you're not gasping for air, because your lungs are not working, maybe you're not
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I mean, if you had the same full viral load, just breathing would be a problem, I would
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So, I tend to agree with the CDC guy who says we'll all be exposed, because I don't see
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anything in the works that would change it, do you?
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Is there anything happening that would change the fact we'll all be exposed?
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Because it doesn't look like we're even close to something that would look like shutting
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And you'd have to shut it down sort of everywhere all over the world for it to make a difference
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in any country, assuming borders open up again.
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And I feel that we should be a little more honest about that.
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So, the reason to get the vaccination is not to stop the virus, but to stop it from progressing
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I guess Israel has a new drug for targeting the coronavirus.
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It looks pretty promising, because the way it works, and they've tested it in a small
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test, so we don't have any randomized controlled trials yet.
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But in a small test, a whole bunch of people who were very sick left the hospital in five
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And I guess 93% of 90 coronaviruses that were serious in several Greek hospitals, they had
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The Israelis had to test their COVID vaccine, their COVID drug in Greece, because there wasn't
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Israel did such a good job that they couldn't do a test of it there.
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So, they tested it there, and it was hugely successful.
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What it does is it targets the cytokine, cytokine, whatever that is, storm that happens.
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The thing that makes you so sick is that your own immune response goes nuts.
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So, apparently, this drug just calms down your immune response, presumably just from the
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I don't think this is going to get some kind of emergency authorization, so maybe it doesn't
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I'd like to give you an update on my personal quest to make masks impractical, at least in
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Yeah, yesterday I went to a restaurant and did not wear a mask.
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Now, a mask was required, and if they had asked me to put it on, I would have.
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But as soon as you sit down, I think it's probably the same everywhere.
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As soon as you sit down at the table, and they bring you a glass of water, or even before
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So, the only reason for the mask is to stand at the hostess stand for five seconds, and
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then walk 12 feet to where you're going to take your mask off in the same space the whole
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So, I tried to see what would happen if I just didn't wear a mask, and the host had to
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And the answer is, the host ignored my maskless state and seated me.
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Also ignored the entire party in front of me that checked in just before me, all maskless.
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If you don't wear a mask, we'll ask you to put one on.
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If you're not wearing one, we will ask you to put one on.
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And then you just go to the gym without your mask, and they'll say, hey, put your mask
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Do you think the IPCC will say, we're doing a great job on climate, and everything's getting
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Or, do you think they waited several years for a new report and said, you know, it looks
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exactly the same as the last time we reported on it?
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Do you think that's going to happen in our world?
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Or, just maybe, just maybe, will the report look like, can I bring a special guest in?
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Dale, can you give us the highlight summary of the new IPCC report on the climate?
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Well, Michael Schellenberger has a, uh, a different opinion on that, in terms of the
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risk, uh, who, he agrees, of course, that, uh, humans are, uh, a factor in climate change,
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and he agrees that things are getting warmer, and he agrees that there will be, you know,
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weather disruptions, um, maybe as much as predicted.
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Do you know how many people have died from the heat in, let's say, the last hundred years?
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Well, I don't know the number, but I know the number used to be really big, and now it's
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really, really small, because we have air conditioning.
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As soon as you invent air conditioning, it can get pretty warm outside.
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Um, likewise, for almost everything that, you know, would be a real-world problem from
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climate change, we're really good at mitigating things.
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We're good at communicating, transporting, you know, planning, managing.
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So, indeed, while the planet might, indeed, get way, way worse, and certainly we should
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be addressing it, um, it's very unlikely it's going to make any difference that you notice.
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But, you need to scare people, or they'll all be dead.
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If you don't scare people, they won't do much about it, and presumably we just slide into some bad
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But, if you scare the pants off of enough people, they'll do something about it, and then you'll
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So, I'm very much in favor of scaring other people, but I'm not sure how scared you need
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But the scientists, let's scare the scientists, because they'll work harder.
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What happens to mass suicides and depression when your IPCC report comes out and every news
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station reports that we're doomed to die in a fireball?
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Now, I'm exaggerating a little bit, but it sounds pretty bad, right?
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If you just read the report, it sounds like our future is non-existent.
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So, what does that do to depressions and suicides?
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When I read the report, I was like, okay, well, there's no point.
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And it wasn't until I saw Michael Schellenberger's tweet thread that I retweeted, so you can find
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it in my Twitter feed as well, that I started thinking, oh, okay, they're just doing this
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Apparently, Pfizer is maybe a few weeks away from FDA approval for the vaccine.
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And remember, I asked people if they'd be more likely to take it in a little Twitter poll,
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unscientific one, and a lot of people said yes, that if it was FDA approved, they would
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You know they have all the data already, right?
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And they're telling you that it's a few weeks away from approval.
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Nobody is telling you, nobody, that it might not get approved.
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Zero people have told you, well, we're not sure if it'll get approved because of the data.
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In fact, the data very clearly says, apparently, or I'm assuming it would be reported if this
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were not the case, apparently the data says, yeah, it's good.
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So, it's probably just the paperwork and the lawyering and stuff that's going to take weeks.
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But if you knew that it was FDA approved effectively, even before it's officially approved, does that
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FDA approved in all the important ways, because the data looks good.
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Well, a lot of you were not holding off only for that reason, but I do think this will make
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a pretty big dent in the number of people who get vaccinated, I would imagine.
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Here's an, this is more of the school of unintended consequences, all right?
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Mask mandates appear to be leading toward school choice, because a number of, you know, state
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school people are putting together plans to say, if masks are required, then students should
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be able to go take their, take their funding and go to another place if they don't want to
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If you had told me that masks will accelerate school choice, I would have said, well, I don't
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see how exactly, but it looks like it's going to happen.
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So he was averaging, you know, in the low 50% approval for his first six months.
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But now, according to Quinnipiac, he's down to 46%.
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So he's down in approval, and it appears to be that the coronavirus performance is the
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Now, is Biden responsible for the Delta variant and where we are now?
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I mean, I don't know that he could have done something much better.
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However, if Biden, if Trump had been president, what do you think we would be looking at right
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A lot of smart people say that, and it feels right, because the virus caused a lot of rule
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changes, and it was the rule changes that allowed the kind of turnout we got.
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So really, I would say the virus determined who the president is.
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It's really the first president ever elected by a virus.
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So not only did the virus elect Biden, but now the virus is going to make sure that Biden,
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or probably his successor, doesn't get re-elected or doesn't get elected.
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So do we have a system in which people get informed and then vote and choose politicians?
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Or do we have a system in which a virus determines who's the president?
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And I would like to point out that the war against this virus is going about as well
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as the war on drugs and the war in Afghanistan.
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The United States is warring, not doing so good lately.
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Yeah, maybe we did a good job in Syria or something, but we're not really so good at winning wars conclusively, are we?
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Yeah, there's no money in winning a war, somebody says.
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Somebody says, Gulf won, you know, the first Gulf War we won.
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So Mark Dice did a video, which you just have to see.
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And it's on YouTube, in which he stopped people and asked them to sign a petition
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How many people signed the petition without a second thought?
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You don't even have to watch the video, do you?
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A lot of people signed that petition without a thought.
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They did it without showing any second thoughts.
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So are you worried that we will slide into prison camps for the unvaccinated?
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But it is true that you can get some portion of the public, around 25%, if you know what
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I mean, to do just about anything without anything that looks like thought.
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Would you like to sign this petition to kill everybody in your family?
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I don't know if it's blinking on anybody else's screen.
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Yeah, now you understand why people accepted Hitler.
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You can accept almost anything if it's gradual.
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And gradual doesn't have to be that gradual, right?
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It just starts as, well, you know, this group of people certainly is a problem.
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Then you can talk about that group of people in a bad way and get away with it.
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And next thing you know, you're putting little restrictions on that kind of people.
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Yeah, it's the boiling frog situation, exactly, and dehumanization.
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Well, that's about the scariest thing you'll ever see.
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But in terms of entertainment, it's really good.
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And I didn't want to be all gloomy today, because it's been pointed out to me that I've been less than my optimistic self.
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Does anybody think I've been less than my optimistic self lately?
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There does seem to be a mixture of opinions about whether I've been less optimistic lately.
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You know, I think that the Trump administration was an optimism-based administration.
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And it was easy to be, you know, get swept up in that, and I think I was.
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And I do think things are better than ever and will continue to be better than ever.
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I mean, look at the fact that airlines will become electric.
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So a lot of the things you're worried about for climate change, I'm not so sure that that makes a difference.
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I think that we will invent our way out of climate change, and we will mitigate our way around it, and we'll be fine.
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But I'm glad that all the scientists and engineers are worried.
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The most depressing thing is the illegal immigration.
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Because if you don't really have a plan to not get the virus, and our hospitals are not overrun yet,
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I mean, there's some places that they've got real problems, apparently in the South.
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Whatever you see pictures of and talk about will seem like your biggest problem.
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Now, just think about yourself personally, okay?
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Think about yourself, just your life, the things that will affect you personally.
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What are the odds that you, personally, as a resident of the United States, if you are,
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what are the odds that you will be affected in a negative way by immigration?
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But right now, you could probably get a job just about anywhere, because there's more job openings than jobs.
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So it doesn't affect your employment at the moment.
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It does affect that you can get services and goods from people willing to provide them that are maybe here illegally.
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But what are the odds that you will have a worse life, like personally?
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But what are the odds that you, personally, will be a victim of a crime from an illegal immigrant?
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I'm in favor of a tight border, just to be clear.
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I'm in favor of tight borders, for all the obvious reasons.
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But the odds that you, personally, will be victimized by an immigrant, and in some direct way,
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I guess, depending on where you live, that could be true.
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If you lived on the border, there's a 100% chance you would be affected in some way, probably negatively.
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But if you're not living right on the border, it probably won't affect you at all.
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But the truth is, you'll probably not even notice.
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Climate change might be the biggest problem in the world.
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You could probably go through your life just doing what you do, and live your whole life,
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and scientists, and engineers, and the government will take care of the climate change,
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and you'll just buy products that are more energy efficient, and that's all you'll do.
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So I think that we'll figure our way through this.
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Have you noticed that under the Biden administration, are you worse off?
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Probably you could do some statistical stuff to find out that you are.
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Do you think it's worse off than if you've been under Trump?
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And the partisans will say, yeah, Trump would be better.
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Because every day I wake up, I do this, you know, I eat, I sleep, I exercise.
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I can't think of anything that's different besides the fact that I'm bored.
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The pandemic probably would have been the same under Trump.
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But it is true that people who want jobs can get them.
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And that your odds of dying from some new crisis,
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whether it's the coronavirus or climate change, is very small for any one person.
00:26:45.180
Yeah, inflation is probably the biggest problem that has a direct effect on people.
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And I do think that Trump would have been maybe better on that,
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but we still had to spend our way out of the pandemic.
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So I think there was going to be inflation no matter what.
00:27:14.520
Well, that's your free market working for you there.
00:27:22.820
Yeah, I guess that's worse if you've been deemed a racist.
00:27:36.060
So I'm seeing a lot of comments here about sunspots.
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If, let me tell you, oh, God, I just said, the locals platform just crashed.
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So it's a 28-minute timer, it looks like, on the locals platform, but it comes right back on.
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So it does look like there's a 28-minute timer on the locals platform, and it times out.
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If you think those sunspots are the thing controlling climate change, you're probably not operating at a high level of understanding or knowledge.
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That's the sort of problem you have if you do your own research.
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You know, I always make fun of people doing their own research because we're not qualified.
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You know, I've got two college degrees and spent a lot of time doing a lot of data analytics and stuff.
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You know, you're not either, to do your own research.
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But I'll tell you one thing that is the least likely thing to be true.
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The least likely thing to be true is that sunspots are the hidden cause of climate change.
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That is the least likely thing of anything about climate change.
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You know, you could be wrong, or I could be wrong about anything.
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And the reason is because it's so obvious as a thing to check.
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And the people who are, you know, the consensus of experts say there's absolutely nothing there.
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But you can find all over the Internet less credible people saying, oh, it's the sunspots, and here's my data, and here's my chart.
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So, yes, you have seen lots of data and charts telling you sunspots are the real cause.
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I will bet, let's see, I don't know if there's a real way to bet on this, because maybe we'll never know the real answer in a way that people will agree.
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All of the scientists have heard this theory about sunspots.
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Now, you're saying to yourself, Scott, if somebody proves climate change is not real, they would lose their job and all that.
00:30:08.840
Now, if somebody proved that sunspots were the cause of climate change, and actually proved it, they would be the most lauded and famous scientists of all time.
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You couldn't get richer than proving sunspots were the cause of climate change.
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There is enormous financial incentive to show that sunspots, or anything else, causes climate change.
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Oh, these scientists don't want to buck the mainstream.
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But bucking the mainstream in terms of questioning all their data would be really dangerous.
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But showing your own data that doesn't question anybody else's, it's just your own data.
00:31:04.800
Hey, look, I found out that the sunspots are causing all this.
00:31:09.360
You would be the most famous scientist in the country.
00:31:17.140
There are types of things you can't disagree with.
00:31:21.020
If you came out with a scientific theory that said evolution was bunk, you'd be dead.
00:31:27.440
If you came out and said we've measured, yeah, take the Tony Heller example.
00:31:33.160
If you came out and said we've measured it wrong, you're dead.
00:31:39.080
If you said all our ice core samples are wrong, you're dead.
00:31:43.980
If you say that the sea level rise, we measured it wrong and the models are wrong, so it's not really going to happen, you're dead.
00:31:54.600
But if you said that I did a study all by myself and I found that sunspots are causing all the problems, you'd be rich.
00:32:09.500
But yeah, no, you, if you dealt with somebody else's data, your career is over.
00:32:18.060
But if you come up with your own new thing that just can stand alone and explain everything else, yeah, somebody do that.
00:32:25.520
So I don't think there's any chance that scientists haven't looked at it thoroughly and they're the right people to look at it and they just haven't found no correlation.
00:32:33.880
So anything you see on the internet that says there is a correlation is bullshit.
00:32:37.900
I would bet, well, you can't really bet on it because nobody will ever agree on the conclusion ever, anytime.
00:32:57.260
If sunspots are the cause, then they should be able to predict.
00:33:06.920
So you should be able to make a sunspot-related prediction about what the climate will be doing in five years that would be more accurate than the IPCC.
00:33:19.440
And if you could do that, then maybe you'd have something.
00:33:27.420
I would say the least likely of all the possibilities is that sunspots are doing it and science hadn't noticed.
00:33:43.260
The mini ice age, the maunder minimum, yeah, none of that's real.
00:33:47.180
All of that stuff's been studied and debunked thoroughly.
00:33:50.140
There's no money tied to sunspots, but there is.
00:34:00.560
If an individual scientist or a team of them could prove that the sunspots were the real cause of climate change, they would be rich.
00:34:09.260
If you doubt that, you don't understand anything about anything.
00:34:19.120
If they just say it's true and it isn't, you don't have much there.
00:34:22.560
Yeah, the worst phrase ever is the science that says.
00:34:43.220
Somebody says there's no money in fixing it if it doesn't exist.
00:34:46.220
But that doesn't change the fact that the scientist would still have a huge financial incentive to find that sunspots were the real reason, if they were.