Episode 1476 Scott Adams： I Tell You How to Fix Our Biggest Problems While Drinking Coffee
Episode Stats
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Summary
The longer you wait to find out if an allegation is true, the less likely it is to be proven true. This is based on pattern recognition, and is not supposed to be a hard and fast rule, but maybe a tendency.
Transcript
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Good morning, everybody, and welcome to Coffee with Scott Adams, possibly the highlight of
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But suppose, hypothetically, you wanted to take this from an incredible situation to
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Well, you'd probably find a cup or a mug or a glass of tank or a chalice or a canteen
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You'd probably fill it with your favorite liquid.
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And then maybe you'd join me for the unparalleled pleasure, the dopamine here today, the thing
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Everything better except the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
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It's called the simultaneous sip, but it happens now.
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You're probably drinking something in the afternoon.
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The longer you wait to find out if an allegation is true, the less likely it is.
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So I'm going to test out a new rule for prediction.
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This is based on pattern recognition and is not supposed to be some kind of hard and fast
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And I guess this is as much of a question as it is an assertion.
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Is it true that when there's a big story and maybe somebody did something, that the longer
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you wait and don't find out they did something, the less likely they did something?
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It's been a long time since the Matt Gaetz story broke.
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That he allegedly did something with women paying them or something.
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So it almost doesn't matter what the details are at this point.
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Now every day that goes by, and I think I told you this from the start, every day that goes
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by when Matt Gaetz is not, I don't know, indicted or charged with something, it's less
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Now that doesn't mean something couldn't happen.
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But I think the likelihood goes down every day.
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Do you remember when Russian collusion was a thing?
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Every day that went by, and we did not prove there was Russian collusion, made it less likely
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How about the capital insurrection and all of the planning from, I don't know, from the
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White House, allegedly, or something about the insurrection?
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And the longer they look for that insurrection, the less insurrection they can find.
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But it's not just things that you might agree with.
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The longer you wait to find out if the vaccination itself was more dangerous than the COVID, the
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Now that's pretty direct in the case of vaccinations, because the sooner after the vaccination is the
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That's why you have to wait 15 minutes after you get the shot.
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Because the biggest risk is right then, the first 15 minutes, and then, you know, the
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But if you go three months, and you've got three months without a side effect, the odds of
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How about Trump's legal troubles from all of his financial and or tax related stuff?
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And Trump himself, as opposed to the organization.
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Well, the longer we wait, I feel like the less likely.
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I know you want them to find something, because that would make you happy, many of you.
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The longer we go without proof that they work, the less likely that they work, right?
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And I think it's been a while that we've been looking at both of those, the ivermectin
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If we had proof that they worked, I feel like that would be sticky, and that we'd know that
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Remember, in each of these topics, you can't know for sure what the future is.
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Yeah, so what I'm saying is somebody saying that the proof of ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine
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Let's take that as not a given, but let's take that as a high-awareness understanding of
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It's cynical, it's skeptical, but it's probably an accurate view of the world that information
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gets suppressed by big entities for lots of reasons, right?
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But would you agree with me that they can suppress it easily for one day, not too hard for two
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days, but suppressing something like this for a year, when it's the biggest question going,
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So every day that goes by that the suppression is keeping you from knowing about these, I
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think you have to start biasing your prediction toward there's nothing there.
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I'm saying that your prediction should start biasing in that direction.
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So just keep an eye on that and tell me how often it is wrong, okay?
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It's not one of those rules that's hard and fast, but I'll bet you, I'll bet you if you
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use this for your predictions, that you would be right 80, 90% of the time, something like
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Why is it we're in this weird situation in which, I'm lazy, somebody says, because I didn't
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So why is it that all the smart people are telling us two things?
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So let's say CNN, MSNBC, they're the smart people, right?
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So all the smart people are telling us two things.
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Number one, use science and use data to make decisions.
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Use science and accurate data to make decisions.
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So on one hand, they're saying, make your decisions based on the science and the data.
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But then they're spending all their time producing anecdotal stories of this one guy who died because
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It's like you should use data in science, but we know that it doesn't work.
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So we better try to convince you with our anecdotal stuff, which is the opposite of science.
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So if science is so good, why can't you use it?
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If science is so good and we should make our decisions based on science, why can't you just tell me the science?
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Why do you have to give me an anecdote and persuade me by scaring me with this one story of this one guy who did something?
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If the science is so good, well, it's because science doesn't work, right?
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But then the rest just say, ah, I don't believe it for one reason or another.
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So the only way to sell science is by denying science, in a sense.
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Now, I would argue it's actually scientific to understand that people are not rational beings
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But it just feels kind of crazy that we're mixing these two things at the same time.
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I would like to assign blame to people who have destroyed the world.
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Well, let me give you some examples of how the world is being destroyed and you tell me who's responsible.
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And people say climate change is a big component of that.
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But that's sort of a general thing you're seeing in the air that climate change is to blame.
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Here in California, we also have very little power.
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So who's to blame for climate change, drought, lack of electricity?
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So right now, Russia and China look like they're going to be pretty aggressive in controlling space militarily.
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Well, we've got a problem because we don't have a good nuclear industry, right?
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If we had a more robust commercial nuclear industry, we'd be in good shape for going to space because you need all that skill.
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So what would be a solution to running out of water?
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Well, I can only think of one other than changing climate change totally, which could take decades.
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The only way I think you can get there is using nuclear power and desalinization.
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But who has stopped nuclear power from being a big deal already?
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The green people stopped nuclear energy using persuasion as opposed to science.
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And now we don't have a robust nuclear industry that could possibly save us by building some quick nuclear plants, maybe Gen 4 if we're almost there.
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If we had nuclear power in California, or more of it, we would have plenty of power.
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So the green people are responsible for me not having water.
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The green people are responsible for me not having electricity.
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But, you say, at least they stopped climate change.
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If they want to stop climate change, you need more nuclear power.
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So the green people made climate change happen.
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Because the only solution is nuclear power, and they're making it hard.
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So they're climate change, water problems, electricity problems, and we won't be able to militarily control space.
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The green people have destroyed America, apparently.
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And if you look at our gas prices, who's to blame for that?
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It seems like it's all coming down to the same place.
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Now, let's say somebody says, you know, the war in Afghanistan is made worse by climate change, which they do.
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Again, where's my nuclear energy to get me out of the climate change problem?
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It's like the green woke people destroyed the planet.
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David Reboy has a tweet in which he's tweeted in an article, I think it was in Reuters or something.
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But there's a quote in there from somebody who knows something about Afghanistan.
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It said, years ago, a U.S. general told us that not only that they couldn't make many of the Afghan officers, no, not only couldn't many of the Afghan officers read or write, but they couldn't count.
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The Afghan officers that we trained to be the officers in the military, they couldn't read and write.
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So apparently we just were trying to train the dregs.
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And the Taliban must have been doing a better job of recruiting.
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Well, here's my current updated take on Afghanistan and the withdrawal.
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I started with a contrarian take, which said that we don't know how much of a mistake it is yet.
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Meaning that there's some information we don't have, and we know we don't have it.
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Why is it that everybody who's not in Afghanistan knew what to do?
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You know, get the Americans out, then, you know, get the military out, bomb the bases.
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The only people who didn't know that, that very obvious thing, were the people in charge of it.
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There's something we don't know about how the decisions went down.
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Because I'm not buying that every single person at any level of education, at any level of IQ,
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every one of us knew the right way to get out of Afghanistan.
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It looks like the Taliban is not going to let all the Americans out.
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So that's what's happening on the ground, according to the reporting.
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Now, if the Taliban had been really smart and maybe better organized, they would have just said,
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The best thing we can do for ourselves is to let everybody out so we can totally control the country.
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Which probably means the Taliban leadership can't completely control all the individual checkpoints and stuff.
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But if we know the Americans can't get out, then it's a botched operation and there's no explanation that's going to make me happy.
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Here's something that, whoa, I didn't know that.
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Or maybe there was some other big thing we traded for it.
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There could be some kind of secret deal that we don't know about.
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But at this point, it looks like the biggest botched operation in the history of operations.
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So the evolution that I'm giving you here is I started with, hey, it's fog of war.
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Let's make sure we really know what's going on here.
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And now enough time has gone by that I can say, OK, if it's true for sure, and it looks at it that way,
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it looks to be true for sure that the Americans aren't going to get out.
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I mean, that clears it up, right, in a bad way.
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So the biggest problem with Biden is his age and the presumption of some dementia.
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Now, if you have that and you also have the biggest botched operation of all time,
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like a historically big botch, one that both sides say was botched,
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which is rare, it's pretty rare to get both sides to say anything was botched.
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And I don't know that Biden can possibly survive this.
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I feel as though the Democrats are going to have to have a ritual sacrifice of Biden
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The Democratic Party is going to have to take Biden out and shoot him themselves,
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you know, metaphorically, figuratively speaking.
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The Democrats are going to have to take him out.
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Because if they don't, it's going to be a big problem trying to get the next Democrat elected
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because it's going to be, you know, it's going to be a bad look.
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So if they get him out early, but the trouble is that would put Kamala Harris in charge
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So tell me this, in the comments, who is the top Democrat who would run for president
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against, let's say, presuming Trump runs again?
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I can't think of a single person who would be president material that we also know.
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I think Buttigieg and Yang didn't really find the center of their own party.
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I can't think of anybody who would be better poised.
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How much would you like to see Mark Cuban run as a Democrat
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I mean, just from an entertainment point of view.
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If either Mark Cuban or Trump got elected, I'd be okay with that.
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Because I think both of them are practical people, not political people.
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I mean, you'd have to be political to be in the job.
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But I think both of them would go for the solution that works.
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I don't think either of them would take the solution that doesn't work
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over the one that does for some political reason.
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But I think they're both free of politics in a weird way.
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No, I don't think The Rock is serious about politics.
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I've been watching the hit pieces come out, trying to take out any prominent voice that
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There was this giant hit piece on the Weinstein brothers, Brett and Eric, the long thread,
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I think everybody's going to get their chance on the barrel.
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But seriously, who in the world are the Democrats going to run for president?
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I just realized why my last two shows seemed short.
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I've been printing on double-sided paper and I didn't realize it.
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But I feel like no president can be less than 49%.
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What I meant was, I didn't realize I was printing double-sided.
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So yesterday when I did my podcast, I was looking at my notes and I thought,
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So if it seemed like a short show yesterday, now you know why.
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I might be the dumbest guy in the world sometimes.
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Now, I think I've raised this before, but I just included a Tom Cotton reference in there,
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Now, as you know, Congress is mostly useless, with the exception of a few senators.
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Tom Cotton being one of the few people who works for the government who's actually trying to do something useful
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So I included him because he's a China hawk, as I am.
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So we're reaching record levels of fentanyl coming into the country and record numbers of overdoses.
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It's going through the Mexican cartels and killing Americans by the tens of thousands.
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So if you just say, hey, please don't send that fentanyl anymore, they'll say, sure, we'll take care of it.
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So I'm suggesting that we depersonalize it and just completely remove China's leadership from the decision.
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You just say, here's what we're going to do for every death recorded from overdose in this country.
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And we don't even need to know if it was fentanyl.
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We'll just, you know, let's just say every death recorded from an overdose.
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And we will send back one Chinese citizen who's in college here.
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There are over 300,000 Chinese citizens going to college in the United States.
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Their elites want their kids in college in the United States.
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And what we should say is, it's nothing personal.
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Because alphabetical order says it's not personal.
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All we're doing is, for every death from overdose, we're going to pick the next person in alphabetical order and just send them home that day.
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If you're an elite and your last name starts with the letter C and the A's go home, you're going to start lobbying your government pretty hard to cut the fuck out of the fentanyl.
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So only the elites can talk the other elites into anything.
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So you simply say, look, elites, it's nothing personal.
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And the way we're going to let you solve it is we're going to send one of your students back for every fentanyl death.
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And how long would it take for China to say, OK, we like killing you with fentanyl, but not that much.
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So Senator Tom Cotton, one of the maybe three senators who is not a complete worthless piece of shit.
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And actually, I think, would be a fine president someday, possibly.
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So Tom Cotton, if you'd like to maybe look into that to see if there's some way we can just make it unpersonal
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and just put it on a formula and let China take care of their own fucking problem.
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When somebody makes something your problem, make it their problem and then walk away.
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If you let them make it your problem, it's never going to get solved if you can't solve it.
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Let's see what else we have on the back of my papers that I didn't look at yet.
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He asked this, and there's some writing in, well, so he asked this question.
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With Trump promoting vaccinations, how many people died because he has denied a platform?
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Could you calculate how many people Twitter killed?
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By keeping Trump off of Twitter, who, at least in his rallies, says you should get the vaccination.
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Now, I'm not going to enter the conversation of whether you should get the vaccination, right?
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Let's say that Trump was on Twitter and got to tweet maybe once a week.
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Let's say, let's say, imagine once a week he tweeted, get your vaccinations.
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How many people would be persuaded by Trump himself telling you to get vaccinated?
00:27:05.460
Well, he is the most persuasive person on the planet.
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Now, maybe some other people would say, no, I don't want the vaccination because Trump is saying we should get it.
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Because everybody's saying you should get it, right?
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So, it's only the people saying you shouldn't get it that I think are going to be the problem.
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And if you can get one more persuasive voice to say you should get it, would that save lives?
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Now, I know those of you who think the vaccination is going to kill us all think that that would be a bad idea.
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But if you believe that the vaccination saves lives, and if you believe that Trump is persuasive, with his base anyway,
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how many lives would he have saved if he had been on Twitter?
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Now, maybe you could argue that he would have killed just as many people with some other thing he said, I suppose,
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Yeah, I think something like 5% to 10% of the base could be persuaded.
00:28:06.700
So, let's say 8 million people get persuaded who wouldn't have been persuaded.
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How many of 8 million people would eventually die of COVID that wouldn't otherwise die?
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Likewise, how many lives did I save by being one of the early people to say closed travel from China?
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Somebody asked the question about Brett Weinstein talking about ivermectin.
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Did people talking about ivermectin being an alternative to vaccination, in a sense, not directly an alternative,
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but in a sense people saying, well, as long as I have the ivermectin, I don't need the vaccination.
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Is there anybody who died because they believed ivermectin was going to save them?
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Apparently, there was a conservative radio host named Valentine, I think, who just died tragically from COVID.
00:29:23.440
And he thought that the ivermectin would save him if he got the COVID.
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And the ivermectin didn't save him, apparently.
00:29:31.720
So you don't make decisions based on individual stories.
00:29:34.820
But it does look like there is some kind of an effect where pundits are killing people.
00:29:47.660
Now, of course, that assumption in that particular anecdote depends whether you think ivermectin works or not, right?
00:29:54.260
If you think it works, then he did the best he could and he died anyway.
00:29:57.520
But I did see a Jordan Peterson retweet of a study.
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So basically, Jordan Peterson was retweeting a skeptical article that said,
00:30:21.280
it's possible that the ivermectin meta-analysis is skewed by one big fake study.
00:30:27.320
So when you look at the average of studies, there might be one real big one that's fake.
00:30:31.120
And that makes it look like it's working when it's not.
00:30:37.300
I think he addressed it and said that even if you take that out, it still works or something.
00:30:42.040
But hypothetically, how many people did get killed by pundits?
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I'll never be able to pronounce those names correctly.
00:31:06.880
Yeah, it just makes me wonder how many people are being killed by bad punditry that's well-meaning.
00:31:20.060
So we think that the Taliban are not going to let all the Americans out.
00:31:31.300
Has anybody ever answered the biggest question of all?
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Why are there many Americans living in rural Afghanistan?
00:31:42.860
And if they are living there, why didn't they get out months ago when Trump said he's getting out of Afghanistan?
00:32:01.040
As in months of warning to get out when it was still possible?
00:32:06.100
And if it was the United States keeping them there, as in saying, hey, please stay, don't leave until we tell you to,
00:32:13.660
and then they just pulled up and stranded them there, well, if that happened, we need to go back in.
00:32:21.280
Now, presumably, I hear that the British paratroopers are going and collecting British citizens in Afghanistan and bringing them back.
00:32:29.960
So they're bringing a show of force to do that.
00:32:34.200
And I'm wondering if we could just pay some other country that's capable to save our people for us.
00:32:40.940
Now, maybe we should just do a GoFundMe and get some other country who has a military and actually knows how to use it and stuff to go in and get our people the expendables.
00:32:57.740
I just don't understand Americans in Afghanistan.
00:33:04.600
And if they're there, do they want to be there?
00:33:19.780
Glenn Beck raised $22 million to help get people out.
00:33:28.960
Alice says, not one patient, not one patient who takes hydroxychloroquine for lupus has died.
00:33:47.920
But let me tell you, without even looking at the data.
00:33:50.640
So there's a claim in the comments here that nobody who's taking hydroxychloroquine for lupus has died of COVID.
00:34:07.400
If there's a real study on that, I'd like to see it.
00:34:12.060
Yeah, and there's no way the data is being collected exactly.