Episode 1477 Scott Adams： Persuasion Lessons Plucked From the Headlines. And Coffee.
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Summary
Dr. Richard Johnson joins Scott Adams to talk about the dangers of early vaccination, fake news, and the fentanyl crisis in China. Scott Adams is a comedian, writer, podcaster, and podcaster. His latest novel Other Words For Smoke is out now and it's out on Amazon Prime Video.
Transcript
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Good morning everybody. It's time for Coffee with Scott Adams, the best time of the whole day.
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Every single time and all you need to make this special, like really special, like better than
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usual, is a cup or mug or a glass of tank or chalice or stein, a canteen jug or flask,
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a vessel of any kind. Fill it with your favorite liquid. I like coffee. And join me now for the
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unparalleled pleasure of the dopamine the other day, the thing that makes everything better.
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Oh, my troll is here. Dr. Johnson. We don't know your first name, but there is speculation that
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it's Richard. So Richard is here. We're going to call you Dick, even if you're not. So tales from
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the simulation. Are you ready? One of the ways you know that this reality is a simulation and
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not a real one is all the coincidences. As Twitter user Donald Luskin pointed out, we've already
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got a military general named Millie. He's the military guy named Millie. And then we have
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a chief negotiator of the State Department named Blinken. He is negotiating for us and he's
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Blinken. But it gets worse, as I pointed out, when you've got a placekeeper president who's
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just there until Harris takes over, he's kind of Biden his time. Yeah. Yeah. The president
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is Biden his time until Harris takes over. So that's how you know you live in the simulation.
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All right. Fake news of the day. Fake news of the day. This is a special category in which
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you could argue it's not fake news or it's 50% fake news. It's actually a two movies on
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one screen situation where at least one of those movies is wrong. The other one might be
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right. But it's two movies. And here it goes. Emerald Robinson tweeted this, noted that CDC
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director Walensky just told the world in a recent interview that, quote, there's an increased
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risk of severe disease amongst those who are vaccinated early. Oh, that sounds pretty bad.
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The people who got vaccinated early had an increased risk of severe disease. Which movie are you
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seeing now? How do you interpret that? People who got vaccinated early, according to the CDC
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director, have an increased risk of severe disease. Do you see the two movies? Two movies.
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One movie says that what that means is that the vaccinations themselves make you sicker.
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That's one interpretation. Do you think the CDC was saying that the people who got the vaccination
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early are getting sicker than if they hadn't gotten vaccinated at all? Is that what they're saying?
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Because that's how it's being interpreted. Well, I don't think they're saying that. I think
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what they're saying is that the increased risk of severe disease is compared to when they first got
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vaccinated. In other words, prior to vaccination, they had a high risk of disease. The vaccination
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lowered it substantially. But now they're watching that risk increase as the vaccinations wear off and
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you need a booster. Is that a problem? Well, I mean, if the booster itself is dangerous, it's a problem.
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But it's not being interpreted quite exactly right. So it's 50% fake news. Except you don't know which
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is the 50%. I'm pretty sure the 50% that's fake is the idea that the vaccination somehow makes you
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sicker. Now, how bad is the communication from our government when the director of the CDC says
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something and you don't know if it means vaccinations kill you or vaccinations save you? Because that just
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happened. The director of the CDC said something so ambiguous, just the way she worded it, that you
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can't tell if she's saying the vaccination will kill you or save you. How could it be worse? There are
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legitimate people who watch the news, you know, well informed news watching people who believe this
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directive of the CDC just told you the vaccinations will kill you. That didn't happen. I'm pretty sure
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that didn't happen. But they're so bad at communicating that people think it happened.
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All right. I blame the CDC for that. That's a little unclear. But some of it might be just
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taken out of context stuff. So I think I said this yesterday, I had an idea for dealing with the
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fentanyl coming in from China. It's killing 10s of 1000s of people in this country every year. And
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China doesn't want to do anything about it, even though they could easily shut it down. They know
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exactly who's sending it to us. I know we know that China knows who's sending it to the United States
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because we know. It's public. We know the names of the people in China who are sending the
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fentanyl. Can you believe that? That we actually know the name and address, presumably, of the head
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drug dealer in China who's sending the fentanyl? It's probably more than one, but there's one big
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one. And he's still alive. What? Why didn't we kill that guy yet? Are you telling me that our
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intelligence people can't get to one guy in China? He should be dead? He should be very,
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very dead by now. But as far as I know, he's not. I mean, I suppose he could be and I wouldn't
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know it. But what's up with that? Isn't that a gigantic failure of our intelligence agencies
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that we haven't assassinated this guy yet? It's obvious. He's obvious. You kill that guy
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and then you worry about China later. Do you think that we would care if China got really,
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really mad that we killed one of their nationals? Yeah, they would get really, really mad. And
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then we would say, well, we gave you a chance to kill him. This is how I'd do it if I were
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Trump, because Biden's not going to do it right. But let's say it's Trump second term. I would
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say this. I'll give you 60 days to kill that guy. And if you don't, we're going to go kill
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him on your territory one way or another. We're going to drop a drone on him. We're going to
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poison him. We're going to do something. But we're going to kill that guy in 60 days on your
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territory unless you do. Now, it would be one thing to kill a guy in Chinese territory without
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telling them in advance. That would be pretty effed up. And then they might they would probably
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retaliate and kill some American that they've got a beef with on our territory. You don't want
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that. That's why you tell him in advance. You do it overtly. You don't do it secretly. You say,
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this guy's going to be dead in 60 days. Here's why. He's killed 200,000 Americans. You got 60 days.
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We're going to kill him in country one way or another. You know, you'll figure it out one way or
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another. We're going to get him. But you've got to kill him in 60 days or we will. What
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would China do then? Well, they'd probably pretend they put him in jail or something,
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I suppose. They'd have some kind of clever trick. But I think we have to say it's not
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an option that he's still alive in 60 days. That's just not an option. We can't be that
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country. So let's get a little tougher on that. Here's the interesting thing. When I suggested
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that we have legislation to deport one Chinese college student for every fentanyl death,
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I got zero pushback on this that I saw. Maybe I missed something. But have you ever seen anybody
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make a recommendation for anything substantial that nobody disagreed with? This is the one case
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that this is the most bipartisan thing in the country. Seriously. Name one thing that's more
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bipartisan than making China stop sending us fentanyl. There's nobody on the other side of
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that. Nobody. So I mean, some people are saying, well, it's our own damn fault and stuff. But we'd still
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prefer they didn't send it to us. Right? So what the interesting thing about this is that now this
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idea is out there. And you know, I included Tom Cotton on the tweet. I hope you've seen it by now.
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But once the idea is out there, and zero people think it's a bad idea, what would stop it from
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becoming legislation? Maybe there's some legal reason? I don't know. But let's see if anything
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happens with that. You may have already heard that the Pfizer vaccination is going to get full FDA
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approval, every smart person says. Maybe as soon as today, but probably this week. And so I asked a
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little highly unscientific poll on Twitter for the unvaccinated to see if that would change their
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minds. Now, the people who did not get vaccinated, what is the number one thing that they say when
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they discuss their hesitancy to get vaccinated? What's the number one thing they say? It's not
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approved by the FDA. Right? Now, I'm not imagining that, right? If you've had enough conversations,
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it's the number one reason is that it's not approved by the FDA. So the FDA is going to fix
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that by approving it. So what percentage of all the unvaccinated people will change their mind
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because the data changed? Make a prediction. Predict how many people will change their minds
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because there was one thing that was holding them back, and then the data says, oh, it's okay now
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because the FDA approved it. Close to zero. Yeah, close to zero. I got 4.3% said they would likely
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get the vaccination now that it's approved. 4.3%. Now, this is of only the unvaccinated people.
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It's not vaccinated plus unvaccinated. 4% of the unvaccinated people, that's it,
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who were persuaded by the new data, presumably. New data. So who could have predicted this?
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Right? If you studied persuasion, you should have predicted this. Tell me why. What is the
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persuasion term that predicts that people won't change their mind when the data changes, even when
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they said that's what would change their mind? The fake because? I see why you're saying
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that. Confirmation bias? No. Not confirmation bias. Consistency. There you go. Yeah. The
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consistency bias. People don't like to change their minds. But don't they like to change their
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minds when the data changes? Nope. Here's the problem.
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People who got vaccinated are going to be able to claim that they were right. Right? So people
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went early and said, yeah, I got the Pfizer. It wasn't FDA approved, but I was pretty sure they
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saw enough data that if there was a problem, probably would have known it early. So I took a calculated risk
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before the FDA approved it. And now the FDA has approved it. So it seems that my calculated risk was
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correct. So that would make me the smart one. And if you didn't get it, yeah, I see why you were
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afraid, but I guess you made the wrong decision. Right? Nobody wants to be on the other end of what I
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just handed to you. Nobody wants to be told they made the wrong decision before. Because the change in
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the data makes it appear that you made the wrong decision. Nobody can accept that. Nobody believes
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they made the wrong decision. When I say nobody, well, maybe 4% can. But basically, people aren't
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going to say I was wrong all along. Now, let me defend the people who did not get vaccinated. Let me
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defend them. Just because things didn't go the way they could have, in other words, just because
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the people who did get vaccinated early, their decision appears to be validated by the FDA now,
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does that mean they were the smart ones? If the FDA, let's say, you know, enough years go by
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that the people who got vaccinated early clearly appear to be the ones who made the right decision.
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Could you go back in time and say, yes, they made the right decision? No. Because it was
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statistical. There was no right or wrong. It was an unknown. If you look into the unknown
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and you make a choice and it doesn't go well, did you make the wrong decision? No. Probably
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not. You might have made the right decision because you didn't have any information that could
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help you. So you might have done the best you could. Decision-making, it just didn't work
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out for you. So one of the problems we have is that people will look correct or look incorrect
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even as data is changing, right? So nobody wants to look like they were wrong all along.
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So I think that's why people dig in. They want to be consistent and right, and it doesn't let
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them do that. Michael Schellenberger tweeted today. And by the way, you should all be
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following Michael Schellenberger. If you're not following him on Twitter, he's one of the,
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I would say, one of the top 10 most productive, useful tweeters in the United States, I would
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say, on a variety of topics, green energy and homelessness and fentanyl being among them.
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So those would be areas of expertise. And I'm hoping that Larry Elder is already talking
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to Michael. But here's what Michael tweeted this morning. He said that Germany is at risk
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of blackouts from lack of reliable energy. So here are some Germany stats. The prices of energy
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in Germany rose 60% in 2021. What? The energy price went up 60% in one year? Well, they're
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doing something wrong. And I guess it's all the green energy stuff that's not working out.
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Their supply margin of energy is shrinking from 26% to 3% by 2023. So they won't have any margin.
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And I guess Angela Merkel admits her government got it wrong. So Germany is actually saying,
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yeah, we effed up and we screwed up our whole, you know, supply chain situation. Now, and they
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still, and despite that, as Michael points out, they're still planning to close their last
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nuclear plant in 2022. Completely an unscientific, you know, way to go. So Germany is being completely
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unscientific, at least in terms of their nuclear energy stuff. Now, who could have predicted
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that Germany's plans would not work out? And what would you use to predict it? Now, we're
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all geniuses in hindsight, right? So it seems pretty smart for anybody who said, hey, this green
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energy stuff isn't going to work out the way you hope. It's got a lot of, got a lot of downsides
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and reliability, et cetera. So I think a lot of people could have predicted this, wouldn't
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you say? Because we didn't really see, even when they had the plan, you couldn't write,
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you couldn't even see how it would work exactly. Because you're saying, wait, you're going to
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get rid of all your reliable energy, replace it with unreliable energy, and that'll work out?
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Like, even when you hear it, it doesn't make sense that it possibly could have worked out.
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It sounded like wishful thinking more than a plan. But what would be another way you could
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predict that things work out? Economics. I tell you many times that people who study economics
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can see around corners. Because if things don't work out economically, they're not going to happen
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in the long run, right? In the short run, anything can happen. In the long run, things that are
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economical happen. Things that are uneconomical end up dying. So here's what you could have predicted
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if you understood economics. That whatever was best for the economics of the energy industry
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would get them to lowest risk in every way. Let me say that again. Whatever was the best economic
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plan for energy would also necessarily be the best for reducing energy consumption in the
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long run. Now, if you don't understand that, I'm seeing people who understand economics saying
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exactly, right? Everybody who understands economics knows exactly what I just said. And here's the
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reason. We have tons of history in which getting the economy right fixes everything, right? Why is it
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we have good health care in the United States? It's because the economy is good. That's it. Why do we
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have a good military in the United States? The economy is good. That's it, right? You get the economy
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good, and then everything works. Why is it that the United States surpassed its, what was it, the Paris
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climate accord numbers? Without trying. Without trying. We had withdrawn from the Paris agreement,
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and we still beat our numbers. Why? Because we pursued economics. And I think it was natural gas
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that made the difference. Why did we pursue natural gas? It was economical, right? And you will find
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consistently that if you're predicting in the long term. It doesn't work in the short term. But if
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you're predicting the long term, the economics always gets you to the best place. Now, who knew this
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better than any leader? Trump. Right? Trump is the one president who knew this more than any other
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leader. Get the economics right, everything else works out. You get the economics right, your army is so
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big, nobody will attack you. You get the economics right, you've got more energy than you can handle.
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And then you've got enough money to figure out how to clean things and invest in green energy and
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you know, mitigate climate change problems, etc. It's the economy. I mean, basically, it's the Bill
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Clinton, it's the economy, stupid. You got to get the economy right. And then everything else will work
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out. But if you do it in the other order, you've got the Afghanistan withdrawal. Germany is
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energy policy is Biden's Afghanistan withdrawal. They withdrew from nuclear before they had a plan.
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Same thing, right? Same problem. They just did things in the wrong order. Get the economy right,
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and then you can work on other stuff. Well, apparently, Biden's even looking crazy to the Brits. So the
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ministers over in London are saying, basically, they're saying out loud now. They don't seem to
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even be embarrassed that the president looks gaga or doolally. So apparently, if you're looking crazy
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over in Great Britain, somebody's going to say you look gaga or possibly doolally. So Biden's looking
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kind of doolally lately. And I think has everything to do with Afghanistan. It finally reached a point
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where you just couldn't ignore it anymore. It was kind of funny watching the world try to ignore
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the obvious decline in Biden's capabilities. And they were doing such a good job. I mean,
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they were literally ignoring the hell out of it. But this made it impossible to ignore. Afghanistan did.
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Well, it looks to me like the backdoor plan to make Kamala Harris president early is not working
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out. Meaning that Joe Biden is declining faster. His mental state is declining faster than any of
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our intel sources warned us. Yeah, the intel told us that Biden's mental faculties would last another
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six months at least before they failed. And that would be plenty of time to get Harris up to speed,
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get her some wins and put her in position to be the next president. But it turns out that Biden is
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declining faster than any of our intel told us was going to happen. Didn't see it coming.
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And then the Taliban is... Oh, I'm sorry. I'm in the wrong story. I just mixed stories there for a
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minute. I forgot where I was. So yeah, Biden's declined faster than he could. But at the same
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time, Harris's reputation is as bad as it could possibly be. I mean, she's looking totally
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incompetent on a number of issues. So as I tweeted cleverly, I said, it's a time for a prominent
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Democrat to confess that the plan to backdoor Kamala Harrison to the presidency has shit the bed so hard to
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damage the box springs. I think that's their problem, isn't it? And I haven't seen anybody say
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it yet out loud. I think the problem, the plan was always to, you know, get Kamala Harrison the
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backyard back door. But that plan just fell apart faster than Afghanistan's military. You know what
00:22:49.180
I mean? So now they have no first choice because Biden has fallen apart. And they don't really have
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a second choice. Right? Certainly for the presidency. But who the hell are they even going to run for
00:23:02.480
president in the next election? I mean, it's not going to be Biden. Can we all agree? There's nobody
00:23:08.320
here who thinks Biden's going to run for a second term. I don't think. Who is it? Yeah, it's not going
00:23:15.420
to be Gavin Newsom, right? I don't think. He's got some problems. So name one person who could get
00:23:22.020
elected president as a Democrat. Yeah, Mark Cuban, maybe. Because, you know, and Cuban could get elected
00:23:29.340
as a Democrat because he he's not identified as one. Yeah, you don't naturally just think he's a
00:23:36.140
Democrat. You just think he's, you know, an entrepreneur who may lean one direction or another
00:23:40.480
depending on the topic. But I think you need somebody who's almost not a Democrat to run as a
00:23:45.780
Democrat. The same way Trump was sort of not a Republican, really, who ran as a Republican and
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then made Republicans like him, you know, similar to him, I mean. Well, you know, you heard this story
00:23:58.020
the other day that the FBI was finding little evidence, meaning no evidence, that the January
00:24:04.940
6th attack was coordinated by supporters of Trump or right wing groups. Have you heard the word
00:24:12.340
insurrection lately? Huh? It seems to me that that word insurrection is used a little bit less
00:24:21.080
now that the FBI has found out there was nothing to it. So at what point does CNN say, oh, now that
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the FBI has confirmed there was no insurrection, we'd like to correct all of our reporting and
00:24:36.880
punditry for the past many months. It was all fake. There was no insurrection. It was a protest
00:24:44.340
got in hand. There was violence. But no, nope, nope, there was no insurrection. And we got it wrong.
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Have you seen that story yet? Nope. Nope. Former CIA director, General Michael Hayden,
00:25:00.760
he decided unwisely to tweet pictures of the Taliban juxtaposed with Trump supporting pickup trucks
00:25:09.360
with American flags and said Trump 2020 on it. And he captioned that our Taliban.
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This guy was the head of the CIA, the propaganda unit, if you will, among other things. And he's
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telling you in pictures and images and scary persuasion that Trump supporters are similar
00:25:34.220
to the Taliban. It's weird that that's not illegal. Of course, freedom of speech. So he can
00:25:41.580
say that if he wants. But, you know, we always say things are, everything's Hitler and Nazi and it just
00:25:50.620
sounds crazy because, you know, it's always hyperbole. It's so over the top. And I realize
00:25:56.720
this is just a meme and a joke. And, you know, I can easily say, imagine if it's going the other way,
00:26:02.520
somebody saying it about the other team as well. But he was the head of the CIA. He was the head of
00:26:10.760
the CIA. He shouldn't be calling American citizens Taliban, like identifiable groups. This is Nazi
00:26:20.560
shit. Am I wrong to say that's a Nazi thing to do? Is that hyperbole? Calling out a specific member
00:26:30.880
of the public for essentially death. Because if the Taliban really were in the United States,
00:26:37.920
we'd be advocating killing them. So if it's somebody that you advocate killing, and you're
00:26:43.860
saying that some group of Americans with a political preference are similar to a group that you would
00:26:49.960
kill if they got in this country, that feels like Nazi propaganda. Doesn't it? I mean, I probably have
00:26:58.760
argued more hours than just about anybody about the Nazi and Hitler analogies being always inappropriate.
00:27:07.140
And this one just sort of tickles that area a little too hard for me. I'm wondering, where's the
00:27:14.840
where's Carl Bernstein lately? Because CNN usually calls him on whenever there's a big problem to say
00:27:20.660
that this problem is worse than Watergate. And now we're watching the Afghanistan withdrawal. And I'm
00:27:27.080
saying to myself, if ever there was something that was going to be worse than Watergate,
00:27:32.420
what would it be? It might be this. But is Carl Bernstein on summer vacation? Where is he?
00:27:45.720
So anyway, we need the worse than Watergate guy. There's at least some people who think that Biden's
00:27:54.840
withdrawal from Afghanistan might end up not being a political problem. Think about that. How could it
00:28:03.440
be? Like what? What argument could you make that Biden's withdrawal from Afghanistan is not going to
00:28:11.620
hurt him politically? It turns out there is an argument. And the argument goes like this. Turns out
00:28:19.460
nobody cares about Afghanistan nobody cares about Afghanistan. Nobody cares. The only thing anybody
00:28:24.800
cares about is that we get out. That's it. Meaning the military. I don't think Americans care about
00:28:32.960
Americans who chose to live in Afghanistan and didn't get out when it was obvious you should get
00:28:37.400
out months ago. I have a little bit of problem feeling empathy for people who knew what they should have
00:28:45.840
done and then didn't do it. Right? Now you can you can have human empathy. But how much is your
00:28:54.540
responsibility to help people who won't help themselves? What the hell are these people still
00:29:00.880
doing in Afghanistan? Right? Why are they there? And why should that be my problem? Why should I pay for
00:29:07.680
it? Yeah. Yeah, we can care because they're Americans. So, you know, let me let me not say
00:29:15.700
that's my opinion. But rather, I would say that there are going to be plenty of Americans who say I
00:29:20.500
don't care about Afghanistan. I don't care that you messed it up. Because I just don't care. I just
00:29:25.700
don't care at all. So Biden might be able to skate on that weirdly enough. The only problem is it makes him
00:29:33.260
look like he has to mention. Here's another fake news thing. So you know how our military told us that
00:29:42.980
there was no intel that the Afghan army would fall so fast. So no intelligence said that. That is fake
00:29:53.940
news. Now, I'm not saying that the intelligence people did tell them that. What's the fake news part?
00:30:01.740
So here's the part that you have to understand. We built this Afghan military into a service that
00:30:08.420
requires air support to work. And then we disabled all their air support before we left.
00:30:16.000
Do you need an intelligence agency to tell you that if you disable the most important part of the
00:30:23.600
military, the military will collapse? Did you need intel? Did you? Because if you knew that,
00:30:30.960
you know, if you were the head general over there, and you knew that you had disabled the most critical
00:30:37.240
part of the Afghan army's ability to defend itself, air support, you knew it was going to collapse.
00:30:45.520
You knew it because you engineered it. You don't need intelligence to tell you you're going to get
00:30:52.180
what you engineer. They engineered the failure by taking a variable out of it that was necessary to
00:31:00.940
success. That wasn't done accidentally. That was done intentionally. Right? If you intentionally
00:31:08.680
destroy the army, how much intelligence do you need, like intel, to tell you it's not going to work
00:31:17.200
out? And it'll probably collapse faster than you wanted. I mean, really? When these assholes tell
00:31:23.780
us that they didn't have intel, well, maybe that's technically fucking true. You should be fired for
00:31:31.700
saying that. Both these, you know, Austin and Millie should be fired for telling us this bullshit,
00:31:39.720
that they didn't have intel. Yeah, that's technically true, you fuckers. You didn't have intel because
00:31:45.560
you didn't need it. You degraded the Afghan army before you left. And you did that first,
00:31:52.540
you motherfuckers. So stop telling us that there was no intel. Yeah, you lying pieces of shit.
00:32:00.500
There is no intel. We didn't need any. That's what it looks like.
00:32:04.240
So, what time is it? I'm going to make sure I'm... Okay, still got time. The Taliban says they will
00:32:17.480
not accept an extension of our August 31st deadline for getting the Westerners out. To which I say,
00:32:25.500
why is it up to them? Why are we letting the Taliban give us yet another humiliation?
00:32:32.060
Now, I suppose Biden wants to not piss them off more than we need to while we're trying to get
00:32:38.560
people out. That makes sense. But talk about a humiliation. They're holding us to an arbitrary
00:32:45.880
deadline? It's arbitrary. There's nothing about that deadline that has any, you know, physical part to
00:32:55.080
it. You would think even the Taliban would want us to get people out, even if it took a few extra
00:32:59.740
weeks. So that's just fucking with us, right, at this point. They're just messing with us to
00:33:05.140
humiliate us. But this is what Trump would say if he were president. We're going to get all our
00:33:11.680
people out. That's it. Taliban says the deadline is August 31st. And our president says the deadline is
00:33:20.880
when we get our people out. No negotiating, no comment, no pushback, no nothing. It's not a
00:33:29.680
negotiation. Acting like this is a negotiation would be crazy. We're going to put as much strength
00:33:38.080
as it takes to get those people out, period. I mean, that's got to be the position.
00:33:42.580
I asked people to explain to me why the vaccinations might make more variants.
00:33:51.320
And I've not seen that explanation. I have seen people explain to me by forwarding an article that
00:33:58.240
doesn't explain it. But people think they've seen the explanations. And when they try to explain it,
00:34:05.860
watch how it falls apart. Selective pressure. So let me walk you through it. Let's say you've got
00:34:15.860
a vaccinated person who that vaccination will stop some of the virus, but not the variants. Let's say
00:34:24.560
that's the situation. How does that create more variants? Because the variant was there. The vaccine
00:34:32.660
didn't create the variant. The variant was going to be there. And the vaccine didn't stop it.
00:34:38.700
But whether or not you got vaccinated or not vaccinated, that variant was still going to get
00:34:43.620
out, wasn't it? Now, you might say to yourself, well, yes, the variant would have gotten out. But so
00:34:49.740
would the regular COVID. Is it the regular COVID that's getting out to make you more resistant against
00:34:57.780
the variant? Is that what's happening? And if you don't let enough of the real COVID out,
00:35:03.740
the variant will run wild? I don't believe there's any mechanism for the argument that fewer
00:35:12.000
infections, which is what you get when you have more vaccinations, I don't see how fewer infections
00:35:17.180
in the country creates more variants. And watch that. Watch what happens when you try to explain
00:35:23.800
it. I think all variants spread equally, but the vaccine suppresses the old strains.
00:35:36.260
And? But you see what's missing, right? Every time somebody tries to explain it, it's like walking
00:35:42.620
over a bridge and they get halfway and there's no more bridge. And then they say, there you go.
00:35:47.620
And I say, oh, there's nothing happened. You didn't actually explain anything. Just take this basic
00:35:56.800
assumption. I'm seeing a lot of people say ADE, like that means something to me. Try to put that
00:36:03.100
in a sentence because I think you're, I think it's useful. I just don't know what ADE is.
00:36:07.640
Smells like BS. Yeah. We know the vaccines work on the variants as well, at least so far.
00:36:22.420
The vaccine does not suppress the virus, it suppresses the symptoms. But suppressing the
00:36:28.540
symptoms reduces the number of people who will get it, because if you don't have symptoms,
00:36:34.260
you're less likely to spread it. So let me, here's my bottom line. Bottom line is, I think
00:36:43.940
that the more very, the more, the more infections there are, the more variants. Period. So that's
00:36:52.340
my idiot view. My non-expert idiot view is that the more, the more virus there is in the world,
00:37:00.340
the more variants you're going to get. Period. Now, if somebody can tell me why that's wrong
00:37:06.940
without using words like, well, it filters and that doesn't mean anything. That just means there's
00:37:14.520
less of it than there would have been, but it's less of everything than there would have been. It's
00:37:18.420
not just less of one thing. So I feel as though the argument that the vaccination causes things to
00:37:27.020
get worse is either completely false, or it's weird that people can't explain it.
00:37:36.660
But look at people trying to explain it in the comments and failing. And I'm not making fun of
00:37:41.580
you. I don't think it can be explained. Variants happen due to error correction at the RNA level.
00:37:47.040
Okay. What's that mean? Right. And how does that address my question? Let's see. Anybody try to
00:37:54.700
explain it in the comments? Don't think it's true. Spread the virus. Okay. Variants will be
00:38:05.480
ineffective usually. Yeah. If you don't know what ADE is, stop talking and go learn. Bob, fuck you.
00:38:16.740
I asked you what it is. We're not all born with full knowledge. Go do your own research. Fuck you.
00:38:22.500
Goodbye, asshole. All right. So you can only catch it from a sick person.
00:38:37.440
What's this? The spike protein. Yeah. So I see a number of people trying to explain it with like
00:38:43.780
little technical terms, but they don't actually make sense as sentences. So here's something I
00:38:51.880
believe. I believe that our CDC has two gigantic communication problems. Number one, I talked
00:39:03.360
about, which is they're acting as though they communicate so poorly, they're making you sound
00:39:08.220
like getting vaccinated makes you sicker. You got to fix that. That's just wrong. And the second thing
00:39:15.420
is, people believe that the vaccinations are causing variants. And I'm pretty sure that's not true, but I'm
00:39:23.020
not convinced. Pretty sure the vaccinations are not making more variants. But most of you believe it,
00:39:31.600
right? Wouldn't you say most of you believe that the vaccinations do cause variants? You believe that,
00:39:37.620
right? I need to see any explanation of how that could possibly be true in a math logical way.
00:39:46.100
All right. All you fuckers. Here we go. We'll look it up while you're here. It's like, this is why you
00:39:54.320
shouldn't do your own research. Everybody's saying, look up ADE. If you look up ADE, you'll know
00:40:00.560
everything. All right. So let me look it up and watch how this doesn't make any fucking difference.
00:40:05.540
All right. Antibody dependent enhancements and vaccines. Let's, let's read what this is.
00:40:13.040
All right. Immune responses to pathogens involve many cells and blah, blah, blah. Early during an
00:40:18.200
infection, those responses are nonspecific, meaning that although they are directed to the pathogens,
00:40:23.340
they're not specific to it. Okay. Uh, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. What is ADE? ADE occurs when the
00:40:29.700
antibodies generated during an immune response recognize and bind to a pathogen. Okay. Is there
00:40:34.460
anything that's going to be telling me anything useful here, no matter how far I read, but they
00:40:39.440
are unable to prevent infections, blah, blah, blah. Trojan horse, allowing the patient to get the
00:40:43.380
intercells, blah, blah. Is it caused by disease? Most diseases don't cause it. Is it caused by vaccines?
00:40:49.320
Okay. Uh, on a few occasions, ADE has resulted from vaccines. Uh, and this has nothing to do with my
00:40:57.320
question. I was talking about variants. So, so here, you know, as I predicted, looking at ADE
00:41:06.280
would have nothing to do with the question. And apparently it doesn't has nothing to do with
00:41:11.380
the question of the variants. So I didn't have to look that up to know that that was bullshit.
00:41:15.960
All right. Um, all right. Somebody's sending me this. Okay. I see, I see you over in locals
00:41:21.940
are sending me an article. Uh, oh, um, and I don't know what that article is supposed to be telling
00:41:33.400
me. ADE causes variants. So why, why couldn't you explain that? It took like half an hour for
00:41:53.600
somebody to say that the, that the vaccinations in some cases could cause a, this ADA response
00:42:02.060
that triggers variants. What took you so long to say that? Now, um, presumably the experts
00:42:12.920
don't think that's happening, right? Is that right? Um, Mike says, Scott is getting nervous.
00:42:22.560
LOL. We'll get rid of you, Mike, for being an asshole reading my mind. All right. Um,
00:42:31.900
let me inform you again, that being shown wrong on this podcast is good news, not bad news. If I could
00:42:41.120
be completely turned around on something I was pretty sure was true and did it live, that would
00:42:47.120
be cool, right? Because what we do here is talk about blind spots and persuasion and how people don't
00:42:53.640
use, you know, data to make decisions. So this is the only place that I'm free to make a complete
00:42:59.400
180. Other people paint themselves in the corner by trying to be right all the time. I wrote a book
00:43:07.400
about how wrong I am. And I tell you when I'm wrong as much as possible because being wrong is pretty
00:43:12.960
useful part of the process. If you understand why you were wrong in the past. So I'm the only person
00:43:18.640
who would love to tell you I was wrong. You just have to give me a little bit better. So I'll tell you
00:43:24.100
what I'll do. Uh, the, uh, the people who think they can do their own research and they learned all
00:43:31.820
about ADE, you can't do your own research. You will never get up to speed enough to know enough
00:43:38.560
contacts to really do that. At least not better than the experts. You know, maybe the experts can do
00:43:44.140
that. Um, so anyway, so that's, that's your argument is that, uh, the vaccinations cause that
00:43:54.660
effect, which produces variants. Um, can anybody tell me if the CDC believes that's happening?
00:44:03.140
Does, does the CDC believe that that is happening, that the ADE is causing variants? Because I haven't
00:44:10.180
heard it. So, so I think that that's a theoretical risk, not one that we observe. Is that true?
00:44:17.820
So find out if that's true for me and get back to me. So CNN is going after Larry Elder and it's kind
00:44:24.280
of hilarious, uh, watching them. So Jim Acosta was, uh, interviewing, uh, Daryl Issa or Issa from
00:44:32.440
California and asked about, uh, Larry Elder's quote, disparaging comments about women.
00:44:38.500
Um, and, and, and Jim Acosta quoted one of Larry Elder's quote, disparaging comments about
00:44:46.240
women. And it was, uh, I guess it had something to do with the women's march whenever that was.
00:44:52.200
And, uh, Larry said, uh, wittily that Trump got more obese women exercising at that march than
00:45:01.320
Michelle Obama ever did. Now, is that, is that a comment about that?
00:45:08.500
It's not even a comment about women. It's not even a comment about women, is it? It's a comment
00:45:15.060
about obesity. Now you could argue that a comment about obesity is inappropriate. You can make that
00:45:23.640
argument, but there's no way that isn't funny. But here's the best part, the way, uh, uh, Daryl, uh,
00:45:31.300
Issa handled it perfectly. You want to see how to handle something perfectly? Remember I've told
00:45:38.120
you that if you can disable somebody's best argument, you should, you don't need to talk
00:45:42.740
about the rest of them. Just say, what's your best argument? And then I'll dismiss it and then
00:45:48.440
we'll be done. Cause, cause if that's your best argument and I can dismiss it, I don't really need
00:45:53.560
to listen to the rest of them. That was your best argument. So here's what, uh, Daryl Issa says. He
00:45:58.980
says, after he hears this joke, he says, you know, that was in the context of entertainment. And he says,
00:46:04.760
basically, if that's the best you have, that's it. The best you have against, uh, against, uh,
00:46:13.120
Larry Elder, the best you have is that he made a joke about the women's march, got obese women
00:46:19.420
marching. That's it. That's the best you have. That's perfect. If you ever get a chance to take,
00:46:26.620
to dismantle somebody's best argument by sweeping it away as just ridiculous, do it. All right. So
00:46:33.460
Daryl Issa handled it as well as you can handle that. And then Jim Acosta said, oh, but, oh,
00:46:39.300
but we have lots more. Oh yeah. Um, this isn't it. I mean, I'm not saying this is our best stuff.
00:46:47.800
No, no. Oh, we got, we got wheelbarrows full of them. Binders. I've got a warehouse full of this
00:46:54.080
stuff. Why'd you start with that one? If you've got so much material, why'd you start with that one?
00:47:02.960
It's because it was the best one. That's why Daryl Issa totally dismissed this, this, this guy
00:47:11.960
by just basically laughing it off and making him look like an idiot for his, his best evidence was
00:47:18.120
nothing. So I don't know if that's all they've got against Larry Elder is that he, he noticed a lot
00:47:24.860
of the people marching were overweight. That's what we all noticed, right? It's just America.
00:47:30.660
America looks like a big overweight parade. It has nothing to do with women in that case.
00:47:40.520
And then, oh, then there's new news. California officials opened investigation into whether Larry
00:47:46.280
Elder failed to disclose income sources. Well, isn't that convenient that they opened an investigation
00:47:54.100
on a vague thing that they don't even have a specific allegation for right before the election?
00:48:00.660
Do you think any Democrats are involved in this open investigation? Yeah. I don't think
00:48:10.520
you have to read the details to know there might be a Democrat or two involved in this investigation.
00:48:16.400
And it doesn't even make a claim. It just asks a question. Like, well, I know, did he? I'm, did you?
00:48:24.400
I'd like to open an investigation into any of you, whether you claimed all your income. Because I don't
00:48:32.240
have any evidence that any of you are hiding income. But I think we need to do an investigation.
00:48:37.600
Just to find out. Just to find out. All right. Well, that, those are the topics I needed to cover
00:48:43.820
today. I think you feel smarter for it. And the whiteboard, actually, I'm preparing for a micro lesson on how to,
00:48:53.880
how to create something from nothing. So that'll be on the subscription service locals for the people
00:49:01.380
who want to get smarter and better, let's see, better skilled. So the micro lessons are to give you in
00:49:10.700
just a few minutes, just, you know, two to four minutes usually, some kind of a life skill that,
00:49:15.680
Oh, this is the best advice. Thank you. I got $5 of advice to remember that Weinstein rhymes with
00:49:26.860
Einstein. So it's Weinstein? Is that right? Well, I don't believe that's right. Is it? It's not
00:49:36.340
Weinstein? It's Weinstein? No, that can't be right. Anyway, but thank you for making that suggestion,
00:49:44.700
but I'm not sure I believe it. Scott, why are you calling these therapeutics vaccines?
00:49:52.160
It's called common usage, common usage, common usage in the sense that that's what everybody's
00:49:57.980
calling them, not that it's accurate. I have said a number of times that I didn't think vaccinations
00:50:04.320
were even possible for a coronavirus. Turns out they're not. It really is a therapeutic that's
00:50:12.080
delivered in a, like a vaccine. All right. Colloquially, yes, that would be the good word.
00:50:18.920
It is a colloquially, colloquial use of the word. Um, Scott, can you ask either of these experts,
00:50:27.900
blah, blah, blah, about the variant issue? Um, no, no, I can't. Here's my problem with stuff like that.
00:50:35.460
If it can't be explained easily, it's not real, right? If you have to go to the expert to explain
00:50:42.400
it to you, it's probably not real. There's a rule of, you know, determining bullshit that if somebody
00:50:49.740
can't explain it easily, they don't understand it or it's not real. So you should be able to say
00:50:56.260
to me, uh, there are three examples of vaccines like this that cause more variants. This is one
00:51:03.500
of those. And so we expect it to go the way the other ones went. Now, would that, would that not
00:51:10.660
be a simple explanation that a lay person could understand? And why is the CDC not telling this?
00:51:17.640
Why is it not on the news? Why is it only the rogue doctor who's, who's saying it? So let me say this.
00:51:23.920
I don't believe any of the rogue doctors. It doesn't matter who it is. It doesn't matter
00:51:28.600
if they're pushing ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine or variants or anything else. Some of them are
00:51:34.060
probably going to be right, right? Statistically speaking, there's going to be a rogue doctor
00:51:40.040
somewhere who's right. But usually not. If I had to put a number on it, 95% of the time,
00:51:50.860
the rogue doctor is wrong. So if you saw the rogue doctor, the only one speaking out against the
00:51:57.140
system might be right, but only 5% chance. So just keep it in context. Now someday, if the Dr.
00:52:06.040
Malone or other rogue doctors, if they turn out to be right, are you going to come to me and say,
00:52:11.500
hey, Scott, it was obvious, I told you? Well, you're still wrong. Because statistically,
00:52:18.640
it's not a good bet. But they could be right, 5%. Maybe you get one, maybe you get this one right.
00:52:26.260
CDC is compromised? Yeah, maybe so. All right, I got to run. And I will talk to you all later.