Real Coffee with Scott Adams - Episode 1477 Scott Adams： Persuasion Lessons Plucked From the Headlines. And Coffee.

00:00:00.000 Good morning everybody. It's time for Coffee with Scott Adams, the best time of the whole day.

00:00:07.520 Every single time and all you need to make this special, like really special, like better than

00:00:13.840 usual, is a cup or mug or a glass of tank or chalice or stein, a canteen jug or flask,

00:00:19.640 a vessel of any kind. Fill it with your favorite liquid. I like coffee. And join me now for the

00:00:25.340 unparalleled pleasure of the dopamine the other day, the thing that makes everything better.

00:00:30.560 It's called the simultaneous sip. 0.57

00:00:32.500 Oh, my troll is here. Dr. Johnson. We don't know your first name, but there is speculation that

00:00:45.380 it's Richard. So Richard is here. We're going to call you Dick, even if you're not. So tales from

00:00:54.640 the simulation. Are you ready? One of the ways you know that this reality is a simulation and

00:01:00.780 not a real one is all the coincidences. As Twitter user Donald Luskin pointed out, we've already

00:01:10.080 got a military general named Millie. He's the military guy named Millie. And then we have

00:01:19.400 a chief negotiator of the State Department named Blinken. He is negotiating for us and he's

00:01:26.460 Blinken. But it gets worse, as I pointed out, when you've got a placekeeper president who's

00:01:34.820 just there until Harris takes over, he's kind of Biden his time. Yeah. Yeah. The president

00:01:42.540 is Biden his time until Harris takes over. So that's how you know you live in the simulation.

00:01:48.160 All right. Fake news of the day. Fake news of the day. This is a special category in which

00:01:57.280 you could argue it's not fake news or it's 50% fake news. It's actually a two movies on

00:02:04.560 one screen situation where at least one of those movies is wrong. The other one might be

00:02:10.140 right. But it's two movies. And here it goes. Emerald Robinson tweeted this, noted that CDC

00:02:17.940 director Walensky just told the world in a recent interview that, quote, there's an increased

00:02:24.980 risk of severe disease amongst those who are vaccinated early. Oh, that sounds pretty bad.

00:02:32.920 The people who got vaccinated early had an increased risk of severe disease. Which movie are you

00:02:42.100 seeing now? How do you interpret that? People who got vaccinated early, according to the CDC

00:02:50.780 director, have an increased risk of severe disease. Do you see the two movies? Two movies.

00:02:59.720 One movie says that what that means is that the vaccinations themselves make you sicker.

00:03:09.100 That's one interpretation. Do you think the CDC was saying that the people who got the vaccination

00:03:14.640 early are getting sicker than if they hadn't gotten vaccinated at all? Is that what they're saying?

00:03:22.460 Because that's how it's being interpreted. Well, I don't think they're saying that. I think

00:03:27.460 what they're saying is that the increased risk of severe disease is compared to when they first got

00:03:34.040 vaccinated. In other words, prior to vaccination, they had a high risk of disease. The vaccination

00:03:40.920 lowered it substantially. But now they're watching that risk increase as the vaccinations wear off and

00:03:46.720 you need a booster. Is that a problem? Well, I mean, if the booster itself is dangerous, it's a problem.

00:03:54.120 But it's not being interpreted quite exactly right. So it's 50% fake news. Except you don't know which

00:04:02.480 is the 50%. I'm pretty sure the 50% that's fake is the idea that the vaccination somehow makes you

00:04:09.580 sicker. Now, how bad is the communication from our government when the director of the CDC says

00:04:18.780 something and you don't know if it means vaccinations kill you or vaccinations save you? Because that just

00:04:27.340 happened. The director of the CDC said something so ambiguous, just the way she worded it, that you

00:04:35.340 can't tell if she's saying the vaccination will kill you or save you. How could it be worse? There are

00:04:41.920 legitimate people who watch the news, you know, well informed news watching people who believe this

00:04:49.680 directive of the CDC just told you the vaccinations will kill you. That didn't happen. I'm pretty sure

00:04:55.980 that didn't happen. But they're so bad at communicating that people think it happened.

00:05:01.260 All right. I blame the CDC for that. That's a little unclear. But some of it might be just

00:05:07.860 taken out of context stuff. So I think I said this yesterday, I had an idea for dealing with the

00:05:15.000 fentanyl coming in from China. It's killing 10s of 1000s of people in this country every year. And

00:05:20.960 China doesn't want to do anything about it, even though they could easily shut it down. They know 0.96

00:05:24.820 exactly who's sending it to us. I know we know that China knows who's sending it to the United States

00:05:30.640 because we know. It's public. We know the names of the people in China who are sending the

00:05:35.920 fentanyl. Can you believe that? That we actually know the name and address, presumably, of the head

00:05:43.340 drug dealer in China who's sending the fentanyl? It's probably more than one, but there's one big

00:05:48.580 one. And he's still alive. What? Why didn't we kill that guy yet? Are you telling me that our

00:05:57.980 intelligence people can't get to one guy in China? He should be dead? He should be very, 0.98

00:06:05.100 very dead by now. But as far as I know, he's not. I mean, I suppose he could be and I wouldn't

00:06:09.160 know it. But what's up with that? Isn't that a gigantic failure of our intelligence agencies

00:06:15.980 that we haven't assassinated this guy yet? It's obvious. He's obvious. You kill that guy

00:06:21.440 and then you worry about China later. Do you think that we would care if China got really, 0.99

00:06:27.560 really mad that we killed one of their nationals? Yeah, they would get really, really mad. And

00:06:32.360 then we would say, well, we gave you a chance to kill him. This is how I'd do it if I were 1.00

00:06:37.280 Trump, because Biden's not going to do it right. But let's say it's Trump second term. I would

00:06:43.440 say this. I'll give you 60 days to kill that guy. And if you don't, we're going to go kill 1.00

00:06:49.560 him on your territory one way or another. We're going to drop a drone on him. We're going to 1.00

00:06:54.300 poison him. We're going to do something. But we're going to kill that guy in 60 days on your 1.00

00:06:58.640 territory unless you do. Now, it would be one thing to kill a guy in Chinese territory without 1.00

00:07:06.680 telling them in advance. That would be pretty effed up. And then they might they would probably 0.99

00:07:11.940 retaliate and kill some American that they've got a beef with on our territory. You don't want 1.00

00:07:18.860 that. That's why you tell him in advance. You do it overtly. You don't do it secretly. You say,

00:07:27.060 this guy's going to be dead in 60 days. Here's why. He's killed 200,000 Americans. You got 60 days.

00:07:34.840 We're going to kill him in country one way or another. You know, you'll figure it out one way or 1.00

00:07:40.560 another. We're going to get him. But you've got to kill him in 60 days or we will. What

00:07:45.700 would China do then? Well, they'd probably pretend they put him in jail or something, 0.90

00:07:51.420 I suppose. They'd have some kind of clever trick. But I think we have to say it's not

00:07:56.840 an option that he's still alive in 60 days. That's just not an option. We can't be that

00:08:04.380 country. So let's get a little tougher on that. Here's the interesting thing. When I suggested

00:08:09.620 that we have legislation to deport one Chinese college student for every fentanyl death,

00:08:16.960 I got zero pushback on this that I saw. Maybe I missed something. But have you ever seen anybody

00:08:24.240 make a recommendation for anything substantial that nobody disagreed with? This is the one case

00:08:32.640 that this is the most bipartisan thing in the country. Seriously. Name one thing that's more

00:08:39.460 bipartisan than making China stop sending us fentanyl. There's nobody on the other side of

00:08:45.580 that. Nobody. So I mean, some people are saying, well, it's our own damn fault and stuff. But we'd still

00:08:51.260 prefer they didn't send it to us. Right? So what the interesting thing about this is that now this

00:08:59.120 idea is out there. And you know, I included Tom Cotton on the tweet. I hope you've seen it by now.

00:09:04.860 But once the idea is out there, and zero people think it's a bad idea, what would stop it from

00:09:11.340 becoming legislation? Maybe there's some legal reason? I don't know. But let's see if anything

00:09:18.500 happens with that. You may have already heard that the Pfizer vaccination is going to get full FDA

00:09:25.980 approval, every smart person says. Maybe as soon as today, but probably this week. And so I asked a

00:09:33.380 little highly unscientific poll on Twitter for the unvaccinated to see if that would change their

00:09:40.940 minds. Now, the people who did not get vaccinated, what is the number one thing that they say when

00:09:49.140 they discuss their hesitancy to get vaccinated? What's the number one thing they say? It's not

00:09:55.280 approved by the FDA. Right? Now, I'm not imagining that, right? If you've had enough conversations,

00:10:01.320 it's the number one reason is that it's not approved by the FDA. So the FDA is going to fix

00:10:06.560 that by approving it. So what percentage of all the unvaccinated people will change their mind

00:10:13.820 because the data changed? Make a prediction. Predict how many people will change their minds

00:10:21.620 because there was one thing that was holding them back, and then the data says, oh, it's okay now

00:10:26.820 because the FDA approved it. Close to zero. Yeah, close to zero. I got 4.3% said they would likely

00:10:35.500 get the vaccination now that it's approved. 4.3%. Now, this is of only the unvaccinated people.

00:10:44.540 It's not vaccinated plus unvaccinated. 4% of the unvaccinated people, that's it,

00:10:49.660 who were persuaded by the new data, presumably. New data. So who could have predicted this?

00:11:02.240 Right? If you studied persuasion, you should have predicted this. Tell me why. What is the

00:11:11.040 persuasion term that predicts that people won't change their mind when the data changes, even when

00:11:18.240 they said that's what would change their mind? The fake because? I see why you're saying

00:11:25.880 that. Confirmation bias? No. Not confirmation bias. Consistency. There you go. Yeah. The

00:11:34.840 consistency bias. People don't like to change their minds. But don't they like to change their

00:11:42.020 minds when the data changes? Nope. Here's the problem.

00:11:48.240 People who got vaccinated are going to be able to claim that they were right. Right? So people

00:11:56.260 went early and said, yeah, I got the Pfizer. It wasn't FDA approved, but I was pretty sure they

00:12:01.120 saw enough data that if there was a problem, probably would have known it early. So I took a calculated risk

00:12:07.840 before the FDA approved it. And now the FDA has approved it. So it seems that my calculated risk was

00:12:14.380 correct. So that would make me the smart one. And if you didn't get it, yeah, I see why you were

00:12:20.400 afraid, but I guess you made the wrong decision. Right? Nobody wants to be on the other end of what I

00:12:26.140 just handed to you. Nobody wants to be told they made the wrong decision before. Because the change in

00:12:34.280 the data makes it appear that you made the wrong decision. Nobody can accept that. Nobody believes

00:12:42.760 they made the wrong decision. When I say nobody, well, maybe 4% can. But basically, people aren't

00:12:49.120 going to say I was wrong all along. Now, let me defend the people who did not get vaccinated. Let me

00:12:57.760 defend them. Just because things didn't go the way they could have, in other words, just because

00:13:04.760 the people who did get vaccinated early, their decision appears to be validated by the FDA now,

00:13:12.020 does that mean they were the smart ones? If the FDA, let's say, you know, enough years go by

00:13:18.840 that the people who got vaccinated early clearly appear to be the ones who made the right decision.

00:13:24.980 Could you go back in time and say, yes, they made the right decision? No. Because it was

00:13:32.640 statistical. There was no right or wrong. It was an unknown. If you look into the unknown

00:13:39.040 and you make a choice and it doesn't go well, did you make the wrong decision? No. Probably

00:13:47.020 not. You might have made the right decision because you didn't have any information that could

00:13:52.180 help you. So you might have done the best you could. Decision-making, it just didn't work

00:13:56.320 out for you. So one of the problems we have is that people will look correct or look incorrect

00:14:02.620 even as data is changing, right? So nobody wants to look like they were wrong all along.

00:14:08.760 So I think that's why people dig in. They want to be consistent and right, and it doesn't let

00:14:13.420 them do that. Michael Schellenberger tweeted today. And by the way, you should all be

00:14:18.680 following Michael Schellenberger. If you're not following him on Twitter, he's one of the,

00:14:24.860 I would say, one of the top 10 most productive, useful tweeters in the United States, I would

00:14:32.660 say, on a variety of topics, green energy and homelessness and fentanyl being among them.

00:14:39.460 So those would be areas of expertise. And I'm hoping that Larry Elder is already talking

00:14:44.860 to Michael. But here's what Michael tweeted this morning. He said that Germany is at risk

00:14:56.080 of blackouts from lack of reliable energy. So here are some Germany stats. The prices of energy

00:15:01.820 in Germany rose 60% in 2021. What? The energy price went up 60% in one year? Well, they're

00:15:12.860 doing something wrong. And I guess it's all the green energy stuff that's not working out.

00:15:17.540 Their supply margin of energy is shrinking from 26% to 3% by 2023. So they won't have any margin.

00:15:24.960 And I guess Angela Merkel admits her government got it wrong. So Germany is actually saying,

00:15:32.840 yeah, we effed up and we screwed up our whole, you know, supply chain situation. Now, and they

00:15:40.980 still, and despite that, as Michael points out, they're still planning to close their last

00:15:46.700 nuclear plant in 2022. Completely an unscientific, you know, way to go. So Germany is being completely

00:15:54.420 unscientific, at least in terms of their nuclear energy stuff. Now, who could have predicted

00:16:00.340 that Germany's plans would not work out? And what would you use to predict it? Now, we're

00:16:08.200 all geniuses in hindsight, right? So it seems pretty smart for anybody who said, hey, this green

00:16:13.840 energy stuff isn't going to work out the way you hope. It's got a lot of, got a lot of downsides

00:16:18.800 and reliability, et cetera. So I think a lot of people could have predicted this, wouldn't

00:16:23.480 you say? Because we didn't really see, even when they had the plan, you couldn't write,

00:16:28.400 you couldn't even see how it would work exactly. Because you're saying, wait, you're going to

00:16:33.140 get rid of all your reliable energy, replace it with unreliable energy, and that'll work out?

00:16:40.840 Like, even when you hear it, it doesn't make sense that it possibly could have worked out.

00:16:44.800 It sounded like wishful thinking more than a plan. But what would be another way you could

00:16:51.680 predict that things work out? Economics. I tell you many times that people who study economics

00:16:57.580 can see around corners. Because if things don't work out economically, they're not going to happen

00:17:04.140 in the long run, right? In the short run, anything can happen. In the long run, things that are

00:17:10.180 economical happen. Things that are uneconomical end up dying. So here's what you could have predicted

00:17:17.360 if you understood economics. That whatever was best for the economics of the energy industry

00:17:24.260 would get them to lowest risk in every way. Let me say that again. Whatever was the best economic

00:17:34.060 plan for energy would also necessarily be the best for reducing energy consumption in the

00:17:42.620 long run. Now, if you don't understand that, I'm seeing people who understand economics saying

00:17:47.860 exactly, right? Everybody who understands economics knows exactly what I just said. And here's the

00:17:53.880 reason. We have tons of history in which getting the economy right fixes everything, right? Why is it

00:18:03.100 we have good health care in the United States? It's because the economy is good. That's it. Why do we

00:18:08.500 have a good military in the United States? The economy is good. That's it, right? You get the economy

00:18:16.560 good, and then everything works. Why is it that the United States surpassed its, what was it, the Paris

00:18:25.860 climate accord numbers? Without trying. Without trying. We had withdrawn from the Paris agreement,

00:18:34.120 and we still beat our numbers. Why? Because we pursued economics. And I think it was natural gas

00:18:41.600 that made the difference. Why did we pursue natural gas? It was economical, right? And you will find

00:18:50.760 consistently that if you're predicting in the long term. It doesn't work in the short term. But if

00:18:56.280 you're predicting the long term, the economics always gets you to the best place. Now, who knew this

00:19:03.520 better than any leader? Trump. Right? Trump is the one president who knew this more than any other

00:19:12.720 leader. Get the economics right, everything else works out. You get the economics right, your army is so

00:19:19.100 big, nobody will attack you. You get the economics right, you've got more energy than you can handle.

00:19:24.760 And then you've got enough money to figure out how to clean things and invest in green energy and

00:19:29.720 you know, mitigate climate change problems, etc. It's the economy. I mean, basically, it's the Bill

00:19:36.700 Clinton, it's the economy, stupid. You got to get the economy right. And then everything else will work 1.00

00:19:42.520 out. But if you do it in the other order, you've got the Afghanistan withdrawal. Germany is 0.78

00:19:48.200 energy policy is Biden's Afghanistan withdrawal. They withdrew from nuclear before they had a plan.

00:19:59.820 Same thing, right? Same problem. They just did things in the wrong order. Get the economy right, 0.62

00:20:06.860 and then you can work on other stuff. Well, apparently, Biden's even looking crazy to the Brits. So the

00:20:13.540 ministers over in London are saying, basically, they're saying out loud now. They don't seem to

00:20:20.540 even be embarrassed that the president looks gaga or doolally. So apparently, if you're looking crazy 0.97

00:20:28.880 over in Great Britain, somebody's going to say you look gaga or possibly doolally. So Biden's looking

00:20:36.540 kind of doolally lately. And I think has everything to do with Afghanistan. It finally reached a point

00:20:43.040 where you just couldn't ignore it anymore. It was kind of funny watching the world try to ignore

00:20:50.860 the obvious decline in Biden's capabilities. And they were doing such a good job. I mean,

00:20:57.140 they were literally ignoring the hell out of it. But this made it impossible to ignore. Afghanistan did. 1.00

00:21:02.420 Well, it looks to me like the backdoor plan to make Kamala Harris president early is not working

00:21:11.300 out. Meaning that Joe Biden is declining faster. His mental state is declining faster than any of

00:21:19.660 our intel sources warned us. Yeah, the intel told us that Biden's mental faculties would last another

00:21:28.260 six months at least before they failed. And that would be plenty of time to get Harris up to speed,

00:21:34.820 get her some wins and put her in position to be the next president. But it turns out that Biden is

00:21:42.480 declining faster than any of our intel told us was going to happen. Didn't see it coming.

00:21:48.280 And then the Taliban is... Oh, I'm sorry. I'm in the wrong story. I just mixed stories there for a

00:21:54.200 minute. I forgot where I was. So yeah, Biden's declined faster than he could. But at the same

00:22:01.020 time, Harris's reputation is as bad as it could possibly be. I mean, she's looking totally 0.99

00:22:06.820 incompetent on a number of issues. So as I tweeted cleverly, I said, it's a time for a prominent

00:22:17.760 Democrat to confess that the plan to backdoor Kamala Harrison to the presidency has shit the bed so hard to 0.97

00:22:26.540 damage the box springs. I think that's their problem, isn't it? And I haven't seen anybody say 0.97

00:22:33.880 it yet out loud. I think the problem, the plan was always to, you know, get Kamala Harrison the

00:22:41.260 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

00:22:56.520 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

00:23:52.020 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

00:24:31.080 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.

00:24:51.080 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.

00:25:17.940 This guy was the head of the CIA, the propaganda unit, if you will, among other things. And he's

00:25:28.400 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 0.54

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 0.62

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 0.52

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 1.00

00:26:30.880 of the public for essentially death. Because if the Taliban really were in the United States, 0.72

00:26:37.920 we'd be advocating killing them. So if it's somebody that you advocate killing, and you're 0.98

00:26:43.860 saying that some group of Americans with a political preference are similar to a group that you would 0.96

00:26:49.960 kill if they got in this country, that feels like Nazi propaganda. Doesn't it? I mean, I probably have 0.86

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 1.00

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 0.97

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 1.00

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 1.00

00:31:31.700 saying that. Both these, you know, Austin and Millie should be fired for telling us this bullshit, 1.00

00:31:39.720 that they didn't have intel. Yeah, that's technically true, you fuckers. You didn't have intel because 1.00

00:31:45.560 you didn't need it. You degraded the Afghan army before you left. And you did that first, 0.89

00:31:52.540 you motherfuckers. So stop telling us that there was no intel. Yeah, you lying pieces of shit. 1.00

00:32:00.500 There is no intel. We didn't need any. That's what it looks like. 1.00

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, 1.00

00:32:25.500 why is it up to them? Why are we letting the Taliban give us yet another humiliation? 0.93

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 0.95

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, 1.00

00:37:00.340 the more variants you're going to get. Period. Now, if somebody can tell me why that's wrong 1.00

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. 1.00

00:38:22.500 Goodbye, asshole. All right. So you can only catch it from a sick person. 1.00

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 1.00

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. 0.96

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. 0.99

00:41:15.960 All right. Um, all right. Somebody's sending me this. Okay. I see, I see you over in locals 0.99

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, 1.00

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. 0.93

00:44:52.200 And, uh, Larry said, uh, wittily that Trump got more obese women exercising at that march than 0.98

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 1.00

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 0.51

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 0.99

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 0.98

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. 1.00

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 0.94

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 0.96

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.

00:52:32.100 Lancaster.

00:52:52.740 Bye.

00:52:52.760 Bye.

00:53:00.880 Bye.

Real Coffee with Scott Adams - August 23, 2021

Episode 1477 Scott Adams： Persuasion Lessons Plucked From the Headlines. And Coffee.

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