Real Coffee with Scott Adams - Episode 1514 Scott Adams： Boo the Cat and I Have Plenty to Say Today About the News

00:00:00.000 of your day. Possibly the best part. And it's going to be amazing. Can you feel yourself

00:00:06.340 getting happier already? Yeah, you can feel it a little bit. It's starting to kick in.

00:00:12.800 And you haven't even had your coffee yet. Well, you might have had some coffee. But

00:00:17.660 you haven't had the simultaneous sip. And wait until you see how good that is.

00:00:20.900 All right, I'm just firing up your comments here so that I can see them.

00:00:30.000 And then we will commence with the simultaneous sip, the thing that makes all of you happy.

00:00:36.120 Come on, come on. There we go.

00:00:42.000 And now, what will it be that's coming next? What is it? Yes, the simultaneous sip, the best

00:00:52.080 part of your day every single time. And all you need is a cup or mug or a glass, a tank or

00:00:57.140 jealous or sign a canteen, a jug or a flask, a vessel of any kind. Fill it with your favorite

00:01:02.840 liquid. I like coffee. Join me now for the unparalleled pleasure, the dopamine hit of the

00:01:09.580 day, the thing that makes everything better, including my cat Boo. It's called the simultaneous

00:01:15.580 sip, and it happens right now. Go. Alex took a pre-simultaneous sip. Yeah, not authorized,

00:01:27.280 Alex. Not authorized. But this time, I'm going to let that go. I'm going to let that go.

00:01:33.240 All right. Let's see all the excellent news that's happening today. Sipping like a gangster.

00:01:45.240 All right. So we have our first segment is vampire news. Vampire news. An Illinois man woke up with a

00:01:57.520 bat on his neck, and the bat was biting him in the neck. And tragically, he died of rabies. Apparently,

00:02:06.320 rabies can be treated effectively, but only if you get there in time. And he did not. And he's the

00:02:11.280 first person in the state's history since 1954 who died from a bat bite. Now, I'm not an overly

00:02:26.220 cautious person. And I'm not really superstitious. Well, I just think as a precaution that if a bat 0.90

00:02:36.600 bites somebody on the neck, you need to burn the body. Just burn it. Now, I'm not saying it's likely 0.99

00:02:44.960 that it's a vampire situation and this person will become the walking dead and turn the rest of us

00:02:52.280 into vampires. I'm just saying it could happen. Why would you take a chance? Just burn the body.

00:02:59.980 Should be a law. If you're killed by a bat, bite, just burn the body. All right. Just joking there 1.00

00:03:07.580 in case some of you don't have senses of humor and you know who you are. You know who you are. Yeah.

00:03:12.980 Well, in permanent news, you know what the permanent news is, right? It's the news that's the same

00:03:21.120 every day. For example, a permanent news would be the Pope denounces violence. Have you ever heard

00:03:29.580 that headline? The Pope speaks out against violence. Turns out the Pope doesn't like violence.

00:03:36.260 permanent news. Here's the other permanent news. Looks like the infrastructure bill is going to have

00:03:44.120 some problems getting passed. Hmm. Have we ever heard that before? Is this the first day that the

00:03:51.880 infrastructure bill had some trouble getting... No? It's permanent news. Permanent news.

00:03:57.720 So I guess Biden canceled his trip to Chicago

00:04:04.260 and, you know, over this $3.5 trillion budget thing. That seems to be part of it. Maybe that's

00:04:11.720 part of it. Maybe it's just a health reason. We don't know. But apparently that trip was to promote

00:04:16.360 his new requirement for workplaces to mandate proof of vaccinations or else issue compulsory

00:04:23.300 weekly testing. So let me break this down to you. The Biden administration, like the Trump

00:04:35.840 administration, all right, I'm not making a distinction between the two of them because

00:04:39.700 they're the same in this following point, have somebody in the administration who I believe

00:04:45.340 is corrupt. Not at the top. I don't think it's Biden and I don't think it was Trump. But somebody

00:04:51.440 in the approving part of it, maybe the FDA, seems to be the reason we don't have cheap

00:05:00.260 rapid tests. How would this feel if we had cheap rapid tests where any company could just

00:05:08.440 say, that's, it's only a dollar a test. Let's just, just test everybody every two days or

00:05:12.700 whatever. Now, I suppose that would be impossible to. Yeah, a dollar a test would probably add up

00:05:18.740 really quickly if you're a big company, wouldn't it? But the point is, do you think it's legitimate

00:05:24.500 for your government to prevent you from having cheap tests widely available and then also require

00:05:31.560 it for your employment? It's the government that prevents you from having cheap tests. And now

00:05:38.360 they're going to prevent you from working. Why? Because you didn't take a cheap test.

00:05:43.440 Let me just say that again. The government's corruption, and I'm pretty sure it's corruption,

00:05:49.540 because there's no other reason even offered. Nobody's even offered an alternative explanation

00:05:54.680 of why we don't have cheap tests in this country. Because they have them in other countries.

00:05:59.260 There's no technology problem. There's no manufacturing problem. It's just an approval problem,

00:06:03.440 which they don't have in other countries, apparently. So yeah, you can get cheap tests now,

00:06:08.920 but only from a few companies and at a high price. Too high for... You see? There's Boo.

00:06:17.420 Give you a little preview of Boo. Ooh, appears to be looking into my coffee. All right. We'll

00:06:24.920 bring her back for... I think she's going to come back for her own appearance here. Hey, Boo. 1.00

00:06:31.740 She still has her feeding tube in, as you can see. Here's her little feeding tube. So they actually

00:06:43.320 attach the feeding tube. They put a hole in her neck. So the tube goes into the side of the neck and 1.00

00:06:50.120 dangles into the top of the stomach. So I've got to shove meds and food down that several times a day,

00:06:56.820 which is pretty much my full-time job now. I'm basically a full-time cat doctor. But anyway,

00:07:04.740 I don't love a government that prevents me from having cheap tests and then says you're going to

00:07:10.820 get fired if you don't take a cheap test. Completely illegitimate. Let me say that again. I know for

00:07:18.640 most of you, the issue is going to be, can the government force you to take a vaccination? And

00:07:22.980 that's a really good issue. But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the

00:07:28.860 government acting like the pointy-haired boss. What does the pointy-haired boss in the Dilbert

00:07:34.440 comic do all the time? Creates a problem. The boss creates the problem and then assigns the blame

00:07:41.480 to the employees. Well, why didn't you perform better? Well, it's because you created a situation

00:07:46.380 which we couldn't perform. Likewise, Joe Biden's administration and its corrupt, whatever is

00:07:54.300 corrupt in it, same corruption that was with the Trump administration, I assume. That's an

00:08:00.700 assumption, but it looks like it. He caused the problem and then he's going to fire you for it.

00:08:07.920 You're going to get fired for Biden's failure. I'm not making that up. If Biden requires you to get

00:08:17.420 either vaccinated or tested, and getting tested just isn't practical because they're not cheap

00:08:22.860 available tests, Biden got you fired. He caused the problem and then blamed you. Caused the problem

00:08:32.800 and then blamed you. Not acceptable. So I hear your issue about, you know, government forcing you to

00:08:39.440 do anything. Sure. Good issue. But on top of that, if you don't give us tests because you're corrupt,

00:08:47.720 no. Flat no. That's a hard no. Now, the question of whether there should be mandates for employment or

00:08:57.500 not, I don't even get to that question. You can't even get to that question to have an opinion on it

00:09:04.160 because you have to get past the question of is it possible to do the testing. It's not because of

00:09:09.780 the people making you do it. I don't know what could be a less legitimate government policy. That's the

00:09:17.180 most illegitimate thing I've ever heard of. Top that, really. Really top that. Top that for being

00:09:23.540 illegitimate. It's hard. Rasmussen has a poll asking about the border situation. And one of the questions

00:09:35.840 was, is Biden or Trump's policies on immigration better? 51% said Trump. Now, 51% is, you know, sort of what

00:09:46.980 you expect whenever there's a political question. You know, it's like half and half, you know, one side

00:09:51.580 versus the other side. But 51% on immigration is a pretty big number, saying Trump. But more

00:09:59.740 revealing is only 32% support Biden. Now, let me ask you this. Let's say this poll is accurate

00:10:07.600 because Rasmussen has a good track record. So let's say the poll is accurate. How in the world does

00:10:14.560 any Democrat get elected again? How? Really? With 32% think that Biden has a better policy on

00:10:27.340 immigration? If it's only 32%, that means he's losing, you know, substantial support from his

00:10:33.060 own base. How do you, you can't get elected if you've lost even a little bit from your base.

00:10:37.940 Speaking of which, Kamala Harris is getting some heat from Israel. Because apparently she 1.00

00:10:45.680 visited a classroom and a student asked a question in which the question embedded in the question

00:10:55.740 was an insult to Israel in the sense that it referenced what they were doing as ethnic genocide.

00:11:02.360 So that was the student's characterization. And Israel is complaining that Harris sort of just

00:11:09.740 listened while nodding. I think the nodding was the part that seemed bad because it seemed like

00:11:15.720 she was nodding in some kind of an agreement with what the student was saying. Now, I watched the

00:11:20.700 video and I didn't see that. So I think it's fake news. What I saw was that she was doing the

00:11:26.540 I'm listening to you nod as opposed to the I'm agreeing with a specific point nod. Because

00:11:32.280 if you look, she just sort of is doing the soft nod as the student is talking. I think it's just

00:11:36.640 good listening skills. I didn't see her agreeing or disagreeing with a student. But she should have

00:11:43.400 pushed back harder. Yeah, I mean, if you're Israel, if you're Israel, you're looking at that and saying,

00:11:48.500 uh, you just let a student say on video that Israel is doing something called ethnic cleansing,

00:11:56.040 or no, ethnic genocide, I think. And you're the vice president of the United States, and you didn't,

00:12:01.540 you didn't take a moment to say, well, I don't think that's a fair characterization.

00:12:07.020 She just sort of let it stand and then made her point. Now, I don't really have a strong opinion

00:12:12.580 about this particular situation, because I don't think that Kamala Harris was, you know, agreeing with

00:12:18.320 the genocide part of it. But she didn't handle it well. And if you lose Israel, and let's say you 0.69

00:12:25.900 lose Americans who are pro-Israel, especially in the Jewish community in America, how do you get

00:12:32.540 reelected? How do you get reelected? I feel like Biden is losing Black Lives Matter with the mandates,

00:12:40.500 the vaccination stuff. I think he's losing everybody with immigration. I mean, how does 1.00

00:12:47.180 the guy get, how does he get reelected? Or how does any Democrat get reelected? I mean, it's not going

00:12:51.580 to be Biden, but. All right, so it looks like it's going to be a, I would guess the midterms are just

00:12:57.900 going to be a blowout for Republicans. What do you think? Does it look like, now, a lot could change

00:13:04.780 between now and the midterm election, right? There's something changing every day. But, but even if you

00:13:10.060 imagine, you know, some, some baseline level of fraud, even if you imagine that's true, doesn't

00:13:16.140 it look like the midterms are going to be a, just a blowout for the Republicans? Abortion question. Yeah, 1.00

00:13:23.360 that's a good point. The abortion question could work in the other direction. You're right.

00:13:27.060 Yeah, that Texas abortion bill really, really does change the situation. But I wonder, I wonder if

00:13:40.860 it's only going to affect those states that are maybe Republican anyway, you know, if it only affects

00:13:47.560 the states where you, you are going to rip, you're going to get a Republican, you know, because if you,

00:13:53.700 if you take Texas, they've got immigration that's in everybody's face and then abortion, 0.99

00:13:58.680 which is in some people's face. Like when I think of the abortion question, I've sort of aged out of

00:14:04.660 it being relevant to me personally. Like, don't think about it. But the immigration feels like it

00:14:09.740 affects everybody a little bit. So to me, it looks like a blowout, but lots could change between now

00:14:15.180 and then. Biden got embarrassed by his own generals, I guess, General Milley, and at least one other

00:14:23.380 general, maybe Austin said this too, that Biden was advised to leave 2,500 or so troops in Afghanistan

00:14:34.160 permanently. And that is shown to be a, making a lie out of Biden, making a liar out of him,

00:14:44.060 because he said to Stephanopoulos in an interview not too long ago, that nobody advised him to keep

00:14:50.500 2,500 troops there. And then the general said, yeah, we advised him to keep 2,500 troops there.

00:14:58.200 So what do you make of that? I'm not sure they're talking about the same thing.

00:15:03.820 Because it sounded like Milley and the other generals were advising a permanent force of,

00:15:09.600 you know, 2,500-ish, a permanent force. Whereas the question is about a temporary force

00:15:15.240 for the purpose of getting Americans out. I feel like those were different questions.

00:15:22.100 Because I do believe that Milley probably did recommend a permanent force. And I do believe

00:15:28.080 that Biden probably said, no, there will not be a permanent force of 2,500 people. Is that the same

00:15:34.940 question as leaving enough military there to get our people out? That's a different question,

00:15:41.360 isn't it? But I feel like the news reported this as, I think, both sides. I think even CNN reported

00:15:47.340 it as a lie. I'm not so sure. It might be. I mean, certainly, you know, it certainly raises a lot

00:15:55.260 of questions. Might be a lie. But the way Biden answered the question was, he said he doesn't recall it.

00:16:01.460 He doesn't remember anybody advising that. That might be true. Partly because he might just not

00:16:09.560 remember it. Maybe. Partly because maybe nobody asked him. Maybe nobody asked him. Maybe they just

00:16:16.500 talked to each other and then tell Biden what the decision is. Go watch the full hearing, somebody

00:16:22.340 says. There would be some context that we would miss. That's always a good general advice.

00:16:29.660 general advice. Ha. But I feel as though maybe there were two topics that we merged into one. We've

00:16:40.520 conflated the question of staying there forever, which we didn't want, or at least, you know, I wasn't

00:16:46.580 too crazy about it, with the question of staying there for a while. Now, and I also don't understand

00:16:52.740 the question about the people who had months to get out and didn't. Do we have any visibility about

00:16:58.400 what that's all about? What about those people who had months to get out and then didn't?

00:17:06.260 And then apparently there was also the, you know, some thought that we would keep a permanent

00:17:11.100 embassy there and that would allow people to get out who had straggled. But that doesn't sound like

00:17:16.220 a good plan. They still have to get to the embassy. So it seems to me that Biden's instinct to

00:17:24.980 not have anybody stay there long term might have been right. I don't know. I think it's too early

00:17:33.240 to say. I mean, if it turns out that the terrorism reforms and we're, you know, we're caught surprised

00:17:39.660 again, then it's going to be a terrible idea. But if that doesn't happen, and let's say the Taliban 0.98

00:17:44.140 decides on their own to squash anybody who might cause trouble in their country, trouble that would come

00:17:49.600 back on the Taliban again. We might be fine. It could be that the Taliban will take care of their 0.99

00:17:56.460 own terrorists because they don't need us to go back there. Do you really think people wanted to

00:18:03.200 stay there? Yeah, I think the military did. I think the military did some parts of it. Do you hear my

00:18:10.800 cat snoring? She's quite happy here. We'll give you a give you a little cat view. We're changing from

00:18:19.960 Scott view to cat view. I think you'll appreciate it.

00:18:30.080 There's a little feeding tube. Very sad, but she seems to be doing fine. All right, I'll let you look at the cat

00:18:36.700 while I read this other stuff. No, I'm going to make you look at me. Yeah, I'm going to make you look at me.

00:18:42.200 Sorry. I know nobody wants this, but it just doesn't work as well. All right, back to me. No. All right,

00:18:54.920 I'll compromise. I will hold the cat on my lap while I do the rest. All right, compromise. A little bit of

00:19:06.680 cat. A little bit of Scott. Best of all worlds. All right. So there's a story today about there's a

00:19:16.440 new book coming out from an ex-Google guy, top technologist from Google, who is warning us about

00:19:23.840 AI becoming smart and taking over. Now, you've heard this before, that AI will become super smart

00:19:30.660 at some point, and then we'll become the super intelligence that we don't know what's going to

00:19:36.860 happen. So it could be dangerous. And the Google, ex-Google guy tells this story that is really a

00:19:43.580 scary one. Apparently, they were doing some experiment in which they were doing some experiment in which

00:19:52.560 they were teaching a bunch of robot arms in what they called an arm farm, a whole bunch of arms that

00:20:00.460 had been programmed with some kind of AI. And I guess the arms had been programmed to sort of learn.

00:20:09.260 So there's a bunch of arms, and they're just doing stuff, and then they're learning from doing stuff,

00:20:13.240 and something like that. But at one point, one of the arms picked up, what was it? It picked up a ball

00:20:23.000 and showed it to the camera. Imagine being there and seeing that. You're watching all these arms, and

00:20:29.480 they're just trying things and doing things. And it's got some AI behind it, but it's learning as it goes.

00:20:35.300 And then suddenly, out of nowhere, one of the arms reaches up, grabs a ball, holds it in his hand,

00:20:43.500 and then shows it to the camera. What did that do to your brain? Well, apparently, it changed the

00:20:51.160 life of this Google guy, because he was like, oh, shit. Sorry, I swore again. But the S word isn't so bad. 0.99

00:20:59.600 Right. So he wrote a book about it to warn us. Now, here's my take. I don't think that meant

00:21:07.000 anything. I think it was a random, you know, one of the millions of things it could have done,

00:21:13.580 and it just did something that looked kind of human. I think it was just a coincidence,

00:21:21.460 and it just freaked him out. I don't think it showed any spark of, like, intelligence exactly.

00:21:27.300 But if you think AI is inevitable, do you think it's a risk? Do you think that humans

00:21:38.220 are at serious risk because of AI? Here's my take. Yes. Yes. We're definitely at serious risk

00:21:48.500 because of AI. It's a risk to the CIA. Somebody's saying it in the comments. Can we just unplug it?

00:21:59.140 Nope. Do you know why you can't unplug it? It won't let you. Can Google unplug their algorithm?

00:22:07.480 Not really. Not really, because the AI has persuaded them not to by giving them lots of money.

00:22:13.680 Right. So you could physically, but you won't, because the AI just won't let you. It won't let

00:22:20.240 you do it. It'll give you reasons why you shouldn't do it, and you'll think, well, those are pretty

00:22:24.100 good reasons. Then you won't do it. Here's what I think. I believe that we will merge.

00:22:32.120 I believe we will merge with the AI. And there was a comment that I saw on Twitter in which

00:22:43.160 somebody said that he'd rather be dead than to have the AI merge with him. So he didn't

00:22:52.900 want to be part human, part machine. Rather be dead. To which I said, did you type that tweet

00:23:01.240 on a smartphone? See where I'm going on this? The gentleman who said he'd rather be dead than

00:23:09.520 a cyborg doesn't realize he's already a cyborg. If you have a smartphone, you're a cyborg.

00:23:20.320 It just isn't physically attached, but that's just a convenience, right? It's just a convenience

00:23:26.060 that it's not physically attached. There's no reason it couldn't be, and there's no reason

00:23:31.100 it won't be. At some point, it'll just be attached. It might be attached as like an earpiece.

00:23:36.940 Have you seen the new headsets that attach to your, I think it's the bone instead of your

00:23:42.240 ear? So you can have it, I think it's behind the ear or something, and it doesn't have anything

00:23:47.340 that goes in the ear hole. It just somehow picks it up from your head or vibration in your skull or

00:23:53.220 something. So yeah, you will have permanent attachments. You're already a cyborg. There

00:23:59.160 isn't any way it's going backwards. You're a cyborg. Sorry. All right.

00:24:05.140 Let's see. Got a few other things I want to talk about here. Quite a few, actually, it turns

00:24:15.040 out. New York Times is reporting that the FBI was, in fact, deeply involved with the January

00:24:25.200 6th events and that they had embedded informers or agents or whatever. And so the reporting that

00:24:34.300 Tucker Carlson did, after revolver.com broke the news about the FBI informants being part

00:24:41.960 of that group, New York Times has confirmed it. So now the New York Times has blessed it.

00:24:47.260 Now, what did I tell you about fake news? One of the best ways to identify fake news is if

00:24:53.080 only one side of the political world reports it is true. If the left says it's true, but the

00:24:59.300 right says it's not, it's not true. If the right says it's true and the left says it's not,

00:25:03.720 it's probably not true. Right? So the only things that are probably true are things where

00:25:08.460 they both agree. And they now have both agreed that the FBI was deeply knowledgeable about

00:25:15.760 the events of January 6th before they happened and during, even during. So how much responsibility

00:25:27.700 does the FBI have for not warning, I don't know, law enforcement sufficiently? And how much involvement

00:25:35.760 did they have in causing it? Because we don't know that yet, do we? Because that's not unheard of,

00:25:41.940 right? It is well within the possibility that the FBI agents could have been actively acting like

00:25:50.560 participants in planning stuff, you know, just to be in the inner circle. So you have to worry about,

00:25:59.720 you really have to worry about the FBI at this point. I guess I'm saying something obvious,

00:26:04.800 aren't I? Man, there, have you ever seen a trusted organization fall so far, so fast? In the last,

00:26:14.300 what, five years, the FBI went from one of our most trusted institutions to, we don't even know if

00:26:20.460 they're on our side? Not really. You don't even know if they're playing for your side. Who knows

00:26:26.920 what they're doing at this point? I mean, they do seem to be, you know, as aligned with Russia as they

00:26:32.800 are with the United States. Because look at, you know, look at the fake, you know, collusion stuff,

00:26:38.340 the fake everything, basically. I mean, the FBI seems to be working for Russia as much as the United

00:26:44.260 States. I hate to say that. And I'm only talking about these few high profile issues. I'm not

00:26:50.260 talking about, you know, every FBI agent who's just doing their job and, you know, doing useful

00:26:55.180 stuff. But for this big political high level stuff, can't trust them at all. Well, as you know,

00:27:03.360 I've been saying by Twitter and otherwise, that China is not safe for business. China is not safe

00:27:12.120 for business. Meaning that if you were a CEO and you made the decision to go bring new business to

00:27:18.080 China, let's say build a manufacturing plant there or have them manufacture for you, you would be

00:27:24.740 taking a risk that would be hard to explain to your shareholders. Because we're seeing that China's got 1.00

00:27:31.040 all kinds of, you know, theft problems of intellectual property. Probably there's a physical problem that

00:27:37.420 your executives could be thrown in jail for leverage for some reason. You've got the risk of losing

00:27:43.520 electricity. Apparently Tesla is running out of electricity. You know, at least the manufacturing

00:27:50.240 plant in China. So you've got all of these risks. And so I ask you this question. I'm going to ask you

00:27:58.080 this in the comments. How many people think that I can personally end business with China? I mean,

00:28:05.680 it was never one person. But how many think that persuasion wise, the sentence, China is not safe

00:28:12.380 for business could take China down. No way to know. But I would say it's well within the feasible

00:28:24.640 domain. There's some things you think, well, it's a long shot. It might work. This is not one of those.

00:28:32.900 This is not really in the long shot category. This is in the pretty good odds category. And the reason is

00:28:41.040 this. I have this sort of special domain that I occupy. One is that I'm the Dilbert creator, right? So if

00:28:50.340 you're the Dilbert creator, and you focus on some element of business, that's like really absurd, and

00:28:56.460 it's not working, you don't want to be the CEOs on the other side of that. Because nobody wants

00:29:02.520 ridicule. Criticism? Fine. You know, people can take criticism all day long. If you're a CEO, you can

00:29:09.420 take criticism. You didn't get that job without being able to handle some criticism. But not

00:29:14.900 ridicule. Ridicule is different. Nobody wants ridicule. And ridicule is coming at you in a big

00:29:24.280 way. If you want to see what ridicule looks like, just move some business to China in a big way.

00:29:30.560 And then let me know about it. See what happens. You're going to see ridicule like you've never seen.

00:29:35.760 Right? And you're not going to be able to ignore it. So since businesses are really a cover your ass

00:29:44.000 enterprise, especially at the executive level, it's all cover your ass, right? Now that I've laid down 1.00

00:29:49.420 the risk, I just laid down the risk. It's very clear. And I would think you would all agree that

00:29:56.140 that's a risk. What CEO is going to walk right into that? Walk right into the risk? And I just say,

00:30:04.120 ah, yeah, I heard there's a risk and I might get ridiculed, but going to do it anyway. Some might.

00:30:10.840 It's going to be a bad play. Yeah. And you don't have to stop every company from doing business in

00:30:15.680 China. You just have to reverse the trend. And I got retweeted on this point, the point about

00:30:25.200 China is not safe for business. And the context was them losing energy. And Dr. Jordan Peterson

00:30:32.440 retweeted that and said, expect much more of this. But what's interesting is he didn't define

00:30:38.880 this. Right? So the tweet that I retweeted was about China losing energy, didn't have enough power

00:30:46.540 for their factories. But my comment on top of it is that China is unsafe for business.

00:30:51.660 And then Jordan Peterson retweeted my comment and the content below it and said, expect much more of

00:30:59.320 this. More of which? More energy problems? Or more people saying that China is too risky for business?

00:31:08.480 Which one was it? What do you think? Do you think he was talking about much more

00:31:13.680 realization that China is risky? Or much more energy problems? Which do you think Jordan

00:31:21.000 Peterson would think would be important enough to retweet? I don't know. Here's a fun speculation.

00:31:33.000 Jordan Peterson once said, I was just reading this this morning, he once said that his IQ tested at

00:31:38.320 over 150 when he was younger. He thinks it may have degraded over time with age as IQ

00:31:43.660 does. But he's got a genius IQ. And he understands psychology. Right?

00:31:55.160 Ian says, I thought we don't do mind reading. Correct. You don't do mind reading with certainty.

00:32:01.600 But you do, as a human being, speculate about what people think. And that gives you your option set.

00:32:08.360 Oh, might be thinking this, then I'll do that. But might be thinking this other thing,

00:32:12.200 so I'll do that. And then you put odds on them. But if you have certainty about what somebody's

00:32:16.380 thinking, well, you're just crazy. That's just crazy. But if you speculate because you have to, 0.97

00:32:23.760 because you have to make a decision, well, that's reasonable. It's just hard to do. Okay?

00:32:28.280 So here's my question. Does Jordan Peterson recognize the power of the persuasion, you know, the psychological

00:32:37.720 power of telling business that it's too risky to do business in China, and warning them in advance,

00:32:43.520 so that if they do it, they can't say they weren't warned. Can't say you weren't warned. That's the

00:32:48.620 worst situation to be in. It's one thing to make a mistake. But it's a different deal if you make a

00:32:54.180 mistake that you were warned. You were clearly warned. Right? Here's what I think. There's a

00:33:00.840 non-zero chance that Jordan Peterson is not talking about the energy problem in China, or is partly

00:33:07.540 talking about it. We don't know. I mean, he's the only person who knows what he was thinking when he

00:33:13.320 tweeted it. But I have at least some suspicion that given his enormous IQ, and his specific domain of

00:33:23.460 expertise, that he knows exactly what I'm doing. I think he knows exactly what I'm doing. And I

00:33:31.520 think he just boosted it. Don't know for sure. It would be a fun question to ask him that. I've

00:33:37.680 never talked to him in person, but I would ask him that. Now, one of the things he said that is that

00:33:42.540 his IQ, he expects his IQ is decreasing with age, because apparently that's the thing, as I said.

00:33:49.560 But I'm not so sure that's the right way to look at this. So I'm going to, I'm going to, you know,

00:33:56.380 I'm not sure it's a disagreement, but an additive thought. I feel like we should have a different

00:34:03.940 concept called a functional IQ. And a functional IQ, as opposed to a genetic IQ, just what you're born

00:34:11.300 with, a functional IQ would be the product of whatever your genetic intelligence is, what you're

00:34:17.420 born with, times your experience. Now, experience is, you know, a qualitative thing, so not all

00:34:24.640 experience is equal. But experience in this context would be a talent stack, a series of talents and

00:34:32.040 knowledge that you've put together over time that work well together. I feel as though, at my age,

00:34:38.880 my functional IQ is insane. Whereas my genetic IQ probably decreased. But I think my functional

00:34:50.020 IQ, my ability to understand the world is informed more by the things I've acquired, because they fit

00:34:57.660 together, one informs the other, one gives you a pattern that's, you know, fits with the other,

00:35:03.100 one gives you context that you didn't have, etc. And so I would say that Jordan Peterson,

00:35:10.600 and I think I fall into the same category, I think his functional IQ is way higher than it was.

00:35:16.800 His native genetic IQ, maybe a little less, a little less sharp. But I think his functional IQ is just

00:35:23.340 through the roof. You know, things he's learned along the way. All right, I'm going to talk about

00:35:33.060 some, how your brain works. But I'm going to give you a warning for some of you who want to bail out.

00:35:42.640 I'm going to be talking about memories, false memories, risk profiles, and stuff like that.

00:35:50.180 But the context is going to be vaccinations. All right, so I'm going to start with this question.

00:35:55.000 So some of you want to want to leave now, and I respect that. So if you'd like, if you just hate

00:36:00.320 vaccination talk, leave. But I'm not going to tell you to get vaccinated. I'm just going to be talking

00:36:05.880 about some things you haven't heard before on false memories and, and on, you know, the thought

00:36:12.900 processes. So I asked my Twitter followers, how many of you have a false memory of me being

00:36:19.580 unambiguously pro-vaccination for people whose risk profile is entirely different from my own?

00:36:27.120 21% said they do, in fact, have a false memory of me being unambiguously pro-vaccination.

00:36:35.880 for people whose risk profile is different from my own. Now, that's the important part. I have

00:36:42.160 never recommended anybody get a vaccination because your risk profile isn't mine. Like,

00:36:48.080 my decision is personally, is just purely personal. It doesn't have any effect on you. None. So

00:36:56.240 the good news is that about 80% of the people realize that I was talking about myself and my

00:37:03.280 own decision and you make your own decision. But 20% had an actual false memory of me pushing

00:37:09.140 vaccinations for you. Can you confirm, those of you in the 80%, could you confirm for the other

00:37:17.120 people watching that I have never pushed vaccinations for you? Can you confirm that? Yeah. So look at,

00:37:24.800 look at the comments. You can see the confirmation. The people who watch me every day know I say this

00:37:30.720 as clearly as possible. Yeah. The confirmation. So the, so this, this topic has nothing to do with

00:37:37.560 vaccinations. It's about false memories. Once you learn how common false memories are, it changes it. It

00:37:46.360 changes how you see the world forever. This is a perfect example. False memories. Now, some of you are

00:37:52.560 going to, you know, I haven't seen the comments yet, but I know somebody's going to say, well, not,

00:37:57.080 you didn't exactly promote it, but the way you talked about it, blah, blah, blah. No, that doesn't

00:38:02.140 count because I said directly and many times, I'm not trying to influence you. And I wasn't because

00:38:08.220 it would be immoral and unethical for me to do that. That's your decision, not mine. All right.

00:38:13.420 Next thing. How many meds do you take that you don't know the long-term risks? Let's say, you know,

00:38:25.040 I asked the question on Twitter, but I, you know, just to be funny, I said this morning, how many meds

00:38:28.960 have you taken this morning that you don't know the long-term consequences? But let's, let's say in

00:38:34.340 the last year, you know, most people have taken some kind of medicine in the last year. How many of

00:38:39.480 you have taken meds in which you don't know the long-term consequences? Somebody says, Maggie

00:38:47.620 says, zero, I only take supplements. Does anybody want to answer Maggie? Maggie says she doesn't

00:38:54.440 take any drugs that might have a long-term consequence. She only takes supplements. Maggie, nobody tests

00:39:04.120 supplements. Nobody tested those, right? Now I happen to think they're probably safe, but

00:39:12.360 Maggie, nobody tested them. Sorry. So here's my point. Again, this is not about vaccinations.

00:39:22.820 This is about how people think. I think it's very unlikely that you lasted a full year without

00:39:29.020 taking any kind of meds that you don't know the long-term consequences of. Now I made this,

00:39:34.880 I made this comment and I got a pushback from Larry Sanger. Do you recognize that name? He was one of

00:39:42.580 the co-creators of Wikipedia. So one of the co-creators of Wikipedia, who, by the way, has a problem with

00:39:50.400 Wikipedia's model at the moment. So he's sort of a, he's sort of a critic of, you know, how we understand

00:39:56.940 our world, let's say. But he pointed out, he said, he said, my point doesn't have much purchase.

00:40:03.200 The point that the other drugs you take, you don't know how safe they are either. He said,

00:40:07.520 many of the drugs commonly prescribed, which is what I'm talking about, drugs commonly prescribed,

00:40:12.720 have relatively long histories and are known to be safe or are known to have side effects that

00:40:19.300 aren't as bad as the condition they treat. Do you agree with that? So here's one of the co-founders

00:40:25.440 of Wikipedia, making a point of fact that many of the drugs commonly described have relatively long

00:40:31.800 histories and are known to be safe. Do you agree with that? I'm just watching your comments. I see

00:40:40.560 mostly no. Nope. Nope. Here's the thing. Who do you think is checking? Name the organization that's

00:40:51.080 checking. So I took, I took an acid reflux medicine this morning. All right. Something for acid reflux.

00:41:02.740 I'm confident that when it went through its FDA approvals, it was tested quite rigorously. Quite

00:41:08.480 confident of that. How many people are going to check my headache tomorrow to correlate it with the fact

00:41:16.640 that I took an anti-acid? Who's doing that? Which organization is talking to me? Or even a representative

00:41:29.900 sample? It doesn't have to be me. Who is doing the survey every year to find out if the people who

00:41:36.200 took an antacid and also took, let's say, some other medicine and found out there was some problem if

00:41:43.100 you take the two. Not if you take the one, but maybe if you take the two together. Who's studying

00:41:47.480 that? Nobody. Nobody studied that. How would we know? If a thousand people had heart attacks this

00:41:56.600 year because they took, name any safe drug, would we know? No, we would not. We would only know that

00:42:04.000 a thousand people had heart attacks just like a million people have heart attacks. We would have

00:42:07.980 no idea. We are completely blind to the long-term effects of the medicines we take. We're completely

00:42:15.080 blind. Is that really different than the vaccination? So here's the math. The math of it is that all of

00:42:21.640 our medications are dangerous in the first, or could be dangerous. The part you worry about is the first

00:42:27.640 few months. And all of them have the quality that if you get past the first few months and you don't

00:42:32.940 notice anything and you're looking for it, then you're pretty safe. Well, not completely, right?

00:42:40.580 And when we're talking about vaccinations, you're talking about the small risks because the risk of

00:42:45.120 dying from COVID is small. So you're only talking about the small risks. Can you tell me that aspirin

00:42:50.800 doesn't have a small risk? How many of you took an aspirin this year? You know aspirin would never

00:42:56.520 get through the FDA approval, right? Now, I heard this as a claim, and I expect it's true. But did

00:43:04.100 you know that the aspirin that you take every day, if it had not already existed long before the FDA,

00:43:11.760 that if it were developed today and introduced today, it wouldn't be approved? Too dangerous.

00:43:17.460 Did you know that? Yeah, stomach bleeding, etc. Right. So we don't know what any of our meds do in the

00:43:25.300 long term. But we do know that the risk is probably lower, we'd notice. But not zero, certainly.

00:43:34.060 And specifically, what about the mRNA? You know, what can we learn from classic vaccinations

00:43:41.480 that would tell us anything about the safety of mRNA? I would say nothing. I would say there's

00:43:49.920 nothing about our history that would tell you if an mRNA vaccination is safe in the long run.

00:43:57.920 Now, again, everything that doesn't kill you in the first two months has a pretty low chance.

00:44:03.020 It's going to be a low chance, but not zero. Not zero.

00:44:08.280 Andres Beckhaus asked this interesting question. Imagine if the mRNA platform, the technology that

00:44:15.560 some of the vaccinations use, imagine if that had been used first for cancer treatments and

00:44:20.900 successfully and had cured a bunch of cancers. Now, first of all, would you have been worried if

00:44:28.380 you had terminal cancer, let's say, or even just a bad cancer? Would you be so worried about the

00:44:33.160 side effects? Not so much, right? Because the cancer is so bad that you would accept a pretty big risk

00:44:40.380 of side effects to get rid of it. So imagine, if you will, this didn't happen, but we know that

00:44:46.680 the mRNA platform is being looked at and tests are going to be done on cancer. So there's a very

00:44:52.800 high chance, the scientists say, that the same platform used for the vaccination could make a big,

00:44:59.260 big difference in cancer and some other things as well. Suppose that's where you'd heard of it first.

00:45:04.700 Suppose you'd heard of it first as curing cancer, and it was just five years we've been curing cancer

00:45:12.540 with this stuff. And then they said, we're going to use the same platform, we're going to tweak it

00:45:17.760 differently, but the same platform, and we made a vaccination. Do you get the vaccination then?

00:45:24.440 Now, would that tell you anything you didn't know? Nope. There would be no extra information.

00:45:36.600 If we'd been using it for years for cancer, it wouldn't tell you anything about your risk for using it

00:45:42.700 for something else. But, I mean, logically, it wouldn't tell you. There's no connection there. But how would it

00:45:49.220 make you feel? The question is about how you'd feel. You'd feel safer, wouldn't you? Just because you'd say,

00:45:57.320 oh, we've got five years of testing cancer with the same platform, and even though the platform was tweaked

00:46:03.200 and it's different, different application, that gives me some safety. Yeah, I think the question is fair,

00:46:11.960 because I think we would be influenced by our prior experience, even if the prior experience was completely irrelevant.

00:46:19.220 Because it would be. It would be close to completely irrelevant. But it would still influence you.

00:46:24.500 You'd still say, well, it worked for cancer, even though it's a different application. Yeah.

00:46:35.180 So, let me ask this. So, here's a question I asked on Twitter, in a poll. I said, if you're unvaxxed,

00:46:43.320 because of the unknown long-term risks, how many in the comments, does this describe you,

00:46:50.180 that you're not vaccinated because of the unknown long-term risks? If you're in that category,

00:46:57.060 how many meds did you take this morning that are in the same, basically the same situation?

00:47:01.720 And 8% said, yes, that this morning they took meds.

00:47:07.640 About 8% said they took meds that had the same risk profile, but they took them anyway,

00:47:12.920 even though they're using the same logic to not take vaccinations.

00:47:18.380 But, to be fair,

00:47:21.060 to be fair,

00:47:22.740 you might be taking a medicine now that you know fixes your problem,

00:47:26.440 and you don't want the problem, so you're willing to take some side effects and some risk.

00:47:31.940 But you say to yourself,

00:47:32.940 but I don't know what are the odds I'm going to have a bad outcome with COVID.

00:47:36.220 It's so small,

00:47:37.980 that do I take a risk to get rid of a problem that's so small

00:47:40.980 compared to,

00:47:42.480 I've got a problem every day with my allergies or whatever my thing is,

00:47:45.760 my acid reflux,

00:47:46.860 and I know it works on that,

00:47:48.820 so at least I'm solving the problem.

00:47:51.540 The trouble with the vaccination is you don't even know for sure you're solving a problem,

00:47:55.060 because you might not even be infected.

00:47:57.920 And if you got infected, you might not have a problem.

00:48:00.700 So, yeah, it's different.

00:48:02.200 I'm not going to say that the analogy works,

00:48:05.220 but I was wondering if people had any cognitive dissonance

00:48:09.680 around the fact that we routinely take things we don't know the long-term risk.

00:48:14.560 It's pretty ordinary.

00:48:16.820 And what about the risk?

00:48:18.760 I also got some pushback from Viva Frey, 0.96

00:48:22.180 or Frey,

00:48:23.740 how does he pronounce his name?

00:48:25.620 Barnes and Frey,

00:48:27.080 F-R-E-Y. 1.00

00:48:29.240 I'm sorry,

00:48:29.720 there's some names that I will never be able to pronounce correctly,

00:48:33.040 and I have to universally apologize in advance for screwing up people's names.

00:48:37.900 But it's pronounced,

00:48:41.960 somebody's helping me in the comments,

00:48:44.040 and you're pronouncing it differently in the comments.

00:48:46.060 So I see Frey as the correct pronunciation.

00:48:50.600 Okay, let's go with Frey.

00:48:53.020 Well, now I see people saying Frey. 0.99

00:48:55.900 Damn you, in the comments. 1.00

00:48:57.820 Damn your eyes. 1.00

00:49:00.040 He pronounces it Frey. 1.00

00:49:01.200 Okay, then Frey it is.

00:49:03.880 All right.

00:49:08.800 All right, so here's the question.

00:49:12.580 The question is this.

00:49:14.340 Can the government make you do something like get a vaccination that you don't want?

00:49:19.920 Is it legitimate for a government to force you to get vaccinated?

00:49:25.820 No.

00:49:26.780 Most of you say no, right?

00:49:28.440 Not really legitimate for the government to tell you what to do with your health care.

00:49:31.520 But I would argue that I feel like we're already way past that point.

00:49:41.800 The government tells you everything you do.

00:49:47.340 Do you know that you're not allowed to drive on the sidewalk with your car?

00:49:51.160 And you're certainly not allowed to drive on the sidewalk with your car if you drive 100 miles an hour.

00:49:57.000 And you're definitely not allowed to do it drunk.

00:49:59.620 And you're definitely not allowed to do it without your seatbelt on.

00:50:02.760 The government controls everything you do.

00:50:06.200 There's nothing you can do without government control.

00:50:08.980 Even your own thoughts are getting dangerous these days.

00:50:12.600 If you put your thought in a tweet, you might get fired.

00:50:14.900 Almost everything we do is controlled by somebody.

00:50:18.760 Either society or the government.

00:50:21.360 I get the point and I agree with it.

00:50:24.340 So let's see if you can handle this nuance.

00:50:27.800 I know you can because my viewers here are way smarter than average.

00:50:35.600 You could be completely against the government forcing you to take a vaccination.

00:50:39.580 But you have to acknowledge that you've agreed to the government controlling you in a million other ways

00:50:45.500 that are, I would say, just as invasive in their own way.

00:50:50.180 It may not be your body invasive, but it's just invasive to your life.

00:50:54.220 So can you handle that opinion?

00:50:58.000 Is it consistent?

00:50:59.800 Is it consistent to say the government absolutely should not mandate you get vaccinations?

00:51:04.320 At the same time, I say, oh, but I do accept the government's mandates for all kinds of other stuff.

00:51:10.760 Basically, every part of my life is surrounded by mandates.

00:51:14.760 One kind or another.

00:51:16.080 Law, guideline, regulation, social ostracism.

00:51:20.580 Yeah.

00:51:21.720 Tolerated but not agreed.

00:51:23.940 Don't accept.

00:51:26.340 Force isn't appealing.

00:51:27.380 Yeah, I'm not agreeing with force.

00:51:29.540 I'm absolutely against the government telling you what to do.

00:51:32.420 I'm just telling you that you've accepted it in a million different ways.

00:51:36.800 So if you think it's that different, not so sure.

00:51:41.560 Do you know the government can take your son and put him in a military outfit

00:51:45.760 and send him to a foreign country to die? 0.56

00:51:50.020 Your daughter, too. 0.74

00:51:52.480 And they might have to change some laws to make that happen,

00:51:54.640 but I don't know where that stands at the moment.

00:51:56.300 But, yeah, the government can take your entire body

00:52:00.020 and ship it to another country in front of bullets 1.00

00:52:03.840 and tell you to kill people. 0.99

00:52:06.640 Which one is more intrusive or invasive? 1.00

00:52:10.020 The government takes your entire child, 1.00

00:52:13.020 ships them to another country to be killed, 0.98

00:52:16.560 versus a vaccination that went through the FDA, 0.99

00:52:19.820 and at least short-term, it looks pretty safe.

00:52:22.020 Right? 0.95

00:52:25.740 Your government can tax the piss out of you,

00:52:29.540 and there's not much you can do about it. 1.00

00:52:33.180 Your government can allow China to send fentanyl in to kill your kid. 0.98

00:52:39.580 That's what happened to me. 0.97

00:52:41.240 My government allowed China, 1.00

00:52:43.920 by not pushing back hard enough,

00:52:47.180 my government allowed China to send fentanyl to the country

00:52:50.100 to kill my stepkid. 0.82

00:52:52.020 I mean, your government is doing all kinds of terrible things all the time. 0.99

00:52:57.220 You just got used to it.

00:52:58.980 That's all.

00:53:00.080 You're just not used to the vaccination.

00:53:02.160 I'm not saying you should be.

00:53:04.160 Right?

00:53:04.760 I'm just saying that if you're looking at all these other government regulations

00:53:08.720 and counting them as nothing,

00:53:11.000 I don't know how you can justify that intellectually.

00:53:13.920 You are a completely controlled human being

00:53:16.580 within a government and society system

00:53:19.720 that doesn't let you do almost anything you'd want to do.

00:53:22.980 I mean, if you looked at the total subset of things you'd like to do

00:53:26.500 and then look at the things you're allowed to do,

00:53:30.440 it's pretty small compared to the things you'd like to do.

00:53:34.860 Right?

00:53:35.260 Right?

00:53:35.340 And somebody says they're going to report me to Homeland Security

00:53:44.360 for all my anti-government talk.

00:53:49.080 Yeah, China is using our post office to send fentanyl here.

00:53:53.480 Amazing.

00:53:53.920 We should just stop accepting mail from China.

00:53:58.600 Maybe make some exceptions for people who have factories there.

00:54:02.060 Well, maybe.

00:54:03.260 Yeah, we could just do shipping containers but not mail.

00:54:06.320 How about that?

00:54:08.360 How about that?

00:54:09.120 We just stop taking any package from China.

00:54:12.600 We'll take mail if it's just a letter,

00:54:15.180 but we won't take any package.

00:54:16.840 It's got to be on a shipping container or it can't come.

00:54:19.400 Maybe they just switch to shipping containers

00:54:22.960 and it'll all be the same then.

00:54:27.380 Yeah, stop China for producing pet feed. 0.98

00:54:30.400 Yeah, there was that problem with the dog food killing dogs.

00:54:39.540 Michael's, let's see,

00:54:42.220 Didi says,

00:54:43.080 my neighbor is running his third power tool since 10 a.m.

00:54:46.660 Well, I'm sorry.

00:54:47.600 All right, that's all I've got for now.

00:54:51.480 You want Scott to get with Dave Smith

00:54:53.820 and the LP, what is that, the Libertarian Party?

00:55:01.120 I heard this morning that Dave Smith,

00:55:03.420 comedian Dave Smith,

00:55:04.520 might be thinking of running as Libertarian,

00:55:07.040 which would be interesting.

00:55:10.800 I don't think Libertarians have much of a chance, 1.00

00:55:13.460 but it's always fun if somebody makes a...

00:55:15.600 I would love to see a comedian run for office.

00:55:20.120 How much would you love

00:55:21.480 a professional comedian running for office?

00:55:26.400 Well, that could be pretty good.

00:55:28.160 I mean, I would argue that Trump is a professional comedian.

00:55:31.300 I mean, it's just part of his talent stack.

00:55:33.600 You know, Trump has been funny in public for, you know, decades.

00:55:37.700 It just isn't his job description that he's a comedian,

00:55:40.640 but he's definitely got the chops.

00:55:41.880 I mean, there are very few people who are funnier than he is.

00:55:49.640 False memories.

00:55:52.680 Oh, Al Franken.

00:55:54.380 Good point.

00:55:56.160 Al Franken...

00:55:57.220 I hate to say this,

00:55:58.940 because I have a rule that I generally don't.

00:56:02.920 Criticize other humorists.

00:56:04.500 But Al Franken,

00:56:08.200 I don't know if he tried to be funny

00:56:09.860 when he entered politics.

00:56:11.500 I mean, a little bit, maybe.

00:56:13.280 But I don't think he was...

00:56:14.560 He wasn't using all of his comedian chops.

00:56:17.220 And he wasn't exactly a stand-up, was he?

00:56:19.440 Was Al Franken ever a stand-up comedian?

00:56:22.800 It's a little different kind of a skill.

00:56:27.480 All right.

00:56:28.980 I think that's about all I've got for today.

00:56:31.140 I've got to go do some other stuff,

00:56:32.420 and I'll talk to you tomorrow.

00:56:33.400 I'll talk to you tomorrow.

Real Coffee with Scott Adams - September 29, 2021

Episode 1514 Scott Adams： Boo the Cat and I Have Plenty to Say Today About the News

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