Real Coffee with Scott Adams - Episode 1540 Scott Adams： Persuasion Lessons Taken From Today's Headlines. Find Out What You've Been Doing Wrong

00:00:00.000 Wow. Wow. You made it. Good job, everybody. You made it to the best place in the universe

00:00:12.340 and just in time. What are the odds that you would have the space and the time correct?

00:00:19.800 Both of them, space and time. Very good. Because all of you are smarter than the average person

00:00:25.300 and you know that there's no such thing as time. There's only space time. Yeah. Yeah. Remember

00:00:30.480 to remind people that when they talk about time. Say, there's no time. Time? That's not

00:00:36.060 even a thing. Listen to some Einstein sometime. There's space time. Sure. But I didn't hear

00:00:40.940 you talk about space time, did I? Yeah. Don't be that person. But you can if you want to

00:00:47.720 be. Now, what would it take to make this amazing, amazing experience that we're all about to

00:00:53.540 have together? And no, stop tinkling. Stop. Stop. Some of you are already getting chills.

00:01:00.800 Don't don't peak too soon. Stay with me. Stay with me. This is going to get so good so fast.

00:01:07.180 You don't want to get ahead of me. But all you need is a cup or a mug or a glass, a tank or

00:01:10.920 Chelsea Stein, a canteen drink or glass, a vessel of any kind, any kind this time. Fill it with

00:01:17.680 your favorite liquid. I like coffee. And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure. Unparalleled.

00:01:24.760 It's called the simultaneous sip. It's going to happen now. And it makes everything better,

00:01:29.180 including your antibodies. Watch, watch, go.

00:01:35.440 Mmm. Ah. Antibodies. Yeah.

00:01:38.760 Let me ask you this. How many of you believe that hypnosis could improve your antibodies?

00:01:50.620 In the comments, without, don't Google it. No cheating. No Googling. How many of you think

00:01:56.900 that hypnosis could improve your antibodies? Seeing some yeses? Seeing some noes? How about

00:02:06.060 over on YouTube? I doubt that. 100%. Here's the answer. It can. It turns out it can. Surprising,

00:02:18.060 right? Now, the way that it does it is probably just by de-stressing you. Okay? Now it sounds

00:02:25.840 more realistic, right? Yeah. I don't think it's a placebo. I think it works because if you de-stress

00:02:33.260 yourself, you get stronger immune response. Is everybody on board with that simple claim

00:02:40.100 of fact? I think if you Google it, you'll see plenty of support for the idea that if you

00:02:45.440 get rid of your stress, your immune system can be a little bit optimized, right? There's

00:02:50.900 no doubt about that, is there? And is there any doubt that hypnosis could help you relax?

00:02:57.260 Not really. I mean, hypnosis will work better with some people than others, but there's no

00:03:03.620 such thing as somebody who could sit there quietly for 45 minutes listening to a hypnotist and not

00:03:09.400 come away a little bit relaxed, right? I don't think in the history of hypnosis, I've never heard

00:03:15.300 of an example of somebody who became more anxious because they got hypnotized. I mean, it's a big world.

00:03:21.380 I suppose it happened somewhere, maybe once. But yes, absolutely, hypnosis could improve your

00:03:29.880 immune response just by making you more relaxed. Now, could it do it more directly? I don't know.

00:03:37.140 I don't know. Because, you know, your brain and your body are kind of almost magical in the sense that

00:03:45.280 we don't understand how they work. I have a hypothesis that I've been working on for years

00:03:51.900 that your intentions can change your body state. Your intentions. Now, I don't know that that's true.

00:04:02.720 It's one of those things that it could be false pattern recognition or something. But it does feel

00:04:07.880 as though people's intentions end up manifesting in some physical way. Just an impression,

00:04:14.040 not based on any science or anything like that. But I would not rule out the possibility that some

00:04:21.560 people could be directly hypnotized to increase their immune response. I would guess maybe 20% of

00:04:29.700 the public. Because 20% is about the percentage that have extreme responses to hypnosis. So if the

00:04:39.100 mind-body connection is what we think it is, there's probably some way to turn up the antibody production

00:04:46.620 part. You know, if there's a brain connection, I'm not even sure if there is one beyond the relaxation

00:04:53.700 component. So anyway, I just put that out there because I was thinking of maybe doing that.

00:04:58.720 I could do a group hypnosis. Now, it wouldn't be as effective as one person working with one

00:05:06.500 subject. Because if you're working with one person, you adjust as you go to how they're responding.

00:05:12.720 But probably I could do a group hypnosis someday. I'd do a special live stream or record it. And

00:05:19.960 if I worked on enough people, you know, let's say I got, I don't know, let's say I went a little bit

00:05:26.960 viral and we got 100,000 people to watch it eventually. Do you think that out of 100,000 people,

00:05:33.340 I couldn't raise the antibody count on some of you? Because I would take that bet. I certainly

00:05:41.960 wouldn't say it's going to work on everybody. That would be kind of crazy. But if I do 100,000 people,

00:05:48.080 and they just, you know, take the time to sit through a hypnosis induction, and it won't be the

00:05:54.340 kind of hypnosis where you forget where you were, or, you know, I take control of your life and you

00:06:00.040 send me money or anything like that. It would just be relaxation. Just pure relaxation. I'm seeing

00:06:07.020 references to, is it Wim Hoffman? How do you say his first name? Wim, right? And he's, yeah, Wim Hoff.

00:06:15.620 So he's got a method of breathing, which I hear good things about all the time. I'm pretty sure

00:06:23.160 he's backed by science. I haven't looked into it in the depth that I need to. By the way, you know,

00:06:29.320 I always tell you that I have this weird life where it doesn't matter what story you're talking

00:06:36.600 about in the news, I have some connection to it. That's one of the reasons I think we live in a

00:06:42.240 simulation. Because it isn't possible, I could have so many connections to so many stories.

00:06:48.020 So, you know, you're talking about, you know, Wim Hoff, and, Wim Hoff, sorry. And I went to an event

00:06:55.820 one time in San Francisco, before I'd heard of him, or his method. And I was introduced to him. And,

00:07:04.180 you know, I didn't know anybody else there at the time. And I guess he didn't know too many people at

00:07:08.600 the time, or he wanted to talk to me. And I ended up chatting with him for a pretty long time. And

00:07:14.120 heard about his methods in person, which is weird, because I didn't know he was famous. I just thought

00:07:18.860 he was a guy talking about some breath control stuff. And I thought, oh, that's good. And then

00:07:23.580 it turns out he was, he was Wim Hoff. So he turns out to be one of the most, well, not one of,

00:07:30.820 the most famous person associated with this breathing technique. But I didn't know it at the time.

00:07:36.700 So is that the simulation? Like, how is it that I can keep meeting people, just by coincidence,

00:07:43.520 that are at the center of, like, all these big topics? It's really weird. Because that was a

00:07:49.820 completely random encounter. Well, maybe not totally random. All right. So how about California

00:07:57.900 and the West Coast? Let me give you an update of how we're doing. You know, you've heard we've got

00:08:01.860 problems in California. Has anybody heard of that? We got your homelessness, your high taxes,

00:08:06.360 you got your drugs, your crime, you got your massive forest fires, your lack of electricity.

00:08:12.400 Of course, we've got a drought and water shortage, a pandemic and runaway inflation.

00:08:18.080 But if nothing else hits us, I think we can handle it. I mean, we're a tough state. You know,

00:08:24.700 California is a tough state. You can make fun of us. Sure. But we're a tough state. We can handle

00:08:29.180 homelessness. Taxes, drugs, crimes, forest fires, lack of energy, no water, pandemic, runway inflation,

00:08:36.140 and traffic. We can handle all that. I just hope nothing else is coming our way.

00:08:41.220 All right. Let's check the headlines. Okay. There's a bomb cyclone coming our way in California.

00:08:47.580 A bomb cyclone. So I think we can conclude that California has pissed off God in some way that

00:08:59.260 is not entirely evident to me. But it's obvious we're cursed at this point. You know, you could

00:09:08.280 try to write this off as science or coincidence, but no, I think we're cursed. So the bomb cyclone's

00:09:15.920 coming this way. So far, the weather is disturbingly not bad. So far, it's just sort of a light rain

00:09:23.560 where I live. I'm in Northern California. Just sort of a light rain. But I feel like it's going to get

00:09:29.260 a lot worse really quickly and probably today. But we need the water. So if the bomb cyclone

00:09:35.880 washes some things away, but we get a lot of water, probably we came out ahead. All right. We've got to

00:09:43.360 talk about the Alec Baldwin situation. We know a little bit more. And I will tell you that

00:09:49.840 as the story emerges, you know, the fog of war starts clearing out. Let's see if your opinion about

00:09:58.100 the people involved changes. Now, one thing we know is that the young woman who is, or the young

00:10:05.620 they, I'll say the young they, who is handling the guns and was in charge of the safety of the guns

00:10:11.560 for the film, apparently was not very experienced. 24 years old and doesn't seem to be a member of

00:10:19.200 the NRA, but that's just a guess. And I guess the circumstances are that the gun, either that gun

00:10:27.660 or ones in the group had misfired a couple times. The crew had already complained about the safety

00:10:34.040 problems. And I guess the specific setup is that they were lining up a camera shot in which they wanted

00:10:41.480 to have the camera look down the barrel of the gun, or, you know, at least that view of the actor.

00:10:47.680 And so Alec Baldwin was instructed to aim the gun in the direction of the camera-ish, and it went off.

00:10:55.820 Now, what's still missing in the story, unless somebody has heard it, was, did he pull the trigger?

00:11:01.900 How does a gun misfire in the first place? Is there anybody who knows enough about firearms

00:11:09.160 to tell me how a gun would misfire? Somebody said it didn't, quote, go off. Yeah, we'll talk about

00:11:21.340 responsibility in a moment. Yeah, the way the news is talking about it is just delayed ignition of the

00:11:28.960 bullet. Hmm. You've got to pull the trigger, somebody says. It can't without the hammer striking.

00:11:39.380 But what if, now, is there any chance that the hammer was pulled back? There's no evidence of that,

00:11:46.900 right? So I think there's more news we need to learn about this. Not that that fact would

00:11:52.160 necessarily change what we think. But, so, let's say if we were based on what we know now,

00:11:59.000 let's do a little speculating. If it's true that Alec Baldwin was handed a gun and told that it was

00:12:08.060 cold, so he believed that it was blanks, and if he was told by the director who, or the director of

00:12:14.540 photography, I think it was, to point in that direction, probably the director said it as well,

00:12:20.460 and he believed that the gun had been checked out, and it was just lighting it up for a shoot,

00:12:27.900 how guilty do you think he is if the gun misfired? I don't know. I don't even know what that means,

00:12:36.600 to misfire. It was a revolver, right? Yeah. 100% guilty, everybody says. 100% guilty? 100% guilty.

00:12:49.640 Yeah, the NRA answer to that, if I could put it that way, you know, the gun owner answer,

00:12:55.580 and I've been having this conversation with someone else, and somebody was trying to suggest,

00:13:04.360 I won't name names because I don't want to bring in personalities, but would suggest that the

00:13:10.080 responsibility was at least partially, at least partially, the gun armorer person, the person

00:13:17.560 who was in charge of making sure it didn't have a loaded round, and what do you who actually know

00:13:23.420 about guns say to that? You say the same thing I said. It's 100% the responsibility of the person

00:13:30.620 who has it in their hand, even if somebody else screwed up. We're all on the same page on that,

00:13:38.800 right? It's always 100% responsibility of the person with the gun in their hand. Always. It's never 99.

00:13:47.080 It's always 100%. It's also 100% of the person who handed it to them. So if one person has 100%

00:13:56.480 of responsibility, the person who has it in their hand, that doesn't absolve anybody else. You know,

00:14:01.800 they have their own kind of responsibility. Likewise, if the person who handed it to them

00:14:06.240 is 100% wrong, it doesn't change in any way the actor's own responsibility. Now, I certainly feel

00:14:16.320 for him because the context of how it happened wasn't an ordinary gun ownership thing. He had delegated

00:14:22.820 responsibility. He thought that was good enough. It wasn't. It wasn't. So let me ask you this

00:14:28.660 question. How many NRA members would it have taken to be on that crew to have prevented this with a

00:14:37.220 pretty high degree of confidence? You couldn't be sure. But how many would it take anywhere on the

00:14:43.180 crew? And we'll even say just the lowest member of the crew. You know, somebody, the gaffers or I

00:14:49.500 don't know, whoever is the lowest member of the crew. Yeah, yeah. Everybody who understands guns

00:14:54.780 says the same answer. One. Exactly one. Do you know, what would you have done if you knew that this

00:15:00.980 group of guns had misfired twice? You would take them away. You'd probably take them away, wouldn't you?

00:15:09.960 Like physically take them away? Now, I guess some people walked out. Was that the right answer?

00:15:15.940 I think walking out is what you do if you're not a member of the NRA. All right. Now, of course, I'm

00:15:21.540 I'm being a little hyperbolic. You know, in the real world, people don't have as much power as they

00:15:26.740 might want to. Depends on personalities, etc. But I like to think that if there would have been even

00:15:33.620 one NRA member there, they would have just gone nuts on that place. Right? The amount of energy

00:15:43.040 somebody who knew what they were talking about, gun wise, would have put into that situation,

00:15:49.180 it should be a lot. Like, I don't think it would have just been talking to the director.

00:15:53.800 Right? I don't think it would have been just talking to the boss. I don't think it would have

00:15:57.940 been just complaining. I think they would have physically stood in front of the guns. Right?

00:16:03.200 I think they would have stood in front of the guns and say, for safety reasons,

00:16:08.640 nobody's getting near these things. Am I wrong? You put one NRA member there, doesn't matter what

00:16:16.880 their role is, they would walk and stand in front of the gun supply and say, no, we're done here.

00:16:21.400 These aren't going anywhere. Right? Now, you would have to have a certain kind of personality to do

00:16:26.780 that, you know, certain risk profile. But I'd like to know the answer to the question if they had

00:16:32.380 one NRA member. Just one. I'll bet the answer is no. You can't be sure, but I'll bet.

00:16:41.120 All right. If Alec Baldwin has responsibility, obviously, it would be in the sense that he didn't

00:16:49.160 put the right people in charge. He was a producer. So I do think he's going to have some,

00:16:55.120 he's probably his insurance company, or he are going to be on the hook for a lot, I think.

00:17:00.320 But it will be an interesting case. We'll probably learn a lot. All right. I've been noticing with

00:17:09.760 happiness that the internet dads are getting pretty involved in the fentanyl question. Do you know who

00:17:18.000 the internet dads are? I use that term loosely to include people like myself. Now, it's not my own

00:17:25.480 description of me, but it's other people's description of a set of people who, somewhat

00:17:32.400 accidentally, nobody set out to do this, but became kind of almost dad-like influences to people

00:17:41.080 who maybe needed a little extra or didn't have any. You know, I would put Mike Cernovich in that

00:17:45.780 category, put myself in that category. And you can name a bunch of other people who easily feel like

00:17:52.800 internet dads at this point, just giving you some, or at least trying to give you some life advice.

00:17:58.420 And we see them getting more involved lately in the fentanyl question. I saw, I saw Michael

00:18:07.460 Schellenberger is going at it hard, especially, and he's got a new book, San Francisco. I want to get

00:18:13.760 him on and do a book review, but I don't want to do that with a live stream. I'll have to do that

00:18:17.980 off live. But, you know, the question is getting bigger and bigger, and the right people are talking

00:18:25.140 about it. And I wanted to run through, for the benefit of my audience, yeah, Jack Murphy, another

00:18:30.540 good example. I'm going to run through this, a bunch of myths that the internet dads don't have, right?

00:18:40.700 This is things that the people you're calling the internet dads, this is stuff they understand,

00:18:48.020 but maybe the public doesn't, okay? And so I just want to run through this. And I'll start with this.

00:18:55.660 I asked this question on Twitter, and of course it's an unscientific poll. I said, is your life deeply

00:19:01.980 constrained or ruined by a drug addict or alcoholic who is close to you? Close to you, right? How many people

00:19:09.960 in my unscientific poll, which are mostly conservatives, by the way, mostly conservatives,

00:19:14.680 that's the people who follow me on Twitter? If you're new to me, I'm not, I don't identify as

00:19:19.700 conservative, but my audience does. 22% of them, last I checked, said yes. 22% have their lives

00:19:27.480 deeply constrained or ruined. Deeply constrained or ruined. 22%. Deeply constrained or ruined. 22%.

00:19:39.460 Do you feel that? You can't do anything to 22% of the country without a big effect on the rest of

00:19:49.300 it, right? There's nothing that affects that many people that doesn't affect the rest of it. And keep

00:19:53.500 in mind, this is my conservative followers. You don't think this is a little bit worse on the left?

00:19:58.940 So let's say it's a quarter of the public is being influenced by somebody addicted. Probably 10% or more

00:20:09.180 are addicted to... How many people are addicted? Does anybody know that? What percentage of the general

00:20:15.980 population are addicted? 10%? Is it more now? I mean, it could be 50% depending on what drugs you're

00:20:24.880 including. You know, if you throw in cigarettes and alcohol and everything else. Yeah, I feel like

00:20:30.440 it's 20, 30% is what it feels like, depending on how you count it. But so that's how bad it is. Now,

00:20:38.100 let me tell you the myths that people have around there now that you know how big it is.

00:20:43.460 A lot of people, and you'll see this on internet, will tell you that good parenting will save your

00:20:49.620 teen. Good parenting will keep your teen from getting into trouble with fentanyl or overdosing.

00:20:58.200 No. No. That is a hard no. I do believe there are some edge cases where maybe somebody's a little

00:21:08.000 bit inclined, but you know, the best parenting in the world could keep them safe. So yes, in the narrow,

00:21:15.340 narrow sense that there are some kids and some families in some specific situations where doing

00:21:20.980 all the right things parent-wise would help. So you should definitely try to do all the right

00:21:25.880 things parent-wise. It could help, but it would depend mostly on your kid. Do you think you could

00:21:34.380 have taken my stepson and fixed him up? I'm going to tell you what that would have looked like in a

00:21:40.460 minute. Because if you think you could have fixed my stepson by your good parenting, my God, you

00:21:48.340 haven't met many people. All right. So let me clear that up for you in a minute. All right. Here's some

00:21:56.520 more myths. Counseling would help. Get a good therapist, get a good counselor, and they can fix

00:22:02.000 things. Nope. Nope. Do you know why the counselor doesn't help? I'm just going to use my now deceased

00:22:08.880 stepson as my example. We're going to make you go to counseling. I don't want to go to counseling. We're

00:22:16.560 going to make you go to counseling. All right. But when I'm done, I'm going to go back to using. No, we're

00:22:23.020 going to make you go to counseling, and that will fix you, and then you won't use. Okay. I'm just telling you that

00:22:28.420 when I'm done with the counseling, I'm going to go back to doing drugs and drinking and stuff. No. The

00:22:33.820 counseling. Counseling. So you send them to counseling. He goes through the hours, and the moment he walks out,

00:22:39.920 he uses again. Just like he said. Exactly like he said. Now you say to yourself, all right, dealing with you like an

00:22:46.100 adult isn't going to work. All right. We got to take this to the next level. I'm going to start punishing you if you're 0.66

00:22:53.540 hanging around with the people who use, or we find out you're using, or we discover anything in your

00:22:58.540 room, right? We're going to punish you until you stop the behavior. Number one, you're grounded.

00:23:04.160 All right. I'm going to kill myself. I'm going to kill myself because I'm grounded. 1.00

00:23:11.660 What if he's tried twice?

00:23:15.120 What do you do? What do you good parents do? All you smart ones. He's tried to kill himself twice.

00:23:21.260 Like literally. Literally twice. So you're going to lock him in his room. He says, if you put me in

00:23:26.660 here, I'm going to kill myself. How's that? You're good parents? You're going to do that? How's that 0.97

00:23:32.200 work? Take away his phone. He says, I'm going to kill myself. And you know what? He means it. He means

00:23:40.540 it. He's not bluffing. Tried it twice. Right? How uncommon is it for your addict to say they'll kill

00:23:48.600 themselves and mean it? Not uncommon. And how many of you have heard this, this? It's not uncommon and

00:23:56.060 it's real. And they will try to kill themselves. It's absolutely real. And you know why you know 0.99

00:24:01.440 that they will try to kill themselves? Because their drug addiction is basically slow suicide. 0.67

00:24:07.820 They're already killing themselves. You don't have to wonder if they have the mental state to kill 0.97

00:24:13.080 themselves. You're watching it happen in real time. They are killing themselves. It's just slow.

00:24:18.480 And they're taking the chance that they'll die and they don't care. Did he care that he might die of

00:24:23.400 an overdose? He didn't. He didn't. Sometimes he would act like he did. But honestly, he didn't.

00:24:31.940 And you could tell. How soon did I know I would have an addiction problem with my stepson?

00:24:39.800 How young was he when I knew I'd have the problem? About five. About five years old, it was obvious.

00:24:49.680 You could see it coming like a train. Because at five years old, he would tell us how much he wanted

00:24:54.720 to drink to oblivion. At six years old, still saying, yeah, I just want to drink till I pass out.

00:25:01.200 Can't wait to do drugs. He would say it explicitly and often, and there was nothing you could do to talk

00:25:07.600 him out of it. He was born to do drugs. I mean, I've never seen anybody who was so intent on doing

00:25:13.840 everything wrong. Secondly, his personality was such that if anything was the right thing you're

00:25:20.040 supposed to do, he would do the other thing and aggressively. It wouldn't matter what you told him.

00:25:25.760 You'd say, if you do this, you're in big trouble. If you do this, you're not. You would do the big

00:25:30.360 trouble thing every time. Every time. No exceptions. What do you do with that? All right. So you say

00:25:37.420 to yourself, my God, you're going to have to take it up to the next level. You're going to have to

00:25:41.340 actually take him to some kind of facility, some kind of program where they're really like, you know,

00:25:48.340 maybe it's like boot camp for kids or something. You know, you've heard of these where they can

00:25:52.320 they can sort of force the kid into a situation where they can't leave and, you know, they're going

00:25:58.920 to really get the tough love they need and they won't have access to the drugs. So just sign them up

00:26:04.140 for one of the programs, right? Right? Because that's all you got left. How many of you would

00:26:12.180 say, okay, because most of you are second guessing now, I know. So those of you are second guessing

00:26:19.140 me, how many of you say that at this point, your only thing you can do is to sign them up

00:26:24.760 for some kind of a tough program where they basically would take away his freedom for a while.

00:26:29.460 But, you know, at least it would be tough love. How many think that's a good idea? No matter what

00:26:36.440 you call it, you could call it military school or whatever you want to call it. But how many think

00:26:40.160 that's a good idea? I have to swear at you now, with all due respect. I have to curse.

00:26:51.880 There's no such fucking thing. The thing you think will fix it doesn't exist. There is no fucking 1.00

00:27:01.940 program that you can take a California teenager to. None. Zero. Nothing. You have no legal recourse. 1.00

00:27:11.040 You have no asset. No money in the fucking world. I could have taken five million fucking dollars 1.00

00:27:18.840 and put it toward this problem. It would have made zero difference. There's no place you can 0.99

00:27:24.180 take them. No facility exists. No medical treatment. No path. No person. No expert. Nothing.

00:27:32.260 You're on your fucking own as a parent. And you don't have anything you can do except wait 1.00

00:27:38.700 and watch and prepare to bury your fucking kid. That's all you have. You get that? 1.00

00:27:46.160 Now, those of you saying, but, you know, screw the kid. Free will. It's his own fault.

00:27:53.740 If you think that, you don't know anything about addicts. You don't know anything about human

00:27:58.260 nature. You don't know anything about psychology. And you don't know anything about physics. And

00:28:03.060 you don't know anything about psychology. But a lot of you have that feeling. No. People don't

00:28:11.700 have free will to stop drugs. It has to be done by somebody else. Now, some people can

00:28:17.880 be, find themselves in the situation in which they hit bottom. And then the situation is

00:28:24.300 changed. And then sometimes they can get better on their own. But there's nothing you can do.

00:28:29.900 You can't do that. Sometimes it happens by accident. And even, you know, it's not good,

00:28:34.620 but it happens. But you can't make that happen. You have no ability whatsoever. All right? Addicts

00:28:42.040 do what addicts do, and you can't change it. That's it. All right. Other people say, well,

00:28:49.900 you could at least stay away from fentanyl. I mean, you could at least make sure you don't

00:28:54.300 do any fentanyl. No, you cannot. The people dying of fentanyl did not know it was in their

00:29:00.300 products or did not know how much of it was in their products. They thought they were doing

00:29:04.840 cocaine. They thought they were doing Xanax. Or even they thought they were doing fake Xanax,

00:29:09.020 but they didn't think it was fentanyl. They're doing other stuff and thinking they're not getting

00:29:13.860 fentanyl. Or if they are, their friend took it, so it must be okay. And then they die. No,

00:29:19.880 you cannot avoid fentanyl if you're an addict. If you're an addict, you're going to take drugs,

00:29:26.400 and it's going to be in the drugs. That's the whole story. You can say to yourself, as I said

00:29:32.280 to my son a few weeks before he died, I had lunch with him, and I said, promise me just one thing.

00:29:38.840 You won't take street drugs that you don't know what's in them. That's the only thing I'm going to

00:29:44.320 ask, because I feel like I could get that from you. And he said, yes, absolutely. Because I understand

00:29:51.700 that the street drugs very often have fentanyl in them, and I understand that fentanyl will kill

00:29:57.080 me. So I will not take those drugs. And then he took those drugs and died a few weeks later.

00:30:09.280 Here's the other big myth. You had good results with your kid, so therefore you know how to parent,

00:30:18.040 and I don't. I'm sorry. If you had good results with your kid, you might be a great parent. I

00:30:26.460 wouldn't take that away from you. But it's because you had a good kid, right? The kid is what makes

00:30:33.720 the thing turn out well. You could ruin it, but you're not really the one who's making it happen,

00:30:40.640 right? The genetics of the kid and your situation in general are going to be 80% of what happens to

00:30:47.320 that kid. You're about 20% tops. So how about a little humility about how much you contributed,

00:30:54.340 although your genes might be good. If your genetics are the reason you got a good result,

00:30:59.400 good for you. But it wasn't your parenting. Your parenting could break something, but it's not

00:31:04.420 going to fix an addict. All right. That's what I want to say on that topic. Sorry that was such a

00:31:15.600 downer. But I think it's important. It's a downer, but important. All right. Do you remember I've

00:31:21.980 given you some ways to predict things? Some of them don't make any sense, but they're fun to watch.

00:31:27.840 One of the ways to predict that doesn't make any sense, but it's very predictive, or at least it

00:31:33.580 seems like it. You know, it's anecdotal. So maybe it's just confirmation bias. Is that the best story

00:31:39.480 usually wins? The best story usually wins. So if, let's say there's a competition of some kind,

00:31:46.400 let's say the best story is Tom Brady getting kicked off of his football team that he's won a

00:31:53.620 bunch of championships on. He's way too old. He goes to another team that wasn't expected to win,

00:31:59.340 and he takes them all the way to the Super Bowl and beats his old team. I don't know if that happened

00:32:04.160 exactly, but I'm giving you an example of something that if you saw it developing, you'd say, oh, you

00:32:08.900 know, the best story here, the best story here would be if this aging hero had, you know, one more win.

00:32:16.740 And then he does. And the number of times you can say, you know, the best, the coolest outcome here

00:32:23.120 would be, and then you watch how often the coolest outcome happens. So I say this because Raul Davis,

00:32:31.200 Twitter user and CEO branding expert, had reminded me when, I guess the World Series was on, or the,

00:32:39.920 yeah, is that right? I don't watch sports. The World Series just happened, right? I think.

00:32:47.380 But before it happened, he mentioned to me, Raul did, that Major League Baseball had pulled the game

00:32:56.580 from, the All-Star game from Atlanta, but then it was Atlanta who was in the World Series. And so Raul said,

00:33:03.540 you know, the best story would be that the All-Star game gets pulled from Atlanta, and then Atlanta

00:33:08.500 goes and wins the World Series.

00:33:11.080 Oh, is that, wait, am I reading the story wrong?

00:33:22.980 Oh, they responded with the first World Series. Does that mean that the World Series is going

00:33:27.260 to be held there? As opposed to, oh, so they're just in it. It's the playoffs that just happened?

00:33:35.380 Oh, so it's the playoffs. So, all right, so I got this story wrong. That's how much of a nada sports

00:33:41.340 guy I am. So they got into the World Series. They haven't won the World Series, right? All right,

00:33:48.460 so if you were to predict based on best story wins, you'd predict they win. So thank you for

00:33:56.480 correcting me. So here's another example of the, you know, I just talked about this, that collectively

00:34:01.000 we form sort of a brain, like an intelligence. You know, I have some general notions, and then

00:34:07.080 you fix them or correct them or refine them. It's really kind of interesting watching literally

00:34:13.480 a new form of intelligence. Has this ever existed before? Because technologically, this couldn't

00:34:20.780 have existed before, right? At least not in this scale. It's like, how many people are watching?

00:34:26.760 Let's see, we've got 2,100 over there and 500 here. So let's say we've got 2,700 people

00:34:33.860 who are this collective brain at the moment. Kind of cool. Anyway, I don't think there's

00:34:40.540 any reason that the best story always wins, except I'll speculate. If it's true, and if it

00:34:47.940 were some way that you could actually, you know, measure it to see if it's true, I think it

00:34:54.000 would be because people are story creatures. That we're also trained by stories, maybe naturally

00:35:02.740 because we evolved that way, but also because we reinforce it by reading stories and watching

00:35:07.240 movies and hearing stories. So we're just story people. And because we're story people, we

00:35:12.400 all have a sense of what a good story is, right? You can tell if the movie has a good story

00:35:17.540 or not. Everybody can tell that. So I feel like we're all biased toward making the better

00:35:23.140 story happen, even if it's not good for us. Oh yeah, McGregor didn't beat the boxer. Yeah.

00:35:28.940 That was a good example, although there was such a mismatch in talent that that's probably,

00:35:34.760 you know, the exception to the rule kind of thing. Yeah. If there's a gigantic difference

00:35:39.840 in talent, yeah, then it's not predictive. Um, all right. So follow the money works that

00:35:49.900 way too. Um, I won't give you the example, but recently there was an example where something

00:35:54.440 happened that wasn't because of the money as far as I could tell, but the money would

00:36:00.000 have predicted it. So watch how many times that happens. There's somebody who does something

00:36:05.040 and you're pretty sure it wasn't because of the money, but coincidentally, it also was

00:36:11.900 where the money would have suggested things would have gone. It's, it's almost an unbreakable

00:36:17.020 pattern. Joe Desenia's program would have fixed Scott's kids. No, it wouldn't have because

00:36:25.140 he wouldn't have gotten in it. All right. All right. Here's a persuasion secret I learned

00:36:32.940 as a data analyst. So I spent many years in the corporate world, uh, analyzing data and

00:36:39.380 then explaining it to management and whoever needed to see it. So my job was to take complicated

00:36:45.580 things and simplify them so that somebody could make decisions. Now, uh, I apparently was born

00:36:53.640 with some kind of, uh, aptitude for simplification because you see that in all my work. So it seems

00:37:00.460 like I have some kind of natural talent for that, I guess, I mean, based on observation,

00:37:04.620 I would think so. So cartooning is about simplifying, uh, writing well is about simplifying. And I would

00:37:13.240 say that doing this is about simplifying. Well, knowing when to expand and when to simplify. So

00:37:18.620 it's a little more complicated, but, um, a good data analysis visualization puts you in charge.

00:37:30.020 Now here's something you've never, most of you have never realized, but I'll bet. So I'm going to ask

00:37:34.820 the people who, uh, who have corporate experience or big organization experience. So those of you with

00:37:40.880 corporate experience, I need you to back me on this because those of you who don't have it,

00:37:44.700 aren't going to believe this at all. All right. It's going to be obvious to corporate people,

00:37:48.960 not obvious to the rest of you. The person who makes the best chart is in control. That's your

00:37:58.180 leader. The person who makes the best visualization. Now when I say best, uh, look at all the yeses.

00:38:06.540 So, uh, all the people with corporate experience are agreeing. You can see it go by true, true,

00:38:11.980 true, true. It's one of those things people don't talk about, but it's true. I'll give you an

00:38:17.760 example. So when I was doing data analysis, uh, I was in charge of, uh, the data analysis to do a

00:38:23.880 lease or purchase for mainframes and servers and the backend technology for the bank. And so the

00:38:30.580 technical people would say, you know, what they needed. And then they would say, we could get it

00:38:34.760 this way or that way. We could lease it or buy it. And we could get it from IBM or somebody else.

00:38:38.680 And then I would take that information and do the analysis and figure out which one it was.

00:38:44.380 Well, as I was doing that work, I thought, God, it's too complicated to figure out what to do when.

00:38:50.820 And so I'll make a visualization that shows all of our equipment that's coming off lease

00:38:55.920 or is ready to be replaced. And you'll have a timeline that's, you know, a three-dimensional

00:39:01.300 timeline where you can really, really plan, you know, when you're going to be, um, having to retire

00:39:08.380 a lot of stuff. And when you don't, because if you had to retire a lot of stuff, you could have a

00:39:13.940 capital budget that, that, uh, that was appropriate to how much had to be replaced. Now this didn't

00:39:20.040 exist, right? There was no existence of a good visualization to show what to do when. So I took

00:39:28.540 it to my boss and said, Hey, I'd like to show this to the senior vice president in charge of

00:39:32.400 everything and, uh, you know, show him that there's a path to figure out how to do this, these upgrades

00:39:38.960 in a more rational way. My boss said, uh, you know, nobody asked you to do that. And so, you know,

00:39:47.480 nobody asked you to do that, right? The boss did not ask for this. So I'm not going to show him this

00:39:52.540 because he didn't ask for it, but I was persuasive. They said, you know, what, he might like it.

00:39:58.340 Maybe you could just pass it, you know, pass it across his desk. So she went to the meeting,

00:40:04.900 she, uh, did hand it to him and he said, my God, this is the first time I've understood what's going

00:40:10.380 on. This is perfect. Do more of this. And from that moment, who was in charge of deciding what

00:40:19.060 equipment in the bank got replaced? I was, I was accidentally. I mean, it wasn't my plan,

00:40:27.420 but from the moment I was the one in charge of the visualization, I was the one who determined

00:40:32.900 what we did from that point on. Because I said, well, two years from now, you'd better make your

00:40:38.740 budget X because if you don't, you won't have enough. Right? So who was in charge? Was the senior

00:40:45.400 vice president in charge? Well, on paper he was, and he certainly had an option of doing things that

00:40:50.960 didn't make sense. He would have been fired, but he had the option because he was in charge.

00:40:55.800 But who was really in charge? The person who controlled the information and the person who

00:41:02.260 put it in a form that basically told you what to do. Right? Because once you knew that you had to

00:41:09.900 replace these in this date, well, you sort of had to. His options were constrained by what I allowed him

00:41:18.780 to know. I was in charge. Now, everybody who works in the corporate office knows this dynamic.

00:41:24.160 You know it's not the boss in charge. They're completely captive to the data.

00:41:30.440 So let's look at the question of the supply chain. I believe that since we have a leaderless situation

00:41:39.340 in particular, we don't even know who's in charge of fixing it. Right? Is it Pete Buttigieg? I don't

00:41:45.160 know. Or is he in charge of some of it, but not all of it? The states are mostly in charge.

00:41:51.780 I don't know. Do you? So we have basically a leaderless situation that's one of our biggest

00:41:57.200 problems. Somebody could take control of the situation with one good visualization.

00:42:05.120 Now, I have in my mind a sense of what it might be, but I'll tell you what it doesn't look like.

00:42:11.560 What it doesn't look like is the visualizations I've seen so far. The visualizations I've seen so

00:42:17.900 far are treating all of the various variables as somewhat the same. Meaning, here's a list of all

00:42:25.280 the reasons that we have a problem. It's just a list. A list of all the problems doesn't do anything.

00:42:35.120 Because you don't know which ones are the big ones. And even if you knew which ones are the big ones,

00:42:40.580 are they the ones you can fix? Or should you fix the little ones because they're fixable? And at

00:42:46.520 least you can do that. Right? A good visualization would answer all those questions. A good visualization

00:42:53.440 would show you something like a visual presentation of the problem. You know, that it may be in a

00:43:00.860 linear fashion of things go from here to here to here. And then it would have a sizing or possibly

00:43:07.240 a color indication of where the big opportunities are. And maybe different indications for both.

00:43:14.700 So it could be that there's a big problem. So that would show as a big bubble.

00:43:21.280 But maybe there's nothing you can do about it. Because you can't attack it first. But maybe there's

00:43:27.360 a smaller problem that is easy to get at that would fix the bigger problem if you could fix the

00:43:33.720 smaller one. Maybe. That's what the visualization would tell you. But here's the magic part.

00:43:40.200 Suppose you had the visualization with bubbles of different colors and sizes to tell you both

00:43:45.500 priority and whether or not there's something you can do about it. But also each one was labeled with

00:43:51.540 whose problem it is or who's in charge. And you label the biggest one, nobody in charge. And you publish it.

00:44:03.800 What happens? Well, if it becomes viral, because it's good, right? If it's not a really good

00:44:10.880 visualization, nothing happens. So you have to make a distinction between a bad visualization where

00:44:16.520 nothing happens and a great visualization, which people are capable of doing, right?

00:44:22.460 Ian Martizis, if I always pronounce your name right, wrong, sorry. But Ian, if you've seen his work on

00:44:29.220 here regarding COVID and stuff, if you see a professional data visualization person work,

00:44:36.140 it blows your freaking mind, right? Because you immediately realize how good, how not good you

00:44:42.700 are at it. I did it for a living, right? I did it for a living. And I'm not even close to how good a good,

00:44:50.720 a really good commercial visualizer would do it. Now, if somebody could do that and label it that the

00:44:57.080 biggest problem is leaderless, what would happen? Well, the news would say, oh, I finally understand this

00:45:04.060 for the first time. And what things do the news report? Does the news report things that the

00:45:10.100 reporters understand? Or does the news report things that they can't explain? Which one do they prefer

00:45:16.880 doing? Okay, obviously, rhetorical question. Reporters will report things they can report and

00:45:26.700 understand. If the data visualizer hands them that, they're all going to use it. They're all

00:45:34.440 going to use it, because it'll be the first time they understand it. If you can be the first person

00:45:39.460 to explain it to a journalist, you own the journalist. The journalist always owns the politicians,

00:45:48.020 because the politicians have to do things that will sound good when they're explained in the press,

00:45:51.820 or explain why they're not, right? So if you don't understand how power works, and by the way,

00:45:59.420 I have this conversation with a lot of people. A lot of people don't understand how power works.

00:46:04.820 They really don't. They imagine that the person who's in the box that has the job CEO,

00:46:11.300 they imagine they have the power, and in many ways they do. But it's such a simplified understanding

00:46:16.360 of power that you can really get off track. Here's the thing I say about the... everybody's

00:46:24.100 annoyed about the lockdowns and everything. And they're saying, oh, our government, damn our 0.99

00:46:31.160 government for requiring this. Nothing like that is happening. Not in my world. In my world, 0.97

00:46:38.580 the government isn't making you do jacks yet. Nothing. Your fellow citizens are making you do

00:46:44.060 that. Do you not realize that? It's not the government at all doing it. It's your fellow

00:46:50.900 citizens. If they did not support the government, it just wouldn't be happening, right? You have to

00:46:56.220 have some, like, solid percentage of support, or the government can't make you do anything.

00:47:01.040 If you think that convincing the government to change their mind is a productive path,

00:47:06.900 you're so wrong. You have to convince the other citizens, because they're in charge.

00:47:13.180 They're in charge. The government is not in charge of you wearing a frickin' mask. Be serious. Wake up.

00:47:22.300 They've never been in charge of that. They can't be in charge of that. It's not physically

00:47:26.880 possible. Your fellow citizens are in charge of that. They've decided by a large enough majority

00:47:34.860 that you're going to wear a mask for a while in some places. In other places, they decided not.

00:47:42.060 In Florida, apparently, they've decided they're not going to wear masks. So stop thinking that the

00:47:48.820 government's in power. They're not. Never will be. All right. So if we could get a good data analysis,

00:47:59.880 maybe we could fix this problem with the ports. And by the way, some of that data analysis might

00:48:04.840 focus on the empty containers. And I'm still seeing reports that it's not the empty container problem.

00:48:12.920 My belief is that the only credible person says that is the problem, that it probably is,

00:48:19.100 at least in the West Coast. Other places may be different. All right. Here's another one for you.

00:48:26.540 Dr. Anarchy on Twitter, who is very well named. No Twitter user has ever had a more appropriate

00:48:35.460 handle. He's Dr. Anarchy, not his real name. MD.

00:48:39.660 And the MD part is what gives you the anarchy in this. So here's his tweet. I'm going to let you

00:48:46.820 think about it for a moment. And be careful. All right. Just think about it for a moment before

00:48:53.100 you react. Here's the tweet. Horse dewormer and anti-malaria drugs have saved more lives than

00:49:00.340 lockdowns and masks. Just let it settle in.

00:49:06.340 Diabolical. Diabolical. Here's what you might have assumed until I warned you that there was a trick 0.95

00:49:19.020 coming. Horse dewormer and anti-malaria drugs have, in fact, saved more lives because he didn't

00:49:25.960 specify COVID. He didn't specify COVID. It is legitimately a fact that 100% of science would agree

00:49:33.820 with that horse dewormer and anti-malaria drugs have saved more lives than lockdowns and masks.

00:49:40.620 It's probably, I mean, I assume the data would back it up. But, you know, we can't know that for

00:49:46.680 sure. But what's diabolical about it is, first of all, you don't know for sure that that would even

00:49:50.860 be true. But second, you just leapt to the conclusion that he was only talking about COVID.

00:49:56.280 But he didn't specify. So was he? I don't know. I don't know. I'm not sure what he intended,

00:50:04.640 which is what makes it so diabolical.

00:50:06.440 But here's what you also need to know. And I'll give you a story here. So Michael Schellenberg was

00:50:21.020 tweeting about this today, that Britain's climate policy rested on the assumption that in 2050 there

00:50:28.060 would be just seven days per year when wind turbines produced less than 10% of the potential.

00:50:35.280 So the assumption is that wind turbines would be a good deal for Great Britain because the wind mostly

00:50:42.320 blows there most of the time. But in 2021, there have already been 65 such days. And in 2016,

00:50:52.580 there were 78 of them. All right, they're hoping for seven, and they got 10 times as many.

00:50:58.660 10 times as many. All right. So here's my persuasion lesson for the day.

00:51:11.200 Any data analysis has two parts, the data and then the assumptions. So if you've got data and you've

00:51:21.700 got assumptions and you put them together, then you've got a result that you could just... Let's

00:51:28.900 say the data is 100% accurate. And so you do the analysis with 100% accurate data. And let's say

00:51:38.000 you're also good at math and analysis. So your math and your analysis are spot on, no mistakes. And the

00:51:46.400 data, which is weird, is 100% perfect. So how good is your outcome? How good is your result? 100% good data

00:51:55.720 and 100% good analysis. Anybody? Anybody? How good is it? The correct answer is zero. No credibility

00:52:08.820 whatsoever. Because do you know what makes your analysis come out the way it comes out? Your

00:52:16.060 assumptions. Your assumptions. Every objective data analysis except maybe randomized controlled trials

00:52:26.420 in some situation. But as soon as you get away from that, as soon as you get away from the randomized

00:52:31.520 controlled trials, it's all subjective. It's all subjective. Because somebody picked the assumptions.

00:52:38.120 And whoever picked the assumptions knew that if they picked them differently, they get a different

00:52:43.420 outcome. So whoever picks the assumptions decides what the outcome is. Why do I know that? Because

00:52:49.700 that was my job for years. My job was data analysis, in which some of it was data, a lot of it was

00:52:56.840 estimates, and a lot of it was assumptions. And I could make it come out any way I wanted. It didn't matter

00:53:03.880 what the analysis was, I could make it come out good or bad, just by changing the assumptions.

00:53:09.440 I'm going to tell you something I did that I'm not proud of. I don't know if I've ever said this in

00:53:16.120 public before. I'm not proud of this. But it really happened. So when I was working for the phone

00:53:23.220 company, and I was also doing Dilbert in my spare time, my reputation as the Dilbert guy started

00:53:28.880 climbing. So people knew that I was, you know, mocking corporations at the same time I was working

00:53:34.660 for one. Well, as you can imagine, this was not popular with at least one member of senior management,

00:53:39.780 who learned that I was mocking big companies while working in his organization. So he told my

00:53:46.080 boss's boss to fire me immediately, because he heard I'd been saying some things in public

00:53:51.400 about management in general, not my management, just about managers and management. And to his

00:53:59.540 credit, my boss's boss, who was, let's see, he was a vice president, I guess. The vice president

00:54:07.200 told me later, I didn't know about it at the time, but he told me, I don't know, a year or two later,

00:54:12.640 that he had been asked to fire me. And he talked his boss out of it. And I didn't hear the exact

00:54:17.760 conversation, but I think it went like this. He said, no, no, no, we can't fire him for having a

00:54:22.440 sense of humor. You can't fire somebody for having an opinion and, you know, being, let's say, humorously

00:54:29.440 hyperbolic about it. You don't fire people for that. What you do is you move them onto projects,

00:54:36.880 and they'll quit on their own. You just give them a really bad project. They'll quit on their own. You

00:54:41.880 don't want to fire them for that. So I was moved. Now, I don't know that that conversation happened.

00:54:47.380 I do know that I was, instead of fired, I was transferred to a doomed project.

00:54:54.600 Now, this is the way corporations sometimes fire people. They'll move you to a project that has an

00:55:00.160 end date. And then when the project is over, they say, you know, we would love to put you back into

00:55:05.680 some other department, but we've got a hiring freeze on. So everybody in the project is done working at

00:55:12.000 this company. Yeah, the special assignment. So I was put on a special assignment with at least one

00:55:18.940 other person who was in the same boat. He was also just this close to being fired, but they said, nah,

00:55:24.180 we won't fire you. You've been a good employee up till now. So we'll put you on the doomed project.

00:55:29.200 It'll take care of itself. Guess what the doomed project was?

00:55:33.240 It was our job to do an analysis of whether the phone company should invest, I don't know,

00:55:40.260 some billions of dollars in a new technology called ISDN. Has anybody heard of it? Those of

00:55:47.680 you who were working in tech back in those days? Now, how good was ISDN? I want you to watch this in

00:55:54.800 the comments. Watch this. For those of you who lived through those times, and especially those of you

00:55:59.880 who were engineers or techies, how good was ISDN? And at the time, did you know it was the future?

00:56:09.260 It was absolute crap. It was probably one of the worst technologies ever made. 0.98

00:56:16.300 But it was the only thing that the phone company had or thought they had as an option for high-speed

00:56:21.120 data. And the phone company thought they had to be in the high-speed data business, because they kind

00:56:25.720 of did. But they didn't have a good option. They just had this bad technology. So they put me in

00:56:31.400 charge of deciding whether they should do ISDN and spend billions of dollars in making that like a

00:56:38.500 critical part of the business. Now, keep in mind that they had already decided they were going to do

00:56:43.820 it, because that's usually how it works. So management had decided they have to be in the business of

00:56:49.120 high-speed data. They only had one option. It was going to be ISDN. But they needed somebody,

00:56:55.220 my project, to say they were making the right decision. Well, at this point, I knew my career

00:57:03.560 was pretty much over. And I was not too happy with my employer. How do you think the analysis went?

00:57:12.440 Well, I recall giving the presentation, and it's probably the funniest thing I've ever done that

00:57:17.300 nobody laughed at. Are you ready? The funniest thing I've ever done that nobody laughed at.

00:57:25.080 I stood in front of the senior management of, you know, as an SVP and VP's senior management to make

00:57:32.300 these billion-dollar decisions. Billion-dollar decisions. And I gave them my PowerPoint presentation,

00:57:38.440 and I said, this ISDN would be a great thing. This could be great. But I have to tell you my

00:57:46.960 assumptions. You have to understand the assumptions, because otherwise the analysis, you know, depends

00:57:52.400 on that, so you have to understand them. And one of my assumptions was that the employees of the phone

00:57:58.100 company worked flawlessly, as did the developers of ISDN. And if they didn't make any mistakes in their

00:58:06.240 implementation or their decisions, and if ISDN, which was crap at the moment and had been crap for 0.66

00:58:12.320 a long time, were to become not crap because the people made all the right decisions from that point

00:58:17.960 on, ISDN would be an excellent thing to do, under the condition that my co-workers were capable and

00:58:25.660 competent. And Mr. Senior Vice President, you know your people better than I do. So if you trust them to be

00:58:32.320 capable and competent, this is a great thing to do. 0.99

00:58:38.460 It's probably the most fucked up thing I've ever done in my life. 0.97

00:58:44.880 But in my defense, they did have it coming. They had it coming. Now remember, they had already made 0.99

00:58:51.380 the decision, so it didn't really matter what I analyzed. But I gave them the cover they needed.

00:58:56.160 Because I didn't care. I just didn't care. So if I could give some corporate advice.

00:59:07.340 Don't put the guy you're trying to fire, and he knows it, on the biggest decision in your company,

00:59:13.880 because it was. It was the biggest decision in the company. And I gave them exactly what they asked for.

00:59:20.880 I gave them my assumption, and I said it clearly. If you believe your people can execute flawlessly,

00:59:27.960 unlike anything they've ever done before, this is a good idea. You should jump at it. And they did.

00:59:35.960 So all of you are using ISDN now, right? How's your ISDN connection? Working pretty well? I guess

00:59:42.340 that's everywhere. So there's your... Now, so that was real. That's a real-life story. Now,

00:59:50.440 every time you see a data analysis, what do you think? Right? You're going to ask yourself who did

00:59:56.820 it, and what assumptions did they make, and what are they trying to accomplish? Because people got

01:00:01.340 priorities, and it might not be yours. All right. Here's a data analysis test for you. I gave this

01:00:11.340 test to people online today. We'll see how you do. It's a data analysis test. I'm going to give you

01:00:17.220 an assumption. So don't argue with the assumptions, because these are not real assumptions. It's just,

01:00:25.940 if this were true. All right? So don't argue that it's not true. That's not the question. If it were

01:00:32.040 true, can you do the analysis? All right? So we're only testing your analytical ability. We're not

01:00:37.980 testing the facts. I stipulate the facts are true. They might not be. But let's act like they are,

01:00:43.920 and then do the analysis. Here it is. If you knew, now, new is critical, right? If you knew,

01:00:50.600 there's no doubt about it, because you're magic and you know. If you knew that 98% of the people

01:00:55.600 with COVID-19 who took ivermectin had a good outcome, would you conclude it worked? 98% of the

01:01:04.180 people taking it have a good outcome have a good outcome? Go. Do you conclude it works?

01:01:13.100 Well, your answers are all over the place. I see yeses and nos. How could that be?

01:01:18.600 How could this simple question have different answers? This is the most basic question.

01:01:24.860 98% of the people who took this drug had a good outcome. Are you telling me that doesn't convince

01:01:29.180 you? What would it take? If 98% is not enough, what would it take? How many of you said yes,

01:01:40.280 that's pretty good evidence that works, and are feeling a little uncertain right now?

01:01:45.500 How many of you are saying yes, but feeling maybe not as confident as you used to be in that opinion?

01:01:53.200 And I'm going to read it again, because you have to listen to all the words, right?

01:01:56.420 So remember, the part that's stipulated is true. You can't question this, because we're only looking

01:02:02.240 at the analysis, not the data. If you knew that 98% of the people with COVID who took ivermectin

01:02:09.440 had a good outcome, would you conclude it worked? Now you thought about it for a minute, and you've

01:02:17.120 seen other people's answers, right? Now show me just the yeses. You had a moment to think about it,

01:02:24.840 and you've seen other people's responses. Now just the yeses. Plenty of yeses. Lots of yeses.

01:02:33.140 Okay. Those of you who are saying yes are going to get a little dose of humility today,

01:02:38.940 and I don't mean this to be condescending. All right? So don't take this personally.

01:02:43.580 How many of you could design a nuclear-powered rocket without any help? Well, I couldn't. I

01:02:53.520 couldn't, because I don't have any training in that. How many of you could shoot a three-point

01:02:59.580 shot from the center of the court and make them as much as Stephen Curry? I can't. I can't. I don't

01:03:06.760 have any practice of that. Nothing. So I don't feel bad about it, right? I don't feel bad that I'm

01:03:12.580 not a physicist. I've never tried. Never been trained. So very few of you have been trained in

01:03:21.040 data analysis, I figure, right? Realistically. So if you've never been trained in data analysis,

01:03:26.620 and you have completely the wrong answer, don't feel bad about it. Okay? Why am I telling you that?

01:03:33.260 Because I want to, I'm going to try to turn off the trigger for cognitive dissonance.

01:03:38.040 The trigger would be feeling you're wrong. That would, in theory, that would trigger you into

01:03:43.580 hearing and thinking things that are incorrect. So I'm going to turn it off. If you're not

01:03:50.420 experienced expert in data analysis, there isn't any chance you'd be good at it. So if you got this

01:03:56.340 question wrong, don't feel bad about yourself. There's nothing wrong with you. You're a perfectly fine

01:04:02.760 human. You're going to get a little better in the moment, because I'm going to explain to you what

01:04:07.540 you got wrong. But very few people know how to analyze data. They think they do, and it's misleading.

01:04:14.000 You know, the reporters will give you data, and you think they know what they're talking about. They

01:04:17.840 don't. They don't. All right, here's the answer for those of you who are maybe experienced in data

01:04:25.220 analysis. If ivermectin gave a good outcome to 98% of the people, it would indicate it's probably bad

01:04:32.460 for you. All right? Again, remember, if this is different than what you thought, there's nothing

01:04:40.400 wrong with you. You're still good. You're just not experienced at data analysis. The setup I gave you

01:04:47.700 should indicate, under the following assumption, if it was given to a broad spectrum of the public that

01:04:54.380 represented the public, 98% is worse than nothing. If you gave people nothing, more than 98% of them

01:05:02.040 would have a good outcome if you didn't do anything. So if ivermectin gave them a 98% good outcome,

01:05:09.740 and doing nothing gave you slightly better than 98%, what does that tell you about ivermectin?

01:05:15.740 That would tell you it's bad for you, right? Now, remember, I'm making up the numbers. This is not

01:05:21.120 anything real, right? Nothing real. This is just an example. Now, the second thing you should have

01:05:29.200 asked is, who did you study? Because if the only people studied had been 80-year-old people who had

01:05:36.320 COVID and took no other drug, it would be a miracle drug, right? If the 80-year-olds had taken no other

01:05:44.540 drug, and only ivermectin had a 98% good outcome, that would be a miracle, a miracle drug. But suppose

01:05:51.940 the only people studied were children under 18, and 98% had a good outcome. Don't give them,

01:06:00.980 don't give them any ivermectin, if that's all you know, because they were going to do better than that

01:06:05.960 without the ivermectin. So you took a 99 point whatever percentage good outcome, and you took

01:06:12.680 it all the way down to 98 with your ivermectin. So if you don't know who you gave it to, you don't

01:06:17.540 know anything, right? Somebody says you killed several children, yeah. So let me say as clearly as

01:06:28.280 possible, I don't know if ivermectin works, okay? I don't discount it, but I don't think the data is

01:06:41.480 supporting it. Now, the only thing that I want you to learn has nothing to do with ivermectin,

01:06:46.480 all right? So this conversation is not about ivermectin, please, all right? I'm not talking

01:06:50.940 about ivermectin. It was just an example to see if people who don't have data analysis training

01:06:58.160 would automatically get exactly the wrong answer, and that's what happened. So all I wanted to

01:07:07.160 transmit is some humility that I would say, you know, even as an experienced, so I would label

01:07:14.260 myself a commercial-grade analyst, meaning I did it for money. Somebody who was willing to pay me

01:07:21.420 for my ability to analyze things, right? And even I get stuff wrong all the time.

01:07:26.900 All the time I get stuff wrong. So I've got a great deal of humility about my own ability,

01:07:34.040 and I'm pretty trained, right? I'm pretty well trained. If you're not trained, and you don't have

01:07:40.260 a really big dose of humility about how well you can analyze this stuff, you should get it, all right?

01:07:47.520 I'm seeing Christopher is sending me an article from Jim Hoft. It says, election expert Seth

01:07:57.600 Keschel releases national fraud numbers, finds 8.1 million excess votes in U.S. elections, affirms Trump

01:08:06.280 won, etc. What credibility do you put on that story, people? It's from the Gateway Pundit, Jim

01:08:12.520 Hoft, and he says that some expert has found 8.1 million excess votes, and it shows that Trump

01:08:19.320 really won. Credibility, everybody? Credibility? Good job. Good job. Yeah, zero or low, right?

01:08:36.160 Zero or low. Now, it doesn't mean it's untrue, right? Remember, when I say credibility, and I think

01:08:43.500 you're all trained on this by now, credibility doesn't have anything to do with true or false.

01:08:49.540 It's just whether the source and the way it comes to you is something you should automatically believe

01:08:54.180 or automatically be skeptical. Could be true. We're not ruling it out at all. But at the moment,

01:09:00.300 on first glance, it's about a zero credibility. If you see it in other places, and you see more

01:09:06.940 detail, maybe, maybe it'll go up. So again, doesn't mean it's not true, but I wouldn't get too excited

01:09:14.960 about it. Here's some good news from Twitter user JML. He talked about ivermectin, and he said,

01:09:25.060 and I quote from his tweet, I took it and got better in 46 hours. It works incredible.

01:09:32.200 Now, that is good news, because you probably are aware that there are some randomized controlled

01:09:37.800 trials going on for ivermectin, and we can cancel those now, because they're expensive,

01:09:44.240 they're going to take a long time. But now that we know that this one person is pretty sure that

01:09:50.540 it works incredible, and it wasn't just another one of the millions and millions and millions of cases

01:09:56.400 of people who did have one day that they felt better a little bit more than the other days.

01:10:03.320 So it's not that, but this one person, he's now tested it on himself, and that gives us

01:10:08.420 full scientific confidence. So thank you, JML, for making it unnecessary to do randomized controlled

01:10:16.260 drug trials. We can just give it to this guy. And I don't know how many other drugs he's willing to

01:10:21.740 test for us, but imagine how much money we can save. A randomized controlled drug style is like

01:10:27.080 crazy expensive. We're talking like tens of millions of dollars, maybe hundreds of millions.

01:10:32.060 But we can save all of that by just giving these drugs to JML. 46 hours later, you're going to know if

01:10:39.900 they work. He'll just tell you, and then you just take them to market. We could save

01:10:44.660 a lot of money. That's the best news I've heard all day. I hope he doesn't charge too much for his

01:10:52.480 services. So that would be great. All right. What else has happened? Was it wrong of Joe Rogan to take

01:11:01.120 ivermectin? I will give you the correct analytical decision. It's a risk management decision because you

01:11:10.540 don't know. If his doctor gave it to him, that means that somebody well informed that he trusts

01:11:18.300 thought the risk management balance was worth it because I guess the downside risk is kind of pretty close

01:11:25.660 to zero. Did it work? Nobody knows. Nobody knows. But was it a good risk management decision? It looks like it.

01:11:33.740 It looks like it. That doesn't mean you should do it. But if your doctor backs you up, that would help.

01:11:41.800 If your doctor says no, well, you know, take that under consideration. Doesn't mean you have to follow

01:11:47.080 the doctor's advice. But I would certainly give it some weight. I certainly would.

01:11:52.220 Scott just called Dr. Corey well informed. Yes. Yes. The rogue doctors who are claiming the opposite

01:12:05.440 of the consensus, they are well informed. That doesn't mean they're right. They just know a lot

01:12:12.320 of stuff you don't know. Definitely doesn't mean they're right. Have any weed users died of COVID?

01:12:23.720 I'd really like to know that. Because, you know, weed has been at least indicated in some

01:12:29.380 non-confirmed trials. Weed has indicated as a protective effect. Now, I can't speak for the rest of

01:12:38.280 you. But if COVID-19 can burrow through the solid layer of marijuana tar that I put on my lungs every

01:12:46.180 day, well, it deserves to kill me. I would say that's a fair fight. I'd say if you can get through 0.98

01:12:52.620 that barrier and you can take me out, good job on you, COVID. You have my respect. But you're going to

01:13:00.960 have to dig pretty hard to find lung. Now, I don't know if many of you know it, but

01:13:08.140 the only studies I've seen about lung cancer and health outcomes for continuous smokers such as

01:13:18.340 myself, the only health study I've seen is that they have the same life expectancy as everybody

01:13:24.660 else. Will the mask mandate stop before August 2022? Oh, yeah, I think so. What's happening in

01:13:33.260 Florida, by the way? Think about how confident you were about whatever you thought some other

01:13:41.280 country or state did. Did you ever have a period during the pandemic where you said, oh, Sweden,

01:13:47.820 the Sweden example, now we know what's going on. That tells me something. I'll look at Sweden,

01:13:52.620 then I'll look at what other people will do, and now I'll know what's going on.

01:13:55.240 Pretty clearly isolating the variables that matter and the ones that don't. Now that I know what's

01:14:00.540 happening in Sweden, we're good. Any of you had that feeling? Well, I didn't. How about when you

01:14:08.180 heard that India allegedly had one region that had like amazing success with ivermectin? So did you

01:14:16.360 believe that? You shouldn't. You shouldn't because there's no reliable information that India had

01:14:22.380 success with ivermectin. You think it is. You probably saw it in a tweet or you saw an article

01:14:26.880 completely debunked. How about the difference between Florida and California? Florida's infection

01:14:35.000 rate just dropped to sort of one of the best, meaning the lowest level since the beginning of

01:14:41.980 the pandemic. Why? Why'd that happen? Does anybody have any explanation for why Florida suddenly has

01:14:51.800 fewer infections? Somebody says seasonality, but that hasn't held. Seasonality has not acted the way

01:14:58.920 seasonality normally acts. The seasonality has been violated by this virus, right? Sunshine,

01:15:05.920 California, we've got sunshine. So every hypothesis you have doesn't seem to stand up, does it?

01:15:15.740 I don't know what it is. Apparently there's something pretty basic about this virus that we

01:15:20.740 still don't know. The experts still don't know. Because we can't predict any state, can we?

01:15:26.460 Do you think any expert could predict, okay, this state is now going to make a change in their

01:15:32.300 procedures? And then can the experts predict how it'll go? Apparently not. Apparently not. Now,

01:15:40.120 the one exception to that would be Christmas, I think. Christmas seems predictable, doesn't it?

01:15:46.120 But beyond that, I don't think you can compare a state to a state. We just don't know what's going on.

01:15:52.700 And I'll tell you what makes me super curious, is why is it that we get a bad

01:15:59.040 variant just about when we think we got the other one under control? Is it, is that a coincidence?

01:16:09.340 Because if one virus was created in a lab, wouldn't they make a variant too? Don't you think there was

01:16:19.020 more than one created in a lab? Are we sure the Delta variant is natural? And are we sure the one 1.00

01:16:25.480 after that, whatever they're talking about, the one that looks a little like it might be a problem?

01:16:30.160 Are we sure that's natural? How would you know? Oh, somebody's saying maybe the vaccines caused it.

01:16:35.620 I don't think there's any evidence for that, that the vaccines caused the variant. The evidence is

01:16:41.280 the greater amount of virus there is causes the variant, not the leaky vaccines. So everybody's

01:16:47.700 saying leaky vaccines. Do a little, do a fact check on that. I think the leaky vaccine hypothesis

01:16:54.500 that that actually causes variants, I think that's completely debunked by the fact that the thing

01:17:01.220 that causes mutations is more virus. So the more virus, the worse it is, just period. That's just

01:17:07.740 the only rule you need to know. More virus, more variants, that's all you need to know. Now the

01:17:12.260 exception would be if people got partially, let's say, immunized by the prior infection, at which point

01:17:21.100 the variant wouldn't be as powerful. If your infection, if your natural immunity also worked

01:17:27.180 against the variant, it could stop it that way. Natural mutations, more patients survive to pass

01:17:35.740 lung mutations. Okay. Here's another, what time is it? I've got time this morning. You want to hear

01:17:50.940 another conspiracy theory? Anybody? Anybody? Another conspiracy? Yeah, of course you do. Of course you

01:17:57.040 do. It goes like this. The supply chain problem, is it natural? Or was it maybe nudged by an adversary?

01:18:12.900 Question number one, could you tell the difference if it was natural, the supply chain problem,

01:18:19.500 or if there had been some hidden hand behind it? Would you know the difference? First answer,

01:18:26.620 I think no. You could. I mean, it's possible you'd see some hidden hand that wasn't so hidden.

01:18:34.160 But could an adversary do an attack like this that we would not be able to identify?

01:18:41.300 Yes. Yes. Let me give you an example of how this could be done by an adversary over a long period of

01:18:51.280 time, and you wouldn't know it. You ready? One of the biggest problems in, as I understand it,

01:18:58.460 and my example might be wrong, but it'll give you an idea, right? Even if the example details are wrong.

01:19:03.060 So in Long Beach, and I think in LA, they had a restriction about storing the empty containers.

01:19:10.820 At some point, that means that somebody brought forth legislation or some kind of rule change

01:19:17.860 to promote the rules about restricting what you can do with an empty.

01:19:23.220 Now, you probably think, oh, that was the unions, and probably was. Or that was just ordinary safety

01:19:30.240 procedures, and of course we did that. You know, there were some accidents, so it's just because

01:19:34.900 of the accidents. Could be. Here's the other possibility. How much would it cost

01:19:40.800 to bribe a local official to make some legislation that isn't really as good as you think it is for

01:19:50.360 the public? $30,000. All right. Now, you can fact check that, but my claim, just for conversation,

01:19:58.660 for conversation purposes alone, it would cost about $30,000 to bribe one politician. It doesn't

01:20:07.040 have to be even a direct bribe. It could be, you know, we'll fund you a campaign or something like

01:20:11.800 that. One politician, $30,000, to put some legislation in place about empty containers.

01:20:20.740 Now, do you have to bribe all the people who vote on the bill? Do you have to bribe them all?

01:20:28.760 Nope. Because they don't care about empty containers, do they? It's not an important topic. So if the

01:20:35.700 person who alleges he or she looked into the topic and said, look, I've looked into this deeply,

01:20:41.780 I wrote it all for you, made it easy. This problem of putting more than two containers on top is a big

01:20:48.880 problem. Vote for my bill. Do you think one person could get something passed if they were the only

01:20:56.660 person who understood the topic? Yes. Yes, they could. Now, suppose an adversary was doing this

01:21:06.000 kind of thing, finding weak spots in our major systems, and then influencing one politician

01:21:13.820 to become an expert in it, and put in place a restrictive policy that looks good when people see it at

01:21:24.220 first. Oh, you're going to improve the safety? Yeah, I'm on board. I'm good with safety. Oh,

01:21:31.900 you're going to protect the unions? Oh, well, we're a democratic state, and we like unions. We'd better

01:21:37.500 get them on our side. So, sure. Yeah, it could be done. Now, you say to yourself, but that's like

01:21:45.080 kind of a magic bullet, isn't it, Scott? You really think that the Chinese government is so smart 1.00

01:21:51.120 that they're looking for this weakness, and they find this one person that's exactly the right

01:21:56.440 person, and they do exactly the right thing? No. No. That's not the play. The play would be you do

01:22:05.480 that same thing, you know, the bribe the politician, but you do it all over the place. So, it's not just

01:22:11.580 about ports, and it's not just about the supply chain. It's about everything. It's about how we

01:22:17.600 procure for the military. It's about our policy for whether we should have domestic supplies of

01:22:24.780 this or that valuable stuff. It's about how quickly we could, let's say, put together a military

01:22:32.120 response, maybe crippling little places of it with restrictions and rules. So, they would put in place

01:22:38.600 a whole bunch of things that look like little steps, and then wait for the pandemic. Now, when I say

01:22:46.360 wait for the pandemic, I mean, wait for any big thing that is the extra pressure on the system.

01:22:53.720 So, they could just weaken a bunch of systems over 20 years at very low cost, and then wait for some

01:23:01.780 pressure on the systems that they didn't plan for, but there's always some pressure, and then that's

01:23:05.900 enough to knock it over. So, it could be that an adversary didn't even know they were going to

01:23:09.960 have success with a supply chain. It just, they had weakened a bunch of stuff, and this is the one that

01:23:15.460 got some extra pressure and pushed it over. Now, when you hear it described this way, does it sound

01:23:23.620 impractical? Anybody? Does anybody think that any of that sounds impractical?

01:23:31.920 No. Unfortunately, no. And I gave you only one very small example of something that could be very

01:23:40.680 easily and practically done. Don't you think there are more that don't involve bribing a politician?

01:23:47.440 Don't you think? Now, let me give you another one. What did I hear? There was some propaganda

01:23:53.640 that we all accepted. I just heard a story about some propaganda that the citizens of the United States

01:24:00.260 all accepted as true, and just was made up by some propaganda source. Do you think that an adversary

01:24:07.720 could convince us of something that isn't true, just in general? Could an adversary use, let's say,

01:24:15.500 maybe AI through just algorithms, not anything more AI than algorithms? Or, you know, let's say,

01:24:24.020 changing your social media impressions so you see more of something and less of something else.

01:24:30.700 Do you think they could change your mind about anything? Of course they could. Now, if they're trying to

01:24:36.600 change your mind about who to vote for, we can be sort of alert to that, and you're like, hey, you're a bot.

01:24:42.600 The way you're talking, I can tell you're a bot. Or, oh, that sounds like a Chinese spy. 0.68

01:24:46.960 But, would you be just as smart if the topic was storing nuclear waste, whether to regulate

01:25:00.620 electric cars, or something like that? Would you be just as smart and say, yeah, my opinion on batteries

01:25:09.260 versus storing nuclear waste is based on my own research, and my own knowledge of objective sources,

01:25:17.060 and at least they're American, even if they're trying to bias me. So I have an American objective opinion.

01:25:23.720 Maybe. But you don't think your foreign adversary could get 20% of you so afraid of any one of these things

01:25:31.900 that that 20% would form an action group to stop it from happening,

01:25:36.100 or would promote legislation that would at least have a chance of passing.

01:25:41.020 There are so many ways

01:25:42.780 that a clever and patient adversary

01:25:45.860 could influence, or I'll say nudge,

01:25:49.540 could nudge each of the

01:25:51.120 parts of the system, and just wait for something big to be the

01:25:55.440 last straw.

01:25:56.400 Right? Now, when you hear me describe it this way,

01:26:03.300 and then you think of the

01:26:04.780 you think of the supply chain

01:26:08.460 problems,

01:26:09.840 are you still confident

01:26:11.840 that it happened naturally?

01:26:15.360 How many of you

01:26:16.320 are confident

01:26:17.040 that it's a natural effect?

01:26:19.660 Because all the things we talk about look natural,

01:26:22.280 but they're all caused by something else,

01:26:24.540 which was caused by something else,

01:26:26.500 which was caused by something else.

01:26:28.440 So if you say to yourself,

01:26:29.720 Scott, Scott, Scott,

01:26:30.940 we know the problem.

01:26:31.900 The problem is just too many empty containers,

01:26:34.380 and there's a regulation.

01:26:35.540 That's it.

01:26:36.160 That's the whole problem.

01:26:38.040 Is it?

01:26:39.900 I don't know.

01:26:41.460 Who knows?

01:26:42.320 Maybe that's the problem that was caused

01:26:44.120 by a problem before it,

01:26:45.880 because it didn't happen on its own.

01:26:47.100 And whatever the problem before it was,

01:26:49.700 that was caused by the thing that happened before it.

01:26:52.380 You have no idea

01:26:54.240 what caused any of this.

01:26:56.600 There is a reason

01:26:57.720 that the news is not telling you

01:27:00.140 what's going on with the supply chain.

01:27:02.060 You've noticed that, right?

01:27:03.700 Have you noticed that the news

01:27:05.140 can't tell you exactly what's wrong?

01:27:08.380 Just that it is wrong.

01:27:09.820 Hey, there's lots of ships backed up.

01:27:12.620 You don't have your supplies.

01:27:14.760 That's all they can tell you.

01:27:16.300 It took a private citizen

01:27:18.060 to go down there

01:27:18.860 and look at the problem.

01:27:21.420 I'm very suspicious of a problem

01:27:25.260 that has too many explanations.

01:27:27.760 Because it's not like we lack explanations.

01:27:30.260 The problem is we have too many.

01:27:32.260 We've got the trucker shortage,

01:27:33.840 the truck shortage,

01:27:34.820 the regulations about what trucks you can use.

01:27:38.180 You've got the too much demand

01:27:40.500 because of the pandemic.

01:27:41.720 You've got people who don't want to get vaccinations

01:27:43.500 so they're not working.

01:27:45.040 You've got union problems.

01:27:47.480 I don't know.

01:27:48.260 Now, I understand the concept

01:27:51.480 that when the system fails,

01:27:53.100 you see failures all over it.

01:27:55.100 Okay, I get that.

01:27:56.600 But my pattern recognition

01:27:58.680 is picking up something else.

01:28:01.600 You know?

01:28:01.980 Do you know the book

01:28:04.100 by Malcolm Gladwell, Blink?

01:28:07.100 And he talks about the idea

01:28:08.900 that an expert can know something's true

01:28:11.620 before they know why.

01:28:12.660 The example he gives is

01:28:14.620 an art expert looking at a forgery.

01:28:18.540 The expert can look at the forgery

01:28:20.300 and say,

01:28:20.640 that's a fake.

01:28:22.260 But if you ask them why,

01:28:23.520 they'd have to think about it.

01:28:24.700 Well, I don't know.

01:28:26.360 I guess if I thought about it,

01:28:27.800 I don't know,

01:28:28.120 this part looks a little different

01:28:29.220 than the...

01:28:29.780 They wouldn't know.

01:28:32.600 That's the experience I'm having

01:28:34.060 with the supply chain problem.

01:28:35.440 It looks like a forgery.

01:28:39.640 I don't know why.

01:28:41.200 Like, I couldn't give you a detail.

01:28:43.780 But it doesn't look like

01:28:44.860 a genuine event to me.

01:28:46.340 It looks like a forgery.

01:28:48.260 Part of it is that we don't know

01:28:49.800 what the problem is,

01:28:50.700 and we should.

01:28:52.440 Part of it is we know

01:28:53.660 that China would have an incentive

01:28:55.340 to mess with us

01:28:56.200 in a variety of ways.

01:28:57.520 Part of it is I know it's practical.

01:28:59.400 It could be done.

01:29:01.760 And part of it is I know

01:29:02.940 that such things are done.

01:29:04.540 Like, it's a real thing

01:29:05.980 that is done in the real world.

01:29:08.100 It's not like I invented an idea

01:29:09.820 and nobody thought of it.

01:29:11.020 It's something that's happening.

01:29:13.420 You know, I'm sure we're doing it.

01:29:15.100 We, the United States.

01:29:16.120 You don't think we're putting

01:29:17.560 a little pressure on things?

01:29:20.740 So, I do not allege

01:29:23.520 that anybody is behind

01:29:25.840 the supply chain problem.

01:29:27.380 Let me be clear.

01:29:28.660 I make no allegation

01:29:29.840 that it's some kind of

01:29:31.460 a foreign attack.

01:29:32.840 The argument against it

01:29:34.220 is that it would affect

01:29:35.400 China as well.

01:29:37.300 And it's hard to imagine

01:29:38.680 that they know

01:29:39.440 it's going to be

01:29:39.940 a good outcome.

01:29:41.140 That would be

01:29:41.700 a pretty risky play.

01:29:43.560 But,

01:29:44.180 I can't turn off

01:29:45.940 the fact that,

01:29:46.780 like,

01:29:47.240 my spider sense

01:29:48.580 is just on full alert here.

01:29:50.460 Now, it could be

01:29:51.280 that the only thing going on

01:29:53.660 is that the real problem

01:29:54.760 is still not surfaced.

01:29:56.580 Like, we think it has,

01:29:58.140 but maybe there's

01:29:58.840 a deeper problem

01:29:59.640 below the problem,

01:30:00.440 below the problem.

01:30:01.040 So, it could be

01:30:02.240 that all I'm reacting to

01:30:04.920 is the fact

01:30:05.500 that there's

01:30:06.100 an obvious mystery here.

01:30:08.420 Right?

01:30:09.060 Would you agree

01:30:09.740 with me on that?

01:30:11.900 That there's

01:30:12.560 a mystery here?

01:30:14.420 It's not explained,

01:30:15.680 I don't think.

01:30:19.680 And I see people say

01:30:20.780 they think it affects

01:30:21.720 China the most.

01:30:22.580 In the long run,

01:30:23.160 I think it would.

01:30:24.040 But they might also

01:30:25.000 calculate that they

01:30:25.800 could survive it better.

01:30:26.880 I don't know.

01:30:27.220 Well, I'm seeing

01:30:32.520 somebody say

01:30:32.900 it's a comedy of errors

01:30:33.880 because only seven

01:30:34.960 cranes are working.

01:30:36.300 But the reason

01:30:36.880 the cranes can't work

01:30:37.980 is because there's

01:30:38.520 no room,

01:30:39.680 because there are

01:30:40.060 too many empties

01:30:40.740 in the port.

01:30:42.580 So, it's not

01:30:43.240 the crane problem.

01:30:44.300 I think we can

01:30:44.980 eliminate cranes

01:30:45.960 as a source

01:30:47.420 of the problem.

01:30:48.840 All right.

01:30:49.260 So, here's

01:30:49.740 another suggestion.

01:30:53.040 Let's say you put

01:30:53.980 the empties

01:30:54.480 on a train

01:30:55.240 with a crane.

01:30:56.300 Is there a train

01:30:58.520 that goes right to...

01:31:00.560 How close can you

01:31:01.400 get a train

01:31:03.160 that would carry

01:31:04.080 empties,

01:31:05.220 containers?

01:31:06.260 How close can you

01:31:07.200 get a train

01:31:07.640 to one of the ports?

01:31:09.260 Do they already

01:31:09.760 have close trains?

01:31:11.320 Because I'm wondering

01:31:12.140 if you couldn't

01:31:12.740 take one of those

01:31:13.860 cranes

01:31:14.400 and put it like

01:31:16.260 a mile away

01:31:17.080 from the port

01:31:17.700 in wherever there's

01:31:18.840 a big field

01:31:19.520 or something

01:31:19.980 and just have

01:31:20.980 the train

01:31:22.240 go one mile,

01:31:23.880 unload it,

01:31:24.640 go back one mile,

01:31:25.600 load it up,

01:31:26.060 go one mile

01:31:26.780 and unload it

01:31:27.520 into a field?

01:31:29.300 Probably there's

01:31:29.900 a distance problem.

01:31:30.820 I don't think

01:31:31.180 that would work.

01:31:32.860 Logging helicopters.

01:31:34.140 Oh, no, no.

01:31:35.680 Logging helicopters

01:31:36.640 because they could

01:31:37.300 lift a container.

01:31:38.200 Could they?

01:31:39.600 Would they be

01:31:40.180 big enough

01:31:40.620 to lift a full container?

01:31:43.080 Maybe.

01:31:44.160 But I think

01:31:44.840 that would be

01:31:45.400 super expensive,

01:31:47.620 but I don't even

01:31:48.500 know how fast

01:31:49.060 it would be.

01:31:51.740 Load the empties

01:31:52.540 back in the ship.

01:31:53.240 I don't understand

01:31:53.940 all the regulatory

01:31:54.740 problems with that,

01:31:57.260 but I don't think

01:31:58.140 that's as easy

01:31:58.740 as you think.

01:32:02.640 All right.

01:32:03.300 I think that's

01:32:03.800 all I have to say.

01:32:05.320 Question

01:32:05.760 was today's...

01:32:09.900 I got a comment

01:32:10.960 today on Twitter

01:32:11.900 that when I asked

01:32:13.560 my trick question

01:32:14.600 about the

01:32:15.360 ivermectin 98%

01:32:16.820 thing,

01:32:17.440 which I just

01:32:17.960 made up,

01:32:18.340 a Twitter user

01:32:21.640 said,

01:32:22.160 people don't like

01:32:23.260 to learn things

01:32:23.920 that way

01:32:24.360 because it was

01:32:25.380 like a trick question

01:32:26.220 and I trapped

01:32:26.760 you into it.

01:32:27.900 How many of you

01:32:28.860 had a negative

01:32:29.920 reaction to that?

01:32:31.460 Did anybody

01:32:31.860 have a negative

01:32:32.480 reaction to the

01:32:34.080 way I set that

01:32:35.000 tweet up with

01:32:35.700 the 98%?

01:32:37.540 Or did you...

01:32:39.120 Because what I

01:32:39.580 was shooting for,

01:32:40.420 I don't know

01:32:40.760 if I hit it,

01:32:41.780 but what I was

01:32:42.360 shooting for

01:32:43.000 is do you feel,

01:32:45.340 for at least

01:32:45.800 some of you,

01:32:46.700 to feel your

01:32:47.480 certainty evaporate.

01:32:49.540 That's all I

01:32:50.200 wanted.

01:32:50.780 I just want

01:32:51.180 your certainty

01:32:51.700 to evaporate.

01:32:55.460 Okay.

01:32:56.260 So most of you

01:32:57.240 were not bothered

01:32:57.760 by it.

01:32:58.040 Good.

01:32:58.260 I just wanted

01:32:58.640 to check in

01:32:59.080 on that.

01:32:59.980 Because if the

01:33:01.040 only thing it

01:33:01.480 did was irritate

01:33:02.180 you, it wasn't

01:33:03.340 persuasive.

01:33:04.460 All right.

01:33:04.920 Good.

01:33:05.860 Good to know.

01:33:06.840 Let me ask you

01:33:07.320 this.

01:33:07.980 How many learned

01:33:08.580 something useful?

01:33:10.360 Useful maybe

01:33:11.160 just in understanding

01:33:12.060 the world,

01:33:12.600 not necessarily.

01:33:13.540 How many learned

01:33:14.260 something useful

01:33:15.200 today?

01:33:17.480 Lots of yeses

01:33:19.040 over on Locals

01:33:20.920 about YouTube.

01:33:23.760 I pissed one

01:33:25.020 of you off.

01:33:28.200 Seeing lots

01:33:29.060 of yeses.

01:33:30.260 Allah learned

01:33:31.000 nothing.

01:33:32.080 Those of you

01:33:32.980 who learned

01:33:33.380 nothing,

01:33:34.380 you're very

01:33:34.840 smart people.

01:33:36.220 I could probably

01:33:36.940 learn something

01:33:37.420 from you.

01:33:38.920 Only the last

01:33:39.780 30 minutes was

01:33:40.520 good.

01:33:41.580 Okay.

01:33:41.980 Good feedback.

01:33:42.640 A bit.

01:33:47.860 All right.

01:33:48.280 Good.

01:33:49.240 So here's,

01:33:50.000 I finally decided

01:33:51.940 what my role is,

01:33:55.240 if you'd like to

01:33:55.980 hear it.

01:33:56.960 I think my role

01:33:58.260 is to teach you

01:33:59.480 to be more

01:34:00.880 effective.

01:34:02.560 Persuasion

01:34:03.020 would be just

01:34:03.740 one way.

01:34:04.900 But I think

01:34:05.980 what I've sort

01:34:07.160 of accidentally

01:34:07.840 stumbled on is

01:34:09.280 a way to use

01:34:09.900 the headlines

01:34:10.560 for your

01:34:12.240 personal

01:34:12.860 improvement.

01:34:15.780 I don't know

01:34:16.420 anybody's done

01:34:16.940 that before.

01:34:17.840 And I didn't

01:34:18.320 do it intentionally.

01:34:19.200 I just sort of

01:34:19.720 drifted here

01:34:20.460 and thought,

01:34:21.420 hey,

01:34:22.400 I just realized

01:34:23.220 that I'm using

01:34:23.720 the headlines

01:34:24.320 as a,

01:34:25.620 as a,

01:34:26.220 like a honeypot.

01:34:27.960 Like I'm

01:34:28.680 trapping you in

01:34:29.380 here with the

01:34:29.760 headlines because

01:34:30.320 that's what you

01:34:30.800 were interested in.

01:34:31.620 It's like,

01:34:31.880 oh,

01:34:32.060 let's hear about

01:34:32.600 Alec.

01:34:33.400 What's he,

01:34:33.960 what's he going

01:34:34.300 to say about

01:34:34.720 Alec Baldwin?

01:34:35.280 And then once

01:34:36.340 you're trapped

01:34:36.760 in here on

01:34:37.240 the headlines,

01:34:37.800 which is

01:34:38.100 automatically

01:34:38.580 interesting,

01:34:39.640 I try to

01:34:40.140 talk about

01:34:40.840 them specifically

01:34:41.780 in a way that

01:34:42.460 gives you some

01:34:43.560 kind of life

01:34:44.040 skill when

01:34:45.360 you're done.

01:34:47.140 And I only

01:34:48.940 realized this

01:34:49.500 yesterday.

01:34:50.120 Isn't that

01:34:50.400 weird?

01:34:51.140 I mean,

01:34:51.780 this is the

01:34:54.560 thing about

01:34:55.360 framing.

01:34:56.560 Until you

01:34:57.200 frame something

01:34:57.980 right, you

01:34:58.820 don't really

01:34:59.200 understand it.

01:35:00.320 And I had

01:35:00.900 been framing

01:35:01.400 this as sort

01:35:02.080 of a mishmash

01:35:03.800 that I was

01:35:06.400 just doing

01:35:06.760 the things

01:35:07.120 I liked.

01:35:07.800 I liked

01:35:08.180 talking about

01:35:08.860 the news,

01:35:09.440 and I liked

01:35:09.720 talking about

01:35:10.200 self-improvement,

01:35:11.340 and sometimes

01:35:12.560 I'm selling a

01:35:13.280 book about

01:35:13.720 those things.

01:35:14.600 So I just

01:35:15.260 sort of drifted

01:35:16.020 here.

01:35:16.720 I didn't realize

01:35:17.320 that I'd

01:35:17.760 accidentally hit

01:35:18.500 a model,

01:35:19.360 a business

01:35:19.740 model.

01:35:20.540 And the

01:35:21.060 business model,

01:35:21.760 completely

01:35:22.060 accidentally,

01:35:23.380 is draw you

01:35:24.280 in with the

01:35:24.620 headlines and

01:35:25.160 teach you

01:35:25.480 something so

01:35:26.180 you feel like

01:35:26.700 you got

01:35:26.980 something in

01:35:27.440 it.

01:35:28.320 Now, I

01:35:30.000 wonder if I

01:35:30.520 could have

01:35:30.800 thought of

01:35:31.720 that and

01:35:32.100 then executed

01:35:32.760 it, or I 0.80

01:35:33.320 had to drift

01:35:33.900 into it.

01:35:35.080 It feels like

01:35:35.660 it would have

01:35:36.200 been maybe

01:35:37.340 a different

01:35:37.680 result if I

01:35:38.360 had gone at

01:35:38.960 it a different

01:35:39.360 way.

01:35:41.100 And this

01:35:41.680 gets to,

01:35:43.200 what is this

01:35:43.960 a good example

01:35:44.560 of that I

01:35:45.960 always talk

01:35:46.420 about?

01:35:47.760 Systems over

01:35:48.560 goals.

01:35:49.640 Did I have a

01:35:50.400 goal of

01:35:51.380 creating this

01:35:52.260 business model?

01:35:53.760 Nope.

01:35:54.800 I never even

01:35:55.580 really thought of

01:35:56.400 it this way

01:35:56.900 until literally

01:35:57.660 yesterday.

01:35:58.740 Literally

01:35:59.180 yesterday, it's

01:35:59.780 the first time

01:36:00.220 I realized

01:36:00.640 what we had

01:36:02.060 collectively

01:36:03.040 created.

01:36:04.720 Because I

01:36:05.360 don't even

01:36:06.040 take credit

01:36:06.660 for even

01:36:08.180 drifting into

01:36:08.840 it, because

01:36:09.160 most of you

01:36:09.940 sort of

01:36:10.940 nudged me

01:36:11.820 into it,

01:36:12.200 right?

01:36:13.580 Here's a

01:36:14.160 question.

01:36:15.460 Are you my

01:36:16.220 creation,

01:36:17.740 meaning that

01:36:18.320 I've influenced

01:36:18.860 you some way,

01:36:19.940 large or

01:36:20.740 small, or

01:36:21.640 am I your

01:36:22.260 creation?

01:36:25.040 Am I your

01:36:26.080 creation, or

01:36:26.840 are you my

01:36:27.340 creation?

01:36:27.700 this gets

01:36:31.540 back to the

01:36:32.080 question of

01:36:32.600 power, and

01:36:33.460 understanding who

01:36:34.180 has the

01:36:34.560 power.

01:36:35.620 If you don't

01:36:36.420 think you've

01:36:37.040 influenced me

01:36:37.860 more than I've

01:36:38.900 influenced you,

01:36:40.020 most of you,

01:36:40.720 some of you,

01:36:41.380 maybe a lot,

01:36:43.180 yeah, it's a

01:36:44.040 two-way street,

01:36:45.380 but your

01:36:46.400 control over me

01:36:47.500 is extreme.

01:36:49.720 Extreme.

01:36:50.660 How many

01:36:51.100 times have you

01:36:51.720 seen one

01:36:53.520 comment completely

01:36:54.720 change my game?

01:36:55.640 Those of you

01:36:57.580 who have been

01:36:57.740 watching for a

01:36:58.240 while, how

01:36:58.780 many times

01:36:59.200 have you seen

01:36:59.560 it?

01:36:59.700 Just one

01:37:00.080 comment just

01:37:01.340 totally changed

01:37:02.240 my game.

01:37:03.320 All the time.

01:37:04.880 All the time.

01:37:05.920 Right?

01:37:06.140 All the time.

01:37:07.480 So, when you're

01:37:09.420 analyzing how

01:37:10.080 much personal

01:37:10.740 power you have,

01:37:12.860 consider that you

01:37:13.600 have all of

01:37:14.160 mine, you

01:37:15.440 have all of

01:37:15.880 my power.

01:37:17.560 People, every

01:37:18.220 day, somebody

01:37:18.980 sends me a

01:37:19.600 tweet that they

01:37:20.300 hope I'll

01:37:20.700 retweet, and

01:37:22.080 every day I

01:37:22.740 retweet some

01:37:23.360 of them.

01:37:24.740 So, all of

01:37:25.380 those people

01:37:25.900 got to use

01:37:26.960 all of my

01:37:27.440 power.

01:37:28.540 But it

01:37:29.020 wasn't mine

01:37:29.460 anyway.

01:37:29.780 It was

01:37:29.960 borrowed.

01:37:30.900 All of my

01:37:31.560 power is

01:37:31.980 borrowed.

01:37:32.960 Like, I

01:37:33.320 don't even

01:37:33.620 see it as

01:37:33.980 real.

01:37:34.980 Like, I

01:37:35.240 don't internalize

01:37:37.300 it as me

01:37:37.780 having power.

01:37:39.160 I internalize

01:37:40.000 it as being

01:37:40.500 part of a

01:37:40.980 system.

01:37:42.260 And when the

01:37:42.840 system is

01:37:43.300 working, I'm

01:37:43.840 doing my

01:37:44.220 part, but I'm

01:37:45.700 not the power

01:37:46.200 source.

01:37:47.300 I'm more like a

01:37:48.020 conduit and a

01:37:49.120 filter, maybe.

01:37:49.880 I'm a filter and

01:37:50.660 a conduit.

01:37:52.660 And I, you

01:37:53.160 know, I add a

01:37:53.780 little power, but

01:37:55.080 so do all of

01:37:55.740 you.

01:37:57.800 All right.

01:37:58.540 So, I try to

01:37:59.160 model the stuff

01:37:59.860 that's most

01:38:00.520 useful as

01:38:01.040 well.

01:38:02.740 Bring back

01:38:03.400 your Democratic

01:38:03.960 friend.

01:38:05.040 I had to cut

01:38:05.740 him off 0.64

01:38:06.080 entirely.

01:38:08.780 Watch it.

01:38:09.620 You babbling.

01:38:11.060 Yeah, I think

01:38:11.660 we're at the

01:38:12.040 babbling part of

01:38:12.740 the presentation.

01:38:14.160 So, I will

01:38:15.580 let you go, and

01:38:16.920 let's do

01:38:17.200 something else

01:38:17.580 today.

01:38:17.840 Okay?

01:38:19.180 Bye for now.

01:38:19.780 Oh, Walter

01:38:22.400 says, if I log

01:38:24.000 into Locals, how

01:38:25.000 do I find the

01:38:25.620 link to all the

01:38:27.260 microlessons?

01:38:28.400 Unfortunately, I

01:38:29.280 don't have a link

01:38:30.040 to it, but you

01:38:31.920 can find the

01:38:33.860 content list, and

01:38:35.240 then you can also

01:38:35.860 do a search on the

01:38:37.180 phrase microlist.

01:38:38.580 So, just use the

01:38:39.560 search bar and

01:38:40.740 search for my

01:38:41.400 content under

01:38:42.540 microlesson, just

01:38:44.900 that phrase, and

01:38:45.560 they all pop right

01:38:46.160 up.

01:38:47.020 Microlesson.

01:38:47.460 There is also

01:38:49.000 an index, which

01:38:51.540 I probably should

01:38:54.920 retweet.

01:38:58.100 But there is an

01:38:58.900 index for them, but

01:38:59.840 it would be better

01:39:00.720 if you just search

01:39:01.320 for them.

01:39:01.720 All right, thanks

01:39:02.160 for that, and I'll

01:39:02.720 talk to you later.

Real Coffee with Scott Adams - October 24, 2021

Episode 1540 Scott Adams： Persuasion Lessons Taken From Today's Headlines. Find Out What You've Been Doing Wrong

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript