Real Coffee with Scott Adams - Episode 1541 Scott Adams： Find Out if You Have Cognitive Dissonance on One of the Biggest Stories In the World

00:00:00.000 Hey, congratulations. You did it again. You did it again. Yeah, I might be a few seconds

00:00:14.300 late, but let's talk about the amazing accomplishment that you have this morning, which is that

00:00:20.100 you have arrived at the best place in the world at the best time. Nothing in any universe

00:00:26.220 is better than this. It's called Coffee with Scott Adams and the Simultaneous Sip. And

00:00:32.000 I'm pretty sure it will be the most lasting legacy of our time. Yes, the biggest story

00:00:40.960 in the world is Alec Baldwin. That is correct. We'll talk about that. But first, if you'd

00:00:46.540 like to take this up a notch, and I know you do, all you need is a cup or a mug or a glass

00:00:49.500 or a tank or a chalice or a stein, a canteen jug or a flask or a vessel of any kind. Fill

00:00:53.380 it with your favorite liquid. I like coffee. And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure

00:00:59.780 of the dopamine to the day, the thing that makes everything better. What is it? Yeah,

00:01:05.420 yeah, it's a simultaneous sip. And it's going to really fire up your antibodies. Watch this.

00:01:11.100 Watch this. Go.

00:01:15.580 Ah! Whoa! My antibodies just heated up so much there for a moment. It was almost like a flash

00:01:22.280 burn. I don't know if you felt it, but I think we're all getting healthier. We are. It's amazing.

00:01:30.800 All right, let's talk about all the things. So why is it we're only getting little dribs

00:01:37.160 and drabs of this Alec Baldwin accidental shooting story? It's kind of interesting to watch how the

00:01:44.900 information is going to be managed. For example, today we learned that Alec Baldwin had recently

00:01:53.480 been concerned about firing off a blank on the set in a different incident because there was a child

00:02:02.720 nearby. So we have now learned through this very interesting strategic new information that Alec Baldwin

00:02:13.080 is not only concerned about firearms safety. In a different incident, he made sure that a young

00:02:19.820 child was nowhere near the weapon. So that's the kind of guy he is. So we know that. Number two,

00:02:28.320 he was apparently practicing drawing the gun. I guess he was doing a cross draw where you reach across

00:02:34.300 yourself to the opposite side for the holster to bring it out. And he was apparently doing a

00:02:39.720 practice of that while in a church pew or something, allegedly. Now here's what's missing in the

00:02:46.740 story. The trigger part. If I did a story about an accidental firing in which somebody had drawn a gun

00:02:57.380 from a holster, even a gun that is not a real gun, one of my top questions would be, right at the top,

00:03:07.380 maybe the number one question, was your finger on the trigger? Yeah, the question about the, you know,

00:03:16.160 is the safety on, that's a good one too. But was his finger on the trigger when he was practicing?

00:03:23.580 Isn't that really, really important? Well, I don't know if checking the gun to see if it's empty makes

00:03:33.060 sense if you've got squibs in there. Because isn't the whole point of the squib to make it look like

00:03:39.380 the gun has real bullets? Because it's a revolver, right? So I think that they have to put the fake

00:03:44.120 bullets in there to make it look like a real gun. Single action revolver, yeah. Are there safeties on

00:03:53.020 revolvers? Somebody asks. Somebody who's a gun expert can tell us. Somebody says no, no safeties on

00:04:02.040 revolvers. Other people say revolvers generally have safeties. Now it could have been, you know,

00:04:09.420 a period piece gun. So who knows if that had a safety? I would think so. Do they make guns without

00:04:17.260 safeties? And how long have they not done that? They do not have safeties, somebody says. I think

00:04:26.340 the people saying do not are probably more right. If I had to guess, I've never, I don't think I've ever

00:04:33.920 owned a revolver. No safety on my revolver. Okay. So we have people who have revolvers who say they

00:04:41.080 don't have safeties. All right. That question is asked and answered. Here's the other question.

00:04:47.140 Number one is why don't we know if his finger was on the trigger? Which, by the way, I'm not sure

00:04:52.040 would, you know, tell us anything necessarily because he might not have pulled the trigger because

00:04:58.980 they talk about it as a misfire, don't they? Is it a misfire if you pulled the trigger?

00:05:03.480 Can somebody tell me how a gun misfires, a revolver? How does a revolver misfire?

00:05:18.160 You can't. It doesn't. Yeah. Okay. So work with me on this. I'm just trying to think it through.

00:05:25.340 So if this scene had involved somebody pulling back the hammer, you know, if that had been

00:05:32.740 the scene, then you could imagine a misfire, right? But he was drawing the gun. So the thing

00:05:39.220 he was practicing was a quick draw and then firing. If you're quickly drawing and firing,

00:05:45.000 there's no scenario in which you're touching anything but the trigger, right? Am I right?

00:05:49.800 There are people who know a lot more about, you know, firearms than I do. You can cock it

00:05:57.320 back and drop it and it will fire, right? But if you're practicing drawing, would it ever

00:06:05.020 get accidentally cocked? Usually by dropping the revolver. Yeah, that's what I thought. But

00:06:13.300 even if you drop the revolver, you'd have to have it cocked, right? Yeah, it still has

00:06:21.900 to be cocked. You can't just drop it and it fires because there's nothing hitting the

00:06:25.200 bullet if you just drop it on the floor. In fact, it would be nothing safer. It's hard

00:06:31.920 to imagine anything safer than dropping a bullet that's in a gun that's not cocked, right? Because

00:06:38.340 the bullet will be protected by the gun, but it can't fire it because there's nothing touching

00:06:43.180 it. I don't know if that's true, but yeah, that's probably going too far there. All right.

00:06:49.680 So here's the other question. No video? No video. Are you seriously telling me that on a movie

00:06:59.440 set, there's nobody has a video camera running? There's no security camera? Nobody had a phone?

00:07:07.340 I could definitely believe that they wouldn't be allowed to have phones. Can somebody confirm?

00:07:14.180 Oh, I know somebody who works on sets. I'll ask that later. But would you be able to have

00:07:22.460 your phone on a movie set? Because I'm thinking maybe not. Am I wrong? Would they have to give

00:07:30.140 up their phones before they went on set just so it doesn't ring, they don't use it and stuff?

00:07:34.320 I don't know. I'll ask that question. I know somebody who knows the answer to that.

00:07:40.060 All right. Here's some fake news on CNN. Now, of course, CNN likes to dump on Fox News,

00:07:48.620 just as Fox News likes to dump on CNN. But I love the fake news technique they're using today.

00:07:53.920 They're saying something that isn't a story at all. And it's obviously not a story based on the facts

00:08:03.080 that they provide you. So they're going to tell you something that's nothing, but they're going to put

00:08:08.320 it in a frame as if it's something. All right. Watch for this. It's worded as if it's something,

00:08:15.500 but there's actually nothing. And here's what they say.

00:08:21.380 Talking about CNN's Jim Acosta and Brian Stelter. Now, this is just a headline for a video on CNN.

00:08:28.740 It's their own video. CNN's Jim Acosta and Brian Stelter discuss Fox News host Neil Cavuto

00:08:34.580 speaking out in support of COVID-19 vaccines, despite others on the network, others on Fox,

00:08:43.440 doubling down on their criticism of vaccine mandates. Gotcha. Gotcha. Oh, wow. Wow.

00:08:52.020 It looks like CNN really got Fox News on this one, because here you have Neil Cavuto

00:08:58.260 suggesting that people should get vaccinated. At the same time,

00:09:02.200 the other hosts are speaking out about the mandate. So I gotcha. Except those are different

00:09:11.360 topics. It's not the same topic at all. Secondly, have you seen anybody on Fox News, a host? Have

00:09:24.780 you seen any host of Fox News suggest you should not get vaccinated? As far as I know,

00:09:32.200 they're all vaccinated. Right? So the news, as far as I can tell, is that everybody on Fox News agrees with each

00:09:41.360 other. But they worded it like they didn't. To me, it looks like at least the evidence, I don't know if

00:09:51.020 they actually agree, but the evidence would suggest they all think that vaccinations are worthy of

00:09:57.360 consideration, because I think they're all vaccinated. They had to be. And probably every single one of

00:10:04.100 them, on Fox News at least, thinks that mandates are overdone. So everybody on Fox News agrees with

00:10:11.360 themselves, and somehow CNN found a way to, gotcha. I gotcha. See, you think this on this topic, but what about

00:10:19.960 this completely unrelated topic, how about that? Ha, ha, ha, gotcha. Gotcha. And the thing is that this

00:10:28.500 worked. This gotcha totally worked, because their audience will read this and say, oh my God, Fox News,

00:10:36.620 just so inconsistent and anti-science. Nothing like that's happening. Nothing even remotely like that's

00:10:43.900 happening. But they can write it accurately, because there's nothing that's a lie here. There's no lie

00:10:49.720 on this. It just makes you think something else because of the way they framed it. Well, everyone

00:10:56.620 hates Facebook, which is weird. So the left hates it, and the right hates it. The left, I think CNN anyway,

00:11:04.580 hates it because of competition, right? So when CNN writes about Facebook, they're really writing about

00:11:10.560 a competitor, just as if they were writing about, you know, Fox News, in a sense. But CNN has an article

00:11:18.860 today in which the theme of it, if I can pull out the essence, is that Facebook didn't do enough to

00:11:29.160 stop the January 6th thing. In other words, CNN is angry at Facebook for not censoring enough.

00:11:36.940 They under-censored, according to CNN. And if Facebook had done their job to destroy free

00:11:44.540 speech, you know, completely, free speech within the context of a private company, or a public

00:11:52.740 company, actually. But let me turn off my alerts here. So what do you think of that? Is that

00:12:05.320 chilling? It feels a little chilling. The CNN is mocking Facebook for not censoring enough.

00:12:14.060 Now, of course, their purpose for wanting it to be censored is that not censoring it would cause

00:12:20.800 unrest and violence. I don't want to live in a world where they can stop unrest and violence.

00:12:27.960 Do you? Do you want to live in a world where Facebook can decide when to stop the unrest and

00:12:36.500 the violence? Isn't unrest and violence the only thing that keeps this country together? Or the risk

00:12:42.620 of it, right? Because if the government screws with us too hard, there's going to be some unrest and

00:12:48.980 some violence. That's our promise to the government. Our promise to you, government, is if you go too

00:12:56.600 far, there's going to be some unrest, there's going to be some violence. And guess what? We'll probably

00:13:02.080 do some planning. Might even use an online platform to do it. So do you want to live in a world,

00:13:09.640 CNN's world, where Facebook can squash a protest? Because they don't like it? They don't agree with

00:13:17.580 it? Not me. So you've got the right hating Facebook for censoring too much, the left for hating them

00:13:26.000 for censoring too little. Maybe it's just right. You know, I have to admit, when I read the whistleblower,

00:13:35.940 you know, documents that came out about Facebook, and I hear their conversations, they don't sound

00:13:42.820 that crazy to me. Because it looked like they were definitely picking their shots. It didn't look

00:13:50.260 like they were just saying, right-wing stuff, get out of here. Left-wing stuff, you're okay. It didn't

00:13:55.120 look like that. It looked like they were trying to do a responsible job. But, you know, everybody's got

00:14:01.800 a different opinion of what a responsible job would look like. It didn't look to me like the

00:14:09.720 Facebook employees, at least all of them, it didn't look to me like they were some, you know, horrible

00:14:15.660 entity trying to just get their way or something. It looked like they actually had a respect for free

00:14:21.480 speech. I thought. I thought I saw that. Now, how you interpret, you know, what is going too far,

00:14:28.140 and what is yelling fire in a movie theater versus what is free speech? I mean, it's pretty

00:14:33.500 subjective. But I didn't see any lack of respect for free speech. But certainly, we have to be

00:14:41.120 pretty, pretty worried about what the big platforms do to free speech, as it were. Yes, I know it's

00:14:47.660 only the government, blah, blah, blah, who has free speech, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, pedantic.

00:14:52.120 You don't have to tell me that. The theater has to be crowded. I guess so. But on the positive

00:15:02.660 side, CNN had a pretty good story here that I think is true. Apparently, they did some

00:15:08.400 investigation. And CNN found that a lot of doctors are unaware that monoclonal antibodies

00:15:17.700 can be used for early cases of COVID. What? What? Can we can we share a moment? I'm just going to read

00:15:31.720 this again, so you can have the same, the same reaction I had. So at home, I'll read it again and

00:15:39.640 just sit and just say, what? What? Wait, am I hearing that right? What? Many doctors were not aware

00:15:50.540 that COVID has an early treatment that really, really works well, and it's available, and it's

00:15:57.980 approved. And it's the monoclonal antibodies, Regeneron, right? Now, I knew it.

00:16:06.140 And Ron DeSantis knows it, because he's putting up all these Regeneron places in Florida. How many of

00:16:17.340 you knew that monoclonal antibodies was a thing for people with early COVID? In the comments, tell me

00:16:24.280 how many of you knew it? Because I think it's all of you. Look at the comments. I haven't seen a no yet.

00:16:33.600 It's all yeses. Oh, I saw a no. Okay, a few no's. So I don't know what... But seriously, there are

00:16:44.780 doctors who didn't know this. And there's, you know, anecdotal story here of one doctor who said

00:16:50.380 there's nothing you can do, go home. But the patient thought, maybe there's something I can do and found

00:16:54.860 out monoclonal antibodies would help. Wow. So every time somebody tells you, well, talk to your doctor

00:17:05.120 or, hey, my doctor recommended this. How do you feel now? How do you feel now knowing that

00:17:13.440 that you and your doctor worked it out? Hey, this is between me and my doctor.

00:17:20.300 Was that your theory? It's between you and your doctor. But your doctor might be a dumbass.

00:17:27.200 Might be. You might have a dumbass doctor. So maybe it'd be better if the government just told your

00:17:34.380 doctor what to do. I'm not recommending that. I'm not recommending that. You don't want the

00:17:40.200 government to have too much control. But if you're sure that your doctor can do a better job than,

00:17:47.080 say, a standard that just requires them to act a certain way, I don't know. Sort of would depend

00:17:52.560 on the standard, wouldn't it? So with your permission, I'm going to cause some trouble. And some of you

00:18:06.820 aren't going to like it. Okay? So this will be a little difficult for some of you. And if you want

00:18:12.140 to leave, if you want to leave because you, this isn't comfortable to you, I would understand. So I

00:18:17.320 won't take it personally. All right? But I think, I think there's going to be something useful for you

00:18:22.120 in here. Now, I don't think there's a better skill you could learn than identifying cognitive dissonance

00:18:31.000 in the wild. And some of you think you're good at it, but you're getting a lot of big stuff wrong.

00:18:37.320 And I'll, and I'm going to give you some examples because it happened today. And I want to show you

00:18:42.560 exactly how to identify it because it's such a, thank you, Cassandra. We're going to do this

00:18:50.940 because I think it's really useful for you to see how it works. Here's the topic. The topic was

00:18:57.980 Ivermectin. And on Twitter, Adam, Adam Baldwin, actor, not Alec Baldwin, but Adam Baldwin,

00:19:10.280 challenged me by saying, you know, what about the India experience with Ivermectin?

00:19:17.600 So I was asked to explain why it is that I think Ivermectin maybe is not proven to work,

00:19:25.220 proven to work. I'm not saying it doesn't work. I'm not saying it works. I'm saying,

00:19:30.440 as far as I know, it's not proven to work yet, maybe later, but as far as I know, not proven to

00:19:36.360 work. And so I've been challenged by many people to explain India. Okay, well, sure. If you say it

00:19:44.480 doesn't work, can you explain why it's working great in one region in India? It's working great.

00:19:50.900 How do you explain that? Here's how I explained it. I went to Google, and I googled it. And one of the

00:19:59.980 top search results was from India Today. And they reported that in September of this year, so just

00:20:08.000 weeks ago, the Indian Council of Medical Research and the National Task Force on COVID-19, so presumably

00:20:15.740 these are the top entities in India for COVID decisions, have dropped the use of Ivermectin

00:20:21.940 and hydroxychloroquine from their treatment guidelines after the experts found the drugs have little to no

00:20:29.620 effect on mortality or clinical recovery of patients. Now, stop. Stop right now. How many of you just made

00:20:39.560 this mistake? How many of you thought that the topic is does Ivermectin work? It's not, right? Because

00:20:49.520 I don't know. Does Ivermectin work? Why would you ask me? Why would anybody ask me if Ivermectin

00:20:55.860 works? How the hell would I know? I know there are studies that indicate it does. I know that the

00:21:02.700 metadata indicates it does. I know that the metadata looks like garbage, because it's influenced by some

00:21:11.900 studies that are large that we know are bad. So if you take the large studies we know are bad out,

00:21:18.440 the meta analysis kind of falls apart, is my understanding. But I could be wrong about that.

00:21:23.660 But that's not the topic today. The topic is, did it work in India? Not does it work, but did it

00:21:33.100 obviously work in India in an Indian miracle? So again, it's not a question of whether Ivermectin

00:21:40.760 worked. We're not talking about that today. We're only talking about is there an obvious success

00:21:48.260 story in India? No. No, there's not. There's no success story in India, because India, all of the 1.00

00:21:58.080 experts just decided to not use it. Do you think that India has a region in which it's wildly successful,

00:22:06.640 but the Indian Council of Medical Research and the National Task Force on COVID, the top entities in

00:22:14.840 India, were unaware that the pandemic has been solved in India? Because if it's been solved in one 1.00

00:22:23.640 region, the other Pradesh is what it was, if it's been solved in one region, and everybody in the

00:22:30.880 United States knows it, but why don't the top people in India know it? Now, is this a setup for

00:22:40.040 cognitive dissonance? It is, right? This is a perfect setup to trigger cognitive dissonance.

00:22:48.100 Not in everybody. But if you were positive, and you'd been making the argument, hey, it definitely

00:22:54.000 worked in India, so we're done here. So right land bandit has started to yell at me in all caps.

00:23:02.840 So here's your first tip on cognitive dissonance. Tip number one for spotting it. Somebody will yell

00:23:09.160 at you with caps. Okay? All caps, so we're seeing that. But also, they'll go after the messenger

00:23:15.860 and not the point. So here's a pushback from right lane bandit, all in caps. Scott quote,

00:23:25.880 never trust experts, but also Scott quote, you are debunked. The experts agree with me.

00:23:31.720 Is that really a response to this question? No. It's a comment about me, in general. And have

00:23:40.580 I agreed with the experts? No. Do you see me agreeing with any experts here? No, I'm reporting

00:23:47.920 what the experts said. I'm telling you, I don't know if it works or not. I'm just telling you

00:23:54.540 what they said. And you have to explain, if you believe that India has this giant success

00:24:01.240 with ivermectin, you have to explain why all of the experts in India don't know it, but

00:24:07.340 you know it. Why is that?

00:24:11.040 So, let me give you a gel man amnesia when it comes to experts. Now, how many of you are 0.99

00:24:20.680 hallucinating right now that I'm siding with the experts? Anybody? Who's having that hallucination

00:24:28.140 right now? Because I'm not. I'm not siding with them, and I'm not disagreeing with them.

00:24:33.380 How many think I'm siding with them, even though I just said I'm not siding with them or disagreeing

00:24:38.240 them? Right? So, that's another way to determine that you're in cognitive dissonance. If you

00:24:45.700 can't keep on the topic, the moving of the goalposts is sometimes just somebody being a

00:24:51.880 weasel and, you know, they lost their argument, so they're trying to win. But lots of times

00:24:56.100 it's cognitive dissonance, and people don't know they moved the goalposts. So, if you get

00:25:01.620 proven wrong, one thing you'll do is imagine you're in a different conversation. So, you'll

00:25:06.360 actually get to watch that in real time. You're going to see people who are arguing a different

00:25:11.600 point than I am, and that's probably cognitive dissonance, but it could be just bad, you know,

00:25:17.380 listening. All right. Now, some of you are saying, but Scott, look at my graph. I'll forward it to you.

00:25:26.560 Look at all these studies on ivermectin. I'm not on that topic. I'm not on that topic, right?

00:25:33.660 That's this topic. Does it work? We could talk about that separately, but we're not on that topic.

00:25:40.680 We're only on the topic, did India have a big success that is just obvious?

00:25:48.420 Can we agree? Let me see if I can get you a degree and watch the cognitive dissonance.

00:25:53.700 So, some of you are going to get triggered right now. Here we go. Here's another all caps.

00:25:58.480 James Jensen says, this is to me, he says, in all caps, me thinks you speaking with forked tongues,

00:26:07.000 right? So, this is cognitive dissonance. It's all caps, and it's about me. It has nothing to do

00:26:13.760 with the point that the Indian, all the experts in India are unaware that they've solved the pandemic,

00:26:20.220 right? Big pharma got to the council. So, one of the examples of cognitive dissonance,

00:26:32.640 but I'm not saying that you're having it. So, let's talk about the speculation that somebody says,

00:26:37.860 okay, it all makes sense. It makes sense that India completely solved their pandemic in one region, 0.89

00:26:46.600 and yet, because the bribes were so successful, 100% of Indian doctors have been bribed,

00:26:55.340 the ones who are close enough to know what they're talking about in this topic.

00:26:59.300 So, 100% of them have been bribed. Do you know why it's 100% of them? How do you know that 100%

00:27:06.060 of them have been bribed? And we're talking about a lot of people, right? Hundreds? Hundreds, maybe?

00:27:11.320 How do you know that 100% of them have been bribed? Because any Indian doctor who knew that 0.99

00:27:19.880 they were going in the wrong direction could open an anonymous account on Twitter and tell you.

00:27:28.060 And tell you. You don't think there would be one expert who didn't get a bribe,

00:27:33.720 or maybe wasn't influenced by a bribe. Not one expert who could go on Twitter and say,

00:27:40.680 hey, something's going on over here. They're all getting bribed. They're ignoring the data.

00:27:46.260 Nobody? Ask yourself that. Because I don't think there's any explanation other than cognitive dissonance

00:27:52.800 that you would imagine that Pfizer could get to every doctor in India.

00:27:56.900 I mean, really? Not every doctor in India, but every doctor who's involved in the decision.

00:28:07.640 Now, remember, remember, the doctors, any doctor who wanted to be a whistleblower could have it both

00:28:15.960 ways. They could say in public, oh, I totally agree with my government, even if they didn't. Let's say

00:28:22.980 they wanted to keep their job. Oh, yeah, I totally agree with my government. Absolutely. Whatever

00:28:27.600 the government says, and I'm going to keep my job. They could still go on Twitter, open up an anonymous

00:28:34.100 account, as a number of doctors who follow me have done, right? There are a number of American doctors

00:28:40.360 who follow me with anonymous accounts. I'm pretty sure they're really doctors, the way they talk.

00:28:46.040 But, well, if you don't have even one, I would say there's not really much chance in the real world

00:28:55.680 that India thinks it worked. Right? Here we go. Here's another cognitive dissonance. Some of these 0.99

00:29:04.940 are really interesting. So this is from Angry Maul Babies. Trust cartoonists. Now, assuming that's

00:29:11.260 sarcastic, that's a comment about my credentials. Are my credentials in any way relevant to the fact

00:29:20.500 that India just said don't use ivermectin? How are my credentials relevant to that? I'm just telling

00:29:28.340 you what the news says. I haven't added anything. I've added nothing. It wouldn't matter what my job

00:29:35.820 was. I just read the story. That's all I did. Now, here's some, we're getting some pushback. All

00:29:44.940 right. There are studies showing ivermectin is effective if, okay, you're in cognitive dissonance

00:29:51.100 or you've consciously decided that you're in a different topic. All right. So everybody talking

00:29:58.160 about the question of whether ivermectin works or doesn't work, you're either in cognitive dissonance

00:30:04.560 or you have willingly decided to talk about a different topic. We're not on that topic. We're

00:30:11.080 only on the topic of whether India is aware that one region has this amazing success. And

00:30:16.600 obviously, they're not. They're not aware. Why? Why not? All right.

00:30:22.900 So here's another one. Oh, here's Michael on Twitter says to me about this topic. He says,

00:30:40.840 Scott, I'm curious why on certain topics, you openly convey distrust in government. But when

00:30:47.500 it comes to COVID, you implicitly trust every word they say. Is that comment, cognitive dissonance?

00:30:56.280 Let me read it again. Scott, I'm curious why on certain topics, you openly convey distrust in

00:31:02.160 government. But when it comes to COVID, you implicitly trust every word they say.

00:31:07.080 Okay. Now, does he know who he's talking to? Suppose somebody gave you a quiz and they said,

00:31:19.320 all right, you have to pick one person on the planet Earth, on the whole planet, any country

00:31:24.020 on the planet Earth, who is the least trusting of large organizations. Name one person on Earth

00:31:31.960 who's famous, famous for being the least trusting of organizations over the past 30 years. Now,

00:31:41.880 somebody said Alex Jones, very, very good, good. Alex Jones, I think he's kind of new on this beat.

00:31:49.840 I don't know what he was doing 30 years ago. But I was questioning all but large organizations 30 years

00:31:56.620 ago. And I might be one of the most famous skeptics of anything that comes out of a large organization.

00:32:05.080 Almost everything I talk about is how you can't trust the government. Now, sometimes you have to

00:32:10.480 choose. I mean, you've got to make decisions. So you're going to guess one way or the other.

00:32:14.920 So I guessed on vaccinations. Do you think I trusted the government? Hell no. Who trusts the government?

00:32:23.340 Really? Who trusts the government? So anybody who imagines that, of all people, the most, I'd say,

00:32:33.360 top 10, one of the most famous skeptics of all large organization decisions, this fellow imagined that

00:32:41.780 I trust the government sometimes. About never. I would never trust the government. I might make a

00:32:49.760 decision to go along with it because maybe I don't have that many options and I just got to guess.

00:32:54.880 But trusting them would be crazy.

00:32:59.800 All right. So that's obvious cognitive dissonance.

00:33:08.080 So let's do another one. So I saw on Google that

00:33:11.900 somebody saying again that vaccinations don't reduce the spread of COVID. So let me ask the

00:33:20.820 question. And then I'll Google it right in front of you. See what happens. Here's the question. I

00:33:28.140 want to see what your responses are. Now, keep in mind, the question I'm going to ask you is really

00:33:33.780 widely reported. Right. So if you missed this fact, you missed like one of the biggest things in the

00:33:42.560 world. I don't know how you missed it. But here's the question. If you're vaccinated, do you have the

00:33:50.060 same statistical odds of spreading the virus as if you're not vaccinated? Go in the comments. Do

00:33:57.660 vaccinated people spread the virus the same, just the same as people unvaccinated? I'm seeing a mixture

00:34:06.600 of yeses and nos. I think the nos are starting to beat down the yeses. I see yeses. I see nos.

00:34:16.040 No way. No, no. Don't know. No. Not sure. No. I see yeses. All right. So just the yeses.

00:34:29.980 So just for a moment. So I suspect there are more nos. Now, my understanding, which could be wrong,

00:34:39.060 that's why I'm going to Google it right in front of you. My understanding is that all of the experts

00:34:44.500 agree. At least the organizations of experts agree. They might be rogue doctors. But my

00:34:50.780 understanding is that science is pretty well certain that vaccinated people don't spread it

00:34:57.980 anywhere near, like nowhere near, not even close to unvaccinated people. How many want to find 0.89

00:35:06.060 their worldview shattered? All right. So just the yeses. All right. Stop commenting for a while.

00:35:12.300 Just hold off your comments for a moment. I only want to see the comments from the people who say

00:35:18.200 yes. So just give me, give me the yeses that people, you believe that they spread the same,

00:35:24.300 vaccinated or not. Just the yeses. All right. Now let's Google it. Maybe some of you are doing this

00:35:32.620 at home. All right. We'll go to actual Google itself so that we won't go to DuckDuckGo. Now you might

00:35:44.300 want to check my work on another search engine. All right. Do vaccinated people spread virus as much

00:35:59.340 as unvaccinated.

00:36:04.980 Now, the reason that I picked this question is because it's like one of the most important questions,

00:36:10.140 right? All right. So Google has pasted an official answer to the top. So that means that in Google's

00:36:19.340 opinion, it's a settled question. And they're just telling you the answer. So you don't even have to

00:36:23.800 look for a source. They're just going to tell you right at the top. I haven't seen this before.

00:36:27.940 You see this? They just paste it right at the top. It says common question. What are the chances of

00:36:34.720 getting COVID after being fully? Well, that's different. Boop, boop, boop. Hold on. Okay. Does

00:36:41.140 the COVID-19 vaccine prevent transmission? Of course, we know it doesn't prevent it. But let's see what it

00:36:47.080 says. Evidence suggests the U.S. COVID-19 vaccination program has substantially reduced the burden of

00:36:55.440 disease. So Google says yes. Let's see what the CDC says. For some reason, that's not coming up.

00:37:10.320 Oh, that was just the source. That was just the CDC. So it wasn't Google. It was saying,

00:37:14.420 according to the CDC, there's much less chance of spread. Okay. So now I looked it up. How many of

00:37:23.840 you who thought it was the same would change your opinion if you knew that it's unanimously believed

00:37:31.320 by the people in charge of this stuff? I'm saying nopes. What is the nope about?

00:37:37.520 People are just saying, nope. Nope. Suggests. Oh, let me... Okay. I thought that would be enough

00:37:48.920 to convince you. But let's say, do vaccinated people shed same viral load? All right. So the answer

00:38:05.640 that I gave you was like a little off point, and I take your point on that. So here's the CDC.

00:38:15.760 Common myths and facts.

00:38:17.440 Oh, here... This is interesting. This might be the opposite of what you think. This is from the CDC.

00:38:26.200 Doesn't mean it's right. Doesn't mean it's right. Right? So we're not trusting the government

00:38:34.400 automatically. Right? I'm just telling you what they're saying. It says the vaccines can

00:38:40.460 help prevent new variants. Do you believe that? Do you believe that a vaccine can prevent

00:38:46.400 new variants? It's the first time I've actually seen it from the CDC. But I assumed that was

00:38:52.740 true. Because... So you're not believing the CDC that vaccines can help prevent new variants?

00:39:04.140 Here's why I think it's probably true. I won't give this a guarantee. But here's why I think

00:39:09.740 it's probably true. The more virus there is in the world, the more variants. Period. Period.

00:39:18.180 There's no other analysis you need. The more virus in the world, the more variants. No expert

00:39:25.680 disagrees with that. Do you believe me? The more virus, the more variants. And there's no exception.

00:39:34.060 Nothing about the vaccines would change the fact that more virus means more infections. Now,

00:39:39.580 do vaccines cause more or less virus? Far less. All right. So I know you're not convinced

00:39:49.640 on that, because I don't have an argument good enough. But because I think the only argument

00:39:54.040 is that if variants are a statistical anomaly, then the more virus, the more variants. That's

00:40:03.600 it. There's nothing else to say, is there? Stop talking to us like we're morons. Dan, I have

00:40:11.860 to talk to the public across all intellectual planes. So sometimes I'll talk to you like you're

00:40:22.420 smarter than average, because actually, I think this audience is smarter than average. Probably

00:40:26.180 a lot smarter than average. But there are still many of you who have opinions, which just

00:40:33.120 don't, let's say they don't track. I don't know what to do with that. Yeah. So by the way,

00:40:42.380 cognitive dissonance doesn't have anything to do with intelligence. Let's see if they've

00:40:49.040 got the answer on the spreading. Similar virus in communities. Let's see, that's, I want to

00:41:03.720 find a good source here. Viral loads, similar in vaccinated and unvaccinated people. So viral

00:41:14.540 loads are similar in vaccinated and unvaccinated people. So did I debunk myself? Anybody? So

00:41:22.880 here's a source, UC Davis, and some other sources as well. The viral loads are similar, whether

00:41:31.360 you're vaccinated or unvaccinated. In the case that you, so have I debunked myself? So that

00:41:39.180 would, so does that prove that you can spread as much virus, vaccinated or unvaccinated? Because

00:41:45.760 you would have similar virus loads? No, it doesn't mean that. It doesn't mean that.

00:41:55.860 Let's say you're vaccinated, and I'm not. We have the same viral load. So what is the risk

00:42:03.340 of vaccinated people spreading it versus unvaccinated? Well, in that case, it looks about

00:42:09.680 similar, right? If you're vaccinated and I'm not vaccinated, and we walk into the same room,

00:42:15.820 and we've got the same viral load, which one of us will spread it more? It's unknown. It probably

00:42:23.560 has to do with our lung capacity, et cetera. But if we had the same viral load, on average,

00:42:30.980 we would spread it about the same if we were, let's say, the same lung capacity, et cetera.

00:42:37.640 Stayed there the same amount of time. Does everybody agree with that? If you're vaccinated

00:42:41.680 or unvaccinated, if you have the same viral load, and then you go do the same things, probably,

00:42:48.360 probably, you spread it about the same. Everybody okay with that so far? Right? Now, here's the

00:42:55.200 second fact. I'm about seven times more likely to have it in the first place if I'm unvaccinated.

00:43:04.960 Is everybody on board with that fact? That to get it in the first place, it's about seven times more

00:43:12.020 likely you'll get it if you're unvaccinated. Yes? Yes or no? Fact check me on that?

00:43:18.140 All right. You can Google it while I'm talking. So it's like seven or 11 times. I think it might

00:43:24.500 be 11, maybe. But it's many times more likely. So we don't need a specific number. Does everybody

00:43:31.220 agree that it's many times more likely you would get infected in the first place if you're unvaccinated?

00:43:38.420 Anybody? All right. So now I'll do the same test. Remember, the first one was we both have the

00:43:45.880 same viral load, vaccinated and unvaccinated, and we walk into the same room. Now, here's your second

00:43:50.580 setup. There's one person who's unvaccinated who walks into a room, and they've got a viral load.

00:43:59.320 And there's nobody else in the room because the vaccinated person didn't get it. All right? Are

00:44:06.140 you following the example? The first one was you're both infected, and you both walk into the room with

00:44:11.000 the same viral load. You probably spread it about the same. But since there are seven times as many

00:44:17.880 people who get it unvaccinated, you have a lot of rooms where only an unvaccinated person walks in

00:44:23.920 in the first place because there aren't enough vaccinated people to pair them with. If you tried

00:44:29.560 to pair every vaccinated person with an unvaccinated person with the same viral load, you could do a few,

00:44:35.080 but you would really quickly run out of vaccinated people who have that kind of viral load. And you

00:44:42.020 would have plenty of unvaccinated people, seven or 11 times more. So those people are walking into 0.89

00:44:48.760 rooms all the time. The unvaccinated people don't exist in numbers enough to match all the unvaccinated 1.00

00:44:59.960 people. So if you thought that because vaccinated and unvaccinated people can carry the same viral

00:45:07.300 load, that vaccinations don't make any difference to spreading, you're ignoring the biggest fact of

00:45:13.840 vaccinations, that it reduces the chance that you get it at all by, I don't know, seven or 11 times,

00:45:20.180 but a gigantic number, right? Gigantic number. Okay? Somebody, I'm seeing false.

00:45:29.960 Anybody who's yelling false, that's cognitive dissonance. Sorry. Sorry. Because you have room

00:45:40.500 to say why. You could say your data's wrong, that fact is wrong, anything. The analysis is wrong,

00:45:46.460 you compared the wrong thing, anything. Just say anything. But if you're just saying I'm wrong to

00:45:50.820 the facts I produce, you can Google these all. Everything I said will come up, you know, in the top

00:45:57.840 Google searches. Now, are the experts right about that? Are the experts right? I don't know. Can we

00:46:07.620 trust all the experts? I don't know. I'm not saying you can trust them all the time. I'm saying that the

00:46:12.600 argument that you can spread it just as much, vaccinated or not, is probably based on a

00:46:20.140 misunderstanding. Probably. It's probably based on the misunderstanding that if you could have similar

00:46:26.960 viral loads, that you would spread it the same. And while that's true, if there are just two people

00:46:33.560 in the room, you have to look at the country, and you couldn't find enough people to go in the room

00:46:39.140 with the unvaccinated person. Because the vaccinated people just don't exist. Most of them don't have it. 0.75

00:46:44.620 All right. How many of you, how could we have nearly enough time to study all of this? Well, that's always

00:46:59.760 a problem. Google is a biased source, perhaps. I mean, I'm not arguing that Google is biased, but they show

00:47:08.860 lots of sources. If you can find, let me, let me say this, find a credible source that disagrees with me

00:47:16.080 and then send it to me. Okay. Find, find a credible source. And I would accept a major publication on

00:47:23.620 the right or the left. All right. A major publication. So a major publication would be anything on the right

00:47:30.400 from Fox News to Breitbart, major publications on the left, whatever, whatever, CNN, anything else.

00:47:38.860 But just find any major publication that disagrees with what I just said. I don't think you'll find

00:47:45.560 one. Now, that doesn't mean they're right, right? Can, can everybody be wrong? Sure. Sure. It's

00:47:51.380 happened. I'm just telling you what the evidence is. I can't tell you that it's accurate, right? That's,

00:47:57.380 that's not my job. And here's the other thing that people are blaming me for. A lot of people are

00:48:03.780 saying that my views on all of this stuff are completely, that my views on all this are

00:48:11.580 completely biased by the fact that I got the vaccination and I want to be right. Meaning I

00:48:17.980 want my, I want to be publicly right that my vaccination choice was correct.

00:48:22.900 No, I don't. I want to be healthy. That's all I want. I want to be healthy. I don't need to be

00:48:32.080 right. This program isn't even about being right. I mean, there are other, there are other programs

00:48:38.000 that are, you know, the, the host is just trying to be right all the time, but not this one. If I,

00:48:44.580 if I could be like spectacularly wrong about something really important that I, I really thought was

00:48:51.500 right. And even especially if I've been talking about it, that excites me. That would be scary

00:48:56.780 because it means I might be at risk of dying. That's a separate question, but no, I don't need to be

00:49:03.140 right. And let me, let me say as, um, as powerfully as I can, that, um, I don't know if I made the right

00:49:15.240 decision. Do you, let me ask how many of you are positive. You made the, not that you made the right

00:49:23.520 risk calculation. Cause I think that's easier, but that you're actually beyond just making the

00:49:29.560 right risk management decision that you're also right. How many of you are positive? You're right.

00:49:37.840 Whichever way you went vaccinated or unvaccinated, how many are positive? You're right.

00:49:45.120 I am. I'm seeing some people positive. They're right. Um, I am not. Um,

00:49:56.360 look, yeah, I'm not going to talk about animal cruelty stuff. I just can't do that.

00:50:00.700 Um, all right. So here we, uh, I, I respect everybody who says they're not sure. So if you

00:50:10.680 said I'm not going to get vaccinated and here's my reasons, but I'm not sure it's, it's just my

00:50:16.040 best judgment. I have full respect for that. Full respect. It might be right, might be wrong,

00:50:22.340 but I totally respect it. And likewise, if you say, you know, I've decided to get vaccinated,

00:50:28.160 it might be a bad decision. It might be a good one, but I had to make a decision.

00:50:32.360 I completely respect that decision. The only people I don't respect are the people who are certain

00:50:37.380 because you, you got some explaining to do if you're certain. If you're positive,

00:50:44.180 you've got a lot of explaining to do. Um, being not sure and getting the jab is the wrong decision.

00:50:52.100 No, it isn't. No, it isn't. There, there's no logical reason to support what you just said.

00:51:00.080 We're all uncertain. One way is better than the other. And we don't know. We really don't know.

00:51:09.380 Um, all right. Just looking at some of your comments. Um, the reason I, I, I dwelled on this a

00:51:20.780 little bit is that the news is boring today. Is there any actual interesting news happening today

00:51:24.620 that I missed? I was a little bit, uh, late. Oh, I gotta run. I gotta run. I gotta leave early

00:51:29.920 today. Bye for now.

Real Coffee with Scott Adams - October 25, 2021

Episode 1541 Scott Adams： Find Out if You Have Cognitive Dissonance on One of the Biggest Stories In the World

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript