Real Coffee with Scott Adams - Episode 1588 Scott Adams： Today I Will Teach you a Persuasion Trick So Powerful This Video Will Probably Be Banned

00:00:00.000 Good morning everybody and welcome to the best thing that's ever happened to you and it's getting

00:00:10.040 better as you sit here. Yeah, I know. It's already peaking and getting better. Wow. That's how good

00:00:17.940 it's going to be. Do you want to take it up a level? Today is maybe the best thing you've ever

00:00:22.820 seen in your life could change your entire worlds. That's not even an exaggeration. It might for some

00:00:30.580 of you. But before we get to that, the simultaneous sip. That's right. It starts on a high point and

00:00:37.960 it's just going to keep going all the way. Watch this. But first, all you need is a cup or mug or a

00:00:42.680 glass, a tank or gel, a stein, a canty jug or flask, a vessel of any kind. Fill it with your favorite

00:00:49.840 liquid I like. Coffee. And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure. The dopamine hit of the

00:00:56.680 day. It's the thing that makes everything better. It's called the simultaneous sip. It happens now. Go.

00:01:10.720 Raging antibodies. Raging. They're raging against the machine and against the COVID and everything

00:01:17.460 else. Well, is there anybody here who would like to see me change my opinion about vaccinations?

00:01:25.380 Would that be popular? Anybody? Well, we'll get to that. But first, CNN's banner today,

00:01:37.940 they've got a big red banner to tell you the important things about the news. Here are the

00:01:43.140 important things. And this is an exact quote from CNN's banner of the important things you need to

00:01:49.980 know. COVID-19 hospitalizations are climbing nationwide. Number two, Trump may take his

00:01:57.660 January 6th committee fight to the Supreme Court. And number three, there's a cream cheese shortage.

00:02:03.000 What? I'm sitting on a fresh batch of bagels, and I'm only about half cheesed.

00:02:18.560 I could circle back to this COVID thing and the January 6th thing, but really? If I have to go a week

00:02:28.220 without cream cheese, well, I'm moving to another country. That's all there is to it.

00:02:34.280 Has anybody tried to watch the Discovery Star Trek series? It's in the third year or fourth year? I can't

00:02:43.060 remember. I don't. Do not watch it. It started out pretty well, and I actually recommended it. I think

00:02:54.040 the second season, it got pretty good. But oh my God, they've just destroyed it.

00:03:00.720 Now, of course, art is subjective, right? So I'm certainly open to the possibility that somebody

00:03:08.460 is watching this and just loving it. But here's what happened. They've decided to flip the switch

00:03:15.040 switch to flip the switch on the traditional, you know, original Star Trek, which was mostly a bunch

00:03:24.880 of white people. But we threw in, you know, Sulu and who was the woman who played the communications

00:03:33.640 officer? Uhura. So even the first Star Trek, the original, was more woke than television in general,

00:03:43.240 because it was actually sort of a big deal to have a main character who was a black woman back in

00:03:48.120 those primitive days. But mostly it was a bunch of white people running around doing sci-fi. But 0.80

00:03:55.080 what Discovery's done is completely flipped it. And essentially every character has something going

00:04:03.540 on. And when I say going on, they're either a minority or they're LGBTQ or they're a woman or 0.90

00:04:13.240 something. So I don't know that they have too many straight males in it at all, a few, but they don't 0.98

00:04:19.560 have big, big roles. Now, let me be clear. I like, I like, you know, entertainment should reflect the

00:04:29.300 real world and, and the customers who are consuming it. So there's nothing wrong with the impulse.

00:04:35.660 Just to be clear, I'm completely in favor of the, you know, the impulse behind it, which is,

00:04:43.340 you know, bring everybody in. Make sure you have entertainment that appeals to as many people as

00:04:47.960 possible. That's a good thing. However, as, as a writer and someone who has written for television

00:04:55.160 especially, I can tell you this, as soon as you put that kind of a constraint on your writing,

00:05:01.800 it takes a lot of flexibility away. So if you make your show about that, and then it has to be about

00:05:08.800 that, it's hard for it to be about anything else. So the problem is it just constrains the universe

00:05:14.320 of things they can do and people they can hire and that kind of stuff. So it looks like a disaster,

00:05:21.740 even though it's well-intentioned. It's actually well-made though. The, the, uh, primary actress,

00:05:28.860 a black woman whose name I wish I remembered, but I don't, uh, is really, really good. Like, just as a 1.00

00:05:35.660 professional actress, just a great on-screen presence. But I think it's the other stuff. It's the writing

00:05:43.020 that I think bogged it down. The, the performers are actually quite good. And the production is really

00:05:48.960 good. But I think the writing just fell apart. Anyway, the, uh, I saw a picture of Trump at the

00:05:55.460 golf course. It looked like a recent picture, something in the last few weeks. And, uh, he looks

00:06:02.500 like he's definitely changed his diet. Has anybody seen a, a recent picture of him not wearing a jacket?

00:06:09.240 So you can, you know, see him saying his golf clothes. He looks like he's lost, I don't know,

00:06:16.080 I'd hate to guess, but 60 pounds. It looks, it looks pretty substantial. Now that it could be that

00:06:23.560 he's trying to get down to a fighting weight to, uh, compete, or it could be telling us he's not going

00:06:29.780 to run. Because one of the things that happens when you lose weight at that age, and I'm, you know,

00:06:35.380 exhibit A, is it makes you look older. Um, if, if your face is the thing that's usually what people

00:06:42.000 see, as you're seeing mine right now, if I gained, uh, uh, about seven pounds, these lines just go

00:06:51.940 away. They disappear. It's almost like a facelift. See these lines? Seven pounds, and it goes like that,

00:06:59.060 just disappears. So if I wanted to be a little bit heavier than I would like to be,

00:07:04.420 so I wouldn't look, you know, as good with my shirt off, I could look way better in the face.

00:07:10.100 And if I were a politician, that would be a tough trade-off. Because it will make him look older,

00:07:14.580 and that's going to be, that's going to be a major factor for anybody's vote decision,

00:07:19.960 or should be. Maybe it hasn't been, but it should be. All right. Um, and I love the fact that he's

00:07:26.260 sending a, uh, the right message, especially during COVID, right? Because we know weight is a big

00:07:31.980 factor. Health is a big factor. So I think I give, uh, Trump kudos for his role modeling,

00:07:38.440 uh, decision, even if it was just for his personal reasons, probably was, but it's a good role model.

00:07:45.660 And yes, and I, and let me extend that to Joe Biden, who has had a lifetime of commitment to

00:07:51.880 fitness. Can we say that? I know you're not all Biden fans, but can we give him that? I would say,

00:07:58.400 um, Joe Biden has been one of the best examples of lifelong commitment to fitness.

00:08:06.460 So we can give him that. Uh, whereas Obama was, at least he liked to exercise and he was, he was thin,

00:08:13.200 but he smoked. So, I mean, that's just the worst possible thing you could do as a president.

00:08:19.860 Uh, would you like to talk about some, uh, some mysteries of cognitive behavior? Yes, you would.

00:08:26.900 Right. So here's a mystery that I've been trying to figure out, and I think I figured it down.

00:08:32.400 And I want to run this by you, and we're going to go to the whiteboard for this.

00:08:36.080 I'll give you your advanced hypnosis lesson in a bit. But I've been trying to figure out why there

00:08:43.160 are people who are really paying attention to all things coronavirus. We're seeing completely different

00:08:49.480 studies and facts than I was. And at first I thought, oh, I get it. This is because people are

00:08:55.740 looking at different things. But now I don't think so. I have a, I have a new hypothesis, which I feel

00:09:03.600 pretty strongly about, about why people are seeing completely different facts about coronavirus.

00:09:10.600 I'll give you some examples.

00:09:11.540 And before you take this as an insult, let me clarify. When I say analytical skills, or analytic

00:09:22.600 skills, I'm not talking about something you're born with. I'm not talking about your IQ. And

00:09:29.480 the only claim I'm going to make is that it's a learnable, teachable skill. If you have gone

00:09:36.140 through years of experience on decision making and analytics, you're probably good at it. If you've

00:09:44.400 never had that kind of background, but you're also very smart, you're very worldly, you spent a lot of time

00:09:49.920 in the world, you could imagine that you have those skills and not even be close. So there is, I would say

00:09:58.280 maybe 90% of the population believes they have something closer to high analytical skills while

00:10:05.540 in fact they have low analytical skills and has nothing to do with their genes, right? You're not

00:10:11.540 born that way. You're simply not born that way. It's just a learned skill that not everybody knows

00:10:17.080 is learned. And so when I look at certain facts such as vaccines reduce the spread and reduce deaths,

00:10:25.700 there are other people who say, wait a minute, no, I'm looking at different data than you are.

00:10:30.780 All the data I look at says the opposite. It says none of that's happening. But why is it that I was

00:10:37.220 only seeing my data? Was it confirmation bias? Because that's what I thought it was. Or maybe just

00:10:42.980 different channels of news or something. But now I've decided that it's probably more of this,

00:10:49.080 because I think everybody's seeing the same stuff. At least I'm seeing the same stuff on both sides now.

00:10:53.980 And when I see the stuff that tells me the vaccines don't help you. Now, we're not talking

00:11:00.900 about side effects now. Not talking about side effects. That's a separate conversation. And I

00:11:06.580 have a different, definitely a different view on vaccination. So if you want to wait around

00:11:11.680 to see that my opinion on vaccinations has changed, some of you are going to enjoy that. But just hold

00:11:18.460 that thought. All I'm trying to do here is give you a different framework for why we're seeing

00:11:23.060 different realities. My belief is that we're blind to the other. Meaning that I did actually

00:11:31.340 see all the things that the people were saying were proof that vaccines don't work. I saw all

00:11:38.580 of them. But if you're good at analytical stuff, you probably discounted them to the point of being

00:11:45.220 blind to them. Like literally forgetting them as soon as you saw them. For example, if somebody

00:11:50.860 sends me an anecdote of some specific thing that happened, if you are a high analytic person,

00:11:57.480 you say, well, that means nothing. If you're low analytical, you haven't been trained, you'd

00:12:03.600 say, well, okay, I get that one story doesn't mean anything. Well, I'm seeing a lot. I'm seeing

00:12:10.940 dozens. I'm seeing hundreds of stories. In fact, the VAERS database has tens of thousands.

00:12:20.100 So we're not talking about an anecdote anymore, are we? Say the people who are not especially good

00:12:26.720 at analytics. But the people who are especially good at analytics would say this. Wait a minute.

00:12:34.380 The way the reporting is that the VAERS database is more danger than we've ever seen, right? I think

00:12:42.360 you'd all agree with that. Bigger numbers than we've seen for other vaccinations. On top of that,

00:12:49.500 the people in journalism are telling us, and a lot of medical professionals too, a lot of experts are

00:12:54.680 saying it is likely grossly underreported. Underreported. So as big as those side effects are that are being

00:13:03.460 reported now, it could be five times that size, say the experts, who are generally not trained in

00:13:12.420 analytics. They're experts in their field, medicine, virology. But are they experts at analyzing stuff?

00:13:22.380 Maybe not. If you were an expert at analyzing something, you would say something more like this.

00:13:27.340 So what if the VAERS database is 10 times as big as what you'd expect? Because you haven't told me

00:13:37.260 how much benefit there is. Because if you don't tell me how much benefit there is, I don't know if

00:13:43.780 that 10 times danger thing is actually meaningful. What if it went from one person in the world to 10

00:13:49.920 people in the whole world? It would still be nothing, you know, relative to the whole population, but it would

00:13:56.560 be 10 times more. So don't tell me that there is a raw number more if you're leaving out the percentages

00:14:03.360 and the appropriate comparison. Is the appropriate comparison to other vaccinations? Nope. That's not the

00:14:14.060 appropriate comparison. That's what you compare to if you're not good at analyzing. If you're good at

00:14:19.440 analyzing, you say, wait a minute, this is a pandemic. You don't make your risk management

00:14:23.900 decisions the same as business as normal. A whole different standard. So people are seeing completely

00:14:31.860 different things as facts because if you have no training in analytics, you think you're seeing

00:14:38.480 things that mean something. If you're highly trained in analytics, you know that you're not.

00:14:44.060 Does that mean that the people who are high in analytics are right? In the comments,

00:14:52.060 I'm going to make you say it out loud so I don't have to say it. In the comments, did I just tell

00:14:58.140 you that the people who are good at analytics are getting all the right answers? Did I just say that?

00:15:05.880 Did you hear that? Nope. Nothing like that. Nothing like that. See, this is another way that

00:15:13.880 I confuse people. Because I make an argument, which I think is useful, and then it's easy to jump to the

00:15:22.140 conclusion that I've taken it somewhere I didn't. This is all I'm saying. If I want to tell you who's

00:15:28.680 right, that would be a different conversation. But it has nothing to do with the fact that some

00:15:33.880 people are trained and some are not. Let me give you the perfect example. I consider myself highly

00:15:40.080 trained in analytics. I've got a degree in economics. I've got an MBA. Many years of decision making with

00:15:48.360 lack of data and complex situations over long periods of time, which I do in my Dilbert job as well as

00:15:55.280 years of corporate experience. Now, does all of that analytical ability make me right?

00:16:05.480 Sometimes. But even I don't know when I'm wrong, right? So don't go overboard that somebody's got

00:16:12.240 the right training who's always right. Because here's the problem. I was going into this whole

00:16:19.620 pandemic situation saying, all right, let's look at all the information and discount the bad stuff and

00:16:25.700 prioritize the good stuff. And I was really looking at it like this big complicated thing that needed to

00:16:31.380 be understood as a whole. Other people who may not have had the experience of analytics said this.

00:16:39.700 Wait a minute. Wait a minute. It's from the government? Well, that's not good. Wait a minute. It's from

00:16:47.980 big pharma? They're going to say anything for money. Okay, who's right? The really, really smart people

00:16:56.980 who are good at analytics, looking at all the data, looking at all the randomized controlled trials,

00:17:04.340 looking at all the experience, everything that says, CNN says, everything on Fox News, looking at

00:17:10.680 both sides, you're digging down, you're doing your own research. Damn it. You're doing your own

00:17:16.420 research and you're good at it. You're good at it. So you get the right answer, right? I don't know.

00:17:25.800 Peace me. I guess we'll all find out. You're gone. You're gone. Sorry, wander this world.

00:17:34.340 There's something that I can't stand, and it's you. Hide this user. Goodbye. All right.

00:17:45.840 Now, I'm not saying anything that I haven't said before in different ways. But I am saying

00:17:51.600 it more forcefully because I could tell that the message wasn't getting through and I was

00:17:55.680 confusing people, etc. How pissed off am I going to be if it turns out that the people who didn't

00:18:05.760 do any analysis at all and just said, it's from the government? It's from Pfizer? They'll sell you

00:18:12.900 anything for money. What if it turns out they're just totally right? Because I'm not going to rule

00:18:21.340 that out. Now, I don't think it's right. And I'll tell you some, you know, I'll give you my

00:18:27.820 reasons. But I will tell you that my thinking has evolved as information has changed. Now,

00:18:36.360 if you ask me which way has the information changed, I would say it is closer to the people

00:18:43.200 who didn't do any analysis at all and just said, it's from the government? It's from big pharma?

00:18:50.480 I think we're done here.

00:18:53.840 Now, by the way, this is sort of a related aside. I've told you before that while my personal feelings

00:19:03.400 are left of Bernie in terms of goals, you know, he has impractical ways to get there. And I think

00:19:08.640 Republicans are more practical. So I like that part about him. But the other thing I like about

00:19:13.440 sort of the conservative mindset is it really does get to the point faster. It's like, came from the

00:19:22.060 government? Nope. Want to raise my taxes? No, thank you. Want to limit my freedom? We're done here.

00:19:28.680 And the thing that's agonizingly annoying about that is how often it's right. Right? It just annoys the

00:19:40.080 piss out of me when that point of view just continually, you know, hits a high percentage

00:19:46.660 of rightness. Not all the time. I mean, I think it can create a blind spot. It can definitely create

00:19:52.880 a blind spot. You know, and so maybe 80% you get the right answer. But that 20% is pretty dangerous.

00:19:59.580 So, you know, don't get too cocky. Don't get cocky. Don't get cocky if you're right 80% of the

00:20:05.700 time. That's not good enough. All right. So this is my opinion about why people are seeing different

00:20:11.480 things. Again, does not mean that I'm right and you're wrong. All right. We're going to get back to

00:20:21.380 some related stuff that's a lot of fun here in a minute. How would you like a persuasion lesson

00:20:29.660 so powerful that I think it will get this video banned? Are you ready for that? Now, here's some

00:20:40.260 context. The people on Locals are getting a larger set of instructions that they will assemble on their

00:20:50.020 own to pair with what I'm going to teach you now. Short of that context, you won't be able to use this

00:20:58.040 for much, but you're going to find it very interesting and it is useful. It just won't be

00:21:02.840 useful for maybe something specific. But this is big. And when you ask me, let me tell you in advance,

00:21:12.220 when you tell me where's the book where I can learn more doesn't exist. Where's the video where I can

00:21:17.860 learn more doesn't exist? You can only learn this from another hypnotist who tells you in person

00:21:22.960 there's something so powerful that they shouldn't be told to the public, but I'm going to take a

00:21:28.740 chance to see what happens. I guess I felt, I think I woke up wanting to cause trouble today.

00:21:36.460 All right. Now, like I said, this is part of a larger body of persuasion. So if you hadn't done some

00:21:49.460 priming things, such as making yourself credible, creating the assumption that you can do what you say,

00:21:57.360 things like that. If you haven't primed things, you haven't selected the right person, there's a whole bunch

00:22:03.520 of other stuff you have to do. But this is a key concept. You won't see this anywhere else.

00:22:11.780 Suppose you wanted to get control of somebody's body so that you could suggest something and they

00:22:17.660 would actually feel it. This is how you do it. And again, you'll never see this written down.

00:22:26.500 You start with a suggestion. And I won't be hypnotizing you, but some of you are going to feel

00:22:32.420 this, okay? So there's no intention to hypnotize anybody while you're here. But because there are so

00:22:39.280 many of you, and we're all different, some of you might actually feel this. If you're uncomfortable

00:22:45.260 with that, you should skip this part. Okay? So that's your full warning, is that you might actually

00:22:51.640 feel something in your body. It's not intentional. But somebody out there would feel it. If you don't like

00:22:57.580 that, you should check out now. All right. Here's the part nobody teaches you. I call it the magic

00:23:04.700 trick. That's just my own word for it. It's not really magic. But if you make a suggestion about

00:23:10.240 somebody's smaller muscle groups, smaller muscle groups, they're going to say to themselves,

00:23:17.880 is that really happening? And you're going to give them some doubt. Maybe yes. So for example,

00:23:26.820 a hypnotist might say to you, you're going to start blinking more rapidly than normal. Not much,

00:23:35.000 just a little bit. And you might not even notice it at first. But as you start to blink more rapidly

00:23:41.420 over time, you will notice it. Now, that's the magic trick. Because if you talk about somebody

00:23:49.080 blinking or yawning, or anything that gets in their mind, there are some things that happen

00:23:55.100 almost automatically. Right? If I told you, don't think of an elephant, you're going to think of an

00:23:59.900 elephant. It's just an automatic response. If you tell somebody to think about their blinking,

00:24:04.640 or they're, I don't know, that they need to swallow, these are things you were going to do

00:24:12.100 anyway. You were going to do it anyway. So that's the trick. I'm going to suggest that something's

00:24:19.040 going to happen that was going to happen anyway. You were going to blink. But do you know if you're

00:24:25.020 blinking 10% faster than you used to be? Could you tell? Because you weren't really tracking it before,

00:24:30.860 right? So if I tell you that I notice that you're blinking 10% faster, are you going to believe me?

00:24:39.420 Probably not. Does it matter? Not yet. Doesn't matter. I'm only trying to get you to maybe,

00:24:47.320 maybe, maybe it is. Now, you could do this with any of your minor muscles. I could tell you that your

00:24:57.240 hand at rest is going to feel an energy, and it's going to go to the smallest part of your hand

00:25:02.540 first. Probably your pinky. About 20% of the people who hear that sentence will feel a twitch

00:25:09.800 in their pinky. That's roughly how many people are that susceptible to that level of suggestion.

00:25:17.080 If you're not one of them, and you're in the other 80%, I'm going to tell you that I thought I saw it 0.99

00:25:22.700 move. Looks like it's starting to move. It's very slight. You might not even feel it yourself.

00:25:28.420 But as it moves, next part of the trick, I'm going to make you think past the sail.

00:25:34.620 I'm going to talk about what it feels like after it moves. I'm not going to deal with the fact that

00:25:40.420 it might not move. Never even a possibility. I'll just tell you what's going to happen after it moves

00:25:46.420 slightly. After it moves slightly, you might feel it move a little bit more. And a little bit more.

00:25:52.700 And you build on it. So whatever you can get them to think is happening, maybe,

00:25:57.620 you can nudge them into thinking, probably. And then you can nudge them further into making it

00:26:03.420 actually happen. So that's when confirmation bias kicks in, and it gets stronger as you, the

00:26:10.380 persuader, continue to call it out. There it is. There you are. You are blinking more heavily than the

00:26:17.780 last time. I can see your pinky is starting to twitch. Now it's twitching more. That twitching

00:26:22.500 might spread to your other fingers. Now, none of this works unless you've established some kind

00:26:30.340 of trust, which is a separate lesson. So just know that if the person you're working with doesn't

00:26:35.280 trust you, none of this is going to happen. Right? They're just all the walls be up. So it's

00:26:40.660 somebody who wants to experience this, generally speaking, or at least doesn't have a specific

00:26:45.940 limitation to it. Doesn't have an objection to it. Once you have gotten somebody into confirmation

00:26:53.840 bias, that the thing you're saying is causing their body to move, it will. And you have unlocked

00:27:02.700 their brain. And the things you say will go directly into their body and start expressing themselves.

00:27:10.100 Now, if you've never seen this, and if you haven't been a hypnotist, you probably haven't,

00:27:17.580 you don't really believe it. But you don't need to be under hypnosis for any of this to work.

00:27:25.940 Right? You can get there with other things. Doesn't necessarily have to be blinking or pinkies,

00:27:32.240 just any minor muscle, any physical sensation, anything that you want to start small and build

00:27:39.780 on. But I would also say you could generalize this concept to persuasion in general. Right?

00:27:47.120 Take this and generalize it to non-physical things, just changing somebody's mind, let's say.

00:27:52.540 You could start with a suggestion. You could give somebody anecdotes. Give them anecdotes that

00:28:00.360 make them say, well, I'm not really convinced by an anecdote, but maybe, maybe. So you could move

00:28:09.100 from a suggestion to a maybe just with some anecdotes. There are always some anecdotes for

00:28:14.120 everything. Then you call it out. You say, there it is, there it is, there it is again.

00:28:20.080 You see it, I see it, everybody sees it. Oh my God, there's three of them. Look at that database.

00:28:26.040 Look at that database. Next thing you know, if they trust you, again, that's where the trust

00:28:32.080 comes in. If they think you're on their side, and it helps to be on their side, confirmation

00:28:38.340 bias kicks in, and you have unlocked their brain. And you can do anything with it, if you know how.

00:28:50.440 Now, when I tell you that this might be banned on YouTube, that's actually serious. I don't know

00:28:58.920 that for sure, but I've seen some things to suggest that the deep, let's say, hypnosis techniques

00:29:08.120 are being banned on social media. I don't know it, but it looks that way. And I do have some direct

00:29:17.780 belief in that, some direct evidence of that, which I won't tell you about. All right.

00:29:26.880 I have a new mascot called Anomaly on Twitter. He's silly and entertaining and funny, and he

00:29:34.740 talks about me a lot. And so I've deemed him my mascot. And if you see him, thank him for

00:29:41.780 all he does for me, because I find him very entertaining and colorful. Jeff Pilkington tweeted

00:29:51.060 today, showing side-by-side images of the top stories on CNN and Fox News. And both of

00:29:58.620 them are disgusting. They're disgusting in their propaganda, let's say, overtness. So over

00:30:07.200 on CNN, it's a COVID death scare that's just so blatantly propaganda-ish. I'll talk about

00:30:14.080 it in a minute. And then you look at Fox News, and it's all about Jussie Smollett and race

00:30:20.080 hoaxes. So those are the two things that those networks decided your brain needs to spend more

00:30:25.600 time on.

00:30:26.040 Now, of course, the Jussie Smollett trial and even the conclusion were sort of semi-ignored

00:30:36.200 by news on the left. So there are a lot of people who just won't even know what the result was.

00:30:43.340 But on the right, it's just, you know, wall-to-wall coverage. And likewise, on the right, there's less

00:30:48.580 COVID, bad news, and on the left, there's plenty of it. And so I was asking today, what would happen

00:30:54.440 to your brain if you only consumed propaganda from one side? It doesn't matter which side.

00:31:02.520 But if you're only consuming it from one side, what's that do to your brain? Because here's

00:31:07.620 what I think it's doing. And I tweeted this. I said, if something happened to your brain that

00:31:12.660 removed a critical function, you'd call that brain damage. But the fake news has removed your

00:31:19.020 ability to effectively cope with reality. And we call that being informed. It's actually

00:31:25.580 brain damage. You are being essentially brainwashed into being blind to context.

00:31:37.220 Imagine if you got hit in the head with a rock, and you could understand everything that's happening

00:31:42.180 at the moment, but you couldn't see any context anymore. You didn't know how everything you're

00:31:46.700 doing fit into the bigger picture. That's what the fake news is doing to us. They're making

00:31:52.620 you blind to context, just like you've been hitting the head with a rock. Your brain is

00:31:57.500 actually damaged. It doesn't do what brains are supposed to do, which is automatically look

00:32:02.860 for context. Pretty much automatically, right? It takes away your pattern recognition, because

00:32:10.180 it gives you a fake pattern. Your normal ability to recognize patterns is being short-circuited

00:32:18.100 by somebody feeding you a pattern that's not going to happen on its own. That's brain damage.

00:32:25.220 If you want to give your brain a little checkup, there's an app called Ground App. So on Twitter,

00:32:30.820 you can find it at ground underscore app, and you can just run your Twitter name through it,

00:32:38.420 and it will tell you if you're consuming too much on one side, I think. It will also tell you

00:32:45.700 which news is covering which stories. So that'll help you a little bit with your brain damage.

00:32:52.340 Speaking of CNN and their

00:32:53.620 rainwashing about the

00:32:57.380 COVID stuff, there's a story there by Miguel Marquez and Holly Ann on CNN.

00:33:02.500 And I can't tell if it's an opinion piece or news.

00:33:05.940 Because if you do a news piece, and all it is is an anecdote of one, you know, one situation,

00:33:14.740 is that news? Because it's out of context, right? Is that news or is that persuasion?

00:33:20.660 Is that opinion? I mean, I look at this, and I don't even know if it's supposed to be news.

00:33:26.900 We're so far away from having honest news that when I look at it, I go, I'm not even sure what

00:33:32.020 the intention was. Was the intention to be news? Anyway, the story is about this Michigan hospital.

00:33:39.940 And I know your opinions, but let me get to the part where you're going to like, okay?

00:33:44.740 We'll start with the part you don't like.

00:33:46.100 Look, this is what one Michigan hospital says. Since January, this is a nurse there, I think,

00:33:53.220 we've had about 289 deaths. And she says 75% are unvaccinated.

00:34:01.300 And the very few vaccinated people were people who didn't get the booster. They were more than six

00:34:06.300 months past. So she said out of 289 COVID deaths, they've not had one person who had the booster

00:34:16.460 shot who died. So that's all you need to know, right? Everything you need to know. Are we satisfied?

00:34:25.580 All the context is there. We're good to go. All right, there are lots of problems with this. We'll get

00:34:32.380 to them. Then she goes on. We're seeing a lot of younger people. Oh, here we go. Here we go.

00:34:38.780 And I think, and I think that is a bit challenging, said Selden, a 20-year nursing veteran. She recalls

00:34:45.660 helping the family of a young adult to say goodbye to their loved one. Quote, it was an awful night,

00:34:51.560 she said. That was one of the days I went home and just cried. What is left out of the story?

00:34:58.300 All right, let's say the story is all true. What's left out? Here's what's left out of the

00:35:06.300 story about the young person who died, their weight, their weight. That really, really matters.

00:35:15.580 I'm sorry. I'm not, I'm kind of done ignoring that. Not that I ever did ignore it. But don't take

00:35:24.220 anything else that they say as honest. If you leave out the weight of the young person that she

00:35:30.700 saw die. Now, it could have been not overweight, which I would like to know, because that would

00:35:36.140 have actually helped their side of the story. But if it was somebody who was obese, it's important.

00:35:42.140 It's no less a tragedy, right? We're not, we're not going to dunk on somebody who died. But it's

00:35:48.220 important. And it's left out. Because it doesn't kind of fit the narrative, right?

00:35:54.700 Here's what's also not mentioned, before you say it to me a hundred times. How many people

00:36:02.140 does she know of that is strongly suspected, because it's hard to know, how many people in

00:36:07.980 the last year does she know of that they suspect died from the vaccination itself?

00:36:13.660 What do you think? Because wouldn't this story be a lot better for their side? Let's say they

00:36:25.500 wanted to promote this point of view that you should get vaccinated, which is apparently what

00:36:29.580 this story is about, trying to convince you to get vaccinated. How do you write this story honestly,

00:36:36.140 and never talk about whether it's zero? Because it could be zero. I wouldn't be surprised.

00:36:42.860 Would you be surprised if it was zero, that not a single death was attributed to the vaccination

00:36:51.980 in this one hospital? It could be zero in one hospital, because remember, there's only 289 people

00:36:58.460 who died of COVID. That's not really a lot. And if you, even if you consider that the vaccinations were

00:37:05.180 seriously dangerous, compared to any other vaccination in the past, I don't know that you'd see even one

00:37:11.900 and a 289. What does your sort of statistical common sense tell you? Even if the, even if a lot of

00:37:22.140 people were dying from COVID shots, even if that were true, which I don't have evidence of that. But

00:37:29.260 even if that were true, would you expect that you would have seen one out of 289 people who would,

00:37:36.140 you know, in the context of 289 people dying? That gives you a sizing of the hospital volume,

00:37:41.900 I guess. That's all it does. Yeah, it should be about zero. But shouldn't they mention that?

00:37:49.820 Because I feel like maybe it wasn't zero, because it was unmentioned. Because how much more powerful would

00:37:55.420 that make their case? Imagine if you saw this story, and then she said, boom, drop the mic, zero 1.00

00:38:02.460 people with vaccination problems. Well, maybe it's because it's not true. Maybe they're, maybe they've

00:38:09.820 had multiple that they suspect. What do you think? I feel like the most important part of the story was

00:38:17.100 left out. Which is, we know the benefits, you just told us. Well, tell us about the costs. Tell us

00:38:24.940 about the costs. Yeah. And, and Shecky is just saying, none of it happened. Maybe the whole story

00:38:30.620 is bullshit. Can't rule that out either. All right, well, that's clearly a bunch of fake news.

00:38:38.380 But here's the question I have for you. A lot of, I see a lot of people on social media who say the

00:38:48.620 virus is not killing anyone. It's like a mass hysteria. That people are just dying of other

00:38:54.300 causes, and it's being attributed to the virus. And, and then also people telling me that there are

00:39:00.780 so many people, you know, getting hurt by the jab, that any medical professional working in the

00:39:07.260 hospital would see it by now. So why aren't we hearing about it? Why is it that, as far as I

00:39:13.400 know, do me a fact check on this. Do me a fact check. As far as I can tell, 100% of the people

00:39:21.060 who actually work on the front line think that coronavirus is real and terrible, and that they

00:39:30.080 don't, and we're not hearing anything about vaccinations killing people. So the people who are

00:39:34.960 closest to reality, the front line medical people, are absolutely certain that COVID is a horrible

00:39:41.060 thing. Pretty much all of them, right? Have you seen a, have you seen an exception? So that doesn't

00:39:49.280 mean that tells you for sure, but I wouldn't ignore that, the people who are closest to it. All right,

00:39:55.760 here's some things that are changing my thinking on boosters. Would you like me to tell you that

00:40:03.220 I'm less inclined to get a booster? Here's my thinking. Now, when early in the pandemic,

00:40:14.360 my thinking was, the last thing I'm going to do is be first in line for a vaccination that's been,

00:40:21.140 you know, only tested as much as it's been tested, right? So I told you this up front,

00:40:26.420 that I'm going to hide, you know, socially distance for at least six months. And if people are not

00:40:33.960 dropping like flies, then I will look at all my, you know, my comorbidities, because I have asthma,

00:40:42.180 and I'm a certain age, right? So I looked at my age, I looked at my asthma, and medical science was

00:40:48.140 saying, yeah, you're in the high risk group. I said to myself, but you know what else is high risk?

00:40:52.460 risk the shot itself. But I don't know enough about either of those risks, right? I don't really

00:41:01.260 know my personal risk. There's no way to know, really. And I don't know, really, if the shot is

00:41:06.580 going to be bad for me personally, or even bad for people personally. I don't know. So I had to guess.

00:41:15.080 And one of the factors was travel and access to things. And part of it was patriotic. You know,

00:41:20.880 I thought, well, if, you know, if I can sacrifice my health, then it helps the country somehow

00:41:25.820 do my part, right? So there were a lot of considerations. And so I thought to myself,

00:41:31.640 two vaccinations, that's what they promised us. Maybe this is all we need. I signed up.

00:41:38.520 All right. Now, if you tell me I did the analysis wrong, I tell you, I just told you I guessed.

00:41:46.060 I just told you I guessed. So if you tell me I'm wrong, don't tell me I'm stupid. I just told you I

00:41:55.380 guessed, because there is not the right data. And if you think you're 100% certain in your decision,

00:42:01.080 well, I think that's hard to justify. But you may have guessed right. I mean, if your guess was purely

00:42:08.360 based on follow the money, government bad, big firm bad, you know, it's all bad, you might be right.

00:42:17.500 I swear to God, I guessed, because there's no other way to do it, right? I didn't have another option.

00:42:23.240 But things have changed. Here are the things we've learned. Number one, New York Times had this story,

00:42:28.880 fat cells apparently store the COVID and make it worse somehow. So the more fat cells you have,

00:42:35.040 the more danger. So now we have really very confirming evidence as time goes by that if

00:42:41.260 you're not overweight, you probably don't have much of a problem. I'm not overweight.

00:42:45.520 So does that change my calculation? Yes. Yes. That's new information. We suspected

00:42:52.080 that weight had a big difference. But now I'd say it's confirmed. So that's different.

00:42:58.980 We know vitamin D has a big correlation. I do everything I can to keep my vitamin D up.

00:43:03.600 It's probably better than most. Age is still a factor, but I'm sort of on the cusp age-wise.

00:43:11.060 We're now learning that asthma might not be bad for you. In fact, it might be good in terms of

00:43:16.340 protecting you. So the unambiguous information that asthma was bad for your risk has reversed

00:43:23.540 to at least we're not sure, but some say it might be good, some say it might be bad.

00:43:28.540 So that's a complete new information for me. And one of the biggest variables was my comorbidity,

00:43:35.160 which might not even be a factor. And then today I read, this is a New Zealand thing,

00:43:40.280 they're claiming that a vegetarian diet makes you 75% less odds of getting the coronavirus.

00:43:46.920 75%. I doubt that. But I'm a pescatarian, mostly vegetarian, so I figure, well, that's to my

00:43:55.960 benefit too. Then the other thing that's changed is the therapeutics, obviously. When I got the

00:44:02.920 vaccination, the therapeutics were just sort of maybe starting to come online. But I'd say in the

00:44:11.600 next six months, we're going to have some really good shit and stuff you haven't even heard about

00:44:15.680 yet. I think there's probably some stuff coming that will just be amazing. And maybe in the next

00:44:22.300 year. So put it all together. I would say that I was leaning 80-20 toward the booster shot.

00:44:33.620 Maybe a month ago. I probably was 80-20. Based on new information, new information, I'm going to

00:44:44.400 revise that to, today I would be 60% against, 40% for. Now, I think that it's likely to change before I

00:44:57.100 have to make any final decisions. And maybe if there's some mandates that just piss me off and I just want

00:45:02.440 to get past them, I might do something. But when you see that you've got a better therapeutics,

00:45:10.020 you've got sketchy behavior by the vaccine companies, you know, 75 years before we see their

00:45:14.560 numbers. Apparently, at least suggestions that they have not been forthcoming. A lot of stuff. Follow the

00:45:23.360 money, obviously. So you've got that going on. You've got, anyway. Oh, yeah. And then fast development.

00:45:34.000 And then the fact that they overpromised. As soon as you start hearing that the booster is not the

00:45:38.940 only booster, that's where you start to get, you know, way beyond my credibility level at that point.

00:45:48.380 All right. So that's where I'm at. But I could change that decision if data changes or even if it

00:45:56.620 doesn't, really. All right. Trump was really mad at Benjamin Netanyahu. I saw an Axios report that

00:46:06.660 he was mad because Netanyahu congratulated Biden, you know, earlier than a lot of countries. And so Trump

00:46:14.860 said of the former prime minister, F him. But he used the actual word. He says he likes him

00:46:22.880 personally, but he hates disloyalty. That's one of Trump's strengths, I think. And I've told you this

00:46:30.680 before. He punishes the disloyal pretty much immediately. And he praises the loyal and makes

00:46:38.180 the biggest difference between being loyal and disloyal to him. It's a good technique. I've seen

00:46:43.120 other people use it. And I don't know why anybody doesn't use it. You should have the biggest

00:46:47.800 difference between making you happy and making you unhappy. You want to increase that gap. He does

00:46:53.400 it really well. Meanwhile, there's another enormous capture of fentanyl coming across the border, which

00:47:00.240 we know the precursors originate in China. And it's part of the Chinese, obviously, ongoing operation to

00:47:08.160 kill Americans by the tens of thousands per year. But I realized recently, and I did a little research

00:47:13.920 to confirm this, that China has used their weapon of mass destruction, fentanyl. And it's definitely 0.94

00:47:21.440 a weapon of mass destruction the way they're using it. I get that it has medical uses, and they're

00:47:26.700 valuable, and you don't want to lose that. But China does use it as a weapon of mass destruction. 0.69

00:47:34.280 And by my estimate, the total Americans killed is more than all the Japanese citizens killed

00:47:43.700 in two nuclear bomb attacks Hiroshima and Nagasaki put together. If you added the only two nuclear

00:47:52.120 attacks in the world, our biggest weapons of mass destruction uses, they're smaller, smaller

00:48:00.360 than what we're already experiencing from just fentanyl from China. And yes, it's all intentional.

00:48:17.640 And so here's the question that I've got now. So here are the things we know about the coronavirus.

00:48:22.840 We know it affects fat people, and we know that the West, especially America, most adults are overweight.

00:48:30.680 China, not so much. I googled it just to make sure I knew this. But sure enough, there's some science 0.56

00:48:36.440 showing that green tea might be very good for keeping your health in the face of the coronavirus.

00:48:44.040 And you put that together with the fact that China had the best outcome of any of the countries, even

00:48:58.200 though they birthed the virus. The virus started in China, and they had the least problem with it. And

00:49:07.480 Asia in general didn't have any bad countries, did they? Name an Asian country. Name an Asian country

00:49:15.480 that really had a tough time with coronavirus.

00:49:17.640 You can't. You can't. Now, the question is, was this virus weaponized or, wait for it, wait for it,

00:49:28.600 I've got to prime you? Was the virus weaponized or westernized?

00:49:37.160 Because if it burrows into fat and green tea knocks it out,

00:49:43.480 I got questions. I got questions. You know what I mean? I got questions.

00:49:52.280 On a different topic, a Rasmussen poll asked, how important is it to prevent cheating in elections?

00:49:58.040 90%. 90% said that's very important, or somewhat important, to prevent cheating in elections. So

00:50:06.040 that's good. Almost everybody thinks that's good. And then Rasmussen asked, is requiring voter ID

00:50:13.960 a reasonable measure to protect the integrity of the elections? Well, it turns out that whether

00:50:19.080 you're white or black, the answer is about the same, according to the poll. And altogether,

00:50:25.400 all people voting as one in this great melting pot of a country, 75% of them say that requiring voter ID

00:50:34.760 is a reasonable measure. 75% think voter ID is a reasonable measure. Subtract 75 from 100. 25%

00:50:47.560 don't think requiring voter ID is a reasonable measure. And then Rasmussen asked, did Joe Biden

00:51:02.040 win the 2020 election fairly? 53% of the country said yes. Obviously, it breaks down by political parties

00:51:10.600 and stuff. But 47% of the country said no or they're not sure. Not sure is bad enough that I threw it in

00:51:19.960 with no. 47%. 47% of the country isn't sure we even live in a republic with a democratic election

00:51:34.680 process. They're not even sure they live in a country that is what it advertises. Are they wrong?

00:51:41.000 I don't know. How would we know? Because the system is unauditable. If you have this many people who

00:51:49.640 aren't sure if they even voted, I mean, I'm paraphrasing here. That's not what they say. But

00:51:55.480 you have to fix that. You have to fix that. Government. If Trump ran on that alone,

00:52:05.080 it would be a landslide. If he just went in and said, yeah, yeah, we'll talk about all the other

00:52:09.400 stuff. You know how I feel about it. But we have to have elections that can be audited.

00:52:14.360 We're just going to fix that. Just give me that. Just elect me for another term. I'll fix your damn 1.00

00:52:20.920 election system so they can be audited all the way through and instantly. That's all I'm going to give

00:52:26.760 you. Everything else is going to come through the election system. I will be the least monarch of

00:52:33.560 anybody who ever was a leader. Because I'm going to put you in power in a way you've never been in

00:52:39.800 power before. The power to know you actually fucking voted. And it got counted. If Trump

00:52:47.000 gives me that, I'm all in. I'm all in. I don't think he will, by the way. I think he'll just

00:52:52.760 bitch about the last election and it won't be effective. But if he gives me, I'm not going to 0.98

00:52:57.880 talk about the past. Let's talk about the future. If he gives me that, all in. All in.

00:53:06.760 Because like I've said, I like presidents who fix like a few big problems and then leave.

00:53:12.360 Because maybe the next president's better for whatever problems are left.

00:53:18.280 Here's a hypothesis I'm working on that the younger you are, the fewer hoaxes you've seen.

00:53:22.760 Does that seem fair? The younger you are, the fewer hoaxes you've seen. And so what would

00:53:30.440 be the natural impact of that? You would be less skeptical. You'd be more gullible, right? Not

00:53:41.240 because you're dumb. No. Not because you're uneducated. Young people are actually more educated

00:53:46.680 than their seniors. So nothing wrong with you. Just young. You should, theoretically,

00:53:55.880 be more trusting of things just because you haven't seen as many tricks as people like me have seen.

00:54:02.360 So how does that break down? The people who are sure about the election being fair.

00:54:08.360 If you were between 18 and 39, so these are the youngest that were asked, 61% of the people said the

00:54:17.240 election was fair. You get a little older, 40 to 64, and only 53% thought it was fair. So from that age

00:54:28.200 group, it drops from 61% thought it was good to 53%. How about if you keep going?

00:54:36.200 65 and older, only 43% trusted the election. Once you get to a certain age, your ability to trust the

00:54:46.520 government just falls off a table. Now, who's right? I don't know. On any given issue,

00:54:55.880 maybe the young people are more right. Maybe the experienced people are more right. You know,

00:55:02.200 it depends on the issue. But in general, if you're young, I would ask you to just consider

00:55:10.280 that people who've been around longer have seen more bullshit than you have and probably can spot

00:55:15.000 it faster. Probably. Not all of us. Like I said, it takes training. If you don't have training,

00:55:21.160 you're probably not going to be good at it. But once you reach a certain age, you can sniff

00:55:25.640 things out a little faster. And maybe you're over-skeptical. I mean, that could be a possibility,

00:55:30.120 too. But it's a big difference. All right.

00:55:38.680 That is the end of my prepared comments. I think I delivered on the best live stream you've

00:55:46.440 ever seen in your entire life. I think that's just an easy claim. Totally objectively true.

00:55:53.240 There's no subjectivity. Oops, one more has to go. Sorry, I break kids legs. That comment gets

00:56:00.840 you banned. Scott finally wakes up. He's waking up. Oh, wait, maybe that's just being sarcastic.

00:56:10.360 Finally wakes up every morning. Well, I can't tell if you're actually saying that or if you're

00:56:15.480 being joking about other people saying it. So I will spare you because I'm not sure if that was

00:56:22.120 the comment that I don't like. Yeah, I might have been. Was it tingly?

00:56:33.080 Snap you out of your hypnosis? I will do.

00:56:39.080 The one thing you need to know is that you're always free to wake up from your own hypnosis.

00:56:44.280 Doesn't matter who hypnotizes you. You have the power.

00:56:50.600 Are Fridays any big deal for you? Do you care about weekends? Only as it affects other family members,

00:56:57.880 which in turn affects me. But I work every day, so there's no difference when I wake up.

00:57:03.000 So how do we do this persuasion? And why are you gates of Trump not using it to take over the world?

00:57:15.880 Well, Trump used it to take over the presidency. And there's a pretty good chance he's going to do it

00:57:21.320 a second time. So I would say that people are using it. You know, I've told you this before,

00:57:26.280 but it's hard to describe. My filter on the world is I see a war of wizards, basically. The persuaders

00:57:36.920 who know how to do it at a commercial, professional level. And, you know, they're on different teams and

00:57:43.080 they're working toward different topics and stuff. But to me, it looks like a war of wizards that is

00:57:48.680 completely invisible to the muggles. More true Hollywood stories you want? 1.00

00:57:59.720 Oh, a predictions micro lesson. All right, I'll do that. Over on Locals, I do micro lessons, little

00:58:06.520 two to four minute lessons. I've got over 200 of them now. And each of them is designed to give you a

00:58:12.680 life skill, like an actual practical, real thing that makes a difference, but in two minutes.

00:58:19.080 So I was asked to do one on making predictions, which I can do. All right.

00:58:28.200 Don't agree we oldsters sense hoaxes more reliably. Well, it's definitely true that seniors are 1.00

00:58:36.200 conned more easily. That's true. But when they're looking at politics,

00:58:43.320 I think they see patterns better. When they look at an individual con, like a con person, you know,

00:58:49.800 tries to get some money from them, that might be the first time they've ever seen one.

00:58:55.080 So it's not like most people have a lifetime of experience with like in-person cons,

00:59:01.080 but they've been watching the news for a long time.

00:59:03.560 How do we become a wizard? You should Google the phrase persuasion reading list.

00:59:16.760 You'll see a bunch of books on persuasion. But read Winn Bigley, my book to start.

00:59:23.960 Can you name drop a few of those wizards? Oh, I can't. I can't. Maybe I can think of a few. I mean,

00:59:32.120 obviously Trump would be chief among them.

00:59:43.480 The University of Utah fusion scam. Well, if all you do is say that every fusion breakthrough is fake,

00:59:50.280 you so far would have been right 100% of the time. So that's a good example of how a senior would be

00:59:58.200 right all the time. But here's the problem. I don't know that it'll be right in five years,

01:00:02.840 because the fusion stuff finally looks real. It's been reduced to an engineering problem, I'm told,

01:00:10.920 which means it's solvable. All right. I'm not up to date on Assange. I want to catch up on that

01:00:19.560 before I have an opinion. But I will talk about that. Is Joe a wizard? No. Obama was. Bill Clinton was.

01:00:26.520 Those are some of them. AOC, for sure. But there are also persuaders behind the curtain that

01:00:35.880 will remain behind the curtain. All right. That's all for now. I'll talk to you later. Bye on YouTube.

Real Coffee with Scott Adams - December 10, 2021

Episode 1588 Scott Adams： Today I Will Teach you a Persuasion Trick So Powerful This Video Will Probably Be Banned

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