Episode 1610 Scott Adams： I Tell You How the Massive False Memories of the Pandemic Have Already Formed
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Summary
It's the new year, and it's time to kick off the new decade with a bang. It's the perfect time to celebrate the end of the year and the start of the new one, and I'm here to bring you the best thing that happened to you in 2019 so far.
Transcript
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Good morning everybody and welcome to the best thing that happened to you in 2022 so far and
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that's only because I haven't done any additional live streams. Each time I do one that will be the
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new highlight of your year. Audio looks good. I've been hearing some low audio complaints about
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YouTube. I gave it a little boost today. See if it makes a difference. And how would you like to
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kick up the new year into the best possible situation you could ever have? Oh you do.
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And all you need to do that is a cup or mug or a glass, a tank or a chalice, a tiny canteen,
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a jug or flask, a vessel of any kind. And fill it with your favorite beverage. I like coffee.
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And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure, the dopamine, the day, the thing that makes everyone
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feel better. It's better than a vaccination boost. It's better than the Omicron. It's
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better than inflation. It's called the simultaneous sip and watch it do its business. Go.
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I just realized how I should advertise because you know I have to do an advertisement that's like
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dropped into the middle of the content. But I realized when I lifted my cup up
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this could be the reveal. That would be like the sponsor of the show. And that's the only
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time I'd show it. It'd be like, ooh. You'd be like, oh, Ford. Anyway, speaking of Ford,
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one of the Ford executives locally gave some advice on Twitter yesterday. And he said that
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if your dealer sells you a car or orders a car for you, but doesn't lock down the price
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at the time that you order it, then you should cancel your order and, you know, you're dealing
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with a bad dealership. I am in exactly that situation. So I tweeted back, should I cancel
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my Mustang order? Because the Livermore Ford dealership told me I can't negotiate the price
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until the car's on the lot. Which I always suspected was just a way for them to get an extra car on
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the lot. And then they wouldn't care if I bought it or somebody else. Because they can sell 100%
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of that model. It's just hard to get one. So they just did the paperwork, pretended they ordered a
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car for me, I think. I think that's what happened. Yeah, I mean, there's a real order. But the car is
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not really, really for me. It would only be for me, I think, if I paid the non-negotiated sticker
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price. Because that's the estimate they gave me. But they said, oh, yeah, we negotiate when it gets
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here. Well, how much negotiating are they going to do when it gets here? And everybody who walks
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in would buy that car because it would be a popular model. It's hard to get. So I tweeted
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back, you know, should I cancel my Mustang order with Livermore Ford? Now keep in mind, I'm talking
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to a Ford executive in public. And the Ford executive said, yes, you should cancel your order
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and I'll help you find a better dealership. I thought that was the most baller answer I've
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ever seen from an executive. Yeah, you should cancel your order and I'll find you somebody who isn't a
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crook, basically. Basically, that's what he said. I mean, those are my own words. And I thought to
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myself, you know, I was getting ready to be pretty mad at Ford. But that is so transparent.
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First of all, the executive said, watch out for this trick. And then when I said your own company
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is doing that trick to me right now, your company is doing it to me right now. But you know, the
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dealers operate somewhat independently. And as soon as he heard it, he said, yeah, cancel that order.
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I'll help you find an honest dealership within my own company. That is a very baller answer. I give
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him credit for that. All right. Well, we're learning today that Omicron is like beyond dangerous in
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terms of a doctor. I just saw a doctor on CNN's website saying that you could transmit Omicron
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just by taking your mask down for a moment to say something. That's it. Whereas we used to think,
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you know, six feet of distance would protect you pretty well. Basically, it sounds like if
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if one dude with Omicron walks through your party, it's going to be it's going to be a bad week for
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the people who went to that party. Now, yeah, right. I'm not saying it's bad. Or is it? Because
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here's the problem. If you get too many people who have to quarantine at the same time, the economy is
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going to get really slow, really fast. But you know, it's really different. Different about this one.
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So I feel like I feel like I feel like it's entirely possible that we'll have an organic
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two week shutdown of the economy. Now, maybe not the most critical things, but I can easily imagine
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that businesses just won't have enough employees. And so it won't have anything to do with a mandate.
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Businesses will just say, you know, three quarters of our employees have infections
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and they have to stay home. So there's no mandate, but we can't stay open. We just can't serve people
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at this level of staffing. So you might have something like a two week voluntary shutdown of a lot of
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places. Not voluntary because they wouldn't have the staff. But the Omicron passes through so quickly
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that two weeks might get us to herd immunity. Now, I don't want to be the one, believe me,
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I don't want to be the one who says two weeks to flatten the curve.
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But we might have two weeks to flatten the curve. Like this time, it might be real.
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And only because of the rapidity of the spread of Omicron plus being, you know, low danger,
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relatively. All right. I am often criticized for talking too much about the pandemic. And that is
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a correct criticism. However, I give you this one clarification. When I'm talking about the
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pandemic, I'm usually talking about the mental part. Like how do we make decisions? And why do
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we have different decisions? And why do you see one thing? And why don't I see something else?
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And there are some amazing false memories that are being generated right now about what has already
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happened. So when historians go to write the story of the pandemic, which of these two movies are they
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going to write? Are they going to write this movie that says the vaccinations came out. Originally,
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the data made it look like it was a pretty good deal. It was looked like it was stopping transmission
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as well as keeping people healthier. Both of those things. And for the alpha version of the virus,
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it looked like it was effective. But as Delta came in and, you know, it was sort of a sort of broke the
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mold. And as we found that that the vaccinations themselves, unfortunately, somewhat rapidly declined
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in efficacy, the very things that were working before stopped working. So the vaccinations that did
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have initially good data, very good data, very quickly turned to negative data because of Delta
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and because of a fall off of efficacy. Now, that's one of the movies. Don't don't hear that. I said
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that's the true one. OK, because today I'm going to talk about what I've seen or what what I think is true
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and what other people remember to be true. But I thought it would be unproductive to tell you which one is
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true. Because all you would do is argue that mine was the false one. And I would say, no, no,
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somebody else's is the false one. And we wouldn't be able to settle that. But here's what I want to do
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instead. I want to show you how the two movies formed. So it won't be a question of who's right.
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Because I don't think we can settle it. But it will be like a fascinating tour, I hope, of how such a thing
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could happen. Now, here's the first false memory. And I'm dealing with this every day. It's a false memory of what
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I have predicted or said versus what the reality is. And you probably some of you know, I'm there's a
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massive bunch of hallucinations about what I have said, all of it false. Now, I can say that for sure,
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because in this one case, I know my own opinion. And I know what I've said. So I can tell that they're
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hallucinating or they have a false idea, completely false, often opposite of what I think. Now, here's
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how that got formed. So here's the first clue about how illusions get formed. If I talk about a lot of
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stuff about the pandemic, and somebody dips in and finds a little bit of my content, it would be as if
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they were looking through one window of a house. And that's all they knew about the house. So online,
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you hear lots of people who say, I looked into that Scott Adams's house, metaphorically, the pandemic
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conversation. And I looked through that one window, and his whole house is a bathroom.
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And then I'll say, No, that's not true. And they'll say, Yes, it is. I heard it myself.
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I saw it myself. I looked in your damn house, through one window, and there was the bathroom.
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There's nothing else to say here. That's what I saw. Then somebody else will say the opposite,
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because they were looking and they saw the living room or some other room. So a huge amount of the
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hallucinations, and they literally are hallucinations, like actual hallucinations,
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about my opinions are because somebody saw part of it. Now, here's the weirdest part.
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Some people are saying that, Yeah, yeah, yeah, Scott, you may have, you may have mentioned all
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of the topics. But you you kind of focus on one thing, and you don't, let's say you focus on the
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vaccines, whether they work, and you don't talk about, say, the cost of the shutdown. Would you say
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that's true? That I have underestimated, or let's say, underemphasized, whenever I talk about the
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topic, have I underemphasized the social cost of shutting down?
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On locals, I'm seeing a mix, some yeses and some noes. Yes, yes, yes. So a lot of people would say
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that's true. I've underestimated, or underemphasized, not estimated, I've underemphasized the cost of the
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social shutdowns and the mandates. Now, here's my defense to that. You ready? For those of you who
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think I've underemphasized that, here's my defense. Why would I have to tell you any of that?
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We're all on the same page. Literally all of us are living those costs. It's obvious. Do I have to
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tell you that teens don't like Zoom school? You didn't know that until I told you? Or did you
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imagine that everybody knew it but me? Did you imagine that it was obvious to everyone, but because
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I didn't emphasize it as much as you think, that I was the one who didn't know that Zoom school was bad
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for kids? Did you think that? Because if I think that you know it, and obviously you know I know it,
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I'm not going to talk about it a lot, because what would you say about it? I can't estimate it. I don't
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know how big the damage is. I've talked about, you know, the suicides, etc. But, all right. So there's
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obvious reasons why people have false memories of me. Now, here's the interesting part. If either my
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memory of events or my critics' memory of the pandemic events is correct, one of us would be
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triggered into cognitive dissonance. And here, I'm not going to tell you which one it is. I'll just
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tell you, look for the trigger of whoever's wrong. But here's the part part. My critics think that I
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have been proven unambiguously wrong, and the data shows it now clearly. And anybody can look at it.
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You could just Google it. You could see what I said. You could see what's true. And you can see
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I'm wrong. And then I asked for examples. And the examples, almost entirely, are things I didn't say,
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or just crazy stuff. Or people will misinterpret the question, answer the wrong question, etc.
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So that's going on, too. But we don't know who has the cognitive dissonance. But here's,
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I boiled it down to one specific question, to see if I could get some insight on this.
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And the question was, was it ever true that vaccinations stopped the transmission or spread
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of the virus? Right? This seems to be one of the biggest issues that people have with me is that
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they say that I believed or or said, based on my belief, that the vaccinations at one point early on
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stopped the would stop the spread. Now, when somebody says stop the spread, how do you interpret
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that? If somebody said, I think this vaccination will stop the spread? Would you interpret that as
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every single person who's vaccinated could not get the virus and or spread it? Would you ever
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interpret this will give you immunity as 100%? Does anybody just automatically say, well,
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that means everybody? Because you should never do that. So here's another reason that the movies
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diverged. A lot of people hear, this will give you immunity. This will work really well. This will stop the
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spread. And what they hear is, this will 100% be effective. And then they look at the data, and it's not 100%
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effective. Right? It's not 100% effective. So they say, well, this was a lie. Told us it would be
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effective. And now it's not 100% effective. So that's a lie. Whereas other people like me would
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say, you should assume that they didn't mean 100%. Now, it's way less than 100%. So that's, you know,
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a big problem. But Joe Blow is saying that they literally said 100%. So I saw a video compilation
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as part of this research here, if you can call it that on Twitter. And people sent me a video
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compilation of people saying it would 100% stop. And I watched the compilation of all the experts,
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Fauci and the CDC, saying that there would be 100% stopping of the virus. Right? How many of you saw
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that? How many of you saw the compilation video of the experts actually saying something we know not
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to be true, which is 100% it's going to stop the virus? I'm looking at the comments. A lot of people
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saw it. I saw it this morning. It doesn't exist. I saw it this morning. And it doesn't exist.
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So all of you who saw it, no, you didn't. I saw it too. And there's nothing on there that would
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suggest 100%. It is your interpretation of what they meant. My interpretation as a writer, because I
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write myself into this trap all the time. If you're a writer, you are continuously dealing
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with people hearing absolutes in your writing, when you didn't mean an absolute. And the way that you
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didn't mean it is, nobody should think this was an absolute. Suppose I say, guns stop a crime.
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Private gun ownership stops crime. Would you interpret that as it stops all crime? Would
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that be your natural interpretation? Oh, you're saying guns stop all crime? Would you interpret
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it that way? That would be a silly interpretation, right? But with vaccines, we do, I don't know,
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maybe because it's medical, our brains kind of, we're hearing 100% where nobody ever talks like
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that. See what I just did? That was accidental. I just said, nobody ever talks like that.
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So I gave you an absolute, and you should have understood it could never be an absolute, right?
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So the very trap that I said people easily fall into, because it's just easier to talk in absolutes,
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we all do it. So the very thing that you saw with your own eyes, as them saying it's 100%,
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I watched with my own eyes just minutes ago. I didn't see it. I saw people talking the way people
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talk. They talk in absolutes, but you as the audience should of course understand they don't
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mean absolutes. Of course not. Straw man, gaslight. So some of you are going to have some difficulty
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with this topic. There will be some squirming. All right. Then I asked this question to see if I could
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get a percentage. Well, actually, let me give you a little test. Suppose the vaccines came out,
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and here's the only thing you knew about the pharma industry. This isn't true. But suppose,
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just as a mental exercise, suppose you knew that 100% of the FDA approved medicines that came out of
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big pharma worked in the past, different ones. I'm not talking about vaccines, but every kind of
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medicine the FDA had approved, suppose you knew, and again, this is not true. I'm just saying, suppose
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you knew that they all worked, every one of them for decades and decades, they all worked, meaning
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that they worked better than the cost of the side effects. Now, let's say in that context, big pharma
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comes up with some new vaccinations. Every single thing they've ever done has worked. What would you
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think is the likelihood that the new vaccinations would work, even given that they didn't have enough
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time to do a long-term study? What would be your natural guess as to whether it's likely that they
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worked? Pretty high, right? If everything had worked before, even if they had a compressed schedule for
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testing, which they did with the vaccines, you'd think, well, yeah, this is more risky because they
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don't have the long-term effects. But if you look at their track record, it's 100%. So it's a good bet,
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right? Now, say it was the opposite. Let's go extreme opposite. Suppose you knew that 100% of every
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kind of pharmaceutical drug that had ever been created and approved by the FDA was later found to be
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ineffective. And then they, in that context, then somebody comes up with a new drug or a new vaccine.
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What would be your reasonable prediction about whether the new one would work if 100% of the old ones
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didn't work? And, you know, you'd probably say, well, you know, not so good. So I asked this poll
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on Twitter, obviously very unscientific. I said, what percentage of FDA-approved drugs of any kind
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do you believe work in terms of benefit over risk? And I gave people ranges from 0 to 25, 25 to 50,
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to 75, et cetera. And it turns out that your opinions, you being the public who answered this
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poll, are very evenly spread. Surprisingly so. So here are the number of people who answered my poll
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unscientifically, who thought that the total number of FDA-approved drugs that have ever worked
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is below 25% of all the FDA-approved drugs. A quarter of the people who answered, a quarter of the people
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think that fewer than a quarter of the drugs have ever worked. Are they wrong? How would I know?
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How would you know? All right. How many people thought that between 25 and 50% of those drugs
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never worked? Like as high as half of all the drugs. So 28% said that between 25 and 50% of the drugs
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have ever worked. And then, so that's about even, right? 24, 28. And then the number who think it's
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between 50 and 75 is about 31%. And only 18%, this is the smallest number, think that the drugs work
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between 75 and 100% of the time. Now, this explains our two movies. Because would you have a different
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opinion of how likely Big Pharma lied if they were only right 25% of the time or less? But if you
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thought they were right 75% of the time or more? Okay, damn it. That's too good. Damn it.
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I just got linguistically kill-shotted. This is so good, I'm going to tell it. I'll regret this
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forever. But the Craig 777 just gave me a nickname. Claw Adams. Damn you. That's good. That is so good.
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Now, of course, it's based on a hallucination, right? The hallucination is that you believe I was
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pushing vaccines. Now, none of that happened in my movie. But in your movie, where that stuff
00:22:52.880
happened, that is a really good nickname. I've got to give you credit for that. It'll probably ruin
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my whole career. It's that good. And I mean that. I mean that nickname could actually ruin my whole
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rest of my reputation in life. And none of it would be based on anything true. That's how powerful a good
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nickname is. But damn, that's good. Damn. I have to appreciate the technique even if I don't like
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the outcome. All right. So here's the, so if you've got different assumptions about how bad
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big pharma has been in the past, how can you possibly end up with the same assumption about
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whether the vaccines work? So here's the other reason that we've got two movies on one screen.
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If you believe that big pharma almost always sells you fake drugs, you would assume that this next
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one was fake and that they were lying about it, lying about it working, or even lying about them
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being certain it worked. But if you thought that they were right 75 out of 100 times, you'd probably
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think, you know, probably got this one too. So it's not so much that any of you are dumb or smart.
00:24:06.740
You're starting with different assumptions. And how would you ever know which of these assumptions
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is correct? I mean, these are wildly different to imagine that the past drugs that have ever been
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approved, that 75% or more of them worked versus only less than 25%. Those are completely different worlds.
00:24:29.300
So let's see. I'm just, I'm trying to resist blocking a user here who's like right on the edge. You're
00:24:43.560
right on the edge. And I'm just like barely containing a string of profanities that are about to come out
00:24:51.640
in my mouth. But I'm going to do my best. So those are some reasons for the false memories. But I got,
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I had some exchanges with some people online who have a completely different memory of the beginning
00:25:05.620
of the vaccination phase. And I thought to myself, how could we have completely different memories?
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And how would I know if mine is the right one? So I tested it on Twitter. And here's the single
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question that I think a lot of this turns on. My memory of the early rollout is this. Now remember,
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I'm not claiming my memory is the correct one. Right? And you're going to say to me, Scott,
00:25:34.080
why don't you just Google it? And I'm going to tell you why that won't work in a minute.
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So my memory is the following, that when the vaccines first came out, that the early data,
00:25:45.880
the early data, which later changed, that the early data showed that it improved survivability,
00:25:53.380
but also reduced the spread. And then after the Delta came out, and after the,
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and after Omicron came out, that was no longer as true, and maybe so untrue that it's just completely
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true, untrue at this point, about the transmission part. Still true about the survivability according
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to the data. Now, that was my memory. My memory is that there was data. And that when Delta and
00:26:23.360
Omicron, you know, came, it changed. And also the efficacy dropped off. And we couldn't know that
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until the long term it happened. Right? Nobody knew the long term efficacy, because you can't study the
00:26:36.920
long term and the short term. So what I saw was people who were optimistic, but wrong.
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Optimistic, but wrong. But I didn't see a lie, in terms of a direct lie, that there's a specific
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person who told a lie. Now, that was my view of what happened. Now, on Twitter, I found out that
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there's a whole bunch of other people. Okay, Drew, you're going to go away.
00:27:04.660
All right, so all the people on YouTube who are mocking me about boosters, number one, it's not funny.
00:27:12.600
It's not creative. Like, if it were clever, like Claw Adams, I'd at least give you some credit for being
00:27:18.240
clever. But if I can mock you with a funny face, and I don't need to do anything else,
00:27:28.020
then what you're saying is probably pretty stupid. Let's test it. I'm just going to say what you said,
00:27:33.920
but I'll do it with a funny mocking face. And see if you sound stupid using exactly what you said,
00:27:40.420
but with the addition of my funny mocking face. Scott, what are you going to get? The booster?
00:27:47.160
Are you going to get the booster? Are you going to get the booster? How about the booster? How about
00:27:51.920
the booster? Huh? Huh? Has he mentioned the booster yet? Ha ha ha! Are you getting your freedom
00:27:58.760
booster yet? All right. I hope that maybe you could stop saying the same dumbass comment. Message received.
00:28:08.780
Some people got shots and are considering the booster. It's not a fucking point that you're making.
00:28:18.900
So you're boring us. Stop doing it. Okay. Criticisms are allowed. Dumb, boring ones are not.
00:28:29.400
All right. So here's the question. So a lot of people said, no, Scott, you have a complete false
00:28:36.000
memory. And the early data never showed that transmissions could be reduced by vaccinations.
00:28:44.780
And I said to myself, seriously? And I thought, there can't be more than one person who thinks that
00:28:51.040
because my memory was so, so clear that it was based on data. And I thought multiple studies,
00:29:00.540
et cetera. So I thought, oh, do other people have the same view? And it turns out a lot of people have
00:29:06.500
the view that the data never showed at any point that the vaccines worked in any way.
00:29:15.820
Now, does that blow your mind at all? If you're in my movie, because some of you were in my movie,
00:29:23.100
but some of you in that other movie, does it blow your mind at all that both of these memories are
00:29:28.280
held by the public? One that the vaccinations used to work, but things changed. And the other that the
00:29:34.720
data never showed they worked, even in the beginning. That's freaky, isn't it? Because that would be the
00:29:42.340
easiest thing in the world to check, wouldn't it? So now you say to yourself, Scott, spend five seconds
00:29:49.720
on DuckDuckGo and find out, did the data exist or did it not? So do you think that was easy?
00:30:00.460
Just Google it. Nope. Turns out that's really hard. So even the search engine can't tell you what
00:30:07.960
happened. It's crazy. How are the historians going to write this story? Because you can't even
00:30:17.020
research it. Now, here's why I think I have the answer. Are you ready for this? So this is like
00:30:23.660
the key to unlock how these two movies formed. How could I have many of you, by the way, many of the
00:30:29.880
comments have supported my view of what happened? And others have not. So we know the two movies are
00:30:38.620
verified, that they both exist. Here's what happened, I believe. And it's kind of interesting.
00:30:47.420
And Ian Martiz has had the best, I think he unlocked this for me. Apparently people were using different
00:30:53.720
definitions for a lot of important stuff here. And let me just give you an idea of how bad it was.
00:31:00.860
Here are the various terms that have been used by experts as well as, you know, pundits talking about
00:31:05.660
it. Does the vaccination prevent infection or provide immunity? Does it boost your immune response
00:31:12.460
or does it provide protection? Does it prevent serious disease or does it vaccinate against?
00:31:17.460
And apparently, we don't have the same definition of what, the same idea of what those words mean.
00:31:25.520
For example, I was informed that the definition of a vaccination has changed. How many of you have
00:31:32.440
heard that? That the actual word vaccination suddenly magically changed to a different definition in 2021?
00:31:40.280
Yeah, you all heard that, right? I was saying yes, yes, yes. And so I saw the evidence of that.
00:31:49.500
So with my own eyes, I looked at the direct evidence, I read it with my own eyes, how the definition had
00:31:56.740
changed from one thing to this brand new definition in 2021. So I saw it with my own eyes, and it didn't
00:32:05.700
happen. I saw it with my own eyes, it didn't happen. I mean, I didn't see it. I looked at what you looked
00:32:16.460
at, and I didn't see it. Now, does that mean it didn't happen? Well, it happened in your movie.
00:32:23.480
Anyway, here's what happened when I asked this. So a number of people sent me studies to confirm
00:32:36.940
that my view was correct. So I've tweeted out the links. If you want to see them, I've got a couple
00:32:44.120
of links that show that the initial data showed it was very effective against transmission.
00:32:49.980
And then very quickly, things changed, and then it wasn't. Now, how can you not see it? Oh,
00:32:58.980
let me give you, yeah, let me finish the point there. You said, how could I not see it? And
00:33:04.300
the answer is, the definition changed from something that gives you immunity to something that gives
00:33:14.380
you protection. So there it is, right? So what I read that I was directed to read was that the
00:33:22.440
definition changed for vaccination from something that gives you immunity to something that gives
00:33:28.020
you protection. And there it is, right? I don't see it. Now, you're all saying, I just read it,
00:33:36.260
there it is. No, I don't see it. Let me read it again. Because I don't see it. The definition
00:33:42.420
changed from immunity to protection, two words that mean about the same thing to me.
00:33:47.280
So I see two words that mean the same thing, which means that the definition didn't change. They
00:33:55.700
use different words. But I see the same thing. Now, I believe this gets back to the 100% thing.
00:34:05.080
If somebody said a vaccine gives you immunity, what's that mean to you? What would it mean if
00:34:12.980
somebody says it gives you immunity? To me, it sounds like protection.
00:34:20.760
Yeah, they changed the word. But what does immunity mean to you? When you see immunity,
00:34:27.960
do you think 100% of people won't get it or 100% of people won't get sick?
00:34:33.800
Here it is. There it is. Okay. So somebody answered on locals. Somebody said directly,
00:34:40.160
the word immunity implies 100%. How many of you would agree with that? That the word immunity
00:34:48.100
implies 100% nothing's getting in. Yeah. Okay. So that's why you looked right at it and you could
00:34:55.680
see it. Because when you read the word immunity, you read 100%. When you read the word protection,
00:35:02.060
you're like, oh, that does not mean 100%, right? Right? Immunity means 100%, but protection obviously
00:35:10.840
doesn't mean 100%. So that's what all of you saw. Now, I am a writer by trade. And my interpretation of
00:35:23.460
the words are that it means the same thing. That's my interpretation. Because if you said to me,
00:35:31.100
Scott, this will give you immunity, I would never think 100%. In a medical context, when do you ever
00:35:38.760
think 100% except maybe if somebody's dead, they're not coming back? Well, I suppose it depends how long
00:35:45.280
they've been dead. But in the medical world, what is 100%? Anything? Is there ever anything ever been
00:35:51.900
100%? So if you're in the medical context, and somebody says something gives you immunity,
00:36:05.500
Why would you assume that? Now, my guess is that the reason they changed it is because people
00:36:11.260
misinterpreted the word immunity. That looks like the obvious reason. If I thought that people were
00:36:17.580
misinterpreting immunity to mean 100%, because remember, even the best initial data didn't say
00:36:23.860
100%. Does everybody agree with that? That even the initial data that all the experts were referring
00:36:31.480
to, it never said 100%. It was always 97, 95, this sort of thing, right? So let me ask you again.
00:36:39.340
Knowing, just hearing my explanation, if you ever interpreted immunity as 100%, does it make sense now
00:36:49.300
that other people didn't? Can you see why other people would interpret immunity within a medical
00:36:58.100
context to mean, yeah, it works pretty good? For some people, it might be immunity, some people might
00:37:05.800
kill them. Now, so I think mostly there's a definitional problem here. And it's really hard
00:37:15.320
to suss out which of the experts said something that really looked like a lie, and which of them said
00:37:22.480
something that was at one time true, and then new data came out, and it was different. And when they're
00:37:30.260
just talking sloppy, they're using words that mean something a little different to you. So I think
00:37:35.900
that a lot of the people who think that that we clearly were lied to, have the following illusions.
00:37:44.040
All right? So this would be supporting the theory that my worldview is correct, which doesn't mean it
00:37:54.360
is. It would just be a theory that would explain why one would be true. You can't prove it. So the
00:37:59.900
other worldview could be true if I'm misreading everything. So if I'm misreading everything, which
00:38:06.860
can happen, right? That's what cognitive dissonance is. I could absolutely be misremembering and
00:38:12.000
misreading everything. And by the way, my critics are saying, and a lot of them, and a lot of them
00:38:17.360
right here, are saying I'm doing exactly that. That I'm actually misreading basically everything.
00:38:25.080
And not just one thing. Just everything. So here's what causes the two movies. Number one,
00:38:31.420
if you assumed that the pharma companies are almost always lying, and almost always giving you fake
00:38:38.260
drugs that don't work, you would assume, quite reasonably, that this was probably another one
00:38:44.440
of those situations. If you believe that they probably usually make drugs that work,
00:38:51.540
but not all the time, you might be in the other movie. If you think that these definitions are
00:38:57.220
different, if you think that immunity meant 100%, which I would say would be a... I don't want to...
00:39:05.400
I don't want to use a word that sounds like I'm insulting you. Let's say... I was... I can't think
00:39:12.300
of a word that doesn't sound insulting. Because I don't mean this to be an insult. It's just an
00:39:16.600
interpretation thing. If you thought immunity meant 100%, you may not have the... maybe the writer's
00:39:27.820
experience. The people often misinterpret your statements as absolutes. So if you have that
00:39:35.320
continuing problem like I do of always being... I did it again. See what I did? I just said,
00:39:41.560
I'm always being misinterpreted. Should you have interpreted that statement,
00:39:48.300
I'm always being misinterpreted, to mean every single person misinterprets me every time?
00:39:53.460
Of course not. You would use the context. Of course it doesn't mean that.
00:39:57.500
Oh, here's a comment. Both things are true. Many facts are unchanged. Many interpret them being fed
00:40:06.100
by media. Yeah, so it's a soup of people being wrong, people interpreting words differently,
00:40:12.560
people not knowing that the data changed. But I can send you the links that say that the vaccines
00:40:19.040
did stop everything early, but then they became less effective over time. So if you don't believe
00:40:25.160
that ever happened, I can show you the links. All right, so what else we got going on here?
00:40:36.820
And also there's the question of whether the vaccine is, like, stopping the virus from getting
00:40:43.860
a hold, or is it just building up your natural immunity? So it does... it always gets a hold,
00:40:49.260
but it doesn't, you know, take root or something to use common language. So as long as we're
00:40:56.840
disagreeing on all these things, we'll see two movies forever. And as Ian said, Martises, if we don't
00:41:06.420
agree on what words mean, like at the very beginning, if we don't have common definitions, then one can
00:41:12.560
later claim any history of what they said. And that's exactly what's happening. So because we
00:41:17.840
don't agree on the assumptions of how likely a pharma company will lie to you in any given
00:41:23.300
situation, we don't agree what any of the words meant, and we have apparently, some number of us
00:41:29.720
have completely false memories. Maybe me, right? I can't rule that out. It might be me.
00:41:35.700
But maybe you. Complete false memories of whether the vaccines ever worked.
00:41:44.380
So, there's absolutely nothing else interesting happening. So, how many of you just heard this
00:41:54.560
and it sounded to you like I was promoting vaccinations? How many would interpret this
00:42:01.200
morning's live stream as promoting vaccinations? Thankfully, mostly no's. Right. No. And
00:42:10.500
have I given you my updated opinion on getting a booster myself? Don't think I have. Because it,
00:42:21.360
you know, it's sort of subject to change. But I'll wait as long as possible. I think there's the
00:42:26.160
extra risk that, you know, that level of boostiness can't be tested. So, it's sort of even more of a
00:42:35.020
guess than the other guesses. At the moment, I'm leaning toward waiting it out and getting some of
00:42:42.140
that sweet, sweet Omicron in my system instead. So, that's where I'm leaning. If I had to, you know,
00:42:47.980
suddenly travel and it was a mandate, I don't know, I might make a practical decision. But you want a real
00:42:54.820
mind teaser, I'm going to leave you with the final mind teaser. Suppose you were trying to decide
00:43:00.680
whether to get vaccinated and you wanted to, you wanted as much information as possible. And let's say
00:43:05.980
you knew, which you can't know, but let's say you knew the history of how accurate the vaccine,
00:43:13.640
all medications from big pharma had been in the past. And let's say you knew, you don't, but let's say you
00:43:20.720
did. You knew that fewer than 25% of the time, the drugs even work. Would it be rational
00:43:30.700
to take the vaccination with all the other stuff that we know that you may or may not trust? But
00:43:37.380
would it be rational if you knew that fewer than a quarter of the people, fewer than a quarter of any
00:43:43.420
medication that ever wanted in the market ever worked? The answer is, you can't tell. Do you know
00:43:53.440
why? Because none of the risks can be measured. You can't measure the risk of side effects in the long
00:44:03.980
term. You can't. So, if I told you that there's some chance that the vaccination works, you might make
00:44:11.380
a calculation closer to your ivermectin calculation. Because I've told you before that I predict
00:44:17.100
ivermectin will be shown not to be terribly effective, maybe a little, but I think it will
00:44:22.200
not be shown to be as effective as its proponents show. At the same time that I predict it doesn't
00:44:27.960
work, I would give the odds of it working at less than 25%. But would I take it if I got COVID?
00:44:38.300
Yes, I would. Assuming my doctor said yes. I would take it. Now, why would that be different
00:44:44.800
from the vaccinations? Now, one way it could be different is you say, well, Scott, the ivermectin
00:44:51.180
is so well known, we don't have a downside. But we also don't know anything about long COVID.
00:44:58.800
So, since all of the risks are completely unsizable, even if you knew that big pharma had a low track
00:45:07.900
record of success, it could still be ivermectin-ish in terms of your cost benefit. If you thought that
00:45:15.200
the risk was gigantic of getting COVID, and you thought that the risk of the vaccine killing you
00:45:22.120
itself was relatively small, you would still take a 25% chance that it made a difference.
00:45:27.660
I mean, or let me say it better. You would never have the numbers to know if you were making the
00:45:34.760
right decision. We wouldn't have the right data for that. But it wouldn't be irrational to get a shot
00:45:40.960
if you knew that medicine in general only worked 25% of the time. It wouldn't be irrational. It could
00:45:48.120
be wrong, but it wouldn't be irrational. Because all the decisions ultimately are irrational in the
00:45:55.180
sense that we don't have enough data. Yeah, you know, those who assume the government is guilty
00:46:00.360
and assume that big pharma is guilty, you kind of have to know how often that assumption works.
00:46:07.120
Thank you, AA. Scott is right about this. Yeah, as soon as you compare it to ivermectin,
00:46:12.680
it starts making sense. But you have to be careful, because ivermectin has a much safer long-term...
00:46:21.180
Well, actually, let me ask you this. Do you think ivermectin's ever been studied in a way that can
00:46:29.100
guarantee you it's safe? Can anything? Because there's no absolutes, right? There are no absolutes.
00:46:36.760
We have quite a few short-term trials. Yeah, we have lots of lower-quality data. At least there's...
00:46:50.420
You know, my old philosophy teacher used to say that the food in the cafeteria was bad,
00:46:55.940
but at least there's a lot of it. So that's our data. Well, all of our data about the pandemic is bad,
00:47:03.940
but we got a lot of it. So that's the good news. It's all bad, but hey, thank goodness there's not
00:47:10.760
a shortage of it. Nothing is absolute. Damn it, Jordan. Stop it with your mind games. Nothing is absolute.
00:47:21.520
All right. Scott, how many boosters would you be willing to go up to? I still want to...
00:47:28.940
I just feel like answering that question is a dead end. Because why would it matter to you
00:47:48.480
how many boosters that I thought I would get? And first of all, why would you think I could answer
00:47:53.760
that question? What would make you think I could answer that question? How could anybody answer
00:47:59.260
that question? How many boosters? Now, I have told you that I'm, you know, I'm undecided between
00:48:05.500
zero and one booster, but that I'm leaning heavily towards zero. Why would you ask me how many I would
00:48:12.620
get? Wouldn't that depend on what I learned between now and there and then? So if I don't learn anything
00:48:19.680
new, I would certainly, well, there will be something new because we'll know what happens
00:48:24.240
with Omicron. So the booster question is undecided. Wait as long as possible. And I haven't waited long
00:48:31.540
enough yet. So stop asking me if I'm going to get boosted. If you've made a decision about it,
00:48:37.680
you need to defend your decision. I say there's insufficient data, but there might be better data
00:48:45.300
later. Don't know, but there might be, even if the better data is only in the form of knowing more
00:48:51.380
about the alternative, which is getting infected by Omicron. All right. Have you seen Dr. Malone?
00:48:59.800
So here's my problem with Dr. Malone on Joe Rogan. And unfortunately, I'm trying to avoid the same
00:49:08.240
problem that my critics have with me, which is they see a little bit of my opinion and then form
00:49:13.860
a total opinion based on, you know, looking at that one pinprick. And I don't want to do that
00:49:19.460
with Dr. Malone because I think I've been guilty of that same sin myself. And I'm not going to watch
00:49:25.820
a three-hour anything, even that is sped up. So I will never be able to penetrate what Dr. Malone said.
00:49:34.660
And I just want to tell you, I'm not going to put in the work because I'm just not going to do that
00:49:40.820
much homework to listen to what one guy said. So let me say it this way. If there is a statement
00:49:46.540
he said, you know, a, just a clean statement of opinion or fact, I'd love to hear it. If you think
00:49:56.280
that that's, that's like the important thing. Somebody says it's a cop out. I think that the
00:50:04.300
weakest comment on the internet is that somebody else didn't do enough research because that assumes
00:50:09.260
that if you did more research it would make a difference. And all evidence suggests that's
00:50:13.140
not the case. We just get more confirmation bias. But no, I am definitely lazy about things that
00:50:21.620
don't make a difference. I try to be not lazy about things that do make a difference. Somebody says,
00:50:28.540
just watch the last half hour. You're, you're so close. But look, but let me test it. I know a number
00:50:34.400
of you have seen it by now. State in the comments one, just one sentence could be two that just says
00:50:41.020
something he said that you think would be different from what I believe. Go. Let's test it. For those
00:50:47.940
of you who've seen it, give me one example of something he said. And if I miss it, just repeat
00:50:55.620
it, please, because there's too many things. Look, so here's the, here's the kind of comments. So
00:51:02.320
Norman says, does Scott notice if he listens to Malone, he'll not be able to hide the cognitive
00:51:07.460
dissonance. Now that's the mind reader problem right there, right? Here's what I think would
00:51:13.220
happen if I listened to Dr. Malone. I think I would agree with him. Unless there's a difference in data
00:51:20.960
interpretation, in which case, I would look to others to say if his data was right or not.
00:51:26.960
Do you think I would disagree with him? What would I disagree about?
00:51:35.200
Malone talked about hypnosis. But what do you think I would disagree with him about?
00:51:42.280
Right? Nothing. So you're all shooting empties. There's the, what is it? Mass formation,
00:51:50.380
psychosis. I wouldn't disagree with him about that. That's just one window on this that's
00:51:56.460
somewhat incomplete. But all of the things that form mass, the mass hypnosis formation thing,
00:52:04.220
those, those things do exist and they do matter. But give me consent. No, I'm not going to disagree
00:52:10.780
about that. You're shooting blanks. Yeah, not empties.
00:52:21.580
Rogue, you disagree about him saying deaths are over counting.
00:52:27.100
No, I don't think I disagree. So if you can come up with any reason that you think I would disagree
00:52:34.320
with him, tell me what that disagreement is. And if there's a place on the video to see the context,
00:52:40.920
I'll listen to it. But if you can't tell me anything that he says that I don't say,
00:52:57.480
I need to watch it just to say I'm posting alone. Good one.
00:53:05.840
He talks about deep knowledge of corruption in the medical industry.
00:53:09.080
Does anybody think that I'm not aware of deep corruption in the medical industry?
00:53:15.440
Does anybody think that I would need to find that out for the first time?
00:53:20.100
So as far as somebody says I'm being obtuse, Andrew, it's a very easy test. Tell me something
00:53:28.280
he said that you believe I would disagree with.
00:53:31.460
Is that an unreasonable thing? If I'm being asked to consume three hours of content, even
00:53:41.400
sped up, it might be two hours. If I'm being asked to do a whole bunch of homework, don't
00:53:45.980
you think that's fair for me to say, name one thing he says that I might disagree with?
00:53:50.540
Somebody says, this is boring. No matter what we give you, you'll just say you agree with
00:54:06.340
it. Well, that's the point. My understanding is that Dr. Malone is well informed. If I'm
00:54:13.240
also well informed, would we just agree? I see no reason. Early treatment, what am I
00:54:21.720
going to disagree about that? All right. So let me ask you this. Have I made my case that
00:54:30.600
you can see the causes of the two movies? Did I make that case? I'm seeing yeses, mostly
00:54:41.600
yeses. Now, the question of who is right or wrong, I'll leave that to you. I'll leave
00:54:48.200
that to you. Do you think the next pandemic will be handled better? I do. I do. I mean,
00:54:56.160
I would be really surprised if this pandemic doesn't get us in much better shape. You said
00:55:04.720
deaths are undercounted. Yes, I said that. But also overcounted.
00:55:11.600
So here's the thing. Hospitals were, some people say, hospitals were incentivized to say that
00:55:24.480
somebody died of COVID, you know, even if maybe it was just with COVID. So everybody's on the same
00:55:29.520
page with that, right? And that would be an example of what? Overcounting, right? So have you ever
00:55:37.140
heard me disagree with the notion that some people are counted as COVID deaths when probably
00:55:43.680
they just had something else going on and they died? Have I ever disagreed with that, right? So in
00:55:48.100
that limited context, that would be an obvious case where you should assume there's overcounting.
00:55:54.860
Everybody on the same page? Now, here's the other part of the equation. When people die at home,
00:56:02.200
who determines what they died of? And it turns out more people than you think die at home.
00:56:12.660
So the people who died at home may have died of COVID, but if they were, let's say they were 98 years
00:56:18.500
old and had a comorbidity, if your 98-year-old grandmother dies and you knew she had a bad ticker,
00:56:26.500
what are you going to do? Are you going to do a COVID test? No, no. So the thought was, in India,
00:56:34.620
of course, this would be on a much bigger effect, but the thought is there are people who are dying
00:56:39.960
that because they didn't go through the hospital system, they died at home, for example, that they
00:56:45.260
wouldn't be counted. So I think that it's true that there is both overcounting and undercounting.
00:56:51.220
Would anybody disagree with that? That in one way, there's almost certainly overcounting,
00:56:59.000
but in another sense, in another element of it, there would be almost certainly undercounting.
00:57:05.860
Now, my estimate has always been that, let's say we get to, what are we up to? Deaths in the United
00:57:12.700
States, 800,000, something like that. Give you the current number. So my take is that if the
00:57:20.240
800,000 or so deaths was 600,000, or maybe it was 1.2 million, that we would have acted about the
00:57:31.480
same. So I'm not sure it matters, and I would imagine that you would find hospitals that have
00:57:37.700
overcounted and hospitals that have undercounted. Don't you think? I mean, it's a big world, and you
00:57:44.180
also have the different standards for determining if somebody has COVID. I can't believe everybody
00:57:49.340
used even the same standard. So I would say probably some places are under, some places are over.
00:57:55.880
If you ask me if I know what the net is, I don't. I don't. But I don't know that it would have changed
00:58:05.540
anything. Yeah, in rural India, there are plenty of deaths that don't get counted, so they might
00:58:17.320
It's worth listening to. All right. Is this a positive discussion? Yeah, I think it's a positive
00:58:31.540
discussion only in the sense of how to make decisions and what to believe. Yeah, I'm much
00:58:37.720
less interested in the actual, you know, the medical what you do than how we process these
00:58:43.360
things. And how is it we have completely false memories of things that just happened, basically?
00:58:49.560
Anyway, tomorrow will be a lot better than today, because we'll have some actual news by then. Today's
00:58:56.080
going to be a slow news day. And let's go forth and have some fun. If you didn't see my special
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live stream yesterday that I did after my normal live stream, you don't want to miss that one.
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That one's the weird one. Weird good. So watch that one, please. And thank you. Some people
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liked that video yesterday. And I will talk to you tomorrow.