Real Coffee with Scott Adams - Episode 2147 Scott Adams： Durham & Schiff, Elon & Zuck, Hotep and RFK Jr., Woke Disney, Botox & Me

00:00:00.000 It's too dark in here. I appear to be underlit. Watch me fix that in real time like I never forgot

00:00:07.960 it in the first place. Whoa, there we go. Oh, looking good. All right, welcome to the best

00:00:15.360 place in the world, the highlight of human civilization. It's called Coffee with Scott

00:00:19.300 Adams and it's the best thing that's ever happened. If you want it to be better, all you need is a

00:00:23.160 cup or a mug or a glass of tank or chelsea, sign a canteen, jug or a flask, a vessel of any kind,

00:00:26.880 fill it with your favorite liquid. I like coffee. Join me now for the unparalleled pleasure.

00:00:31.000 It's the dopamine to the day, the thing that makes everything better. It's called the simultaneous

00:00:34.300 sip and it happens now. Go.

00:00:39.500 Ah. I had to do that like extra fast with extra energy because I'm noticing on Twitter today

00:00:46.940 that people are saying they're using my live stream to help them get to sleep. So cruel. Cruel.

00:00:54.180 Cruel. It's true. But it's cruel. It's cruel. All right. I keep finding reasons to like Marjorie

00:01:07.060 Taylor Greene. And it's not so much about what policy preferences she has because I don't really

00:01:13.760 know. I mean, not in any detail. But I just love her whole vibe. So apparently yesterday she

00:01:23.620 got in the face of Lauren Boebert, who is on her side, you'd think, over Boebert allegedly

00:01:31.080 not communicating with her or trying to steal her legislation idea or something. And allegedly

00:01:37.760 Marjorie Taylor Greene called her a little bitch on the floor of Congress. Not publicly, but I think 0.99

00:01:45.900 people overheard it. And I thought to myself, stop making me love her. Stop it. I read a story like

00:01:54.380 that and I'm like, oh, I guess I'll pay more attention. I kind of like somebody who can call

00:02:01.060 their coworker a bitch on the floor of Congress. I don't know. I just like that. 1.00

00:02:04.980 We have reached peak absurdity. That will be the theme of today's live stream. Peak absurdity.

00:02:13.540 Have I ever told you we've reached peak absurdity before? Yeah, about five times a year. And every

00:02:22.120 time I think we've reached it, we're not even close. But let's see if this feels like a peak

00:02:29.060 to you. Randy Weingarten, who's head of the biggest teachers union, has just been appointed to the

00:02:39.020 council to advise the Department of Homeland Security. What? It sounds like it's not real, doesn't it?

00:02:51.200 It doesn't even sound real. So the good test of absurdity is if you hear it and you're like,

00:02:58.880 really? That doesn't even sound like a real thing that happened in the real world. But in the real

00:03:05.100 world, the actual, literal, real world, Corey DeAngelis was appointed to advise the Department

00:03:14.060 of Homeland Security. About what? I don't know. I got questions. Now, you know she famously also 0.98

00:03:24.960 visited Ukraine several times. What is going on? Is Randy Weingarten being prepped to be our next

00:03:35.240 next Hillary Clinton and she can run for president? I mean, in the bubble that I live in, she's the most 1.00

00:03:44.720 ridiculous character in America. And they just put her on Department of Homeland Security. Does that feel 0.98

00:03:52.780 like a, is that a diversity hire? Do they not have enough women working on the Department of Homeland 1.00

00:04:00.320 Homeland Security or something? They're, got to find a woman. Get Randy. She'll do it. She's been to

00:04:06.300 Ukraine. All right. Disney apparently is now losing its chief diversity officer, according to the post

00:04:14.360 millennium. I was reading that today. And they're losing their chief diversity officer because, well,

00:04:22.600 two things that happened weren't going well. One is, uh, uh, uh, they made the little mermaid, but they

00:04:30.020 race swapped, which, uh, played well in America, but apparently China's not so happy about it.

00:04:38.980 So it's going to cause some problems in the Chinese market, they say. Those racists. Um, 0.87

00:04:45.540 and it says the, the film is likely to be Disney's worst performing Chinese release this year. Uh,

00:04:54.780 wow. Um, and then data, Disney's latest release called Elemental, which I never heard of. Have

00:05:03.440 you heard of Elemental? Apparently it's a movie. I don't know how I, I don't know how there could be a

00:05:08.500 major Disney movie. I never heard of the name of it. So that's not good. Uh, and it's on track to be

00:05:14.220 one of the lowest premiers of the company since the late 1990s. All right. So, uh, yeah, the chief

00:05:22.780 of diversity, Latondra Newton is out. Now, do you think that, do you think that any lessons are being

00:05:33.460 learned or any, any corrections are being made because of any of this? Do you think? No, I don't

00:05:40.700 think so either. Uh, I don't think anything was learned and I don't think anything, anything was

00:05:45.980 adjusted. I think they will just, uh, replace Latondra with another chief of diversity and just

00:05:52.380 keep doing what they're doing and, uh, hitting new lows every day. All right. Uh, hmm. So I saw a tweet

00:06:05.120 by, uh, Kat Tenbarge who said, uh, on a tweet, why would anyone care about truth and credibility

00:06:12.880 when you can live in whatever reality you want? If you want the news to fit your predetermined biases,

00:06:19.040 it will in fact, it will. In fact, you'll get the news that does so without asking the algorithms,

00:06:25.520 algorithms will serve you what you want before you want it. And I thought, didn't you imagine that

00:06:32.500 the internet would be when we could have better knowledge? I kind of, I guess I was an idiot and 0.99

00:06:40.400 I thought, Oh, all of this volumes of good knowledge at our fingertips, uh, we'll be so smart and well 0.98

00:06:47.480 informed then. But I underestimated the weaselness of the human beings to create more fake news than real

00:06:56.720 news and to find business models that pay you for lying. And suddenly the internet is the worst thing

00:07:03.480 in the world because we think it's good information, but it's just creating little bubbles.

00:07:07.620 So I live in my little bubble where everything I want to be true is true. And you get to live in

00:07:13.100 your little bubble where your stuff is true. And as long as your bubble and my bubble don't

00:07:18.620 bump, we can both have different realities and live our entire lives that way. Perfectly happily

00:07:26.180 or not. All right. I am loving this conversation about whether, um, professor, Dr. Peter Hotez should

00:07:36.040 have a debate with some mere gaslighter such as RFK Jr. That gaslighter. That's what the good doctor

00:07:44.300 says. He says, he says, scientists shouldn't debate gaslighters. Scientists shouldn't debate

00:07:51.160 gaslighters. Does anybody see any problem with that philosophy or that rule? The science shouldn't

00:08:00.080 debate gaslighters. Hmm. And I'm just going to point out one potential problem with that theory.

00:08:09.260 I don't know if it's occurred to anybody else. Maybe I'm the only one who ever thought

00:08:15.460 of it. Who gets to decide who the gaslighter is? Isn't that a, just a smallish problem with

00:08:25.340 the, with the theory that everybody thinks the other person is the gaslighter? If I asked

00:08:31.620 RFK Jr., who is the gaslighter? Is it himself or is it Dr. Peter Hotez? What do you think RFK Jr.

00:08:41.440 would say? Oh, you got me. You got me. I am a gaslighter. Uh, you know, nobody ever asked me

00:08:48.900 before, but I, you know, honestly, I'm just a gaslighter. Do you think he'd say that? Or do you

00:08:55.000 think he would say, um, maybe the person who said all these things about the pandemic that turned out

00:09:01.820 not to be exactly right? Maybe they're the gaslighter. Maybe. Do you think there would be

00:09:07.540 any disagreement about who the gaslighter is? That's right. The man of science believes that

00:09:13.780 the public can tell who the gaslighter is. Does he really? Really? I mean, really? Really? 0.91

00:09:23.900 Really? This is an actual opinion. How many of you think this is an actual, legitimate opinion?

00:09:30.820 That, that this man of science really believes this would be a good standard? That if you're

00:09:36.220 the scientist and you accuse the other person of being wrong, then you don't need to, uh,

00:09:41.400 you don't need to debate them. Because you think they're wrong. Does he really think that's

00:09:48.820 the best way to go? Because it doesn't feel like it. Because that feels absurd to me.

00:09:53.900 It feels just absurd. But I would like to, uh, recommend a meet in the middle place. Okay?

00:10:04.420 Um, one thing that's useless. All right, let me tell you what's useless. Useless to have one person on 0.92

00:10:11.800 a show for an hour talking about what they think is true. Useless. Useless. Because if there's not 0.96

00:10:18.900 somebody there with the other point of view, you're just misled. If you had two people debating,

00:10:25.360 uh, and you have a short time period, like it's just going to be a 10-minute debate, that's terrible. 0.99

00:10:32.880 Because the person who's the most wrong will just run out the time with bullshit. Right? You've seen 0.95

00:10:39.300 it, like, a million times. The one who's the most wrong will just use up all the time, so you can't

00:10:44.420 tell they're wrong, and then go on to the next bullshit. So there's lots of things that don't

00:10:50.440 work. Here's another thing that doesn't work. Um, RFK Jr. has a whole book filled with details and

00:10:58.260 citing studies and his arguments. Dr. Hotez apparently has a book of his own, which questions RFK's,

00:11:05.880 you know, some of RFK's vaccine beliefs about autism. Now, how about that? You could read their

00:11:14.280 two books and make up your own mind. Is that good? No, it's useless. Completely useless. Most people

00:11:20.720 are not going to read one book. Very few people are going to read both books. And if you read both

00:11:25.940 books, would you be qualified to know which science was the good one? No, you wouldn't. It would be just

00:11:31.300 like watching two separate podcasts in which they just get to say their thing without being

00:11:36.140 challenged. So comparing their books has, you know, limited value. It's just too hard to get people to

00:11:45.200 do that stuff, and if they did, they wouldn't know what they're looking at. Having one person on is

00:11:49.880 terrible, because it's only one side. Here's what I would suggest. I would suggest that the three of

00:11:57.500 them decide where their points of disagreement are. Pick the top three, just randomly. It could

00:12:04.220 be, you know, three to five or something, but pick three, and say, here's my claim, and here are the

00:12:11.600 studies I'm looking at that I depend on, and then furthermore, here are the studies that are in the

00:12:17.300 same domain, but I believe are flawed, and here's why. And then see both of them do that. Here are the

00:12:24.600 studies that I'm relying on. I think these are accurate, and here's why. Here are the studies

00:12:29.540 I don't believe, and here are the flaws with those studies. Now, somebody on Twitter said to me,

00:12:37.240 Scott, Scott, Scott, do you really think the public can look at scientific studies and, you know, tell

00:12:45.840 what the good ones are? I mean, really? You think we can do that? To which I say, yes. Yes. Because it's

00:12:54.160 subjective. It's not a matter of opinion. You could give us a little help, and I'm going to do it right

00:13:00.480 now. Here's a little help if you don't know how to look at scientific studies. If one side has a

00:13:06.560 massive, randomized, controlled trial, and you know that the people running the trial are not receiving

00:13:13.700 their money from any, you know, interested parties, and you compare that to a 30-person observational

00:13:22.660 study funded by a big pharma company, could you compare those? You know, you, you, the ignorant 0.98

00:13:30.540 public, do you think you could tell which was the good study? Yes, you could. Yes, you could. Now, 0.99

00:13:40.760 they might need to tell you in advance, here's our checklist. And by the way, this is what I like

00:13:45.640 to see. I'd like somebody to produce a, just a really short one, one pager that literally ranks

00:13:54.440 the quality of studies by those variables. So at the very top would be not funded by somebody sketchy,

00:14:05.260 massive, lots of people involved, randomized, controlled trial. So that would be your gold standard.

00:14:14.260 Coming down one level from that, well, maybe lots of levels. Well, actually, I would put it at the lowest

00:14:21.440 end, anything that was funded by somebody sketchy. I would say sketchy funding just puts you at the bottom.

00:14:28.440 It doesn't matter what you do. It just puts you at the bottom. Everybody who knows anything about anything

00:14:35.180 should know that an observational study, where you look at things after the fact, is nowhere near as good

00:14:43.260 as predicting what will happen and setting up a study to isolate that in advance. You know,

00:14:49.020 randomized, controlled trial. There's no way those are similar. How hard would it be for the public to

00:14:55.880 learn that a randomized, controlled trial with a massive group funded by people who are not sketchy

00:15:02.580 is the best kind of science? Would that be hard to teach people? Not hard at all. How hard would it be

00:15:11.020 to say there's this thing called a, what do you call it, meta-analysis, a meta-analysis, where they take

00:15:19.400 the various studies and they say, well, all these studies are imperfect, but they're imperfect in different

00:15:25.500 ways. So if you look at them all and they point in one direction, that means something. Well, how hard would it

00:15:31.720 teach the public that that's a lie? It's all bullshit. I just did. If somebody says they have 1.00

00:15:37.880 a meta-study, just turn it off. Meta-study is not science. It's opinion. It's that easy. I just taught

00:15:45.240 you. I just taught you everything you needed to know. If it says meta-analysis, just ignore it.

00:15:50.840 That's not science. Do you know why it's not science? Because the person who does the meta-analysis

00:15:56.520 decides what's in the study and what isn't it, based on their opinion. Basically, it's just a way

00:16:04.300 to launder an opinion. All right. Was any of this hard to learn? I just taught you 90% of what you

00:16:13.300 need? All right. How about this? There's a study that's been peer-reviewed. That's all you know.

00:16:22.120 It's been peer-reviewed. And the peer-reviewed passed. So what odds do you put on the quality

00:16:29.000 of the study? What are the odds the study is valid? A little less than 50%. Less than 50%.

00:16:35.820 There, look, I just taught you something. Was that hard to learn? If it's a peer-reviewed study,

00:16:42.880 historically, about half of them turn out not to be right. Was that complicated? No. None of this

00:16:49.900 is complicated. You just need somebody who can explain stuff to just lay it out there

00:16:55.860 simply. Observing is not as good as a randomized controlled trial. There. You're done. You just

00:17:02.400 learned it. Well, what else is there to say? That's the whole thing. That's the whole lesson.

00:17:08.020 So you don't think that if Dr. Hotez and RFK Jr. put out their lists of these are the studies I trust

00:17:16.620 and why. These are the studies I don't trust and why. You don't think you could look at those two

00:17:23.660 lists and feel like you learned something? I feel like I could. Now, here's the problem. I know

00:17:32.420 exactly what will happen when I recommend it, because it already happened. Somebody will say,

00:17:36.700 it's already done. It's called RFK's book. And it's already done. It's called Dr. Hotez's book.

00:17:43.240 So just look at the books. No. I just said, I can't look at the books. I wouldn't know what I was

00:17:48.900 looking at, really. It needs to be one page or the public isn't going to pay attention.

00:17:55.440 So here's the interesting thing. In my opinion, there's a very easy way to find out who's looking

00:18:03.460 at the more solid science. Just put it on one page. I believe this stuff. I don't believe this

00:18:10.100 list. Boom. And here's why. Now, I can't tell if I'm making a good point because you're not

00:18:18.440 disagreeing with me. Does anybody? Tell me if you agree or disagree. Do you agree that we could avoid

00:18:26.060 the gaslighting, you could avoid the whole gaslighting problem by just show us the studies. Because

00:18:32.880 correct me if I'm wrong, but neither RFK Jr. nor Dr. Hotez are basing their opinion on

00:18:39.920 horoscopes. Are they? I believe both of them are looking at science, but they have a different

00:18:48.300 opinion of which science is valid. And what makes science valid is well understood. And they could

00:18:54.940 tell us, oh, here's one that's not a randomized controlled trial. Do you understand that concept?

00:18:59.340 Yes, I do. Here's one that's a small observational study. Do you understand that those are not as

00:19:07.900 credible? Yes, I do. Do you understand that if it's a peer-reviewed paper, there's less than 50%

00:19:15.600 chance it's real? Do you understand that? Yes. Yes, I do. I'm almost done. That's almost everything you

00:19:24.680 would need to know. That's almost everything you need to know. Yeah, I think, Linda, you're right.

00:19:33.580 When you're quiet, you're digesting. All right. Now, just because there is a solution doesn't mean

00:19:40.600 that it will be solved because humans, human beings. Can you believe that Democrats are tweeting

00:19:50.280 and talking about the fact that debating is bad? That debating what is true is a bad idea.

00:20:00.620 So now we have the head of the Democrats, Joe Biden, who says, debate? I'm not even going to answer

00:20:07.180 questions in public. And then their most important scientific stuff, are the Democrats willing to

00:20:16.040 debate climate change? Do you think they're going to put a climate change expert on CNN and Michael

00:20:25.680 Schellenberger or Bjorn Lomborg or somebody who's going to be there to give a counterpoint? Do you

00:20:31.800 think that's going to happen? No. But do you think that the Republicans would like it? If the Republicans

00:20:38.500 could have their dream world, would they want a debate with a good skeptic and a good scientist who

00:20:45.680 believes it all? Of course they would. Yes, Republicans would absolutely want Biden to debate. They would

00:20:52.680 absolutely want to see a debate on climate change with two different people. They would absolutely

00:20:58.360 like to see a debate on all the vaccination stuff. Who is it who doesn't want the debate on any of those

00:21:04.820 things? The Democrats. Now, some of you have said, well, if they don't want to debate, that's all you need to

00:21:13.720 know. Tom. Tom, you worthless piece of shit. That's all the time I have for you, Tom.

00:21:30.100 I feel like some people go on to social media and leave comments for no purpose other than for us to 1.00

00:21:36.440 know what pieces of shit they are. Have you noticed that? I'm going to make this comment. People really 1.00

00:21:41.940 know what a piece of shit I am. All right. Go back to whatever you're doing with your other hand, Tom. 1.00

00:21:51.060 All right. So debating is bad. Did I tell you that this is peak absurdity? Can you really hold in your head

00:22:00.600 that the three most important things that the Democrats care about? Who's the president, climate

00:22:06.460 change, and then science and vaccinations and stuff? They're most important stuff. No science. How

00:22:14.100 about the science on the whole trans situation? Do you think they want to debate that?

00:22:21.980 No. In fact, there's nothing they want to debate. I feel as if somebody, you know, maybe it's Trump,

00:22:29.880 maybe it's, you know, Vivek or somebody. Somebody needs to call them out for not being able to, able to,

00:22:36.620 or willing to debate anything. And you're seeing the pattern, right? It's everything.

00:22:44.940 The Republicans are up for a debate on everything. No exceptions. Prove me wrong. Republicans are up for a

00:22:54.380 debate on everything. Except maybe religion, which is not really the subject of debate.

00:23:03.240 And the Democrats want to stop debate on everything. That's true, right? I don't, I don't think I'm making

00:23:10.500 that up. It feels true. I've never seen a Republican turn down a debate. Have you? I'm not sure they do

00:23:17.780 that. Guns? Well, you know, like I said, the gun debate, the gun debate is a fake debate.

00:23:28.500 Let me just diverge. The gun debate is a fake debate. So I don't think we need one on that,

00:23:33.740 because it's not a real debate. Guns are about what's good for you personally. And then people

00:23:40.740 try to pretend like what's good for them personally, they can generalize it to other people.

00:23:45.500 Here's the thing. Me owning a gun is good. Why? Far more likely to stop a crime than to create one.

00:23:54.480 Would you agree? And because I'm unusually responsible, like, I'm, you know, I'm very

00:24:00.940 responsible about a lot of stuff. Me having a gun makes my neighborhood probably safer. Probably.

00:24:09.020 But I'm not so sure about you. Not you specifically, but I'm not so sure you should have a gun.

00:24:16.940 Because you may not be as reliable as I am. You might be in a different place, different situation,

00:24:22.100 completely different security considerations. So when people are arguing about guns, usually

00:24:28.700 they're lying, because they're arguing that guns would be good for them. But they want to generalize

00:24:35.060 that to, you know, a general thing. And I think it's just a case that it's good for some people and

00:24:40.980 definitely bad for others. And there's no way to solve that. How would you solve that? It's just

00:24:47.540 definitely bad for some and definitely good for others. And that's the end of it. So it's

00:24:52.080 just a power. So some of these things are based on what's true. But the gun debate is not based

00:24:59.800 on what's true or what's not true. It's based on preference. We're just acting like it's based

00:25:05.240 on something else. So the gun thing is mostly just acting.

00:25:08.960 I have this pet peeve, which is when dumb people call me dumb. Do you ever have that? When smart 0.98

00:25:27.840 people call me dumb, I just get competitive. All right, well, game on. Let's see why they think I'm 0.96

00:25:34.960 dumb. They might have a point, you know, that I have to look into a little bit, try and try and 0.95

00:25:39.220 make my best argument. But when people who are objectively dumb, go online and tell you you're 0.98

00:25:46.440 dumb. It just makes me crazy. I have to admit, it gets under my skin. So here's one. Somebody who 1.00

00:25:57.440 calls themselves the nicest boy on the website and app, Bikina Vinny Delu or somebody, was talking

00:26:04.260 about why you don't want the average person to look at the studies. Because the average American is well

00:26:09.520 equipped to read and understand the methodology results. You have to read this with sarcasm.

00:26:14.480 Limitations to most medical studies? Sure, big brain. Yes, they can tell the difference between an

00:26:23.440 RCT and an observational study. Yes, they can. All right. More absurdity. Elon Musk has challenged

00:26:33.060 Mark Zuckerberg to a cage match. Zuckerberg has agreed and asked for a venue. Elon has suggested Vegas

00:26:47.800 Octagon. This is so awesome. It's just so good. And so as we know,

00:27:00.520 Zuckerberg is 5'9", but he's completed Jiu-Jitsu. So he's actually quite accomplished in Jiu-Jitsu.

00:27:11.880 Elon Musk, I believe, is 6'1", and is threatening that he will beat Zuckerberg by laying on top of

00:27:19.980 him with his extra weight. None of this could be better. This is as good as a good thing could be.

00:27:31.020 Everything about this is first rate. I love the fact that Zuckerberg is finally learning what free publicity

00:27:37.160 looks like. So Zuckerberg absolutely should have said yes. Saying yes and asking for a venue was exactly right.

00:27:49.640 And then, do you think this is going to happen?

00:27:53.140 I think it might. No? You don't think it's going to happen? I think it might. Because both, you know, both of them

00:28:06.880 benefit from, they both benefit from publicity, right? So right now, Face or Meta is launching the competitor

00:28:17.380 to Twitter. So don't you think Zuckerberg would like everybody to know that there's a competitor to

00:28:24.800 Twitter? Of course he would. And Elon Musk, of course, you know, wants to make his point that he's the

00:28:31.080 marketing person for his companies. It would just be the best league ever. It would be the best league

00:28:38.340 ever. Yeah, with Joe Rogan calling the fight. Oh my God, that would be amazing.

00:28:43.960 All right. So you've heard RFK Jr. and others say that the big pharma is distorting the information

00:28:56.780 that's available to the public. Do you think that happens? Do you think big pharma distorts

00:29:03.060 the information that gets on the internet in any way? Do you think that happens? Yeah, I don't know.

00:29:10.760 I don't know. But let's do a little test, shall we? You know that RFK Jr. has a voice problem.

00:29:19.440 It's called spasmodic dysphonia. You might also know that I had the same problem. And for three and

00:29:24.780 a half years, I couldn't speak, or at least not intelligibly. And you might know that you're

00:29:32.000 listening to me now, and I'm speaking just fine. So I had a surgery for this condition.

00:29:40.620 It was a long recovery, but recovery I did. Now, the reason I got the surgery is I checked

00:29:47.620 with other people who had the surgery first. I talked to them personally. And they all

00:29:52.620 spoke perfectly. Perfectly. There wasn't any hitch in their voice at all. So when I talked

00:29:58.540 to several people who spoke perfectly, I got the same surgery they did. And now I speak perfectly.

00:30:04.900 So if I were to check the internet and ask it, hey, is there a cure for spasmodic dysphonia?

00:30:15.400 It would give me a good answer, right? So it would say, oh yeah, there's this surgery,

00:30:21.360 and a number of people have been cured. That's what the internet says, right? Let's check.

00:30:26.920 Well, we'll check Bing. Is there a cure for spasmodic dysphonia? And the answer comes back

00:30:36.040 from Bing. No, there is currently no known cure for spasmodic dysphonia. There's no known cure.

00:30:45.580 You know, I asked Google Bard the same thing. No known cure. But luckily, there's a treatment.

00:30:53.140 There's a treatment. All right? However, there are treatments available to help manage the symptoms

00:30:58.660 of the condition, such as Botox injections and speech therapy. Oh, then it does say, in some cases,

00:31:07.340 surgery may also be an option. And then it says, is there anything else you would like to know?

00:31:14.520 So it says there's currently no known cure, but Botox is sort of featured as the main thing you would do.

00:31:21.900 But just so you know, there might be some surgery option.

00:31:28.400 Does that sound accurate to you? Can you hear me talk right now? Am I talking in a way that my words,

00:31:37.440 you can hear them, are they clipped or unclear? No. No. But apparently, I'm not cured.

00:31:45.100 No, no. I just had some surgery that may have, you know, maybe had some impact on my symptoms.

00:31:53.380 Yeah. So my symptoms all went away. But would you call that a cure? Just because all of your symptoms

00:32:00.960 went away forever? What kind of a cure is that? Just because all of your symptoms go away forever?

00:32:07.780 No. According to Bing, it's Botox. Who makes Botox? Who makes Botox? That would be Allergan. 0.57

00:32:22.220 It's an American-Irish domiciled pharmaceutical company. Do you know what a Botox shot costs?

00:32:28.940 Do you know the retail price, let's say, at the doctor? I don't know. It used to be $900 a shot

00:32:36.480 because I got Botox before I got the surgery. I think it's close to $500 now, or it depends where

00:32:42.840 you are. Yeah. Anywhere between $500 and $1,200, right? It's very expensive. How much money do you

00:32:50.540 think the Botox people make treating spasmodic dysphonia where you have to go in every month to get

00:32:57.280 another $900 shot, or whatever it is? Yeah. Well, there's quite a few people. A lot of people.

00:33:05.540 Who do you think would be a big donor to all things voice-related? You know, if there was an

00:33:14.400 organization that promoted cures, do you think that Allergan would maybe want to be involved in

00:33:21.800 funding them? Probably, because they'd want that organization to know that they offer a treatment.

00:33:29.780 So that's quite normal, right? They would support anybody who's got the problem that they have the

00:33:35.580 exact treatment for. Totally logical. So can you explain to me why it's been well understood for

00:33:46.800 at least 10 years that this is a completely curable condition, and that the internet doesn't know it?

00:33:56.060 If you have this condition in a small town, and you talk to your doctor, and your doctor googled it

00:34:04.100 to find out what's new, do you think your doctor would know it's curable? Nope. Probably not.

00:34:11.260 Probably not. It's an obscure enough problem that a lot of people have it. Now, why do you think this

00:34:22.220 situation exists? Why do you think that if you google it, it tells you the wrong answer on a very

00:34:29.680 important medical condition? Now, keep in mind, people with this condition are quite often

00:34:36.000 considering ending their lives. Did you know that? I mean, I was. It's the most common thing that you

00:34:46.280 think. Because your voice, your life often is below the line at which it's worth living, frankly.

00:34:54.520 Yeah. When I had that problem, I only stayed alive for the benefit of other people. I was done.

00:35:00.480 I mean, I was hopeful that I'd find a solution eventually. But the quality of life was below the

00:35:06.660 worthwhile level. It was well below it. Because you could have no social interaction whatsoever.

00:35:13.920 So there's this company, Allergan, who gives money to various, or not gives money, but advertises

00:35:20.920 probably, maybe donates to some places. But who knows if money was any part of this? Who knows?

00:35:27.760 What do you think? If you had to speculate, do you think that the internet is telling people it's

00:35:34.760 incurable, and the only thing they could really seriously do is look into this Botox solution?

00:35:41.180 Do you think that's just sort of a coincidence? Just maybe an odd thing that happened? Or do you

00:35:48.640 think that money had anything to do with it? Well, follow the money works pretty well, doesn't it?

00:35:55.360 And every single time you think that follow the money shouldn't work, because surely there

00:36:01.600 would be no human beings who would be such bad human beings that they would want you to

00:36:06.920 not know there's a cure for a condition that you want to kill yourself for having. That

00:36:12.060 would be pretty bad, wouldn't it? So certainly there are no people in any kind of pharma company

00:36:17.100 who would do anything intentionally to make a shit ton of money while knowing that the way

00:36:23.260 they were talking about it and marketing it was probably going to kill people, because

00:36:28.940 people will end their life over this. Yeah, probably. So I cannot make any specific claims.

00:36:37.960 I will tell you that for the past 10 years, people who are involved in the spasmodic dysphonia

00:36:44.040 world have told me that there is a big company that has been erasing all of the useful information.

00:36:53.960 It's just an allegation. I can't prove it. So I don't know if this is happening accidentally,

00:37:02.600 or if somebody is doing it intentionally. But can you wrap your head around how bad this

00:37:09.040 is? Is this coming through? I don't know if I'm making my point. Do you understand how

00:37:14.740 bad that is? This is a 10 out of 10 in bad behavior. This is murder level bad behavior. Murder

00:37:23.940 level. Because it's actually killing people. Presumably. Because people are suicidal. If they

00:37:30.840 think there's no cure, things could happen. There's your world. That's your world you're living

00:37:38.620 in right there. So how about Greta? She deleted her tweet from five years ago that said we'd

00:37:45.560 all be in big trouble by now. Oh, Greta. How many of you saw the Durham... I'm still blown

00:37:56.520 away that Adam Schiff gets censured for lying to the country about Russia collusion. In other

00:38:04.940 words, Adam Schiff tried to pull off a soft coup in the United States, and all he gets

00:38:10.840 is the censure, which he uses to raise funds, and then he sits on the panel to question Durham 0.96

00:38:17.440 and make him look like a jerk, and then try to tell us all that Russia collusion was real 0.98

00:38:22.760 all along, because Paul Manafort conned a Russian guy once. That really happened. In the real world, 1.00

00:38:32.060 that happened. That Paul Manafort tried to con some money out of a Russian guy, and Adam Schiff,

00:38:39.140 who's already been censored for lying about everything about this, tells you that, oh yeah,

00:38:44.020 there was really that Russian collusion, because that one Manafort guy tried to rob a Russian.

00:38:49.720 So that's Russian collusion. Okay. Like, every time you rob somebody... I mean, if you heard

00:38:58.340 the story of what Manafort was showing that guy, it was sort of some internal polling. How much was

00:39:06.680 that worth? Internal polling. Not a lot. All right. So, I don't know. My brain is just falling

00:39:17.900 off listening to that. All right. Here's a little exchange between Representative Jordan

00:39:25.020 and Durham, and Jordan said, in the summer of 2016, did our government receive intelligence

00:39:32.960 that suggested Secretary Clinton had approved a plan to tie President Trump to Russia?

00:39:39.720 Durham, yes.

00:39:43.980 Jordan, was that intelligence important enough for Director Brennan to go brief the President

00:39:49.220 of the United States, the Vice President of the United States, the Attorney General,

00:39:51.840 and the Director of the FBI? Durham, yes.

00:39:58.200 Jordan, did Director Comey share that information with the FISA court,

00:40:02.900 the lawyers preparing the FISA application, and the FBI agents on the case?

00:40:08.140 Durham, no.

00:40:11.140 Oh, my God. Oh, my fucking God. Everything you thought about this was true. It was all true. Wow. 1.00

00:40:27.860 Wow. Amazing. So, Snopes got fact-checked by Community Notes. Isn't that great? So, Community Notes

00:40:39.880 is Twitter's little thing where it'll fact-check you if you do a bad tweet. And they fact-checked

00:40:45.440 Snopes, which is in itself a fact-checker. So, Snopes was claiming that the sub that's

00:40:51.480 missing was using Starlink Communications. And Community Notes said, nope. It doesn't even

00:40:59.540 work underwater. It doesn't work underwater. Apparently, the support ship was using it. But

00:41:06.020 that's a pretty big difference, because it wasn't the support ship that's lost. It was the sub.

00:41:12.480 So, during the time that I started this live stream, until now, approximately, I just did

00:41:21.480 the math this morning, five people have died from fentanyl overdose in the United States since

00:41:29.300 I started this live stream, like 42 minutes ago. So, in 42 minutes, roughly five people

00:41:35.780 died from fentanyl overdose. Do you know why you haven't heard of them? Do you know why

00:41:40.980 you don't know their names? Because they're not vacationing in a submarine. That's why.

00:41:46.940 Yeah. You put four assholes in the submarine, it's all world news. But four people die of fentanyl? 1.00

00:41:52.800 No, that's nothing. That's a big nothing. This submarine story is fucked up in every way that

00:41:58.960 a story can be fucked up. Number one, it's a tragedy that we're laughing about. You couldn't 1.00

00:42:04.640 be more fucked up than that. Number two, it's the least important thing happening in the whole 1.00

00:42:09.720 fucking world. Least important thing. Four deaths, unfortunately, you know, which are tragic, 0.99

00:42:16.520 of course. But like I said, four people died of fentanyl while I was talking, while you were listening

00:42:22.520 to me, four just died. There will be 70,000 of them by the end of the year, roughly. Four people

00:42:30.660 will die in the sub. Who's going to get more attention this week? Anyway, Wall Street Journal

00:42:39.440 is going after RFK Jr. for all of his conspiracy theorizing. But they gave me a handy little list

00:42:45.960 of the things that people are questioning RFK Jr. about. So I thought I'd read you the list

00:42:50.820 that I picked out of the Wall Street Journal's reporting. So here are the things that, according

00:42:56.160 to the Wall Street Journal, RFK Jr. says. Now, before I tell you these things, I would like

00:43:02.400 to give you this framework. I believe that whenever RFK Jr. talks about a study that shows a correlation,

00:43:11.180 that he's careful to say that's what he's talking about. I don't know that, because I've not heard

00:43:16.820 everything he's ever said. It's my understanding, based on the few things I have seen, that when

00:43:22.160 he says things like, this thing is highly correlated with this bad health outcome, that he's not

00:43:29.940 saying that causation has been established. But when people talk about him, they talk about

00:43:37.800 him as if he's saying it's true. He might. Maybe there's sometimes he does. Maybe he plays a little

00:43:45.440 loose with that. I don't know. But I would ask you to keep a skepticism handy that it might be that

00:43:54.520 he's just pointing out worrisome patterns that would require more testing. Because when I've

00:44:01.000 heard him talk, he says things are under-tested. In which case, the correlation argument, you know,

00:44:07.540 that this is correlated with autism or correlated with gay frogs or whatever he's correlating,

00:44:12.100 the correlation is completely valid if your main point is these things haven't been tested.

00:44:19.220 Would you agree with that? Correlation is how you find out what you should look into further.

00:44:24.900 So he might be exactly there. He might be exactly in the gotta look into it further. If he is,

00:44:31.640 would that be a conspiracy theory? Not in my mind. In my mind, he's just being a lawyer, basically.

00:44:42.100 He's a lawyer who had chased after these exact kind of things. Now, in a legal case, maybe the

00:44:47.620 correlation would be enough. I don't know. I'm not sure how the law works. But I think when he's

00:44:52.600 talking about it scientifically, outside the legal context, when he talks about it scientifically,

00:44:58.160 I think he just says it's correlation, which I would not call a conspiracy theory.

00:45:03.100 I would call it something worrisome that should be looked into. All right, here are the things he

00:45:09.120 claims. Contaminated water might be causing a rise in trans. That's the famous gay frogs study. 1.00

00:45:17.240 So there's a particular contaminant that in one small underpowered study suggested it changes,

00:45:25.020 change the sex of frogs. And he's saying quite reasonably, if this is changing the sex of frogs,

00:45:32.300 is it impossible that it's changing something about humans? Now, I don't believe he says it's

00:45:40.540 proven, to my point. I believe he says, why would you be okay with this? If it's doing this to the

00:45:48.020 frogs, you're going to take a big swig of that? If I handed you a glass of water and I said,

00:45:53.900 you know, I don't want to worry you, but this same water is turning, changing the sex of frogs,

00:46:02.100 would you say, ah, that doesn't sound like a problem? Suck it down. It's at least a good question. 1.00

00:46:10.220 All right, here's the next one. Childhood autism linked to childhood vaccinations.

00:46:14.880 Linked to, linked to, linked to, correlation, correlation, right? I don't think linked to says causation.

00:46:28.800 Now, has he? Has he said it's proven that it's a cause? Now, if he has, I would have some issue

00:46:35.820 with that because I don't know that anything's proven. But if he says it's linked to or correlated,

00:46:41.660 highly correlated, the timing is suspicious, we should look into it, we should test it better,

00:46:46.340 we should maybe modify the schedule. Is that a conspiracy theory? Does that sound like a big

00:46:53.200 old conspiracy to you? If there's an important correlation that's a little bit scary? I don't

00:47:00.380 know. I personally think the autism is caused by who's getting married. People are older, 0.93

00:47:07.300 techie people are meeting each other. You know, two Elon Musk get married, the odds of an autistic kid 0.99

00:47:14.100 go through the roof, you know? So I don't think it's, I don't think it's that, but I would also be

00:47:19.920 worried about the correlation. Prescription drugs lead to a rise in school shootings, maybe. Again,

00:47:29.200 is RFK Jr. saying, I have proof that prescription drugs are causing school shootings? No.

00:47:35.180 Nope. I don't believe he said anything like that. I think he said you should look into it because

00:47:40.520 there's an obvious reason to look into it. It's a really obvious reason that these drugs are known

00:47:46.320 to have these side effects. So look into it. Is that a conspiracy theory? No. It's just a good

00:47:54.300 question. How about Wi-Fi might cause cancer? Is that a conspiracy theory? And did he say it does cause

00:48:04.080 cancer? Or did he say it might? Because there's some studies that are suggesting that. Well, might

00:48:10.320 is okay. Who's arguing with might? Might means Wi-Fi is everywhere. Since Wi-Fi is everywhere,

00:48:19.640 if it might be dangerous, you don't think you'd like to know a little bit more about that?

00:48:24.900 Right. Is that a crime? Is it a conspiracy theory? No. It's just somebody who wants to know more

00:48:33.940 about what might kill him. How about his claim that the CIA killed his uncle and maybe his father? He

00:48:40.820 doesn't have anything that looks like direct evidence for killing his father. But the evidence

00:48:47.140 that the CIA killed his uncle, would you call that a conspiracy theory in 2013? In 2013, that doesn't

00:48:55.440 sound like a conspiracy theory. It sounds like something that's well established in the history.

00:49:01.300 Maybe I'm wrong. Or maybe I'm falling for the same gaslighting or something. But yeah. All right.

00:49:09.540 Yes, I know it's 2023, not 2013. I only did that once. I only got the right. I only tweeted the wrong

00:49:15.900 date once. Lately. And then another claim from RFK Jr. is that the Ukraine war is for the benefit of

00:49:23.960 the defense industry. And that's the primary purpose. Crazy, right? That wars are for the benefit of the

00:49:32.140 military industrial complex. Now, are they calling Eisenhower a conspiracy theorist? This is just

00:49:39.580 Eisenhower's theory. Eisenhower is considered one of the wisest, you know, predictive, correct people 0.85

00:49:49.860 of all time. So if JFK, if RFK Jr. says the same thing that Eisenhower says, only one of them is a

00:50:00.100 conspiracy theorist. And the other one is a wise sage who's warning you of something real.

00:50:06.860 Now, so those are the ones that the Wall Street Journal called out. There might be others. I don't

00:50:12.240 know. Do any of those look like a conspiracy theory to you? Would you characterize any of those as a

00:50:19.520 conspiracy theory? There's definitely, I do believe that he is perhaps internally convinced of some

00:50:26.780 things that I'm not internally convinced of, such as, you know, maybe this correlation means more

00:50:32.000 than it does. And I tend to lean toward it doesn't mean it. He might be leaning toward it does mean

00:50:38.160 something. But don't we both agree we would like to know for sure? I'm completely on the opposite

00:50:45.220 assumption than he is. But I'm exactly where he is on if we haven't tested it enough.

00:50:52.480 Well, maybe that's a problem. Maybe that's a problem.

00:50:58.020 I'm going to call bullshit on the following science. I think all of you saw that there was 0.98

00:51:04.940 a recent study, I don't know what it was now, that showed that it was a bad deal if you were raised by

00:51:11.720 one parent. You know, you would perform poorly in school, more likely to go to jail and all that

00:51:17.320 stuff. But then the study seemed to indicate that that was only a problem if the one parent was your

00:51:22.760 mother. But if it was your father, you get outcomes that are similar to a two-parent situation.

00:51:30.500 Do you believe that? Do you believe that? I'm sorry. No, no, I do not believe that.

00:51:42.120 Here's why I don't believe it. Do you believe that when a father gets custody,

00:51:49.000 that that group of fathers who got custody, if you were to look at them as a group,

00:51:53.620 do you think that would be a normal group of dads? Just the average dads, and they all got custody of

00:51:59.500 their kids? And then if you were to look at the mother who didn't get custody, was that an average

00:52:04.140 mother? Just an ordinary mother, but she didn't get custody, right? No, obviously, super obviously,

00:52:14.240 there's something very different about those populations. Do you know how super you have to

00:52:19.980 be as a dad to get custody? Full custody? You're going to have to be like the super dad. Here's what

00:52:29.340 you would have to say. My parents, which would be the child's grandparents, will be raising the kid,

00:52:35.720 so they'll have like the best care in the world when I'm at work. When I come home from work,

00:52:40.680 I've got a pretty good job, and if I have to go somewhere, I can hire a really good babysitter.

00:52:46.940 And you know what? My job is so good, I got a tutor. So my kid has a tutor, grandparents looking

00:52:53.100 after him during the day, all the love in the world on the weekends. Do you think that would give

00:52:58.560 you a good outcome? Of course. Of course. It's the perfect situation. I mean, minus the mother, 0.71

00:53:06.420 it would be better with the mother, but it's a pretty good situation. Now, what if the wife gets 1.00

00:53:13.660 custody? Or let's say the mother. If the mother has full custody, what's that say about the father? 0.66

00:53:22.340 Well, was not an awesome father, because didn't get custody. But if you had two, you know, two

00:53:31.040 worthless parents, if they're both worthless, who's going to get custody? If they're both 1.00

00:53:37.580 worthless, who gets custody? The mom, right? That's just sort of the default. So shouldn't you assume

00:53:46.340 that the mothers with custody are somewhat selected accidentally as the lower parental quality than

00:53:56.040 average? Whereas if the father gets custody, full custody. We're not talking about shared custody.

00:54:02.260 Full custody. If the father gets full custody, that's a pretty solid citizen. Am I wrong?

00:54:08.700 Is this not obviously bullshit science? You know, I remind you that when the studies started coming 0.98

00:54:17.040 out decades ago, they said moderate drinking was good for your health. And I just, I started screaming

00:54:24.300 at the time, not possible. Completely obviously bullshit. And now we know it was bullshit, right? 1.00

00:54:32.140 At the moment, the studies all show you that was bullshit. This is another one. There's no way in hell 1.00

00:54:38.680 that this is a valid study. But it made all the news. Made all the news. All right, Ukraine is bogged down.

00:54:51.960 So it turns out that the Ukrainians are not busting through the weak Russian defenses, because it turns

00:54:59.240 out the Russians had a really good defense. And the Russians are reconstituting their military. They're doing

00:55:05.500 some aggressive things to, you know, get their next army ready to replace the one that's there.

00:55:11.820 So Russia's not running out of money. They're not running out of soldiers. Not running out of time.

00:55:20.340 Seems to me that there will be some negotiations over the winter, or they'll wait for the winter

00:55:26.700 after this to wait for a Republican president.

00:55:34.320 That's what it looks like. So anybody who still calls it a war, I feel that's, you're just behind.

00:55:42.500 This is clearly a negotiation. It's a bloody negotiation. But the general, the broad outlines

00:55:49.920 of what the end of this war looks like are already settled. Right? The broad outline of what it looks

00:55:55.980 like when it's done, we already know. Right? Ukraine will still be a country. Ukraine will not be in

00:56:03.320 NATO. Right? We know this. Crimea is not going to go back to Ukraine. I'm not saying it should or

00:56:11.120 shouldn't. It's not a preference. I'm just saying what will happen. There'll be some accommodation for the

00:56:16.960 non-Crimea places. You know, maybe, maybe Ukraine keeps one, gives up three, something like that.

00:56:24.700 But, and then Ukraine will give some security guarantees, short of being NATO.

00:56:32.000 Russia moves its military away from the borders. Right? How hard is it, how hard is it at this point

00:56:38.360 to know how this ends? It's obvious. It's obvious how it ends. And they're going to, how many Ukrainian 1.00

00:56:46.380 men are just going to be chewed up? How many Russian conscripts are just going to be chewed up

00:56:53.620 for nothing? For nothing. At this point, every single person who dies over there, no point.

00:57:02.600 Completely no point. I mean, they still have to fight because the other side's fighting. But there's no point

00:57:07.600 to any of the fighting anymore. We've already reached, we know how it ends. Just do it.

00:57:13.560 And by the way, if I were, if I were Trump, I could, I could end the war before I became

00:57:20.960 president. That would be the most baller thing anybody ever did. Oh my God. Can you imagine

00:57:29.780 that? Can you imagine Trump ending the war without, without being president? He could do it,

00:57:37.800 he could do it with the truths. He could do it with a statement. I bet he could end it with one

00:57:44.100 statement. Here's the statement. It's obvious that you've reached a stalemate. Every person who dies

00:57:53.240 from this point on is on you. I'm going to end this war when I become president. End it now.

00:58:01.200 If you wait for me to become president, I'm going to come out down hard on both of you. Both of you.

00:58:08.360 That's the key word. Both of you. I'm just going to fucking kill both of you. Do it now, because you

00:58:14.580 already know how it ends. The ending is already written. Just read it. How about that? The ending

00:58:20.420 of the war is already written. All you have to do is read it. I believe that Trump could actually end

00:58:27.880 the war just by threatening what he would do when he takes power, because there's a greater than,

00:58:33.860 you know, probably a greater than 20% chance he'll take power. And remember that Trump often uses the,

00:58:40.880 the small risk of a bad thing. That's how he negotiates. Well, I might not become president.

00:58:47.480 It's possible. Maybe I won't get elected. Are you going to take that chance? Hey Putin,

00:58:52.400 I might not get elected. You willing to take that fucking chance? Because if you take that chance, 1.00

00:58:58.540 I'm going to remember you. I'm going to, I'm going to come at you with full force if you don't stand

00:59:06.440 down now. And sure, take your chances. Maybe there's only a 20% chance I get elected. You want

00:59:13.360 to take that fucking chance? I don't know. I think he could pull it off. I think he could end the war 1.00

00:59:19.340 without being part of the government. Because the one thing I'm sure of is that Putin wants to end

00:59:25.680 the war. And I can't imagine that Zelensky wants this to go much longer. Obviously, they both want

00:59:34.160 to win, but I don't think either side believes that's possible at this point. All right. And that,

00:59:43.260 ladies and gentlemen, brings us to the conclusion of my prepared comments. I think we can agree this

00:59:51.580 was the best live stream you've ever seen. And I'm going to say goodbye to the YouTube people.

00:59:57.060 Thanks. You've been great. And I'll talk to you tomorrow. Bye for now.

Real Coffee with Scott Adams - June 22, 2023

Episode 2147 Scott Adams： Durham & Schiff, Elon & Zuck, Hotep and RFK Jr., Woke Disney, Botox & Me

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