Real Coffee with Scott Adams - Episode 844 Scott Adams： Biden's VP Pick, #Covid-19 and the Usual Fun

00:00:00.000 Hey everybody, wake up sleepyheads.

00:00:10.840 I hope you remember to set your clocks if you happen to live in a backward country where 1.00

00:00:16.200 clocks get set twice a year.

00:00:19.600 Why do we do that?

00:00:21.320 I don't know.

00:00:23.020 I've never heard a good reason for it, actually.

00:00:25.260 Let's stop doing it.

00:00:26.840 But all that matters is you're here now.

00:00:30.000 And you are here for some of the best parts of your day, maybe the best, really, if I

00:00:37.180 might be modest.

00:00:38.640 It's called the Simultaneous Sip and you don't need much.

00:00:40.780 All you need is a cup or a mug or a glass or a tank or a chalice or a sign, a canteen jug

00:00:43.760 or a flask or a vessel of any kind.

00:00:46.420 Fill it with your favorite liquid.

00:00:48.660 I like my coffee.

00:00:50.580 And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure of the dopamine hit of the day, the thing

00:00:54.160 that makes everything better.

00:00:55.980 It's called the Simultaneous Sip.

00:00:58.480 And it happens now.

00:01:04.980 I saw somebody in the comments say, lock the clock.

00:01:12.540 And I've been trying to think of clever little marketing sayings for coronavirus.

00:01:20.300 Because, you know, if you have a little clever marketing saying like for seatbelts in California,

00:01:26.900 they have billboards that say, click it or take it, reminding you to wear your seatbelt.

00:01:33.980 And I thought, well, we need something like that with the hand washing and the face touching 0.97

00:01:38.680 with the coronavirus.

00:01:40.820 So we need a little rhyme.

00:01:42.440 It's something like clean it or die or something.

00:01:49.200 I don't know.

00:01:49.640 It's got to rhyme.

00:01:50.600 Put some work into that.

00:01:51.620 Get back to me.

00:01:53.200 All right.

00:01:53.760 Let's see what's going on here.

00:01:54.820 CNN has a big piece on their website, a video piece in which they're talking about women

00:02:02.320 being paid 80 cents on the dollar for the same job as men.

00:02:08.120 What?

00:02:10.600 Literally the most debunked statistics in all of life.

00:02:16.180 And CNN unabashedly runs like it's a fact.

00:02:19.920 Now, do I need to get into that?

00:02:23.840 Now, if anybody's new here, you know that there are two movies on one screen.

00:02:32.980 And on one movie, it's a fact that women are paid 80 cents on the dollar. 1.00

00:02:38.800 And you just ask anybody.

00:02:41.400 Ask anybody.

00:02:42.440 It's a fact.

00:02:43.840 But in the other movie, where people have actually looked at the studies, it just doesn't exist.

00:02:48.780 Now, it does exist if you looked at all jobs compared to all jobs, because women and men 0.95

00:02:56.440 take different jobs.

00:02:57.500 They have a different amount of experience, et cetera.

00:02:59.660 But once you drill down to the variables, most of it disappears.

00:03:04.520 So I believe there's still some.

00:03:06.140 I'm certainly not the person who would say that sexism doesn't exist in the workplace. 0.95

00:03:13.660 I'm not going to tell you that men and women get paid the same, because that's probably 0.95

00:03:17.660 not true.

00:03:19.040 But the 80 cents on the dollar is, I don't think that's even close to the actual gap.

00:03:25.260 It's probably in the five cent range that's the actual discrimination part.

00:03:29.860 Anyway, it's amazing to see CNN just unabashedly run for such easily disprovable anti-science

00:03:41.040 fake news.

00:03:43.680 And then, also today, CNN's SE Cup.

00:03:49.480 Now, this is just the headline.

00:03:51.940 So I didn't read the article.

00:03:53.900 And we know that sometimes the article doesn't match the headline.

00:03:57.100 But the headline, enough, is worth commenting on.

00:04:00.340 So whether it's right or wrong, it's worthy of comment.

00:04:03.640 And the headline says, attributing this to SE Cup, says, Americans panic over the coronavirus

00:04:10.980 can be attributed to a lack of trust in both the government and President Donald Trump.

00:04:17.860 Can it?

00:04:19.580 Can it?

00:04:21.580 Is that like a news fact?

00:04:24.000 Fact, the news fact, is that we can attribute the coronavirus panic to a lack of trust in

00:04:31.980 the government?

00:04:33.220 Is that what's happening?

00:04:35.000 That's just a fact, right?

00:04:36.720 Just report that right on the news channel.

00:04:39.580 Now, of course, SE Cup is an opinion person.

00:04:41.400 So she doesn't have to adhere to the standards of the news journalists, per se.

00:04:49.580 But you need a little more meat on that opinion.

00:04:55.640 Because from my standpoint, it looks like the panic is caused by a combination of, we have

00:05:04.120 something to worry about that's real.

00:05:06.320 It's not unreal.

00:05:09.740 And secondly, it's the way the news covers it, because it's 24-hour coverage.

00:05:13.780 It's the only thing happening.

00:05:15.360 So it's the news.

00:05:16.380 Is there anybody who thinks, and this is an honest question, is there anybody who thinks

00:05:25.860 that no matter what President Trump did about the virus, as long as it was also still spreading,

00:05:34.700 he's going to get criticized and the news will treat it like a panic, because everything

00:05:39.160 is hyperbole to sell clicks.

00:05:42.000 So it is such a bold, just such a bold lie to say that it could be attributed to the

00:05:49.840 government when it's so obviously the media and the nature of the problem itself is all

00:05:56.120 you need.

00:05:56.660 It wouldn't matter which government you put in there.

00:05:59.520 Don't you think if you just switch the government to a democratic government, Fox News would say

00:06:04.760 they're doing everything wrong.

00:06:06.840 CNN maybe would say less of that.

00:06:09.360 But there'd be exactly the same amount of panic.

00:06:12.500 It wouldn't have to do, it has nothing to do.

00:06:14.260 It's the one thing you could change is who's in charge.

00:06:18.400 It's the only thing you could change and have exactly the same result, as you're seeing now.

00:06:23.360 But CNN reports it the opposite.

00:06:28.460 I was, I went shopping yesterday.

00:06:30.640 I don't know how often I'll do that again.

00:06:33.800 So I'm, I'll be 63 in June, and I have a history of asthma.

00:06:40.940 So I take, I take meds every day to suppress it.

00:06:46.040 So I rarely have any kind of feeling of asthma, so I don't have a bad case.

00:06:52.920 It's probably in the mild, in the mild category.

00:06:56.020 And it's treated, so it doesn't have much impact on my life.

00:06:59.500 But I'm in the kill zone, meaning that if you're over 60, you have any kind of history 0.96

00:07:05.040 with a respiratory situation, you're supposed to just stop going anywhere.

00:07:09.640 And so, so I'm in that category.

00:07:14.360 So I'll tell you what I'm going to do.

00:07:16.880 I am going to, and I have already, so I've already done this, substantially modify my schedule.

00:07:24.780 So for the time being, I won't go to my gym.

00:07:27.280 I'll keep my membership and just work out at home.

00:07:30.840 Oh, I'm going to shift my hours a little bit for shopping.

00:07:34.920 So I'm still going to go to the grocery store because I was talking to Christine about this 0.98

00:07:41.720 yesterday, and this is how dumb I am.

00:07:45.540 And I was saying, you know, it might be a good idea if, if you did the shopping, because

00:07:51.280 usually we, you know, divide up some of the stuff.

00:07:54.120 And I like, I like doing the shopping.

00:07:55.780 She doesn't.

00:07:56.680 I'm talking about food shopping.

00:07:58.440 So I, since I like doing it, I was doing that and she was doing other stuff.

00:08:02.680 And, uh, but I said, well, maybe you should do the food shopping.

00:08:07.200 And then I realized, well, if she got the coronavirus, I'm definitely getting it.

00:08:13.320 It doesn't make any difference.

00:08:15.080 If, if you send your spouse to the store or your girlfriend or your friend, if they come 0.61

00:08:21.880 back with the coronavirus and they live in your house, you're not buying a lot of safety,

00:08:27.100 but a little bit, you know, it's not a guarantee that a spouse is going to give it to a spouse.

00:08:32.700 But it's pretty close to a guarantee.

00:08:36.200 So I'm going to keep shopping.

00:08:39.200 But I'm going to probably, uh, move my hours a little bit to try to hit the store when it's

00:08:45.040 the least amount of traffic.

00:08:46.540 And if I do that, I can actually avoid any line at all.

00:08:49.580 It'll just be me and a cashier.

00:08:51.620 And then I say to myself, well, what good did that do?

00:08:55.200 Because I'm probably not going to get it from the customers.

00:08:58.560 I'm going to get it from the cashier.

00:09:00.600 Because if there's anybody in the store who had it, the cashier is going to get it.

00:09:06.520 So I'm not entirely sure how much of this is even real.

00:09:11.200 Yeah.

00:09:11.440 Obviously, I'll do home delivery.

00:09:13.300 But for food, it's, it's a problem because you can't get it the same day and same selection

00:09:18.840 and all that stuff.

00:09:20.180 It's getting there, but not yet.

00:09:22.320 All right.

00:09:22.800 Um, so far, the only impact I've seen in my state, I assume this will change, but the

00:09:29.900 only impact I've seen in my state is a stimulus, which, which really brings to question how

00:09:39.000 good we are at predicting the obvious, because you think it's going to be obvious, right?

00:09:44.000 That all the experts are saying it's obvious the economy will slow down.

00:09:49.380 It's obvious because there's supply line problems.

00:09:52.760 People won't be going to things.

00:09:54.740 It's just obvious.

00:09:55.720 The economy is slowing down.

00:09:57.680 And then I go to the store.

00:09:59.620 It's just freaking packed.

00:10:01.580 People are buying out Amazon.

00:10:03.880 Amazon can't ship enough stuff. 0.87

00:10:06.240 It's like, it's like freaking Christmas.

00:10:08.520 I've never seen so much buying.

00:10:11.720 So maybe, I mean, maybe the net effect will be negative.

00:10:16.440 All the smart people say so.

00:10:17.940 And if you have to bet on it, you know, if you're going to put your money on it, I'd bet

00:10:22.200 that it's going to be negative for a while.

00:10:25.120 But why isn't it happening yet?

00:10:26.720 I mean, at the moment, people are just buying like crazy.

00:10:29.920 I went to a restaurant the other night, and I was kind of thinking it might be the last

00:10:35.980 time for a while that I go out to a restaurant that has a lot of people in it.

00:10:40.380 But I thought, well, I'll get it out of the way before the virus gets too close to my neighborhood.

00:10:47.180 So I go to the restaurant.

00:10:48.240 It's just packed.

00:10:49.780 It's packed.

00:10:51.380 And I don't know.

00:10:53.520 So far, it just looks like we're spending a lot more money, not less.

00:10:57.320 Now, of course, the travel industry will get devastated.

00:11:00.280 There's no doubt about that.

00:11:03.700 So Stanford University decided to cancel all classes, but not the cafeteria.

00:11:11.380 And, you know, I guess they got people they got to keep alive there, food-wise.

00:11:15.780 And I thought to myself, Stanford closing the entire campus, or closing classes, but not

00:11:22.640 the campus, I guess.

00:11:24.100 They close classes, and they're doing it all remote.

00:11:26.740 Now, they can do it because they have a very advanced online training system, and apparently

00:11:32.820 they can just switch over and make that work.

00:11:36.660 Now, not everybody can do that.

00:11:37.860 But here's the important thing.

00:11:40.100 Stanford is not like other colleges.

00:11:44.100 What is it about Stanford?

00:11:46.340 That's different from every other college in the United States.

00:11:51.500 You could argue in the world.

00:11:53.760 There's one thing that's very different about Stanford.

00:11:57.240 Arguably, it's the top college.

00:12:00.700 And arguably, I mean, Harvard might disagree, and Yale and those guys.

00:12:04.800 But Stanford's kind of the smartest school we have with the smartest people and the smartest

00:12:09.840 instructors.

00:12:10.500 So when your smartest school goes first, what does that do to everybody else?

00:12:19.020 If it were a random school, just one you'd heard of, you'd say to yourself, well, it's

00:12:24.100 just a school I've heard of.

00:12:26.140 There are lots of schools.

00:12:28.420 I'm not going to take anything from that.

00:12:30.200 It's just one school made that decision.

00:12:32.420 But Stanford's not just one school.

00:12:35.400 Stanford is frickin' Stanford.

00:12:37.820 If Stanford says they're going to make a change that dramatic, you've got to stop what you're 0.71

00:12:43.740 doing, right?

00:12:45.660 You've got to put down your tools and listen.

00:12:48.520 Because this isn't your community college.

00:12:53.420 This is frickin' Stanford.

00:12:56.300 They got some smart people.

00:12:57.940 They put some thought into it.

00:12:59.640 They're not missing anything.

00:13:02.580 So I have a feeling that Stanford going first is going to have a gigantic psychological pressure

00:13:10.300 on everybody else in a way that any other school would not.

00:13:13.820 Harvard may be the same, but I feel like Stanford is the lever that moves the whole thing.

00:13:19.340 So you're going to see a lot of school closings.

00:13:21.300 That seems inevitable.

00:13:23.420 I was in an elevator yesterday and go shopping.

00:13:31.120 And there were a couple of fun-looking grandmother types. 1.00

00:13:35.840 I'm guessing they were 75 each.

00:13:38.060 And they were that spunky, full of life, going to live to 100 kind of 75-year-olds, the kind

00:13:44.380 you want to hang out with, a couple of old ladies. 1.00

00:13:48.480 And they had some political pins on them, and they were chatting.

00:13:51.820 And they were chatting out loud in the elevator about their favorite Democratic picks.

00:13:57.600 One of them liked Pete Buttigieg, but since he's gone, I think they were going to back

00:14:02.120 Bernie.

00:14:02.920 And they're just chatting away in a crowded elevator.

00:14:05.180 And I thought to myself, I couldn't do that.

00:14:09.960 I couldn't.

00:14:11.280 Could you, if you were a Trump supporter, well, certainly in California, maybe it's different

00:14:16.420 in your state.

00:14:17.480 But if you were in California, you couldn't get in an elevator in California and just have

00:14:22.600 a casual conversation with the person you came into the elevator with and say, yeah,

00:14:27.000 yeah, yeah, we're getting ready to support Trump and we're going to a rally and stuff.

00:14:33.000 Now, there's somebody who says, you know, I do.

00:14:35.600 I think if you're a certain size, if you're male and you're a certain size and you, you

00:14:40.880 know, and nobody's going to pick a fight with you, you can say anything you want.

00:14:44.560 That's just a fact.

00:14:45.400 But, uh, I wouldn't, I would actually be, I would feel unsafe in a crowded elevator of

00:14:55.640 just normal citizens in the suburbs, you know, no, no scary looking people, just normal citizens.

00:15:00.920 I would feel unsafe to say anything positive about Republicans.

00:15:07.840 Now, yeah, you see in the comments, I'm not alone.

00:15:11.280 That has a lot to do with where I live.

00:15:12.740 And when I say unsafe, I don't mean, I don't mean they're going to beat me up.

00:15:16.140 I mean, it's going to be some kind of unpleasant encounter.

00:15:20.680 And I thought to myself, I don't think there's enough reporting on that.

00:15:27.900 The fact that half of the country can't even talk out loud about their political opinions.

00:15:35.480 I've never seen that before.

00:15:37.260 Has that ever been the case?

00:15:38.640 I mean, I can't think of any, any situation where half the country was silenced in public.

00:15:44.760 You actually, you can do it on social media, you know, cause you have some distance here,

00:15:48.760 but that's a pretty bad situation.

00:15:52.540 And I, I think I have to, um, I've avoided saying this, but now I'm, you know, I've been

00:16:02.160 tripped over the line.

00:16:03.140 And the left is a, is a violent hate group.

00:16:08.420 Now that sounds like the things that somebody says in a political season and it sounds like

00:16:12.960 hyperbole and it sounds like just something, it just sounds like something you say.

00:16:18.740 It doesn't sound like anything that's close to something real to call an entire political

00:16:23.940 party, a hate group, but why is it that I can't talk in front of them about just a normal political

00:16:31.920 process, a normal, you know, well, I don't know how normal Trump is, but, but an ordinary

00:16:37.700 political conversation I can't have.

00:16:41.120 I can't have that in public.

00:16:43.220 I couldn't even wear, I would not go out in public with a shirt that, you know, said Trump

00:16:48.480 on it and, you know, I don't wear that kind of stuff anyway, but I wouldn't if I did.

00:16:55.060 So is it, is it hyperbole to say that the Democrats are a hate group because an ordinary

00:17:03.220 well-meaning citizen church going loves the constitution has never discriminated, just

00:17:09.420 likes low taxes, just having a conversation in an elevator.

00:17:13.320 You couldn't do that.

00:17:14.760 You could not do that.

00:17:15.980 So I think, I think it's not hyperbole to say that the Democrats have evolved, you know,

00:17:23.780 not intentionally, but I think they've evolved into a hate group that can actively, actively,

00:17:30.620 you know, execute their hate in public, in public.

00:17:35.560 Apparently people are okay with it.

00:17:38.400 Oh my God, I'm right on the edge of flipping out again.

00:17:41.360 I told you about that.

00:17:42.220 The prednisone puts me right on the edge.

00:17:44.240 It's, it's only the fact that I know it is not my genuine opinion that the, that the

00:17:50.000 meds are influencing me to be a little bit more combative.

00:17:53.280 It's only that that allows me to pull back that, that little extra knowledge.

00:17:58.260 All right.

00:18:00.040 Here's my prediction.

00:18:03.080 And this is the most boring, ordinary prediction in the world, but it always comes as a surprise.

00:18:08.560 So how could something be boring, ordinary, boring, happens every time.

00:18:15.480 And when I say it, it's still going to sound like a surprise.

00:18:18.760 Watch this.

00:18:20.120 The presidential race is a horse race and the media will cause the underdog to catch up so

00:18:26.900 that you have you, so that the lead gets switched a lot of times.

00:18:31.040 So there's just an automatic universal pressure to let the underdog catch up so that it's,

00:18:38.500 it's a close race again.

00:18:40.000 So what happened?

00:18:40.740 We had, we had, uh, Bernie had a dominant lead.

00:18:44.600 What was the prediction?

00:18:46.560 Well, horse race, the prediction is that the dominant lead, no matter how dominant would

00:18:52.260 be challenged.

00:18:52.920 Sure enough, Biden has this big super Tuesday.

00:18:56.800 So now, now Biden's the, the definite nominee, right?

00:19:00.900 Totally going to be Biden.

00:19:02.780 Nothing could happen now.

00:19:04.480 He's got a commanding lead.

00:19:06.060 Biden's going all the way.

00:19:08.300 Right?

00:19:09.620 Well, no, the prediction is that the media controls this stuff and they're going to make

00:19:14.260 it close.

00:19:14.840 And I don't know that the media needed to do that, but have you heard this latest compilation

00:19:23.220 clip of Biden's gaffes?

00:19:26.860 It really is a new level and, and it feels like you can, again, this could be confirmation

00:19:34.620 bias, but it feels like as an observer, and it probably doesn't matter if it's confirmation

00:19:39.620 bias, because if I'm perceiving it that way, others are, and that's how people will vote.

00:19:44.840 But it looks like Biden is losing it in an actual predictable way that we're observing.

00:19:51.820 In other words, six months ago, I don't think he was as bad as he is now.

00:19:56.840 Is that my imagination?

00:19:59.640 Now, probably a lot of you will agree with it, but we have to be honest that that could

00:20:03.920 be confirmation bias.

00:20:05.740 So you're seeing people agreeing with me, but, but take the same caution that I'm giving

00:20:10.880 myself, which is, it might look like that, even if it weren't true, because we're sort

00:20:17.060 of looking for it.

00:20:18.080 But let me see if I can play this latest clip.

00:20:20.600 It's just, it's just shocking.

00:20:22.160 Because we cannot get reelected.

00:20:24.440 We cannot win this.

00:20:26.240 So this is Biden trying to get out of a sentence.

00:20:28.880 Watch how mangled this is.

00:20:30.020 Because we cannot get reelected.

00:20:32.340 We cannot win this reelection.

00:20:34.840 Excuse me.

00:20:35.320 We can only reelect Donald Trump because we cannot get reelected.

00:20:40.180 We cannot.

00:20:41.240 He actually worked hard on that sentence, struggled.

00:20:44.940 And when he was done, he decided that what he wanted to say is that we should elect, reelected.

00:20:51.260 We should work hard to reelect Donald Trump.

00:20:53.420 He, he, this isn't funny anymore, okay?

00:20:59.920 That's not to say I won't have my, my laughs at future things, but it's not a joke anymore

00:21:07.700 to say that there's a little bit of elder abuse going on.

00:21:11.640 There's something happening here that's deeply troubling and that has nothing to do with politics.

00:21:19.500 Right?

00:21:20.100 And I feel like, don't the Democrats see this?

00:21:27.920 You know, I'm sure the Democrats were saying the same thing and maybe still do, that, that

00:21:34.560 Trump has his own issues, blah, blah, blah, can't we all see it?

00:21:38.380 So they might be as equally puzzled about why we can't see what they see in Trump.

00:21:43.820 But honestly, this is either a wonderful illusion that, you know, some people can see what's

00:21:53.080 happening with Biden and some can't, or are we the ones who are wrong?

00:21:57.500 Don't rule it out.

00:21:59.160 Maybe we're the ones who are having a bad perception.

00:22:02.280 What if he's fine?

00:22:04.040 Do you think there's any chance of that?

00:22:05.440 I don't.

00:22:07.600 You know, you have to trust your own judgment because that's the world we live in.

00:22:12.420 I mean, you have to do something.

00:22:14.160 You got to, you have to act.

00:22:15.540 You can't just sit there and starve to death.

00:22:17.780 So you have to choose your judgment, but we really have bad judgment.

00:22:21.600 Just keep that in mind.

00:22:23.200 You have to act anyway.

00:22:25.940 All right.

00:22:26.400 Let's see what else is going on.

00:22:29.940 George Takai.

00:22:31.480 Do you all know George Takai?

00:22:33.600 He's a great Twitter account to follow.

00:22:37.760 He was, of course, played Sulu in the original Star Trek.

00:22:41.700 And he's a big anti-Trumper.

00:22:43.780 Now, most anti-Trump accounts are just painful to follow.

00:22:49.440 Like, you probably don't.

00:22:51.460 If you're a Trump supporter, you probably don't follow any anti-Trump accounts.

00:22:54.580 But if you wanted to follow on that is often clever and funny and doesn't always have politics,

00:23:02.320 George Takai is actually, he's a fun follow.

00:23:05.640 Because even when I don't agree with him, there's something entertaining there.

00:23:10.200 So he's, of course, very vocal in the celebrity world of being an anti-Trumper.

00:23:16.700 And he put out his own video in which it looks like he cut pieces from Biden video, official videos,

00:23:25.440 and put together basically his own little commercial, like a campaign ad, to show how great Joe Biden is.

00:23:32.880 But here's the embarrassing part.

00:23:34.680 He focused on Joe Biden going to have a burger with Beto at the Whataburger,

00:23:40.980 where they just went into an ordinary fast food place and sat down and had a burger and talked.

00:23:46.340 And in order to sell Joe Biden, what George Takai had to do with his own little homemade video

00:23:53.600 is remove the parts where Joe Biden is talking.

00:23:59.280 I'm just thinking about that.

00:24:00.360 In order to make a favorable video about Joe Biden, you had to edit out the parts where he's talking.

00:24:08.460 Now, he did say something, but it was just a brief statement.

00:24:12.080 Then all the rest was Beto talking or video of him walking in or some commentary.

00:24:20.140 They actually had to remove the parts where he talks.

00:24:25.080 I mean, just think about it.

00:24:26.280 Because do you think that George Takai, you know, you can tell from his Twitter account,

00:24:33.020 he's a bright guy, he's paying attention, he's watching, and he cares.

00:24:38.380 He cares a lot.

00:24:40.060 Do you think he doesn't see this?

00:24:42.760 Do you think he doesn't know that he didn't have a way to make Joe Biden look good if Joe Biden was speaking?

00:24:48.560 I just don't see how Bernie doesn't make a slight comeback.

00:24:58.940 So, here's what I think.

00:25:00.580 I think people are going to be talking about Biden's brain.

00:25:03.560 The president's already talking about it.

00:25:05.640 It has to be obvious to Democrats that he can't possibly win, right?

00:25:11.360 Am I wrong about that?

00:25:13.020 Isn't this the most obvious thing we've ever seen in politics?

00:25:16.540 Let me put it this way.

00:25:17.440 Has there ever been a potential matchup that had so little mystery to it?

00:25:24.380 This doesn't look close.

00:25:26.960 Now, I don't think Bernie can win either.

00:25:30.040 So, they do have two choices of, you know, which way do you want to lose?

00:25:35.240 Let's talk some more about that.

00:25:36.700 Kamala Harris put out a little video today in which she, as anticipated, endorsed Joe Biden.

00:25:47.440 But here's the interesting part, according to me.

00:25:53.060 Maybe it's only interesting to me.

00:25:54.800 We'll find out.

00:25:55.860 I had predicted when she dropped out of the race.

00:25:58.140 Keep in mind, for context, that 18 months ago or so, I had predicted that she would be the nominee for the Democrats.

00:26:06.380 Obviously, she has suspended her campaign.

00:26:10.160 So, my prediction that she would be the nominee, people said, not so good.

00:26:15.320 But I said, well, she might reemerge as Biden's vice president, but she would come back stronger.

00:26:20.960 And I had predicted this, correct me if I'm wrong, you've heard me say this, right?

00:26:26.260 Because I think I've said it more than once, that the Democrat experts would give Kamala a makeover.

00:26:33.960 A charisma makeover.

00:26:36.460 Because I think that's the main thing she needed.

00:26:39.780 And so, she does this little video after disappearing for a while.

00:26:43.420 And the disappearing for a while was part of the prediction.

00:26:45.940 And she would disappear, and like Batman, she would train to fix whatever flaws she had. 0.74

00:26:53.440 And then she would come back, and she would be a different product. 0.75

00:26:57.960 Well, it might have just happened.

00:27:01.320 Because if you watch the video, and I just tweeted it so you can see it in my Twitter feed,

00:27:05.660 here are the things that I had criticized her about in the past,

00:27:09.120 or thought about criticizing in one case, but didn't say it out loud.

00:27:13.100 And then here's what she's done about it.

00:27:14.500 So, the old Kamala, old being, you know, a few months ago,

00:27:22.360 she had, her dress, what do you call it?

00:27:26.720 The clothes she wore, not a dress.

00:27:28.740 But she wore these boxy suits that made her look awful. 0.95

00:27:33.700 Am I right?

00:27:35.180 The way she dressed was frankly awful.

00:27:39.420 Maybe as politicians go, one of the worst dressers. 1.00

00:27:43.960 Now, before you say sexist, sexist, sexist, I'm on record of saying that Hillary Clinton did an excellent job of dressing. 1.00

00:27:55.060 And I will reassert that.

00:27:57.540 Hillary designed essentially like a uniform, if you will. 1.00

00:28:01.280 So, she had a look and a style. 1.00

00:28:03.000 And you don't have to be a supermodel to dress fashionably and as well as you can.

00:28:11.000 And I think Hillary did a perfectly good job in the fashion way. 1.00

00:28:18.420 And it matters.

00:28:19.540 I think when the president wears his suit, it matters.

00:28:22.840 I think how they dress makes a big difference.

00:28:26.860 And Kamala comes back and in her video, and again, we don't know if this is a trend yet.

00:28:33.040 We're just looking for it early.

00:28:35.040 She's wearing only a black, some kind of a top that is very flattering.

00:28:40.180 So, the boxy jacket is off with the little shoulders and stuff that make her look like a box. 0.83

00:28:47.340 And instead, she's wearing just a black top.

00:28:50.760 And I'm, you know, I'm not your fashion guy, right?

00:28:53.360 I'm just saying that it was a world better, a world better just look to have just a nice, simple black top.

00:29:04.000 Framed her nicely.

00:29:05.120 She had a nice background.

00:29:09.040 It was different.

00:29:10.680 It was way better.

00:29:12.020 Now, is this a trend?

00:29:12.900 We don't know yet.

00:29:13.560 We'll have to see her a few more times.

00:29:15.620 The other thing that she got right is that, and again, I don't want to make this sexist, right?

00:29:22.920 Because it's going to sound like that.

00:29:24.400 I make fun of Bernie's hair all the time.

00:29:27.480 Biden's hair.

00:29:28.420 These are disasters of haircuts.

00:29:30.700 Trump is sort of a special case because his hair is more of a, you know, part of the brand.

00:29:36.900 But, you know, the men in the race have some issues with hair.

00:29:41.800 Because how you look does matter.

00:29:43.980 We're a shallow world.

00:29:45.600 And I would say that Kamala's hairstyle that she had been using mostly on the campaign was hit or miss.

00:29:52.620 It was different on different days, but I wasn't a fan.

00:29:56.600 In this video where she is promoting or endorsing Joe Biden, she's, in my opinion, her hairstyle has improved.

00:30:06.940 A little more, I don't know, it's just better.

00:30:10.400 Now, again, is that permanent?

00:30:12.700 Is it just, you know, women change their hair fairly frequently? 1.00

00:30:15.900 Maybe it was just a good day.

00:30:17.440 But it's noticeably better.

00:30:19.100 Somebody says more feminine. 1.00

00:30:22.380 I don't know if it's that.

00:30:23.960 I think it's just better.

00:30:25.460 You know, if you've ever seen somebody who went from a bad hairstylist to a good one, it makes a big difference.

00:30:31.320 I think maybe she got a better hairstyle. 0.90

00:30:33.460 The other thing she did is no giggle.

00:30:36.180 This was my biggest complaint.

00:30:38.640 Is that she giggled.

00:30:40.620 It's just a mannerism.

00:30:41.980 She would giggle at her own jokes.

00:30:43.860 And it would make her look unserious. 1.00

00:30:46.320 No giggle.

00:30:46.960 She got through the entire video without the nervous girl giggle.

00:30:52.480 And I think that really costs her when she does that.

00:30:55.760 If she got coached out of that, it's going to be a big change.

00:31:01.320 Because that's her biggest weakness, in my opinion.

00:31:04.200 Now, she has one more thing that she needs to work on.

00:31:09.800 Which is, she has a chihuahua-like shaking quality when she talks. 0.97

00:31:15.600 Have you noticed that?

00:31:16.960 So, she'll talk.

00:31:18.800 And her body will be moving.

00:31:20.340 So, she'll be like this.

00:31:21.760 I'm talking.

00:31:22.460 I'm going to endorse Joe Biden.

00:31:25.320 And you can't feel...

00:31:27.260 She doesn't feel confident because her body is not calmed.

00:31:31.540 There are moments in which she calms a little bit.

00:31:36.240 And her voice is calm.

00:31:37.860 And watch...

00:31:38.400 Somebody says you're obsessed.

00:31:40.540 But watch how much power she projects when she calms down her body. 1.00

00:31:47.180 And I think the experts are probably telling her this, too.

00:31:49.560 So, this is my speculation that she's being coached, finally, by good people.

00:31:55.920 Because it looks like there's a change.

00:31:57.720 If she can calm her body, the force of her voice just goes through the roof.

00:32:02.860 Because she does have a really good, powerful voice that she completely kneecaps by jumping around and being a chihuahua. 1.00

00:32:11.120 If she could calm it down, it's really going to be remarkable.

00:32:15.900 And she had a nice smile, and she was more likable on this.

00:32:19.940 And that's part of her problem.

00:32:21.640 All right.

00:32:21.880 Now, given all this, there's also...

00:32:25.140 Here's a hypnotist observation.

00:32:28.780 While she was endorsing Biden, she was shaking her head no.

00:32:34.660 She needs to stop that. 0.99

00:32:36.720 Watch me shake my head no as I'm talking.

00:32:40.840 Which makes me wonder if I do it.

00:32:42.660 I wonder if I do that.

00:32:43.600 But she's endorsing him while shaking her head no.

00:32:47.340 She's like, Joe Biden's the best person in the world, and I'm so glad that I'm endorsing him.

00:32:52.120 I'm making this up.

00:32:52.920 That's not exactly what she said.

00:32:54.460 And her head is shaking back and forth like a no while she's talking.

00:32:58.660 I'm not 100% convinced that that means anything.

00:33:03.420 It would be easy to look at a common mannerism and over-interpret it.

00:33:08.060 But keep an eye on her, and see if she shakes her head no on other topics.

00:33:13.360 If she doesn't, maybe it does mean something.

00:33:17.680 All right.

00:33:18.580 I still think Klobuchar would be the stronger choice for Joe Biden.

00:33:24.680 And the reason is that Klobuchar doesn't seem to have any negatives except maybe some personal likability that, frankly, voters don't care about.

00:33:35.700 People don't care too much if you're mean to your staff.

00:33:39.140 They really don't.

00:33:39.900 And Joe Biden is so nice that Amy Klobuchar's one tiny little small weakness of, you know, she ate a salad with a comb or she was mean to somebody, it gets sort of erased because Biden's niceness will cancel that out.

00:33:59.740 But I think Klobuchar strikes you as somebody who could take the job right away.

00:34:06.280 Am I wrong about that?

00:34:07.240 Even if you didn't like anything about Amy Klobuchar's policies, would you agree with me that if the choice was Kamala or Klobuchar, let's say there was never any president, you just had to choose.

00:34:21.200 Klobuchar or Kamala, let's say you dislike their policies equally.

00:34:27.000 You just had to choose who's a solid sort of presidential quality.

00:34:32.600 I think head to head is Klobuchar because she doesn't have negatives.

00:34:39.380 She has a solid success.

00:34:40.860 She's got success in those battleground states. 1.00

00:34:44.860 She's done things across the aisle.

00:34:46.580 She's been a senator for a long time.

00:34:48.360 She did better than Kamala did in the race. 1.00

00:34:51.020 I don't think it's even close if you're looking at her just as an individual.

00:34:55.440 But if you're looking at what balances the ticket, I've said cheekily before that you might need to add a person of color to the Democratic ticket so that white people will vote for them. 0.53

00:35:07.680 Because all the guilty white Democrats are going to need a person of color on the ticket to feel good about it. 0.87

00:35:13.540 But I've said before that black voters apparently are more flexible than white voters, apparently are willing to vote for their self-interest as they see it, and apparently are a little bit more flexible about who they vote for.

00:35:27.660 So kudos to that community.

00:35:30.320 CPAC, that big Republican convention, apparently there was an attendee with a coronavirus, and was it AIPAC that had one too, and somebody shook hands with somebody who shook hands with the president, and the president says he's not concerned at all.

00:35:51.140 Now, is that a good answer?

00:35:56.140 If the president of the United States, in the middle of this crisis, which they're telling us to be worried, no, they're not telling us to be worried.

00:36:03.700 They're telling us to be prepared.

00:36:06.540 Should the president say he's not concerned at all?

00:36:10.500 I think the answer is yes.

00:36:13.540 Because I think you want your president telling people not to panic, so long as they're also getting the message to prepare.

00:36:21.140 And so long as they're also getting the message that there's a real thing out there that needs to be worried about.

00:36:27.720 I'm a little bit mixed on the Trump performance so far.

00:36:32.480 As I always say, you can't really tell if he's doing a good or bad job on the details of, you know, who's in charge and what decisions have been made and all that stuff.

00:36:42.000 You can't really tell, because you don't know how somebody else would have done.

00:36:45.800 We're not close enough to it.

00:36:47.140 You just don't know.

00:36:47.880 But you can tell the communication, because that's the part you can observe directly.

00:36:54.600 Does the president say things and go to, you know, create events and do things that make you feel comfortable and make you feel like the government's got this?

00:37:04.360 Is that sort of a mixed bag?

00:37:05.800 I would say, as I said yesterday, I think Trump's personality and the set of tools he brings to the job are extraordinary, like we've never seen before.

00:37:17.760 But that's different from saying it fits every occasion.

00:37:21.900 You need the right president with the right tools for the right situation.

00:37:25.400 You know, the war president is not the peace president.

00:37:28.180 They're different people, probably.

00:37:29.900 I don't think Trump is good at this.

00:37:34.320 We know he's a famous germaphobe.

00:37:37.040 I don't know if that has anything to do with how engaged he is in this.

00:37:41.140 But he's not good at this.

00:37:43.100 Can we agree on that?

00:37:45.160 Now, again, being not good at this, I'm talking about just the communication part,

00:37:51.000 doesn't mean anything about whether or not the government is being effective in dealing with this.

00:37:56.700 Because it's not the president who's doing the work.

00:37:58.660 There are a lot of professionals, smart people doing the work.

00:38:02.560 I imagine they're doing everything that they can do.

00:38:04.820 I imagine private industry is doing everything it can do.

00:38:07.640 And I've said before that this is different than any other situation in which normally the president would be the most important person

00:38:15.500 and would be making decisions that would affect everything.

00:38:19.180 I don't know that the president is the most important person anymore.

00:38:22.520 Because the entire world has mobilized on this problem and they didn't have to be asked.

00:38:29.360 Because it's a global threat and humanity has focused its smartest, bravest, hardest working people on the problem.

00:38:39.600 When is humanity as a whole focused on one problem that's so immediate and this important before?

00:38:49.120 Never.

00:38:50.580 We're focusing the entire weight of human capability on this one problem.

00:38:57.060 And it's phenomenal.

00:38:58.740 It's not really the president's job.

00:39:00.620 It's the globe as sort of self-organized, 99% of it.

00:39:06.200 And then the president says, here's some money, I'll sign it.

00:39:08.820 But the president is not doing the work.

00:39:10.960 The globe has kind of self-organized plus using existing CDC and state governments and stuff.

00:39:18.620 But it's beautiful to watch humanity act as one and become this global brain, as I've called it.

00:39:30.000 I called it a God brain and then I deleted that tweet because I think it just confuses people.

00:39:35.640 People don't want their religion mixed in with their opinion, so I just deleted that.

00:39:40.240 But let's call it a global brain. 0.76

00:39:41.820 But it is focused on the problem in a way we've never done before, at a time when we can all communicate.

00:39:50.640 And let me give you some examples of what's happening.

00:39:54.040 So yesterday, I think it was yesterday, I tweeted that in order for telemedicine to work,

00:40:00.340 meaning your doctor being on a video call instead of in person,

00:40:04.020 in order for that to work efficiently, we need an executive order that would allow doctors to practice across state lines. 0.83

00:40:14.020 Now, why is it that I could make that tweet and I think it will actually make a difference?

00:40:20.060 The reason I could do that is because I have experience with my own startup in which we work with doctors on telemedicine.

00:40:26.660 And I learned that one of the biggest problems is that you can't practice across state lines.

00:40:32.280 And if you could, there would be far more availability.

00:40:35.080 Because let's say there's an emergency in one state, but it hasn't hit another state yet.

00:40:40.980 You'd have a lot of doctors in the other state who have a little excess capacity they're willing to give out,

00:40:46.640 maybe at night or whatever, and they can help out across state lines.

00:40:50.460 At the moment, it's illegal.

00:40:52.500 It's illegal.

00:40:54.440 Can you believe that?

00:40:55.480 It's an emergency.

00:40:57.220 The country's in an emergency.

00:40:59.540 And a qualified doctor in Connecticut, they've got a pretty good, you know, requirements to be a doctor, don't you think?

00:41:07.240 Don't you think a doctor who's qualified to practice in Connecticut can give you an opinion in Pennsylvania?

00:41:14.520 I mean, right?

00:41:16.300 Is that dangerous?

00:41:18.100 Do you feel at risk because you talk to a doctor who can practice in Connecticut, but you're in Pennsylvania?

00:41:24.480 No, you don't feel at risk.

00:41:26.160 Obviously not. 0.92

00:41:27.420 It's a ridiculous set of rules. 0.73

00:41:31.540 Maybe it's good for the states. 0.85

00:41:32.880 Maybe the AMA has something to do with it.

00:41:35.100 But the point is, I, as a citizen, had a little bit of exposure to that problem.

00:41:41.340 It's a gigantic lever in this crisis, you know, to free up more potential doctor advice, even remotely, could be a big variable.

00:41:53.480 And I happen to know that it would take one executive order to wipe all that away just for the emergency.

00:42:01.600 Now, you probably want to limit it and say something like, you know, it's just for coronavirus inquiries and assistance.

00:42:07.940 And it's only, it's only for a limited time frame because you don't want to go through the whole trouble of changing the whole system in the proper way.

00:42:16.400 Now, some people have said to me, can you do an executive order like that?

00:42:21.040 Because you'd be, wouldn't you be overruling all the states?

00:42:24.380 And is it legal?

00:42:25.880 And don't you need legislation?

00:42:27.280 And wouldn't it take longer?

00:42:28.660 And here's the answer to that.

00:42:30.740 No.

00:42:32.200 No.

00:42:32.940 That's what an emergency is.

00:42:35.520 An emergency is, you do things that you'd only do in an emergency.

00:42:40.000 And this is one of them.

00:42:42.080 Would it be legal for the President of the United States to do an executive order saying doctors could temporarily, and for this situation only, practice across state borders?

00:42:53.140 And the answer is, it doesn't matter.

00:42:55.240 If, if, if you're saying to yourself, you know, Scott, it would be illegal for the, an executive order, you know, for, for that to be done by an executive order, it doesn't matter.

00:43:08.300 Who's going to complain?

00:43:11.020 This is very important.

00:43:12.540 If nobody's going to complain, and nobody's going to complain, I mean, nobody that matters.

00:43:18.240 If nobody's going to complain, and it's literally one piece of paper, executive order, I order doctors to be able to practice, you know, across state lines.

00:43:29.640 That's it.

00:43:29.920 It's one piece of paper.

00:43:31.560 One piece of paper.

00:43:33.820 Nobody will complain.

00:43:35.640 Does it matter if it's legal?

00:43:37.980 It does not.

00:43:39.340 Does not, should not matter if it's legal.

00:43:42.020 It's an emergency.

00:43:42.680 Obviously, it's transparent, it's obvious, it's the right thing to do.

00:43:48.340 That's it.

00:43:49.280 Somebody's saying malpractice insurance.

00:43:51.600 You would probably need an executive order to handle that in some way.

00:43:57.380 Yes.

00:43:58.160 But that's a detail.

00:44:01.200 All right.

00:44:02.520 So, here's another little factoid.

00:44:05.740 So, if you haven't, if you're not following Balaji Srinivasan, you should.

00:44:11.040 You can find his, I retweet him a lot, especially during the coronavirus thing, because his insight and expertise in this is tremendous.

00:44:21.040 And one of the things that he found is that there was a development recently in that a certain kind of UV called far UV, and I don't know the difference between regular UV and something called far UV, but there's a technical difference.

00:44:38.880 And apparently, in a 2018 Columbia paper that Balaji was tweeting about, it can kill airborne viruses.

00:44:49.640 So, you can actually shoot the virus out of the air with light, a special kind of light.

00:44:57.620 Now, I saw an estimate that you could build them for $1,000 a piece.

00:45:02.000 Doesn't it seem like we could get that price down pretty quickly?

00:45:04.520 And frankly, a lot of people would pay $1,000 a piece to put one in, let's say, in a public space.

00:45:11.220 Then I learned, and this made me a little angry, then I learned that China ordered basically all of the robots, probably, that look like a Roomba.

00:45:23.340 It's a little robot that looks like a Roomba and has a big light on it that just drives around hospitals in China, shoots the UV light into the environment to kill the virus in the air.

00:45:37.480 To which I said, exactly what you're thinking right now, what?

00:45:42.820 When I told you that, and you heard that there are robots that already exist, using technology that I think we can check pretty easily, works.

00:45:55.860 You shoot some UV into the air, and you either have the same amount of virus or you don't.

00:46:01.100 And they're already using them.

00:46:03.120 They're built.

00:46:03.700 They're in China.

00:46:04.480 They're doing their job.

00:46:05.820 They're running around the restaurants disinfecting.

00:46:08.460 Right?

00:46:10.240 As soon as you heard that, didn't you say, where's my robot?

00:46:16.240 Where does the United States have any robots?

00:46:19.320 Because they're not buying them from the United States.

00:46:21.260 I think they bought them from some European company.

00:46:24.780 But as Balaji quite accurately says, this is not the sort of thing you want to run through some kind of long FDA approval thing.

00:46:33.060 Is it not fairly easy for scientists to tell whether a light killed a virus?

00:46:41.980 I feel as though we could figure that out without, you know, all the double-blind experiments that you would normally do.

00:46:48.460 It's like, virus, light, turn it on, dead, yes or no, try it again, try it in a couple different rooms, try it in a couple different settings.

00:46:56.820 I mean, it's not one test, but as Balaji says, you could very quickly get to the point where you were confident enough that it was safe enough.

00:47:07.340 I guess there's a safety issue, but it's not a big one.

00:47:10.680 And why don't we just go gung-ho with this?

00:47:16.060 Now, it could be that, you know, there are going to be a lot of false starts and things we try that don't work and A-B testing.

00:47:22.380 But this would certainly be on my list of things to go hard at.

00:47:25.460 Now, where did the knowledge of this come from?

00:47:29.060 Did the U.S. government already know that there existed robots with far-UV light on them?

00:47:37.760 Maybe not, right?

00:47:41.000 You assume that the government knows everything, but that's not my experience.

00:47:45.360 My guess is that people like Balaji, you know, doing the job of a patriot and a citizen, just jumping in to do what he can do, same as I am right now.

00:47:57.700 He's jumping in and saying, did you know about this?

00:48:00.360 By now, people in the government do know about it because he's widely followed.

00:48:05.400 And now a new piece of information is available for a potential solution.

00:48:09.580 So when you say, did the president do a good or bad job?

00:48:13.560 I think you have to adjust that for the fact that it's 2020 and we don't need the president to tell us everything to do for a global threat that's this well-known.

00:48:26.760 People are just jumping in.

00:48:28.960 People are jumping in.

00:48:30.080 They're doing what they need to do.

00:48:31.320 We don't need the president to tell us.

00:48:34.280 Speaking of that, I like to tell you every day those things you can do to keep yourself healthier, keep your immune system high.

00:48:41.660 This is especially important to me because I'm, like I said, I'm in the kill zone because I'm at that age where the virus will kill me, especially because I have the asthma background.

00:48:51.000 And so I'm keeping myself healthy and looking for tips on how to do that.

00:48:56.200 And, of course, you all know about the sanitizing and the hand washing and the – and I've added to that you should do some moderate exercise, get some sun every day, get some vitamin D.

00:49:07.120 These things are all implicated in helping your immune system.

00:49:10.520 But there was another study that was sent around today, and since this is a weekend especially, I'm going to try to say this in the most G-rated way I can.

00:49:23.100 So bear with me.

00:49:24.740 As for the benefit of the children, I will be talking indirectly now about a topic.

00:49:32.060 Wink, wink.

00:49:32.840 You know what I'm talking about.

00:49:34.020 And it goes like this.

00:49:37.140 Apparently, if you're an adult who is enjoying, let's say, time with yourself, let's say your partner is unavailable for whatever reason, and you're enjoying time with yourself, if you know what I mean.

00:49:52.540 Wink, wink, wink.

00:49:54.100 And that time results in, let's say, an experience which you might call a climax.

00:50:01.920 Sorry, children.

00:50:02.680 And apparently, science is pretty clear that that improves your cortisol situation, which reduces your stress and improves your immune response.

00:50:13.580 So it turns out that one of the best things you can do to protect yourself and, dare I say, the country, if not the world, because you're a patriot, you want to protect the country too.

00:50:26.880 Well, now you know what to do.

00:50:29.580 Get a little exercise, eat right, sleep right.

00:50:33.640 And, wink, wink.

00:50:35.320 Enjoy a little time with yourself.

00:50:36.880 So that's doctor's orders.

00:50:41.900 Let's see.

00:50:42.480 What else we got going out here?

00:50:47.680 Italy's got a lot of deaths.

00:50:49.280 Oh, Elon Musk.

00:50:50.520 Let's talk about him.

00:50:51.420 So, Elon Musk makes a little news on the coronavirus.

00:50:54.780 And he says in a tweet, I think this was yesterday-ish, he said, coronavirus panic is dumb, which, of course, caused everybody to say, Elon Musk is very smart. 0.87

00:51:10.000 Why is he saying the coronavirus panic is dumb? 0.58

00:51:14.460 He's not saying the virus is a hoax or anything like that. 0.99

00:51:17.120 He's just saying the panic part is dumb. 0.89

00:51:19.780 Now, of course, he was asked to clarify what that means. 0.97

00:51:22.900 And he did.

00:51:24.100 Here's what he said.

00:51:26.220 So I want you to listen to Elon Musk's argument and see if it, you know, passes all the tests.

00:51:34.280 Just see if it makes sense to you.

00:51:35.500 Elon Musk is one of the smartest guys on the planet.

00:51:40.180 We all agree with that, right?

00:51:41.980 Whether you like your Tesla or don't like your Tesla, Elon Musk is one of the smartest guys ever.

00:51:50.260 So let's see his opinion on this.

00:51:53.280 So he says the virality of this COVID thing is understated.

00:52:00.420 Or no, I'm sorry, he's overstated.

00:52:02.080 So he's saying the virality is overstated due to conflation diagnosis, conflating the diagnosis date with the contraction date.

00:52:12.060 So far, so good.

00:52:13.840 All right.

00:52:14.320 So it is true that we don't know when somebody got the virus.

00:52:17.900 We only know when they were tested.

00:52:19.720 So we don't really have a sense of the virus.

00:52:23.220 It's the numbers are polluted by the fact of when we discover them, not when they started.

00:52:27.920 So that would ruin your virality measurements.

00:52:32.400 And then over-extrapolating exponential growth, which is never what happens in reality.

00:52:40.340 So he's pointing out that we have lots of history with flus and that they simply don't do what this one is projected to do.

00:52:49.800 Now, people are saying this one's different.

00:52:53.520 So is his point that they don't, that it's never what happens, that's really about the past.

00:53:01.520 Is it true that this one is like the past?

00:53:04.380 Well, that's a gray area.

00:53:07.300 Some say yes-ish.

00:53:09.480 Some say no-ish.

00:53:10.960 He's on the side of it's more likely to be in the not exponential growth that we'll get a handle on it or something will happen.

00:53:21.740 He says, keep extrapolating and virus will exceed mass of the known universe.

00:53:26.140 So he's making the point that things, you know, don't increase forever.

00:53:29.140 It's just not, history doesn't show that that ever happens.

00:53:33.440 There's always something that happens that stops things from increasing to infinity.

00:53:37.480 And then, and he's right about that.

00:53:42.620 Then he says the fatality rate is also greatly overstated.

00:53:46.260 So let's follow his argument here.

00:53:47.720 He says, because there are so few test kits, true enough, those who die with respiratory symptoms are tested, but those with minor symptoms are not.

00:53:59.780 And then he says the prevalence of the coronavirus and other colds in general is high.

00:54:03.860 So his point is that if, if I could sort of summarize it my own way, that this virus won't be that different from other viruses.

00:54:15.480 Therefore, the panic is overstated.

00:54:18.720 But here's what I asked.

00:54:21.120 And there was an amazing outpouring of loser think in the comments after I asked this question.

00:54:25.800 I said, what about the cruise ship deaths?

00:54:29.600 It's more than normal.

00:54:31.740 So how do you explain that?

00:54:33.100 So there were six people died on the Diamond Princess and of 707 infected.

00:54:40.340 There were, I don't know, more than a thousand or whatever, a few thousand.

00:54:43.940 I forget how many people were on the ship.

00:54:45.880 But 707 were infected and six died.

00:54:48.380 Now, for Elon Musk's comments to be accepted as the reasonable view, it would also be true that cruise ships would not be experiencing unusual levels of death.

00:55:03.120 Would you agree?

00:55:04.460 So I said, what is it that explains why the cruise ships had so many deaths?

00:55:08.800 I'm watching in the comments, and every one of you are experiencing, not every one of you, but most of you are experiencing loser think.

00:55:18.980 If you said, because the people on the cruise ships are old, it's true, and it's loser think.

00:55:27.800 That's not, you did not make a good argument there. 0.62

00:55:30.880 If you said it's because they're tightly packed, it's true, but it's loser think.

00:55:38.800 It's not a good argument.

00:55:40.260 It's not an answer to the question.

00:55:42.040 Can anybody tell me why?

00:55:45.200 Tell me why it's not a good argument.

00:55:47.160 It's completely nonsense to say that the reason that there were more deaths on the ship is because they were older.

00:55:56.000 Why is it nonsense?

00:55:58.720 Because there are a lot of cruise ships and there are a lot of flus.

00:56:03.380 We have plenty of history to know that a cruise ship in which the flu gets out, a normal flu, how many people does it kill?

00:56:13.660 Have you ever heard of one ship with six deaths?

00:56:19.520 Never, right?

00:56:20.360 I mean, maybe there was some other epidemic in the past.

00:56:23.940 But if it were true that six people typically die on a cruise ship every cruise, then Elon Musk would be absolutely correct.

00:56:33.920 There would be nothing to scare us because we're not seeing anything out of the usual.

00:56:38.440 But if you just said it's because they're old, then you don't know how to compare things.

00:56:46.420 In the comments, I saw only one or two people who understood that it's a comparison problem.

00:56:52.500 You can't just look at one ship and say it's got old people on it.

00:56:56.680 No wonder they died.

00:56:57.700 Unless all the other boats have old people dying at a similar rate whenever there's a virus. 0.99

00:57:04.480 Is this the first cruise ship that somebody had a virus on?

00:57:08.620 No.

00:57:10.480 How many cruise ships does at least some common virus get loose on the ship?

00:57:16.280 How often does that happen?

00:57:18.200 My guess, most of them.

00:57:22.060 Most of them.

00:57:22.860 If you put 1,000 people on the ship during flu season, do you don't think there's a flu on that ship?

00:57:28.400 A normal flu?

00:57:29.920 I think there is.

00:57:31.560 So if we had a history of five or six old people dying every time there's a flu on a cruise ship, I'd say, yeah, Elon, you're right.

00:57:40.080 This is just baseline.

00:57:41.780 There's nothing happening here.

00:57:42.860 But as soon as I asked that question, people couldn't understand that you can't look at this one ship and say they're old, and it doesn't mean anything, unless it's a common experience with the other ships.

00:57:58.940 And it isn't.

00:58:01.360 Somebody else said, and this was a good comment, they pointed out, what about Italy?

00:58:06.860 Because the death rate in Italy seems through the roof, but they also have old people in Italy. 0.99

00:58:13.020 And I've heard that their ventilation isn't so good, and closed spaces, and there's a lot of touching, and maybe their health care system isn't as good, etc.

00:58:23.040 So you can't really tell too much from Italy, but these are the right questions.

00:58:26.780 But I think the cruise ship deaths and the nursing home deaths, if you have a nursing home in which several people die from the same virus, that only is meaningful if you've looked at all the other nursing homes who have had viruses.

00:58:44.460 If it's common to have six people die in the same nursing home from the same problem, and it happens every flu season with the regular flu, then you'd say, oh, this is like that.

00:58:58.980 But I don't think that's the case.

00:59:01.080 So to Elon, I would say you need to answer that question.

00:59:05.360 What about the cruise ship?

00:59:06.500 What about the high death rates in the nursing homes?

00:59:11.620 If you have an answer to that, then I would say your position is strong.

00:59:17.400 And he might.

00:59:18.460 You know, he's smarter than I am, so he might have an answer for that, but I haven't heard it.

00:59:22.180 All right.

00:59:24.240 Let's see what else we got going on here.

00:59:28.220 CNN reported that there's a caterpillar that can eat plastic, which would be good,

00:59:33.860 because you throw a bunch of caterpillars on your plastic, and it eats it all up, and no more storage problem.

00:59:39.580 Except you read the article, and way down, it says there's only one problem,

00:59:48.060 that the caterpillar's poop becomes toxic if they eat plastic.

00:59:53.820 And I'm thinking, okay, well, that didn't really move the ball forward.

00:59:57.240 I'm very happy that there's a caterpillar that can eat our plastic,

01:00:02.200 but if the outcome is that the caterpillar poops toxic waste, I don't think we came out ahead.

01:00:09.640 So maybe that story didn't need to be told.

01:00:15.000 Speaking of telemedicine, I'm going to take a risk here.

01:00:19.220 I'm going to take a risk.

01:00:20.460 I realize this could blow up in my face.

01:00:24.960 You all know I have this startup.

01:00:27.340 It's called WenHub, and it has a product called Interface that allows you to do a video call to an expert.

01:00:34.320 Now, when there was a hurricane a while ago, and I had offered in public,

01:00:41.540 hey, people could use this app to get information from people who were on the scene.

01:00:47.580 And everybody said, hey, you're trying to profit from a disaster,

01:00:52.200 to which, you know, sometimes I'm more of a robot than I need to be.

01:00:56.340 And the robot part of me said, no, it's just a tool when people need that tool,

01:01:03.920 and they don't have to even charge for it.

01:01:05.920 So it's not even up to me if anybody makes any money.

01:01:09.120 I'm just saying it's a tool you can use.

01:01:10.700 But that argument fell on deaf ears, and people said, no, there are people dying,

01:01:15.080 and you're trying to sell a product.

01:01:16.400 And I thought, okay, I will take that criticism to heart, and I will not do that again.

01:01:25.120 So when the coronavirus came up, it's an obvious situation where you should have medical experts talking to people.

01:01:31.540 It's an app that does that.

01:01:33.200 And I stayed silent about it.

01:01:36.160 So I stayed silent about it because I didn't want to do that same thing,

01:01:39.800 where you're trying to sell some product in that concept.

01:01:43.060 But this feels different, and I'm noticing that a number of remote software companies

01:01:52.060 are promoting their work, and other people are promoting them,

01:01:55.820 and nobody's complaining.

01:01:57.760 And I was trying to think, well, what's the difference?

01:02:00.180 Like, why is it that Zoom can promote their product for telecommunity?

01:02:04.060 Telecommunity, it's exactly the tool that people need.

01:02:07.880 It's a profit company.

01:02:10.800 Why is nobody complaining about that?

01:02:13.380 And I think there's a difference.

01:02:15.740 The difference is that we're all threatened by this virus.

01:02:19.720 And so nobody's a spectator on this one.

01:02:23.480 We're all in the game, or know we will be.

01:02:25.840 And so if you're in the game and somebody says, here's a tool for you,

01:02:30.500 might help you win the game, people are much more comfortable with that

01:02:35.020 than if they're spectating and saying, hey, we're just watching this,

01:02:39.820 and you seem to be doing something that, as spectators, we think is inappropriate.

01:02:46.340 But as soon as you need the tool, suddenly you feel different about it.

01:02:52.900 So let me make this offer.

01:02:54.720 If there's anybody out there who knows how to get to the right person,

01:02:58.940 just connect me on social media.

01:03:01.400 And it's this question.

01:03:02.320 If the CDC or the government wants to do effectively a buyout,

01:03:08.040 in other words, just take over the app for the period of the emergency,

01:03:12.580 that I would have that conversation.

01:03:14.840 And we can do it quickly, because the app is already built.

01:03:18.320 So if there's anybody in the government who would like to promote telemedicine,

01:03:26.280 and I think it would be important for that,

01:03:28.320 an executive order to let doctors practice across borders,

01:03:31.780 at least for the purposes of the emergency, coronavirus.

01:03:37.460 If there's anybody in the government who would like to immediately spin up an app

01:03:41.080 that would allow anybody in the country to talk to a doctor

01:03:43.940 who's willing to put themselves on the app, we could do that immediately.

01:03:47.420 We could do it in a week.

01:03:49.340 And I would, in one week, I will pivot the entire company toward dealing with this emergency.

01:03:59.200 But something says it exists.

01:04:01.820 And I would imagine that there will be a whole bunch of products in that space,

01:04:10.480 because obviously there are telemedicine products.

01:04:14.580 But there isn't one that isn't part of a service.

01:04:17.560 So most of the existing products are people who have a subscription service or that sort of thing.

01:04:23.500 There isn't one where you can just say,

01:04:25.200 I need to talk to a doctor and I don't have money and it needs to be free.

01:04:29.120 So the government is putting pressure to lower the cost if somebody doesn't have health care to get a test.

01:04:39.760 And this could be part of that.

01:04:41.380 So anyway, if there's anybody who knows anybody in the government or the CDC

01:04:44.680 who wants to look into an app to connect a doctor for no charge,

01:04:50.300 just to get advice about should I quarantine myself, what should I do,

01:04:56.360 I can make that a bit low.

01:04:58.460 All right.

01:04:58.720 So, yeah, I'm just looking at your products, or looking at your comments.

01:05:13.220 All right.

01:05:13.440 I think that's, let me check my notes here while I got you here,

01:05:17.700 see if there's anything I wanted to say that I didn't say.

01:05:20.500 And I think not.

01:05:22.500 I think we did it.

01:05:25.520 All right.

01:05:26.520 That's all for now.

01:05:27.400 Stay safe.

01:05:28.720 Talk to you later.

Real Coffee with Scott Adams - March 08, 2020

Episode 844 Scott Adams： Biden's VP Pick, #Covid-19 and the Usual Fun

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