Real Coffee with Scott Adams - Episode 865 Scott Adams： Good Morning, Shut-Ins. Let's Sip!

00:00:00.000 Good morning, everybody.

00:00:06.600 Bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum 1.00

00:00:20.440 Hey, how's it going, everybody?

00:00:25.560 I'm a little bit behind.

00:00:28.000 Got lost in the time.

00:00:30.000 So I'm going to print out my notes here and enjoy the simultaneous sip with you because

00:00:36.800 that's why you're here.

00:00:39.420 That's why you're here.

00:00:42.220 It is.

00:00:43.860 And I know that your day will be better if you enjoy the simultaneous sip.

00:00:51.980 And all you need is a cup or a mug or a glass of tank or gel or a stein, a canteen jug or

00:00:56.640 a flask, a vessel of any kind.

00:00:58.040 And fill it with your favorite liquid.

00:01:00.540 I like coffee.

00:01:02.340 And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure of the dopamine hit of the day, the thing

00:01:05.740 that makes everything, including the pandemic, better.

00:01:10.280 It's called the simultaneous sip, and it happens now.

00:01:13.740 Go.

00:01:22.020 Stay right there.

00:01:25.240 I'm going to grab my notes.

00:01:26.680 Hold on.

00:01:27.660 Yeah, I know.

00:01:31.940 It looks like I'm never prepared.

00:01:35.660 And the reason for that is, well, I'm never prepared.

00:01:41.000 All right.

00:01:41.860 We'll go to the whiteboard in a minute, but let's talk about some things, some things that

00:01:46.120 are happening.

00:01:46.540 I'm taking it as my personal mission to remove loser think wherever I see it. 0.50

00:01:58.160 And loser think meaning unproductive thinking. 0.78

00:02:00.660 It doesn't mean the person saying it is a loser.

00:02:02.960 It's just about the thinking style.

00:02:04.380 And in this crisis, those faulty thinking styles could actually get us killed.

00:02:13.120 Literally, a little bit of bad thinking by the public could kill millions of people.

00:02:19.560 Literally.

00:02:20.480 And that's not even a little bit of hyperbole.

00:02:24.400 Let me give you an example.

00:02:25.660 Online, I continue to see people say, hey, that swine flu killed half a million people.

00:02:34.280 We didn't close down the entire world economy over that.

00:02:38.480 So why would we close down things for something that's only killed a few thousand when the entire

00:02:47.120 swine flu only killed a half a million?

00:02:51.000 And we didn't close things for that.

00:02:52.360 So how does it make sense?

00:02:55.660 How do those numbers make sense?

00:02:57.100 Why are we overreacting now, say people?

00:03:00.700 To which I say, did you know that the atomic bomb doesn't kill people?

00:03:07.860 Did you know that?

00:03:08.860 And I can prove it.

00:03:10.080 Because the first week that the atomic bomb was built, zero deaths.

00:03:16.680 Well, that's the end of the analysis, right?

00:03:18.540 The first week that the atomic, the very first atomic bomb was built, nobody died.

00:03:25.660 So that proves that atomic bombs don't kill people, right?

00:03:31.160 Oh, wait.

00:03:32.240 No.

00:03:33.620 That's crazy.

00:03:35.120 Because you know the bomb was going to be exploded over people, and later, a lot of people

00:03:41.280 would die.

00:03:43.140 But you've got to count that, don't you?

00:03:44.620 Because I'm watching people say that the coronavirus has killed this relatively small number of people

00:03:53.640 compared to the population of Earth in its infancy, because people are pretty sure that

00:04:00.180 this is closer to the beginning than the end.

00:04:02.340 But the swine flu is already over.

00:04:07.160 And we knew about it that it had a different viral signature, if you will.

00:04:12.520 And scientists apparently knew that you could stop it because it wasn't as viral, etc.

00:04:20.600 This one is way more viral, and scientists don't believe it's going to be as easy to stop.

00:04:27.240 So we took different measures.

00:04:29.460 Humanity and science both did.

00:04:31.940 But don't make the mistake of comparing the new thing that just started with the thing

00:04:38.100 that we have full visibility about, which had a completely different nature in terms of

00:04:42.640 its virality and its lethality.

00:04:45.900 So I keep seeing people doing this, and this sort of dovetails into the, there's an article

00:04:58.000 a lot of you asked me about, and a lot of you forwarded to me, and I think I was smart

00:05:04.740 enough not to tweet it.

00:05:07.360 I hope I was.

00:05:08.760 You might prove me wrong, because I've been retweeting with a little less filter than I normally

00:05:14.960 would.

00:05:15.900 Because I'm just trying to curate knowledge, and I might get some wrong, but I think I

00:05:21.080 held back, and it looks like some of the platforms are deplatforming that article.

00:05:26.420 It was a medium by a guy named Aaron Ginn, G-I-N-N. 0.98

00:05:31.620 And if I understand it correctly, he was like a marketing guy who understood marketing virality,

00:05:39.860 and then sort of backwards used those skills to be an epidemiologist, it doesn't really

00:05:47.360 work.

00:05:48.600 That skill doesn't exactly translate.

00:05:50.960 And it was more of a don't be hysterical, this isn't so bad kind of an article, but apparently

00:05:57.460 the experts shot so many holes in it that it was actually deplatformed.

00:06:02.640 And if I recall, I think it got torn down before I could remind myself what it said, but I think

00:06:09.420 it was doing the same thing.

00:06:10.480 I think it was doing the analysis of the automobile is perfectly safe.

00:06:17.040 How do we know?

00:06:18.120 It's easy.

00:06:18.720 Because the week that the Model T was invented, no one died.

00:06:24.020 No one.

00:06:24.960 No one died.

00:06:26.220 In fact, the entire first year of the automobile, you know, maybe only one person died, and maybe

00:06:33.480 they were going to die anyway, right?

00:06:35.120 So the automobile will never kill you, because the first week it didn't really kill many people.

00:06:40.880 So that's the analysis we're getting from people who are trying to inform our decisions

00:06:45.920 and our policies.

00:06:48.720 If you see anybody comparing the front of something to the end of something, run away.

00:06:54.620 Now, here's my problem with this. 0.99

00:06:58.160 I'm not seeing this being done by only dumb people. 0.99

00:07:01.960 I'm seeing this being done by people I can judge to be very smart. 0.99

00:07:08.220 So I don't know what's going on.

00:07:10.880 And I can't tell why they're doing it.

00:07:12.700 The people who have not been exposed to good thinking styles, there's no surprise that they

00:07:18.380 don't know what to compare.

00:07:19.980 That's widespread.

00:07:21.340 But people who do know how to compare things are also doing this, and I don't know what's

00:07:25.820 going on.

00:07:26.960 I can't tell what's behind that.

00:07:30.300 I mean, I'm actually puzzled.

00:07:31.920 I don't even have a good hypothesis for why a smart person would compare the beginning

00:07:36.740 of something to the end of a completely different thing.

00:07:39.080 I just don't get it.

00:07:40.620 So if somebody does, please explain it to me on Twitter or something.

00:07:44.480 All right.

00:07:46.560 Yesterday, I said, if the press doesn't inform us today, which was yesterday, about the supply

00:07:53.720 situation for the medical supplies in particular, we'd have to conclude that the press is broken.

00:08:00.020 Because it's sort of our most important question, right?

00:08:06.180 Is there anything that is more vital to understanding where we're at and where we could get to than

00:08:13.400 having a real clear picture of the supply situation as it's coming in?

00:08:18.860 Because it's a moving picture, right?

00:08:20.500 So you'd have to capture the fluid nature of it and the fact that it might be small but

00:08:25.700 growing.

00:08:26.140 And how do you communicate that?

00:08:28.280 If you watched the press conference yesterday, and I know a lot of you did, the president

00:08:33.560 and his task force, you could see there was a major communication problem.

00:08:41.900 And I'm not going to say it's the fault of the people who were on the stage, the task force,

00:08:46.760 because they're not really, they're not graphic artists.

00:08:50.740 And you sort of needed somebody who was a graphic artist and a data visualizer to tell the story,

00:08:58.440 because it's a little bit complicated, but it's vital.

00:09:02.640 So here's what doesn't work.

00:09:04.560 So here's me.

00:09:06.680 I'm on stage and you asked me, Scott, you know, you're the head of the task force.

00:09:11.240 What's the situation with the supply of masks?

00:09:15.960 You know, just one supply.

00:09:17.420 We'll just keep it simple.

00:09:18.920 What's the supply?

00:09:19.760 So here's how not to answer that question.

00:09:22.300 Well, we're hearing from lots of people.

00:09:23.800 We've got, you know, 5 million masks ordered and we've got, you know, 6 million on the way

00:09:29.220 and people are, you know, building factories and we're working with the public.

00:09:33.980 Do you know what that told me?

00:09:35.440 Nothing.

00:09:36.800 Nothing.

00:09:38.100 There's no information there.

00:09:40.520 A raw number of masks is completely meaningless to the audience.

00:09:45.680 I saw, and let me give you a sense of this.

00:09:48.100 I saw a letter from a doctor.

00:09:50.940 Some doctor was associated with a big hospital.

00:09:54.860 And I think it was somebody involved with administration.

00:09:57.060 So they knew the whole workings of the hospital.

00:09:59.460 And I saw a number of how many masks and gowns and protective stuff that they wear.

00:10:05.400 And if you didn't know it, they have to throw that stuff away after every use, every patient.

00:10:12.820 So a hospital could go through something like 40,000 masks in like a day or two.

00:10:19.620 So the number, the size of the need is so enormous that, you know, our normal common sense brains,

00:10:28.000 when we think of a hospital, if I picture a hospital, I go, okay, I'm picturing a big hospital.

00:10:32.940 How many people in that would be the medical people who need masks?

00:10:36.960 I don't know.

00:10:37.900 A thousand. 0.98

00:10:38.420 So then my dumb medical, non-medical brain goes, okay, maybe 2,000 masks, so you've got a backup, 0.99

00:10:48.520 would give you all the masks you need for a hospital. 0.99

00:10:51.820 Nope.

00:10:53.800 Nope.

00:10:54.560 The number of masks you need for just one hospital is probably in the hundreds of thousands

00:10:58.360 for just this little period of time.

00:11:00.960 Now, I'm playing loose with the numbers, so I'm just trying to give you a sizing.

00:11:08.260 You know, if you come back to me and say, Scott, Scott, it's not hundreds of thousands,

00:11:12.160 it might be 80,000 for a hospital.

00:11:14.440 Okay, okay.

00:11:15.320 It's sort of the same point.

00:11:17.380 That it's, they're gigantic numbers for just one hospital.

00:11:20.460 So, when your pros are standing on stage and they say, yeah, we got 10 million masks coming,

00:11:28.700 I say, how long is that going to take?

00:11:32.540 How many hospitals is that service?

00:11:35.920 How many hospitals do we have?

00:11:38.220 So, you see how immediately it becomes complicated and the story can't be transmitted from whatever

00:11:43.600 they know to whatever we, the public, would like to know.

00:11:46.900 So, I would like to offer the way past that.

00:11:51.300 This is just one suggestion and it's a way to visualize data.

00:11:55.840 So, it's a data visualization.

00:11:57.560 I'm not using any real data here.

00:11:59.900 These are just, you know, formats so you can see.

00:12:03.240 So, I, as a public, would like to see the information this way.

00:12:07.760 And this is very important, this next point.

00:12:10.900 It doesn't matter if it's accurate.

00:12:13.000 Now, if you've ever worked with data and explaining things to management and that sort of thing,

00:12:21.660 and that used to mean by job for years.

00:12:23.520 I was sort of a finance guy and I would put together PowerPoint slides like this and explain

00:12:29.560 where the budget was going and, you know, where our investment in technology was heading

00:12:33.740 and was a lease better than a purchase and that stuff.

00:12:36.660 So, it was my job to take a complicated situation and try to figure out the easiest way you could

00:12:43.160 put it on one page so that an executive who didn't know all the details could still get

00:12:48.540 the lay of the land.

00:12:50.280 Now, getting back to my point, it doesn't matter if it's accurate.

00:12:55.160 It doesn't matter if it's accurate.

00:12:57.640 It doesn't matter.

00:12:58.540 What we, the public, need to know is that the people in charge have a handle on this.

00:13:05.260 And that, in a general sense, are we looking at next week before we get stuff?

00:13:10.420 Are we looking at three weeks?

00:13:12.580 Now, if they tell you it's three weeks and it turns out to be five weeks, it's wrong.

00:13:18.580 But at least you're in the ballpark.

00:13:20.920 You know, you're giving me some sense that you've got some control.

00:13:23.620 And by three weeks from now, I would have expected you to adjust your numbers every day

00:13:28.680 as things come in.

00:13:30.080 So, the three weeks from now, when I find out it was really five weeks, I'm not surprised

00:13:34.040 because you've been adjusting it the whole time.

00:13:37.280 All right?

00:13:37.720 So, here's how I would do it.

00:13:38.980 I would take each item, let's say pills or ventilators or masks, and I would say,

00:13:45.020 what's the peak number that you need to get through what you imagine will be, you know,

00:13:49.560 the worst part of the crisis?

00:13:51.260 Now, what you imagine as the peak will also change every day.

00:13:56.100 So, every day you can adjust this, up or down.

00:13:58.880 But just tell us, keep it simple, the next three weeks, which are the critical ones.

00:14:03.860 Tell us how many of each of this item we have now.

00:14:08.100 Tell us what that's going to look like in one week, two weeks, and then three.

00:14:12.580 Now, these are just example sizes, but I would imagine that the first week you can't get

00:14:17.960 your production up that fast, but maybe by the second week you're really cooking, and

00:14:23.300 then by the third week maybe you're just topping it off.

00:14:26.020 So, it looks something roughly like this.

00:14:29.060 Now, if you show me this by category, do you feel more comfortable that your leaders can

00:14:39.980 understand the data and they have some sense of how to communicate it in a way that you'll

00:14:44.780 get? Now, again, if they give you this number and they change it tomorrow, I still have confidence

00:14:50.740 in them because I'm watching the entire chain of, oh, we learned something, we adjusted our

00:14:56.340 numbers, now we're showing it to you.

00:14:58.140 And I would feel that change in sort of real time because they do the, you know, they're

00:15:02.160 doing updates every day.

00:15:03.240 Okay. So, as long as they were honest with us and they said, look, we've got a lot of

00:15:08.220 balls in the air. I can't really tell you what that looks like, but, you know, I'm an

00:15:13.580 expert. I've been talking to a lot of people. I'm going to put a number on it because the

00:15:17.120 public needs a number. I think it's 3 million by next week. Turns out it's 5 million. Are

00:15:24.480 you less happy? Are you unhappy because your expert guessed 3 million, but you got 5 million?

00:15:29.340 No. No, you're happier. If you guess it's 3 million, but it's 2 million, well, you got

00:15:35.580 some questions to ask, and then you want to look at the next week's number. But anyway,

00:15:39.280 the point is, data visualization is a specific skill. It is unlikely that anybody on the stage

00:15:46.960 has that kind of talent set. It's a weird talent. But the government needs to get that

00:15:53.020 person. So, guess somebody on the team who can make a freaking slide that will show the

00:15:58.600 public what we're talking about. And again, it doesn't have to be that accurate. Just

00:16:05.680 give us a sense. Is this a one-week problem? Or is this a three-month problem to get enough

00:16:11.060 masks? I have no idea. I have no idea. But I'd like to. All right, enough about that. By

00:16:18.560 the way, this is just one more example of a remarkable phenomenon you're seeing everywhere.

00:16:24.220 And, you know, everybody's saying, you know, we'll never be the same after this. People are

00:16:29.840 saying, you know, life will never be the same. Well, I think it'll be mostly the same in terms

00:16:35.720 of the material, you know, stuff of life and going back to work. I do believe that we'll go back to

00:16:41.360 something that's pretty close to normal, same way we did after 9-11. You could argue that 9-11 0.70

00:16:47.140 changed everything. But the fact is, if you weren't waiting in line at the airport, it looked about

00:16:53.340 the same. You know, a few years later, life looked kind of similar. You just waited longer at the

00:16:59.120 airport for the most part. And I think that's where we're headed with this. Things will be largely

00:17:04.860 the same. But one thing that won't ever be the same will be that the people who lived through this

00:17:11.280 have an experience. And that experience becomes part of you. So we're all being rewired by the

00:17:19.420 experience to the extent that we're, you know, old enough to really know what's going on. And I don't

00:17:26.720 think that's bad. If you noticed today, did you notice that Al Sharpton tweeted that he had, I guess he

00:17:38.460 said in public that the president needs to do something about the homeless and people in prison

00:17:43.780 because they're especially at risk of the spread of the disease. And Al Sharpton tweeted that, I guess

00:17:52.000 to his surprise, the president called him and had a long conversation about those concerns. And Al

00:17:58.440 Sharpton tweeted out and he said, if the president can, you know, call a critic like Al Sharpton and work

00:18:05.340 with him, then the rest of you can too. It's a big deal. It's a big deal. So Al Sharpton, you know,

00:18:15.620 who is a bigger critic of President Trump than Al Sharpton? But today, Al Sharpton and President

00:18:23.580 Trump are the same person today. Today, you're the same person as I am. You know, our differences have

00:18:30.120 just melted away. You know, we even when you see you're still seeing people talk about politics,

00:18:35.080 right? You're seeing people talk about politics and, you know, president should have done this.

00:18:42.000 You know, and I do it too. But doesn't it feel hollow? Don't the conversations about, you know,

00:18:49.620 politics just they just feel empty? You know, they have a little bit of entertainment value, but

00:18:55.100 they're just empty calories right now. Because you and I and Al Sharpton and Representative Tlaib,

00:19:02.240 who I'm going to mention in a moment, are all on the same team at the moment. Now, anybody who doesn't

00:19:08.440 live through this will not have experienced this. And I have to say, as tragic as this is, I certainly

00:19:16.480 wouldn't hope for any kind of a crisis like this ever. But you can't deny that this is doing something

00:19:23.980 to us. I mean, it's almost like we're going to evolve differently or something. I mean, it's that,

00:19:30.880 to me anyway, it's that critical to the way we think. Now, it's possible we just snap back to politics

00:19:35.880 as usual, you know, the day we feel like we're past it. But we will always have this. We will always have

00:19:43.140 this. There will never be a day, let me put it this way. If Al Sharpton goes back to being, you know,

00:19:50.540 old Al Sharpton, and he's just, you know, we're past the crisis, and he just goes back to politics

00:19:56.000 as usual, I'm still going to love Al Sharpton. I'm still going to love Al Sharpton because of this.

00:20:04.980 Because of this day. Because he can't take that away. That actually happened. And that's who he is.

00:20:10.180 So you're learning, you know, you're learning who Al Sharpton is. At the same time, you're learning

00:20:15.560 who the president is. At the same time, you're learning who you are. So I will never think of

00:20:21.320 him the same. You know, I'll still disagree with his policies, but I'll never think of him the same.

00:20:27.140 So because at the moment, Al Sharpton is me. There's no difference. Speaking of dogs and cats

00:20:36.220 laying down together. So I tweeted yesterday, I don't think I've ever had less or fewer. I don't think

00:20:42.960 I've ever had fewer retweets for a tweet. I tweeted a suggestion from Representative Tlaib,

00:20:50.500 who, you know, probably most of you know, I've been critical of her. She's critical of the president. 0.91

00:20:58.300 You know, I'm not a big fan of her politics. It goes with what I'm saying. But she had an idea.

00:21:05.140 And I don't know if it's a great idea, or if it's not a great idea. But I liked it enough

00:21:09.600 that in the spirit of the crisis, I tweeted it out. And the idea was this, that since we're looking

00:21:16.520 at it, it looks like there definitely will be some kind of cash transfer to people who need to pay

00:21:21.640 their bills. So given that it looks like that's going to happen, the question is how best to do

00:21:27.300 it. And I set around the idea that we should just send out money to people and then rich people can

00:21:33.200 have it clawed back on their taxes, you know, because the government would know it gave it to

00:21:37.860 you. And then it would send you your taxes and say, we know you got it. So give it back, you know,

00:21:44.760 when it's tax time, but only for the rich people who didn't deserve it. And that would just be a

00:21:48.420 sort of a clean and easy way to get some money out there without the bureaucracy.

00:21:54.100 Now, Representative Tlaib had an idea that is in that field, which is instead of checks,

00:22:03.320 sending out a debit card. And here's the advantage of the debit card. Well, a few advantages.

00:22:08.440 One is that if you've got a debit card and you're going to the store, I think it would reduce the

00:22:13.360 number of things you touch. You know, you wouldn't be handing it to a human, you'd be putting it in a

00:22:17.780 machine. You know, if you use a glove or something to push your buttons, you know, you got that going

00:22:22.760 for you. So that's better than a check, probably. And having to go to a store or, you know, not

00:22:28.940 everybody has a phone, they can deposit it. But the other advantage, and I thought this was a big

00:22:34.620 one, is that if you need to do a second round, they already have the card and they just fill the

00:22:40.660 card. So the card would be, you know, a prepaid like debit card. Once you spent it, if the crisis is

00:22:47.400 not over, the government could just say, push a button, refill the cards, and you don't have to wait for

00:22:52.560 your check. It's just already there. Now, there might be some downsides of that, and that's really

00:22:58.620 not the point of what I'm saying. So I put it out there so people can wrestle with it. I don't know

00:23:03.120 if it's a good idea or a bad idea. There might be some, there might be a hidden downside that's not

00:23:07.560 obvious to me. But here's the point. Under any normal situation, I'm not going to be seeing an idea

00:23:15.660 from Representative Tlaib that I say, huh, looks like a pretty good idea. I'm going to forward this.

00:23:20.600 Because today, you know, I am Alice Sharpton. I am you. I am Representative Tlaib. I am President

00:23:31.560 Trump. And we are fighting this virus. And at the moment, we're all on the same side. This may never

00:23:38.700 happen again. You know, maybe in my lifetime. Could happen in your lifetime. But I don't know I'll ever

00:23:45.100 live through this again, where absolutely everybody's on the same team. Period. That's it.

00:23:51.860 I hate it when people say period, but sometimes it slips out. All right. And by the way, the same

00:24:00.360 graph that I was using for medical supplies, wouldn't you like to see that for toilet paper?

00:24:05.720 You know you would, right? Is it, do you feel, it's weird because when you're, you're the task force

00:24:13.540 and you're managing a crisis, you're probably not worried about the toilet paper supply, right?

00:24:19.940 Right? You know, you don't think that's the top priority. It's like, well, save the toilet paper.

00:24:26.780 You know, all people on deck. You know, let the hospitals fend for themselves. But we've got to

00:24:31.680 solve this toilet paper problem. And you're not, they're not thinking that. But I would like to

00:24:36.820 suggest that although the task force probably shouldn't be doing anything about toilet paper,

00:24:42.880 meaning the private industry is probably doing everything that needs to be done. I would imagine

00:24:47.740 that, you know, the people who make this stuff are cranking it down, chipping it, and it's just being

00:24:52.700 absorbed quickly. But fairly soon, we'll get to the point where the hoarders have done their thing.

00:24:58.020 And then we stop hoarding. But wouldn't you like to know, is that next week? Or is it in three weeks?

00:25:07.480 Because I don't know about you, but some people are starting to count their rolls, if you know what I

00:25:12.040 mean. Now, why do I even bring this up in the middle of an emergency? Isn't it the least important

00:25:19.540 thing? Nope. No, it is not the least important thing. Certainly, people can figure out their workarounds

00:25:27.000 and, you know, inconvenience, etc. But psychologically, this toilet paper thing has a much larger hold on

00:25:36.300 our imagination than common sense says it should. Because we're not virologists, we're not medical

00:25:43.620 people. We just need our toilet paper. We're citizens. And if you tell me that I can't get

00:25:50.480 another roll for, I don't know, give me a number. If you tell me I can't have a roll for a week,

00:25:56.440 a new roll, I'll say, okay, a week. I think things are under control. You know, if I could have,

00:26:03.680 if I can get those on the store shelf in a week, I'm not even going to think it was ever a problem.

00:26:09.200 But if you tell me it's three weeks, I got to start rationing. You don't, because you're,

00:26:16.320 you all hoarded. But, you know, some of us might need to start rationing a little bit.

00:26:21.120 And then I'm going to start thinking about it. And then it's going to be in my head. And then

00:26:24.680 somebody's going to send me a picture of an empty shelf. And I'm going to think it's the whole store.

00:26:30.060 It's not. It's just the toilet paper shelf. How many of you have seen the, the so-called empty

00:26:35.520 shelves pictures? Well, they take a picture of the toilet paper shelf that's empty. And then they go

00:26:41.160 to the cleaning supplies and maybe the rice and those are empty. And then you think, my God,

00:26:46.720 we're going to run out of food when the rest of the store has, you know, broccoli and pretty much

00:26:51.980 everything you want. So message to the task force. You don't need to be working on toilet paper.

00:27:01.060 Private industry's got that. You don't, you don't, we don't need any presidential decrees on toilet 0.98

00:27:05.720 paper. But just tell us the timing. You kind of need to do that for our, for our mental health.

00:27:13.200 It's a mental health question. When do you think the toilet paper will be back on the shelves?

00:27:19.040 Even more than the rice, because probably most of you have not dipped into your, your rice supply,

00:27:25.580 you know, your, your beans or whatever you got in your cans and whatever. You probably haven't

00:27:29.740 dipped into those because there's still food in the stores, but I'll bet you dipped into your

00:27:34.040 toilet paper supply, didn't you? I bet you did. But that supply, a little down. So directionally,

00:27:41.640 your government should tell you that even though on the surface, you'd think it would be the least

00:27:45.540 important thing. It just has a big hold on our brain. So let's, let's do something about that.

00:27:53.840 I, oh, here's some more good news. Elon Musk, as well as Tim Cook for Apple,

00:28:00.620 they're making ventilators. So it was confirmed that Elon Musk is not just tweeting and talking

00:28:07.400 about ventilators. They're making ventilators. And Apple's making them too. And quite a few. Now,

00:28:15.520 I don't know how many we need, but they're cracking them out. Other people are cracking them out.

00:28:19.420 You've seen a do-it-yourself, you know, directions for making your own ventilator with, I don't know,

00:28:27.640 parts you found or you find. So, you know, the opposite of the toilet paper story where there

00:28:35.500 was this, you know, a trivial thing that had a big hold on my psychology. This is the, the positive,

00:28:41.900 the other side of that, which is when you hear that Elon Musk is making ventilators,

00:28:46.720 don't you just feel better? Seriously. Well, if the, you know, arguably between Tim Cook and Elon

00:28:56.560 Musk, you have the two most capable manufacturers of physical items in the, in the country, in the

00:29:07.140 world, I don't know. I mean, don't you feel better knowing that they're fully engaged in this? I sure

00:29:14.240 do. But it does, it does raise one question, which I'm seeing over and over again. You know, I, I should

00:29:23.560 tell you, I have, I have two lives that are sort of operating simultaneously during this crisis. There's

00:29:30.040 the public part that you see and all the, all the stuff I tell you. But the moment I get off, I get off

00:29:35.640 of this Periscope. I'm going to be working for hours, uh, curating questions and, you know, can you

00:29:43.860 connect me with this person and answer this question? And, you know, uh, can you introduce

00:29:49.120 me? I've got a, I've got a thing. So there, there's a whole bunch of stuff that's, that's operating below

00:29:55.100 the, the public visibility. And that's a lot. Let me tell you, it's a full-time job. I, as soon as I

00:30:01.180 turn this off, it's all I'm going to be doing until the next time you see me on Periscope.

00:30:05.660 And I'm probably going to, you know, fall asleep in my bed tonight, like last night, you know,

00:30:10.820 connecting people and tweeting and stuff. So there's a lot going on, but one of the trends,

00:30:16.440 which I find alarming, but fixable is that when people are saying, you know, I have a source

00:30:22.980 for this or that supply, uh, if, if it has to be built or manufactured, the source is always in

00:30:30.140 another country. Uh, I have not yet identified an actual American company that's stepping up to

00:30:38.500 manufacture. There are a lot of American companies that have connections overseas or they, their

00:30:42.880 factories overseas. So there are American companies who are using foreign, um, assembly and manufacturing,

00:30:48.740 but it does seem as if this country doesn't know how to make things. We know how to engineer,

00:30:55.120 we know how to order things. We got good lawyers, we got good insurance, but if you need somebody

00:30:59.840 to slap together a factory and start assembling parts, it looks like we kind of don't know how

00:31:05.900 to do that anymore. Um, so we're going to have to look at that. And I, I'm sure that at this point,

00:31:11.520 the supply chain is coming home. So we'll see that happen. Um, let's talk about Joe Biden because we

00:31:21.340 have to, um, I'm watching other people. So it's not just me, you know, other, other smart people are

00:31:29.500 saying, um, where's Joe Biden? Where is Joe Biden? And here's my problem. Uh, you know, I, I think that

00:31:38.840 president Trump will coast to reelection unless we are surprised, unless there's something new that

00:31:44.880 comes up. I think he'll coast to reelection, uh, even, even with the crisis, even with everything

00:31:50.580 else. Cause you're going to, you know, we're, we're hearing enough of these Al Sharpton stories.

00:31:54.760 We're hearing, you know, governor Cuomo, governor Newsom saying that the president's doing the right

00:31:59.840 stuff and we're, we're going to watch some progress. I think the, the crisis will turn into

00:32:04.740 a positive for the president because he's a strong leader and you want a strong leader when you're in a

00:32:12.080 war. And I don't think people want to like, you know, get out of the canoe and change canoes in

00:32:17.920 the middle of a war. Right. So, uh, my estimation is that while the crisis can work, you know, both

00:32:25.360 ways, people will find something to complain about. You should have done it this way. But I think the

00:32:30.860 public is going to say, you know, he made some tough decisions, closing the airports and stuff.

00:32:38.440 And it was all hands on deck. He didn't, he didn't hold back anything once, once he was engaged.

00:32:44.100 I think he's going to get, he's going to get, uh, you know, a push on this, a bonus.

00:32:50.620 So unless it gets a lot worse and there's some way you can tie it to the government's actions in a way

00:32:56.220 that even the public would say, why'd you do that? Which could happen. Um, I think he's going to be

00:33:02.040 reelected, but here's my point. One of the benefits of our system is that you always have a

00:33:08.200 backup, small spare tire. So if you get a flat tire, you get a backup. Now in the course of the,

00:33:15.700 you know, regular governing, if your president is taken off the field for whatever reason,

00:33:21.820 you got a, you got a vice president. So that's a good backup. You know, vice president is a good

00:33:27.260 backup for a president, but there's another way in which we need a backup, which is the election

00:33:33.220 itself. So you want to have two candidates, ideally, where if, if one of them didn't win,

00:33:42.120 the other one wouldn't wreck the country. You know, it may not be the policies you like,

00:33:47.720 you know, maybe your taxes go up a little bit, down a little bit. Maybe you don't like that second

00:33:52.160 candidate, but they're not going to break anything. They're at least capable of doing the job,

00:33:57.500 right? We don't have that. President Trump is going to be running against, I don't know what.

00:34:07.500 I mean, Joe Biden is not even capable enough. And I think we can just say that as a fact.

00:34:13.240 I think we're beyond the speculating part. If Joe Biden were capable of speaking spontaneously

00:34:20.140 on camera to the country in this time of crisis, if he were capable, of course we'd see it.

00:34:27.480 Of course we'd see it. There is, there's no explanation during a presidential campaign,

00:34:34.400 and especially during a crisis, there's no explanation for why we don't see him. We see

00:34:39.040 Bernie, right? We've seen Pelosi. We've seen everybody. And they have some kind of BS excuse

00:34:46.460 about their, I don't know, they're doing construction at his house to turn it into a

00:34:51.100 studio or something. But he's got an iPad. I'm talking to the world. If I were running

00:34:59.720 for president, and this were the production quality, and I got a couple lights over there

00:35:05.780 and I just closed the shades, and I turned on my iPad, it's pretty good, right? I mean,

00:35:12.900 you know, at least I'm not doing the thing with my phone where I'm recording myself in portrait.

00:35:18.940 You know, at least I was clever enough to turn it sideways. And this is pretty good. If I were

00:35:24.420 running for president, I would just do this. I'd get a little iPad on my desk, face it, and turn it

00:35:31.480 on a couple times a day and say, I'm running for president. My name is Joe Biden. The president's

00:35:36.580 doing some great things. I'd like to see him do some other things here. And by the way, if I were

00:35:40.480 president, you know, you'd have better health care or something like that. It's kind of easy.

00:35:46.320 The hurdle that Joe Biden is not able to get over is so low that a child could do it. Meaning just

00:35:55.320 aim your iPad at yourself and turn it on. A child could turn on an iPod and aim it at their face

00:36:02.380 and broadcast to the world. How do I know that? Go to YouTube. On YouTube, there are infinite

00:36:09.700 infinite, seems like it, infinite children who have figured out how to do this. They put

00:36:16.500 the camera down, point it at themselves, turn it on, and you're live to YouTube. And Joe

00:36:22.540 Biden can't figure that out. We should stop, we should stop pretending. Whether you're a

00:36:30.660 Republican or a Democrat, remember this, these are strange times. You know, I'm Al Sharpton

00:36:37.080 today. But I'm also Donald Trump today. So it's strange times. And I'm actually a little

00:36:43.800 uncomfortable having the emergency backup plan being no spare tire. Because, you know, if

00:36:50.880 I'll just throw out some names to make my point. If John, let's say, let's say somebody else,

00:36:57.540 let's say, I don't want to put a name on it. Just, you know, pick a boring governor that you

00:37:03.140 think is doing a good job and is a Democrat, right? If the Democrats were running a boring

00:37:10.320 governor who just does a good job, I would say to myself, you know, I still prefer President

00:37:16.080 Trump, very clear preference. But at least we've got an emergency spare. You know, it's

00:37:21.840 a little tire, it only goes 50 miles, but it's not nothing. It's not nothing. And Joe Biden

00:37:27.240 is, I don't know how to say it more clearly, it is nothing. Joe Biden doesn't have the capability

00:37:34.240 of doing any job at this point. You know, he couldn't work at a 7-Eleven. And that's literally

00:37:39.360 true. I don't think he could handle a job at 7-Eleven at this point. Otherwise, you'd see

00:37:44.380 him on camera. So Democrats, I feel like you need to make the adult decision. And I mean this

00:37:53.040 in a nonpartisan way, I think whoever you run is going to lose. But, you know, do the

00:38:00.260 country a solid and run somebody who could run the country. And that's almost anybody.

00:38:06.160 Now, if you run Bernie, for example, I don't think he has a chance of getting elected. So,

00:38:13.420 you know, you might want to think of your own strategy there. But there are plenty of, you

00:38:18.680 know, moderate people who are still functional. You know, give us the emergency backup spare.

00:38:24.400 Trump's still going to win. But, you know, we're in an uncertain time. Anything can happen.

00:38:29.540 Give us the backup. All right. I asked people to tweet me questions again today. I did that

00:38:36.960 yesterday, and that worked out pretty well. So let's see if you've got any questions for me.

00:38:43.580 Bear with me, as my internet is very slow today. All right. So it looks like I've got 181 questions.

00:38:52.020 Some of these are going to be good. Ian says, can you speak about the trade-offs between the response

00:38:57.720 to coronavirus and the removal of civil liberties? Okay.

00:39:03.720 Ba-ba-ba-boom. And then he goes on about analogies. But I can answer this question.

00:39:09.080 Speak about the trade-offs between the response to coronavirus and the removal of civil liberties.

00:39:14.400 Well, here's why you need adults in charge. You need somebody to make hard decisions.

00:39:22.000 Fortunately, we do have a president who can make a hard decision. Imagine if you had a President Biden

00:39:28.000 and the experts told him to close the southern border. Could he do it? Don't know if he could.

00:39:36.080 Suppose you're the experts and you say to President Trump, you know, you ought to be thinking about

00:39:41.740 closing air traffic from Europe. Could he do it? Yeah, by the time you finish the sentence.

00:39:49.080 By the time they finish the sentence, he's on his phone saying, close air traffic from Europe.

00:39:55.080 So you have an adult in charge. People are appreciating that without saying they're appreciating it.

00:40:01.660 But we got the guy in charge who's going to make hard decisions all day long.

00:40:06.320 And you can trust that he will because you've seen it. Right. He has such a long track record

00:40:11.420 of doing things that, well, it's a tough decision, but I'm the adult in the room. I'm going to do it.

00:40:16.900 And I'm going to take the I'm going to take the heat. Could Biden do that? Could he?

00:40:22.800 It's a real question. I don't know if he could make adult decisions right now.

00:40:26.160 All right. So he had asked the tradeoff between civil liberties and

00:40:32.140 and the response to the coronavirus. I think the best answer to that is that it has to be

00:40:40.120 adult decisions. And if those adult decisions come down and they say,

00:40:46.320 Scott, I'm going to remove your civil liberties for a week. Just tell me why. 0.99

00:40:52.900 Just tell me why. Because remember, you know, this week I am Al Sharpton. But this week I am also

00:41:02.900 President Trump. And if either either of those people who are the same person at the moment

00:41:09.500 says there's a good reason why you should temporarily suspend my civil liberties, do it. Do it. You have

00:41:17.400 my absolute and complete support. Do it. Because the adults got to make the decisions. And if we trust

00:41:24.100 them, and I think Trump working with the experts is a very, very safe combination. I say just do it.

00:41:33.340 Because here's the thing I would trust. The thing that this country and lots of countries do it well

00:41:39.060 is we brainwash our youth. And in my case, I used to be a youth. The brainwashing, and I'm going to use

00:41:48.040 this in a positive term, the brainwashing that this country does to design the adults that get to run

00:41:55.360 the country is really, really good. And one of the things that we're all deeply wired, I'll say wired

00:42:02.380 instead of brainwashed. One of the things we're deeply wired by our system to appreciate is freedom.

00:42:09.400 So if this were some other country, you know, let's say a third world country, and the dictator

00:42:14.560 said, just for a week, I'm going to take away your civil liberties, would you trust that? No. No,

00:42:20.940 you wouldn't trust that. Because you think, oh, this is just the first step before we lose all our

00:42:24.920 civil liberties, and maybe it would be. But in the United States, we've got 370 million

00:42:32.720 wired, coded, brainwashed, designed, whatever word you want to put on it, human brains that aren't 1.00

00:42:41.660 going to put up with that kind of crap. So if you take our civil liberties away for a week with a good 0.99

00:42:48.020 reason, you'll get pretty good compliance. Two months from now, if the reason went away,

00:42:54.920 and we still don't have that civil liberty back, we're going to change things. We're going to

00:43:01.240 change our government. So there is no risk in the United States because the citizens are so well

00:43:06.820 designed. I mean, it's actually designed. It's brain design, if you want to put it that way.

00:43:13.000 So we are so well designed in this country that our government couldn't take our, at least an

00:43:17.480 important civil liberty away any longer than the reason for doing it remained. Now, you could argue

00:43:24.600 whether the reason has remained. And that will always be a gray area, but it won't be some sign of

00:43:29.440 approaching evil. All right, let's see. What's your estimate of the mortality rate? Well, you know,

00:43:40.760 the experts are lowering it all the time. I'm not going to give any kind of a dumb estimate that's 0.92

00:43:47.500 like, you know, cartoonist overrules scientists or anything like that. So I will defer to the

00:43:53.720 scientists. Do Greg Gutfeld and I have an understanding about material? And the answer is

00:44:04.840 we're friends and we think alike and we talk about a lot of this stuff offline. I use some of his ideas.

00:44:10.860 He uses some of mine. So yes, it is a fully, a fully friendly and ongoing situation. And I was

00:44:19.780 using Greg's examples yesterday, for example. So that's far more a case of two people who have

00:44:27.640 very similar thinking styles. We're both from Berkeley, both California. I mean, if you lined up

00:44:33.800 our opinions, they're going to be pretty close, probably 90% overlap. What do you do when your

00:44:40.920 DoorDash comes? Do you wipe down the containers? It's a good question. I'm not an expert on any of

00:44:47.700 these. So take anything I say with a grain of salt. The scientists say this. They say very clearly

00:44:54.720 that the virus lives on surfaces. They also say very clearly that that means you could get it

00:45:02.460 from surfaces. And it lasts quite a while on surfaces. But the scientists also say they haven't

00:45:09.760 confirmed any case where somebody just got it from a surface. Apparently the cases that they can track

00:45:17.460 down, there's always a person. They find a person. Now that person may have given it to them by putting

00:45:23.460 it on a surface and then you touch the surface. But the person is always identified as being in the

00:45:28.480 area for a while. In other words, I got it from my spouse. You don't need to ask, did he get it off

00:45:34.100 a surface or did it come from their mouth or something? You know the source was the person

00:45:38.960 and that's about as far as we can go. We don't know if it's because that kiss. We don't know if

00:45:43.500 it's because they shared a glass. We don't know. But what we don't have, and maybe we will, what we

00:45:50.920 don't have is somebody who's been isolated for two weeks and the only thing they touched was the

00:45:57.020 take care of food in a bag and then they got the coronavirus. I'm not saying it hasn't happened.

00:46:03.080 I'm saying we wouldn't know. But science is not saying that's identified yet. So here's my answer.

00:46:13.960 You can't take risk down to zero. That's not an option. And you've got to eat. I'm taking the trade

00:46:19.700 off that if I can keep my local restaurants and food businesses in operation, that's good for them.

00:46:26.680 I'm taking the risk that it's better than going to the store myself. I'm taking the risk that even

00:46:32.520 if I hired somebody to shop for me, which I literally did yesterday, a younger person with

00:46:37.680 a good immune system, and I gave a list that was sort of in and out, small basket, minimize the time

00:46:47.540 in the store and all that. So we're doing risk management. We're not eliminating risk. So the first

00:46:53.640 thing you should say to yourself is you don't live in a world where risk could be zero on the coronavirus

00:46:58.500 or anything else. But you can certainly take the choices that are available to you that are the

00:47:02.760 lower risk. So to answer your question, I pick up my bag from my front step. I have no human contact.

00:47:08.920 I pick it up from the bottom because I presume they probably talked they carried it from the top.

00:47:13.520 I get inside. I cut the exterior bag off it carefully, and then I wash my hands with soap.

00:47:22.360 Now, of course, the interior stuff could also have a problem. It's a non-zero risk, but I find that

00:47:31.940 an acceptable risk. Given that science is just not finding this direct path from objects to people,

00:47:37.840 we just know it could be, so stay away from it. Minimize it if you could. But I do what I can do,

00:47:45.040 and then I don't do what I can't do, which is I can't know what's on the interior contents. And so

00:47:53.020 I take that risk because it's better than the other risks. So I hope that's the answer.

00:47:59.320 Should the shelter-in-place be applied countrywide or only locally? I would say locally at first,

00:48:05.380 and then watch it.

00:48:12.740 Somebody's saying thank you for the recommendation to watch the movie Ford vs. Ferrari. Yeah, a few

00:48:17.880 people have gotten back to me on this and said the same thing. If you're just looking for a good,

00:48:23.240 non-stressful, feel-good about America, America can do. If you're American and that's the vibe that

00:48:32.320 you want to feel, that movie really delivers. It's one of the best movies I've watched in a long

00:48:37.280 time because it never made me feel bad. It's hard to watch a movie that doesn't intentionally make

00:48:43.340 you feel bad and feel bad for the characters and stuff before they rescue the characters. I don't

00:48:49.100 like to go through the part where you feel bad before you get to the good news. I just don't want

00:48:53.200 to watch that movie. But this one, because it's based on real stuff, and even though I won't give

00:49:00.120 anything away, but it's not all good news all the way through, let me just say that, but it doesn't

00:49:04.640 make you feel bad at any point. It's just a well-made movie. So if you need a couple hours to get into a

00:49:11.340 different mindset to relax, that's a really good choice. Where can we find data on how the hospitals

00:49:16.900 are holding up? Well, apparently not from the task force. So that would be another thing that

00:49:22.720 the data visualizers should be doing on behalf of the task force. There should be a one-pager

00:49:28.860 that says, here are some of our metro hotels, here are some of our metro hospitals, here's normal

00:49:36.440 capacity, here's the maximum theoretical flexing capacity, maybe just for ventilators, maybe just

00:49:43.500 for ICUs, you know, you might need to break it down a little bit, but, and then change things as

00:49:48.760 you know what's happening. So we don't know that, I don't know if anybody knows that, and I doubt if we

00:49:54.420 saw the data, it would be presented in a way you could make much of it. So how to persuade others that

00:50:02.360 Fauci is on the solution side, and the disease is far more serious than the flu? Well, that's what I'm

00:50:12.360 working on, and the people who still think it's only the flu have to explain why we already see

00:50:21.040 hospitals being pushed past capacity. If it were the flu, hospitals would not be pushed past capacity.

00:50:31.680 If you notice anybody who's arguing it, just force them to think about that. Now the escape path I've

00:50:38.860 already identified is, they'll say, oh, but Italy is different. And they're going to say Italy has

00:50:46.040 old people. Italy, Italy is, in fact, I saw yesterday, a smart person say that Italy was

00:50:53.980 miscounting the number of people who were dying from coronavirus, and the way they counted it made

00:50:59.220 it seem like there were too many. So therefore, maybe we're panicking by looking at Italy, because

00:51:05.800 the way they're counting things is making it look like it's worse than it is. To which I say, what

00:51:11.580 the hell is wrong with you? The other thing we're clearly seeing in Italy is that their hospitals

00:51:17.500 can't handle the load. That doesn't happen with the flu. The only thing you should talk about when

00:51:25.000 somebody says it's just the flu, they're going to try to take you to numbers. Say, hey, they killed this,

00:51:30.360 killed that, didn't close for the swine flu. They're going to try to take you in that direction.

00:51:34.600 Don't do it. Stand firm and never leave this point. Hospitals are already overloaded, and we expect

00:51:44.540 10 times as much traffic based on the best experts' estimates of how this thing will evolve.

00:51:54.120 Some hospitals are already at capacity from this, and it will be 10 times bigger probably in a month.

00:52:02.720 That's what the experts say. Don't leave that point. The moment you leave that point, you're vulnerable

00:52:09.420 to lose your think, and people are going to be like, well, you know, it's different. Now, if they say, hey,

00:52:14.620 stop talking about Italy, that's, there's just a weird thing going on there. Say, China had to build new

00:52:21.220 hospitals. Tell me one other time that China had to build a new hospital in a week. Never.

00:52:27.780 And we also have American hospitals. New York City is getting close to capacity already,

00:52:34.480 and we're at the beginning, folks. We're at the beginning, and hospitals are nearing capacity.

00:52:41.040 So the people who say it's just the flu, don't leave that point. Hospital capacity, hospital capacity,

00:52:48.700 hospital capacity. Already numerous data points from Iran, New York City, Italy, China, South Korea.

00:52:59.740 Numerous data points. Don't leave that point. That's how you kill it. Kill the rumor that it's just the flu.

00:53:07.680 All right. Let's see what else we got. Is this a new normal for novel virus response?

00:53:15.960 Well, maybe. But again, there's a gigantic wildcard here. Two gigantic wildcards. One is how quickly can

00:53:26.280 we make test kits and labs that can evaluate the test kits? How quickly can we build an emergency

00:53:36.940 system for testing that's both product and system for getting it tested and getting back to you?

00:53:43.580 How quickly can we build that? But once it's built, will we always have that as our emergency plan?

00:53:51.640 Because the next time we have a flu, in theory, what we've learned from this one will allow us to just

00:53:57.580 pull the lever and say, all right, in three days, we're going to have, you know, a billion test kits,

00:54:04.520 or whatever this is the right number. So I think the new normal is that we won't, we'll be ready for

00:54:11.440 this war. You know, they always say you're always ready to fight the last war. And that's what bit us

00:54:16.560 in the butt this time, I think. But if you're saying, or will we not be ready for the next coronavirus? 0.80

00:54:22.900 Well, we're going to know a lot about these malaria, anti-malarial drugs that seem promising.

00:54:27.620 We'll know about the erythromycin cocktail. We'll know about the 10 other things in the pipeline.

00:54:33.540 We'll know about the vaccines. So my guess is, if I had to put money on it, it's the last coronavirus

00:54:41.580 pandemic. If I had to bet money. Now, if I put odds on it, I'd say 80%. I would say there's an 80% chance

00:54:53.340 you'll never see this again with, with this form of the virus, you know, or something, something in

00:54:58.920 its family. Because I think we will learn how to get it with tests and with meds and with vaccinations.

00:55:06.260 A year from now, we'll be in good shape. But we'll be recovered financially, at least somewhat well

00:55:12.540 before then. Next question. That's a funny question. I'll skip that one. Realignments from

00:55:28.300 high-density urban areas to more rural. I was kind of wondering about this, you know, the, just the

00:55:34.740 pure practicality of it. You know, let's say you said, hey, New York City, the only way we're going to

00:55:42.440 get to the other end of this. This is just hypothetical. I'm just, just brainstorming here.

00:55:46.260 Maybe somebody will have a good idea that's different from mine that is suggested. Suppose

00:55:52.140 you said to New York City, hey, hey people, if you have the capability to get out of the city,

00:56:00.080 get out of the city. You don't have to. But if you can, if you can find a place to pitch a tent,

00:56:06.580 you can find somebody in Nebraska and you've been tested. I suppose that would spread, maybe that

00:56:13.700 would just spread the disease when, never mind. It's probably too late to do social distancing in

00:56:21.200 terms of the city you live in, you know, temporarily going to the country for a few weeks, because that

00:56:25.820 probably would just spread it at this point. I would need an expert to weigh that, those options.

00:56:30.880 All right, Justin Hart asked this question. The death rate and disaster sold to us as a justification

00:56:40.640 for the shutdown are quickly collapsing. Does that matter? Justin, I got to check your, okay,

00:56:51.340 you're in marketing and sales. I don't want to be unkind, because I know you're a follower,

00:56:57.060 because you're, you know, you follow me on Twitter. So Justin, and I'm going to try not to be a jerk 0.99

00:57:05.440 about this, because I don't have anything against you, Justin. He shows the graph of, I guess, 0.95

00:57:11.940 what is it, the deaths? The fatality rate going down and down and down. So he's saying since the

00:57:17.080 predictions didn't pan out, you know, what do we make of that? Justin, the predictions didn't pan out

00:57:25.160 yet. And it's because we're flattening the curve. If we had treated this as business as usual,

00:57:35.340 things would be very much worse. So here's my recommendation to anybody who does not have,

00:57:42.800 I don't know, some kind of a background in the decision-making sciences. So if you don't have a

00:57:48.780 background in science, engineering, economics, perhaps, and you could think of several others,

00:57:53.320 look to people who do. So Justin, find somebody who's, you know, just somebody personally,

00:58:03.300 who's gone through one of those fields, and then show them your graph, and say, what does that tell

00:58:08.920 me? I think they're going to tell you what I told you, which is, that's the way it goes if we do

00:58:14.560 everything right. And that's the reason we're panicking, is to get everybody to do something

00:58:19.380 right. So the fact that, you know, we're getting some kind of control on this, shouldn't tell you

00:58:28.920 that we shouldn't have done it. That doesn't make any sense. All right. I'm trying to be kind about

00:58:34.200 that. But the people who did not have experience in decision-making, you really need to rely on people

00:58:42.360 who literally learned those skills. Let's see. Can Biden name his COVID-19 videos that he's not in

00:58:56.940 as his VP if they identify as female? Okay, that's just a joke. And by the way, I don't know if you saw 0.96

00:59:05.440 that a Biden campaign video was an expert talking about the coronavirus instead of Joe Biden. He

00:59:11.660 didn't even introduce him. That tells you everything you know about where Joe is. Whatever's happening

00:59:17.680 is not good for Joe. And I think they just need to make the adult decision and find a real candidate

00:59:23.400 there. How much overcapacity in supplies and equipment is the right amount for future pandemics?

00:59:30.520 Well, unfortunately, nobody knows that question. But I think the smarter approach is to have a

00:59:37.240 pipeline that can be quickly converted. So all of these factories that quickly converted into making

00:59:44.500 masks and stuff, they kind of have a template now. So there must be some kind of, you know, public

00:59:50.640 information about how to make these masks, etc. So I think the important thing is to know how to turn

00:59:55.800 the pipeline on quickly, not just having some in the emergency supply. Somebody said I've heard three

01:00:05.620 months. That sounds about right. Have we slowed down the spread? And by how much? I can't answer that.

01:00:12.680 Is there any truth to this, that the coronavirus is an intentional move to destroy the American economy

01:00:19.880 and ushering a single government, new world order and a digital currency? Is there any truth to this?

01:00:26.880 No. No, there's not. There's not. Let me let me say with complete certainty, there's no government

01:00:36.100 that would have done this intentionally. You know, it could have escaped accidentally from some government

01:00:43.040 facility, China. But there's no way that a rational person, and I think all the leaders of the countries

01:00:52.460 who could do this would be rational. There's no way anybody rationally did this as a strategy.

01:00:58.380 There are too many unknowns. The strategy is something you say, if I do this, it's going to lead to this,

01:01:04.680 this, and this. But this doesn't have that nature. This is just chaos. And, you know, you could tell

01:01:10.800 yourself, oh, maybe it's some anarchist who just wants to destroy the world or something. But even

01:01:16.580 then, they'd be taking credit. You know? So there's literally zero, zero, zero evidence of anything

01:01:26.140 but a very bad disaster that nobody intended. Let's see, what else we've got going here? Questions?

01:01:35.880 Why is our government saying masks don't work when it's obvious that they do? Basically, just

01:01:43.140 paraphrasing the question. And I think it's the same reason that Fauci is saying that hydrochloroquine

01:01:51.580 or hydroxychloroquine, I don't know the difference. But I think it's the same reason the government

01:01:57.060 is saying that the meds are unknown in usefulness. They're not really unknown. And nobody really

01:02:08.240 thought the mask didn't work. So remember, there are two things in this. There's the medical side

01:02:14.960 and dealing with the emergency, but they're also dealing with our psychology. So people like Fauci are

01:02:20.780 very aware that if they say the wrong thing, it's going to cause the wrong actions. So there is going

01:02:27.980 to be a disconnect. And I would expect more of it, not less. I would expect more of this disconnect

01:02:33.780 where the things they're telling you to do don't quite map with the things you know with certainty

01:02:40.260 to be true. And it's probably because the message has more to do about getting compliance in a way that

01:02:47.540 gets us to the end point best. I think it's a greater good. This is not one of those cases where

01:02:52.620 I'd be nitpicking the government, hey, you're lying to us, because I believe there are productive lies.

01:02:59.960 There are productive lies. I've never told you that your government should tell you the truth.

01:03:06.220 All right. For many situations, it's the preferred situation that you want your government to tell you

01:03:11.900 the truth. For many, you know, maybe 95% of the time. But there's a solid 5% of the situations where

01:03:19.240 the public would simply be worse off with a little bit more reality. Sometimes you might need to manage

01:03:28.140 the psychology, the mass hysteria, and it might take a little bit of shading of the truth. And maybe

01:03:34.360 you circle back to the truth later when it's safe. After this is done, I'm fairly certain that your

01:03:40.220 experts will say, yeah, we knew that wearing a mask would help the public, but we didn't have enough

01:03:47.360 masks. And I think that you're going to hear someday the experts say, yeah, we were sure a lot earlier

01:03:55.440 than we said about this medicine or that being effective, but we didn't want to cause a run on the

01:04:01.540 supply. I think that's what's going on. Thoughts on Candace Owens' stance? I don't know what it is about the

01:04:09.000 coronavirus. How do I choose a... Okay, I don't want to answer that one. Are there any doctors

01:04:22.840 saying this is an overreaction? Excellent question. Excellent question. So for those who say it's an

01:04:29.020 overreaction, find a doctor who's working in an infected area who agrees with you. Just one.

01:04:38.220 Just one doctor. Just find one doctor working at a hospital that's already seeing a bit of volume in

01:04:46.180 it, and let that doctor tell the world that it's not a problem. I think you've seen zero of that.

01:04:54.060 Somebody in the comments, I'm seeing that, you know, Dr. Drew are being mentioned. Correct me if

01:05:01.640 I'm wrong, but Dr. Drew has always been compatible with Fauci's recommendations. That's the end of

01:05:08.660 that story. If you can find me a counter to that statement, I'm not aware of it, but if you can't find

01:05:16.340 a counter, just drop it. Just drop it. If any doctor anywhere in the United States who was talking

01:05:24.340 about the coronavirus, and what they were saying was compatible at the time with what Fauci was

01:05:30.460 saying, and then it evolved with Fauci, because remember, Fauci didn't say we should close the

01:05:36.500 flights from Europe on day one, right? I mean, it took a while. He was evolving as information was

01:05:43.440 coming. So if any other doctor was evolving in the same way the number one expert in the country

01:05:50.580 was evolving, everybody's on the same page, doctor-wise. When do you think the recovery

01:05:57.420 process begins in terms of economy and containment? Well, it depends how you count it. The stock market

01:06:06.460 will recover as soon as we see that the trend is slowed or changing. So as soon as the stock market

01:06:13.840 notices that we're getting on top of it, it's a leading indicator. So that will be first.

01:06:21.080 And I think that the stock market will have some big up days and some big down days, no matter where

01:06:26.800 it's going in general. So I think that you're going to see maybe within two weeks, you're going to see

01:06:34.360 another, we've already had a kind of a stock market bounce. But in two weeks, if we get positive news

01:06:39.880 about the meds, the stock market is going to bounce back, not all the way. And when it bounces back,

01:06:47.760 it won't stay there. So you're going to see a wildly gyrating stock market that will respond to every

01:06:54.060 bit of new trend, new news. You should assume that in some country, they're going to get it under

01:07:00.440 control. And then it will flare back and then the stock market will react. But I think stock market

01:07:05.580 was first, you could see something of a beginning of a more up than down in two weeks when we know

01:07:12.600 we have some visibility on that. By the time we get test kits widely available, and you know,

01:07:21.780 I'm just going to use my common sense on this. I don't see us having enough test kits for a month,

01:07:27.680 even if we move heaven and earth. Because that just seems harder. But I think we'll have real

01:07:35.280 knowledge about pills and availability in two weeks. So I think it's a two phased recovery.

01:07:41.920 Phase one is getting pills at work, and maybe in some cases, young people, so long as they live 0.98

01:07:47.700 where there's access to the pills, and it's an efficient system to get them to them. I think

01:07:52.840 they'll go back to work sooner. So we'll have something like a half recovery or a three quarters

01:07:58.720 recovery, maybe in a month, because those people who went back to work will start getting things

01:08:04.120 going. At the end of the month, I think you're going to see the testing come online hard to the

01:08:11.960 point where you see the beginnings of these 60 plusers, you know, having a get in a jail card that's

01:08:18.900 starting to form. And at that point, it's going to look like we have a clear path.

01:08:24.700 So those are two things, the efficacy and safety and availability. Availability is really high on

01:08:31.600 the list, but I think we can solve that of the pills, the different kinds that we know work,

01:08:36.420 or I hope we know work. And then the test kits. So it's a two phaser. And I would say that

01:08:44.360 you'll see people released from prison as soon as the pills are available for them and just young

01:08:52.700 people. Here's my guess. I think in two weeks, we're going to get guidance about when we'll be

01:08:57.820 released. In two weeks, within two weeks, could be one week, we'll get guidance, which could change.

01:09:06.360 But I think the government will start to get in a position where they say,

01:09:09.820 here's where our plan is forming. And you can't fault the government for not having a solid plan

01:09:16.180 because we're still gathering information. But if they say, we're looking at, you know, this is our

01:09:23.500 back to work date, and we've got a plan to feed people until then. But as soon as the government

01:09:31.020 starts saying, you know, we're going to aim for this date to get this many people back to work,

01:09:36.220 you're going to feel like the momentum changed. Because we've been in full retreat, right? Every

01:09:42.920 time there's an announcement, it's a retreat. And as soon as that changes to, okay, here's a retreat

01:09:53.700 over here. But we also made some progress over here. And then it's going to be more progress than

01:09:58.740 retreat. I think in a month, it's going to be basically nonstop good news about human

01:10:06.220 human ingenuity. You know, you're going to have your Tesla ventilators, you're going

01:10:10.360 to have your pills, you're going to have your test kits, etc. So month is the longest for

01:10:17.120 the over 60s, I think.

01:10:18.540 Somebody asked this question. I don't know the answer, but it's an interesting question. If you

01:10:30.620 had two people, one is infected, and one has symptoms, you know, coughing, etc. And one does

01:10:38.040 not. And they both go out in public, let's say to different parts of the public. Which one would

01:10:43.860 infect more people? Someone who had no symptoms, or someone who had obvious symptoms in public?

01:10:51.020 Interesting question. I think it would depend entirely upon the nature of that public gathering.

01:10:56.360 Is it a restaurant, or is it just a crowd, or whatever? But you could easily imagine that the

01:11:01.100 person with no symptoms would take fewer precautions, and would be less easy to identify as someone to stay

01:11:07.920 away from. If you see somebody who's coughing, you know, you're running hard in the other direction.

01:11:12.980 If you see somebody who's not coughing, well, maybe you think this is a one time you should shake hands.

01:11:18.080 So, could go either way. It's a good question.

01:11:22.860 What are the actual real changes needed for health, for health care independence from China?

01:11:28.060 Mostly supply chain, I think. I think it comes down to that. Just making stuff here, or making stuff...

01:11:36.220 I mean, I could imagine making it in Canada, or Mexico, gets you close to the same degree of comfort.

01:11:44.560 Now, you might say to yourself, I don't know, does Mexico give you comfort?

01:11:48.700 And the answer is yes. Because our military would just go in and take over those factories,

01:11:54.520 if anything funny happened, right? So, we can't do that with, you know, China. If China said,

01:12:03.200 we're going to withhold your meds, what are we going to do? We're going to go without meds. But if

01:12:08.660 Mexico said, ha, ha, ha, United States, we're going to withhold your meds unless you do what we want, 0.90

01:12:16.260 well, we'd have the military who would be marching across the border and surrounding that factory in

01:12:21.540 about 10 minutes. So, you don't have to move it to the United States, but you need to move it into

01:12:27.120 the neighborhood, if you know what I mean. You know, and Canada would be equally safe,

01:12:31.220 not for military reasons, but because we, you know, we know we would work productively with them,

01:12:36.420 that wouldn't be a risk.

01:12:42.060 Can Congress make April and May rent and mortgage payments? Zero.

01:12:45.480 Because the theory being that it's easier for the landlords and the banks to absorb the losses.

01:12:52.940 You know, I've thought about that, but I'm not smart enough to connect all the chain of cause and

01:12:59.420 effect. So, there's an, it's an appealing suggestion and it would go like this. If you're paying rent or

01:13:05.640 you're paying mortgage, you just don't pay for two months, period. And, and then it just starts when,

01:13:11.840 when things go back to normal. Um, that might actually be a good idea. It's, it's good enough

01:13:19.640 that I'd like to have an economist wrestle with it and tell us, because, you know, you've got,

01:13:25.280 uh, and I know in my own life, I know people whose only income might be the, the several rental

01:13:31.660 properties that they have. So, for the several rental properties, those people do not pay rent means

01:13:38.300 that at least the one person that doesn't have an income that month. So, I don't know, you'd

01:13:44.040 have to do the math, but I wouldn't rule it out. Um, uh, looking at some of your questions

01:13:53.840 are funny. Uh, why is San Francisco allowing Chinese airlines to resume flights to San Francisco?

01:13:59.960 What? What? What? Is, is that true? San Francisco is allowing Chinese airlines to resume flights

01:14:11.560 to San Francisco? Really? Now, I don't know about that story, but I'd have to assume that

01:14:18.200 they have, of course, considered the risk. And of course, there must be maybe a quarantine

01:14:25.380 or testing. Maybe, maybe they're using some of their limited testing to test people right

01:14:30.740 away before they send them into the public. I don't know. So, I don't know about that story,

01:14:36.480 but, uh, it's worrisome. Um, should they, should they address or debunk the Medium article at the

01:14:47.740 presser? Yeah, you know, so there, I mentioned it, there was that, that Medium article that was

01:14:53.240 going around that's being pulled off of platforms for being, you know, grossly, um, grossly damaging,

01:15:01.980 I think, because it's, it's just not good information. It's not, it's not put together

01:15:06.860 in a way that's helping the public. Should the presser debunk it? Maybe so. Maybe so. I don't

01:15:13.480 know that they need to, uh, mention it by name, but it got so much attention. Maybe so. Yeah. Uh,

01:15:21.100 it could go either way, but I think maybe so. Um, husband asks, why can't used masks be put in

01:15:28.760 paper bag, sit for a week until germs are dead and be reused by same person? Um, I don't know.

01:15:39.540 I don't know. Good question. I've heard that if you put the germs in heat or not the germs,

01:15:48.600 the virus in heat, uh, and I've heard numbers, who knows if this is right, but 133 degrees for 15

01:15:55.960 minutes, you know, two days in a row. And, and it would, it would kill, you know, just the second

01:16:02.000 day just to do any mop up in case there's some left. But, um, if you had a dry sauna and you took

01:16:10.120 your used and badly infected mask, and you just put it in your dry sauna and just ran that thing

01:16:16.100 for a day, would it kill it? Don't try this at home because you could end up getting yourself

01:16:22.960 killed. I'm not advising it, but I'm asking somebody saying a freezer. Now I see in the comments

01:16:30.980 debunked. So here's, let me give you the common sense answer because I can't answer you

01:16:37.000 scientifically. The common sense answer is, uh, there are a lot of doctors and scientists

01:16:44.680 involved in this question. I'm pretty sure they would have tried that. I'm pretty sure that

01:16:54.140 we would know that. But just in case, just in case, let's float that question. There must be

01:17:01.580 enough people on this periscope that somebody has looked into that who has a scientific background

01:17:06.900 and can tell us, no, no, no, Scott, you would either ruin the integrity of the mask. That's

01:17:12.400 possible. Or you would, um, you know, you don't want extreme temperatures because the integrity of

01:17:17.220 the mask would change and then it just wouldn't be a mask. Um, or maybe they've tested it and you

01:17:23.440 just can't get rid of the virus. I don't know. I mean, we've been told that a virus doesn't live

01:17:28.480 more than how many days or how many hours, depending on the material. So your husband's question

01:17:35.160 is really kind of excellent. And just curiosity alone, I'd like to know the answer to that.

01:17:42.120 Uh, somebody says, Google it. Um, can somebody do that? Why don't you Google it for me and see

01:17:49.480 if anybody's answered that question. It's a really good question, but you have to think that with this

01:17:54.000 many experts looking at a mask shortage, if it were that easy, I feel like we would have heard that by

01:18:00.420 now, but you never know, right? You never know. Um, uh, let's see. Thoughts on the coronavirus

01:18:11.100 affecting the cartel supply chain, including fentanyl. Well, as many of you know, this is

01:18:18.800 kind of personal to me because my stepson died from an overdose, including fentanyl. And, you know,

01:18:25.920 I, I blame China for creating it and sending it to Mexico and the Mexican cartels for selling it. 0.96

01:18:32.440 And of course I blame the Mexican government for being essentially owned by the cartels.

01:18:38.440 Now, interesting side note, Philippe Calderon, who was president of Mexico, I don't know, 2006 to 2010,

01:18:50.160 he actually follows me on Twitter. So I just noticed that the other day because I think he liked

01:18:57.020 something I did. And I thought, I wonder if he follows me on Twitter. So the ex-president of Mexico

01:19:02.060 follows me on Twitter and, uh, you know, you'd probably ask yourself, well, will that, will that

01:19:08.740 control the things you're willing to say? Well, watch me. The, the government of Mexico is clearly

01:19:16.460 owned by the cartels. So if you thought it would stop me, now you know. Um, uh, and by the way,

01:19:26.060 I'm not blaming Philippe Calderon personally. I'm just saying that at the moment it's, it's so obvious

01:19:33.220 that we don't need any confirmation. Um, any reports on massive, massive ramping up of U.S.

01:19:41.540 testing gear and stuff? Um, no, no. And that's, that's exactly why we need a data visualizer to be

01:19:48.460 part of this. Um, looks like I'm running a little bit long and, uh, I'm going to end it here.

01:19:55.620 Why don't we just freeze the stock market? You'd have to ask somebody smarter. I don't, I don't know

01:19:59.480 the pluses and minuses to that. Um,

01:20:04.020 do, do, do, do, do. What is the first industry that will decouple from China? Well, the priority 0.99

01:20:08.540 will be meds and pharmaceuticals. I don't know if it will be first, but it will be certainly be the

01:20:13.040 priority. Um, when will we be able to open businesses? I think we're talking a few weeks

01:20:22.640 as in a month and maybe sooner for some selected businesses, but it will be, it'll be phased. It's

01:20:30.000 not, uh, I don't think there's even the slightest chance that you wait 18 months to open your

01:20:35.840 business. So if you're worried about that, no chance. And I don't think there's the slightest

01:20:41.380 chance things will be closed for a year. I put both of those as zero because we're, we're playing

01:20:48.580 some brinksmanship. We're not crazy, right? Brinksmanship is that you take your economy,

01:20:55.560 you know, right to the edge, but you don't break it. You know, you, you stress it as much as you think

01:21:01.560 you can, but it's just to get ahold of the, you know, get a, get on top of the virus, but you don't

01:21:07.500 break it. If we're still doing a lockdown a year from now, we're broken. So what you can trust is

01:21:14.100 that everybody knows that. I mean, that, that calculation is top of mind for every person

01:21:19.200 involved here. So this reminds me a little bit of an old Star Trek episode where the captain,

01:21:26.420 Captain Kirk is asking, uh, the engineer, chief engineer, Scotty, uh, Captain Scotty, if you'll give

01:21:33.640 him warp nine, and you know how that conversation goes, you know, Scotty, you know, give me warp nine.

01:21:39.280 And then Scotty goes, I cannot give you a warp nine. Captain, the ship is only built for warp eight.

01:21:45.440 We can't handle it. It'll start, it'll come apart at the seams. And the captain will say,

01:21:51.020 give me warp nine. And Scotty will say, hi, hi, hi, captain. And then Scotty somehow makes it work.

01:21:58.640 So we're sort of trapped in a Star Trek episode in which, you know, the warp drives our, our economy.

01:22:08.240 And right now that economy is sort of at warp nine in terms of, you know, danger to the structure,

01:22:16.000 but we're not going to go to, we're not going to go to warp 10 because even Captain Kirk doesn't ask

01:22:23.580 for warp 10. But what you should expect is that on the atomic, I'm stuff, I'm sorry, on the economic

01:22:31.440 stuff, however scared you are now, you're going to be way more scared because doing the right thing

01:22:39.980 and doing the wrong thing look exactly the same for a while. So doing the right thing and the wrong

01:22:45.240 thing will look like keeping the economy closed for a few more weeks. Right thing and the wrong thing 0.73

01:22:50.880 are the same for those two weeks. It's what you do after that. That's the difference between the

01:22:56.240 right thing and the wrong thing. So we are not doing the wrong thing now, for sure. For sure.

01:23:04.180 Because we're not going to break the government, or I'm not going to break the economy in a few weeks.

01:23:09.980 But if we're having this conversation in a month, then you're going to have to ask yourself,

01:23:15.320 is Scotty or Captain Kirk on the right side. But, you know, there are a lot of adults in the room

01:23:22.020 making those decisions, and I think we'll be fine. And I will talk to you again later today,

01:23:26.200 not sure when, but before you go to bed. And I will talk to you later.

Real Coffee with Scott Adams - March 22, 2020

Episode 865 Scott Adams： Good Morning, Shut-Ins. Let's Sip!

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