Real Coffee with Scott Adams - Episode 872 Scott Adams： Ask Me Anything For the Simultaneous Swaddle

00:00:00.000 bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum hey everybody hey dan come on in 0.92

00:00:09.780 here hope you have your soft mic is on it's time to swaddle simultaneous swaddle in effect

00:00:17.000 well have there ever been more news filled days than these my goodness my goodness let me tell

00:00:26.820 you about some of the things that are happening somebody has invented a two-way valve that

00:00:31.980 turns a ventilator into two ventilators all it is is a t-connection

00:00:37.580 modifying i i assume they saw people modifying ventilators on their own and they said well we'll

00:00:46.680 just make a part and it's just this little t-connector you just stick it in and boom you've

00:00:50.940 doubled your ventilator capacity pretty cool pretty cool

00:00:55.300 so india the country of india which uh is either the biggest producer of hydroxychloroquine

00:01:07.780 which i call the hashtag trump pills because i don't like trying to figure out how to say the big

00:01:15.080 words so the trump pills are the hydroxychloroquine and the azithromycin and the zinc just call them

00:01:24.360 trump pills hashtag trump pills so anyway the uh india is one of the biggest producers of the

00:01:31.520 one that starts with age and they just announced a uh block on exports so one of if not the biggest

00:01:42.180 country that makes the drug that everybody needs right now and appears to be in at least a little

00:01:47.360 bit of shortage in places i don't know how much we don't have visibility on that but the biggest

00:01:52.740 country just decided that they're not going to give it to anybody else now is that because it doesn't

00:01:59.660 work do you think that the country of india you've heard of india probably it's a country yeah you've

00:02:07.680 heard that they have a lot of people there quite a few people you may have heard that there are smart

00:02:14.260 people in india which is a great understatement there are really really smart people in india

00:02:20.540 do you think that all the smartest people in india who again are really really really smart

00:02:27.120 do you think that they blocked exports of this drug because it doesn't work maybe

00:02:34.660 no no no they do not well so the citizens of this country are ready to break the system

00:02:45.560 um i think that people are we've been lied to let's let's be honest but not necessarily an evil lie

00:02:55.500 meaning that it's pretty obvious at this point that all of the countries uh see the trump pills as

00:03:04.420 a big part of the solution and they're doing everything they can to make sure they secure

00:03:09.500 their sources now i assume that the united states is doing the same and i assume that our government

00:03:14.020 quite responsibly i would say has lied to us but it's a responsible lie because if you if you're

00:03:23.460 trying to protect a limited resource it's kind of the only way to do it so i'm going to say that uh

00:03:29.860 my moral uh i would say my moral line was not crossed by any of that probably had to be done

00:03:36.780 but um i would say the cat's under the bag at this point so what i'd like is some visibility

00:03:44.240 on how much do we have how much do we need you know where in this country is there a shortage

00:03:51.880 how do we make it do we even make it in this country i know there's at least one is it no

00:03:57.460 novartis there's at least one company that makes it and it's an american company but i don't think

00:04:03.960 they make it in america so would they have the same problem if if the company whatever country they

00:04:10.500 make it in what if they say there's no exports you know if it's an american company that has a

00:04:16.800 manufacturing in another country can we get it out how does that work because it seems like

00:04:23.580 just hypothetically if it were if it had been manufactured in india do you think india would

00:04:30.520 let it leave the country just because it's owned by an american company i don't think so not in an

00:04:37.700 emergency probably not so there's a big question in my mind um about this i think it's increasingly

00:04:45.520 clear that the difference between trump's more optimistic view about getting back to work

00:04:51.460 and dr fauci's more reserved approach both of them productive i think i think that they

00:04:57.500 they sort of mapped out the zone you know one on the little bit to the cautious side one a little bit

00:05:05.400 to the optimistic side and that gave you that gave you the zone i think we would have been

00:05:11.280 underserved by having one without the other i think i think we would be underserved but this

00:05:17.660 guy gives you a size a sense of the range that reasonable people can can think about and it's

00:05:23.900 obvious now that part of the difference was that trump had some early indication that the the meds

00:05:30.400 would be productive and dr fauci was probably cleverly i'm not i can't read their minds but it's a

00:05:38.580 reasonable speculation that he knew there would be shortage problems if he touted it and so he was

00:05:44.780 downplaying a little bit so i think that's where we are i think now it's just sort of obvious now

00:05:50.320 you don't need to go and tell all your friends this you know you you can simply bank the advantage

00:05:57.460 that you get to hear things that other people are not hearing on the regular news

00:06:01.660 so uh don't necessarily tell your friends but just just know that you're a little bit ahead of the

00:06:09.520 curve okay

00:06:10.080 uh yeah so there's only to the best of my knowledge there's only one study that said it didn't work

00:06:19.360 and that came out of a chinese university uh at the same time that everything coming out of chinese

00:06:26.060 uses misinformation so i think you can really discount the chinese study uh let me throw you

00:06:33.840 here's a conspiracy theory for you the following uh cannot be proven

00:06:39.920 and i wouldn't go so far as to say i'm sure it's true but let me propose it and then you tell you

00:06:49.460 use your own judgment everything you know about the world and and reach your reach your own conclusion

00:06:55.080 is this reasonable and it goes like this one of the reasons that italy is doing so poorly

00:07:01.480 is because china is helping them so that's the conspiracy theory and the conspiracy theory to

00:07:09.800 round it out is that the last thing china wants is for italy to do really well 0.97

00:07:16.220 why you might ask is it because they don't like italy no no it has nothing to do with italy

00:07:22.680 it has to do with how china will look if they're the only ones that have a big problem

00:07:28.860 china needed some other country to be the disaster country so that when we talk about 1.00

00:07:34.840 my god i hope it doesn't get as bad as

00:07:37.940 italy

00:07:39.920 so very cleverly

00:07:43.080 china is helping

00:07:46.420 but does that help include giving the italians large doses of the hydroxychloroquine

00:07:54.820 i'm guessing no maybe because they told the italians it doesn't work so well

00:08:02.340 maybe because they wanted to keep it for themselves maybe they didn't want anybody to know how well it

00:08:08.400 worked some doctors did report on it but i don't think china can control every doctor's communication

00:08:14.060 everywhere so the news got out but the only reason i can think of that italy would do

00:08:21.040 so badly even even with the older population doesn't quite explain in my mind doesn't feel like

00:08:27.240 that's the whole explanation it feels as though whatever it is italy is doing is different from

00:08:33.400 what other countries are doing who also have infections something different and only italy is

00:08:40.680 getting direct advice from china so i would at least put the suggestion out there that china's

00:08:48.640 reputation the things that we do know about so this this speculation isn't something we have any

00:08:55.020 hard evidence of but the things we do know about they're literally doing a disinformation campaign

00:09:01.420 they steal our stuff there they've got the uyghurs in prison camp they're using the flown flown gone 1.00

00:09:08.400 people for spare parts they're they're killing them to take their organs and selling them i mean these are

00:09:13.580 just a few of the things we know about right if all of those things are true and i'm pretty sure they

00:09:21.740 are is it a stretch to say that china would throw italy under the bus so that china would always look like 1.00

00:09:29.880 they did a better job than than some other country would they be above that not at all in terms of

00:09:37.880 ethically and morally they are they have demonstrated that they're not even a little bit above that

00:09:42.880 so did china hurt italy's response more than it helped i think you have to put that in the

00:09:53.260 possibility set you know we'll find out later if you find out later that china wasn't pushing the drugs

00:09:59.380 that they know work then that's what it was and we'll probably know that you know at some point we'll

00:10:06.740 find out whether italy was using that drug whether the chinese were advising them or what but we're

00:10:12.580 going to know that um let's see nothing in our home from china for over three years now somebody says

00:10:23.060 you know i was i was shopping before the lockdown it was just a few days before we all had to stop

00:10:28.520 doing that and i was just picking things off the shelf and just looking at where they were made

00:10:33.860 it's kind of hard not to buy something from china i didn't realize how hard it was

00:10:38.540 now you heard that apple was helping out with the n95 masks right and today they announced that they 0.89

00:10:47.400 had sourced some masks and they were going to deliver a bunch and i said to myself wait a minute

00:10:53.300 source them are you telling me that apple computer doesn't know how to put up a manufacturing plant and

00:11:02.140 make things and the answer is maybe not because i think everybody who everybody who says they're

00:11:10.040 an american company and they're going to make you some face masks the part they don't say is well not

00:11:16.620 in this country because we don't know how to do anything in this country we don't know how to make

00:11:20.640 stuff so every time i heard a story of an american company that was going to make some masks you have

00:11:27.560 to ask the second question is where are you going to make them oh we're making them in china or we're

00:11:33.420 making them in india or we're making them in mexico i don't know if the i don't know if any american

00:11:38.180 company can manufacture anything i don't even know if it's a thing so when i see apple stepping up to

00:11:45.760 help and all they did is act as a broker to find some masks that were somewhere else i mean maybe they

00:11:51.300 helped them get going on it or something but not exactly what i was expecting from american companies

00:11:56.980 now i have not dug into the um the relief legislation by the way did that get approved

00:12:05.980 where is that i've been off the news for a little while but i have i'm starting to develop an opinion

00:12:12.260 which is that it's a complete abomination it looks like the republicans and the democrats

00:12:19.240 just completely failed us completely failed us when when the nation needed them most

00:12:25.360 they weren't even a little bit willing to do it right not even a little bit willing yeah so

00:12:33.240 the my pillow company apparently is making some masks and you're right those probably are made in

00:12:39.680 america so there is i guess there is one guy you know one company anyway the my pillow company they

00:12:46.260 i guess they do know how to make things in america because they make the pillows there

00:12:49.360 um somebody says 3m makes m95 in south dakota oh okay so that's good so we do have a little bit of

00:12:59.340 american manufacturing somebody says the issue is ventilators yeah um i think the meds once they're

00:13:10.200 available will make ventilators less necessary because people won't get hospitalized hospitalized in

00:13:15.380 the first place all right let's talk about zoom did you know that zoom so it's a company that allows

00:13:22.580 you very easily to do uh teleconferencing with lots of different configurations you know one to many and

00:13:29.160 several and all that and it is a really good product i gotta say so i've used zoom quite a bit and

00:13:37.160 every time i use it i'm frankly impressed it's just really well designed it's it's pretty bulletproof for

00:13:45.260 these kinds of things you know the telecommunications is always going to have glitches but it's really

00:13:49.760 bulletproof really easy interface just everything about it is is quality so they deserve to be doing

00:13:57.360 well and everybody's using them for business now but there's one little problem it's an american company

00:14:04.180 but much or most of their engineering and even one of their data centers is in china

00:14:11.160 so if you are a big american company and you're talking about top secret things on zoom your conversation

00:14:21.320 is going to china into a chinese data center server and then you know sent over to the other side

00:14:30.860 now hypothetically could the government of china listen in on every business conversation that happens

00:14:39.160 on zoom well in theory no because it's an american company and they they must have some control over

00:14:46.840 their technology even in china but in reality of course some number of the employees there are just

00:14:54.040 chinese spies now do i know that no but do i know that yes let me say that again do i know that there are 0.91

00:15:04.900 chinese spies working for zoom no i have no information about that whatsoever do i know that chinese spies are

00:15:13.060 working at zoom yes yes i do a hundred percent because why wouldn't they are you crazy why wouldn't

00:15:20.980 they of course they are now and if they weren't they will and if they if they haven't yet they could

00:15:30.660 and they will so it doesn't even matter if they haven't done it yet it's almost a trivial point

00:15:34.740 the point is it is such an enormous security conflict for a country who is most famous for stealing 1.00

00:15:43.860 intellectual property and our most important companies are having their their highly confidential

00:15:50.340 conversations because when you when you're talking it doesn't feel like it's a security problem

00:15:56.900 right we're used to the telephone so you don't want to put something on text somebody can find

00:16:01.380 it but i'll make a phone call because nobody's recording my phone call right well how hard would

00:16:07.540 it be for some technology to just check the language and look for keywords and then record anything that

00:16:14.500 had some interesting keywords pretty easy pretty easy so that is a big um problem now also the app

00:16:24.100 tick tock is owned by china and that app knows a lot about you and it might even have asked you

00:16:32.500 permission to post things on social media if you did the government of china gets to

00:16:39.940 gets to follow and unfollow people on your behalf and you'd never know the difference now is that happening

00:16:48.020 my theory is that twitter management is not intentionally rigging anything

00:16:54.820 but that something's getting rigged there's something clearly getting rigged and so it's

00:17:00.340 got to be some third party so it's either hackers or apps or there's some internal you know internal

00:17:08.100 person who's working for the wrong government or something but uh yeah twitter is clearly compromised

00:17:16.820 in terms of some kind of influence but i don't think it's twitter and i don't think that they have a

00:17:21.940 way necessarily even find out what's going on but we know what's going on i mean that that part's

00:17:27.060 confirmed it's easy to tell that it's going on all right where is our zoom exactly where is the american

00:17:35.300 company that's knocking that off or actually better yet you know since zoom is an american

00:17:41.220 company ideally they would just bring their servers back here which which i think should be a law

00:17:47.380 actually i think there should be legislation that if you're a telecommunication product it just can't

00:17:54.900 go through china you know that we have precedent for that of course so does anybody want to ask some

00:18:04.500 questions i've got my headset on it looks like some people are coming in

00:18:09.060 let's uh add carpe carpe donctum are you there hey good to hear from you you have a question for me

00:18:22.500 oh i'm doing great i mean relatively

00:18:28.420 and stuff like that so you know i'm not a conspiracy guy but yeah i was hoping that uh that you could

00:18:34.420 provide some imagination that maybe i laugh okay my now my my question is that uh we're hearing lots of

00:18:43.700 things out of new york city about um lots of people in there on ventilators and uh big lines and we're

00:18:53.220 we're hearing about uh the recent most recently there was something about a guy dying in the waiting room

00:18:58.500 waiting for a bed right and my question is in the world of selfies and people who are constantly

00:19:07.540 going live and people who are constantly recording video and uploading it why are we not seeing viral

00:19:13.860 videos of packed emergency rooms and uh hospitals full of ventilators uh good question i will give

00:19:22.980 you a possible answer i would say that within the within the hospital they probably don't want to

00:19:28.580 touch phones because phones are just like germ machines so they might not have phones in any of

00:19:33.620 the places where you would also have ventilators that's possible and probable i'd say um secondly if

00:19:39.540 you're in the waiting room there are big signs that say you know don't use your cell phone now

00:19:44.900 i think they're talking about phone calls but i think most people would realize if they took their phone out

00:19:51.540 in a medical facility it's just such a grotesque violation of privacy it could be that just people

00:19:58.020 don't do it or it could be that they've done it and they keep it to themselves because they don't

00:20:02.180 want to be accused of violating somebody's privacy because it's an immense violation right and i

00:20:08.500 understand i don't understand all that and the the hipaa violations and privacy and everything but i i

00:20:13.860 guess the heart of my question is that you know nobody nobody abides by those things in any other

00:20:19.780 situation yeah so it's just very strange to me that uh that we're not seeing at least one or two live

00:20:25.860 streams coming from that room well i'll tell you i have been to uh my health care providers waiting

00:20:33.380 room not not recently because of the crisis and um i was the only person using a phone i think

00:20:40.660 yeah really it was like nobody took their phone out but i did you know just texting and stuff

00:20:46.180 so um so i i get what you're saying so the the implication is if things were as bad as the

00:20:53.220 reports we would surely have visual evidence of that and that's actually a good observation

00:20:58.500 but within the the medical uh domain you would expect a little less video than any other domain

00:21:07.460 and i want to i want to reiterate that um i'm not suggesting anything like i'm not suggesting that this

00:21:13.700 is a giant hoax or anything like that i'm just asking a simple question that that i i feel like

00:21:19.140 should have an answer but yeah i'm getting a lot of pushback from from people don't ask that question

00:21:25.860 that seems like a pretty that's a pretty fair question but the other thing might be that i think

00:21:30.420 the the bad spots are spots so if you got to the point where every hospital in new york was you know

00:21:37.620 was a a death center then you know the odds of a video are pretty high but if most of them are kind

00:21:43.940 of okay but you had you know a couple of bad days at one where somebody died in the waiting room i don't

00:21:50.900 know that people would take out their phone yeah so so we're sort of in the gray area where i i could

00:21:57.700 see why it wouldn't happen but the longer it goes and the worse it gets reportedly the longer we go and

00:22:04.740 don't see video then that's perfectly valid question thanks for that all right yep see you all right

00:22:09.780 take care that was a good question oh look at all these people who want to talk to me let's do jason

00:22:22.420 jason are you there jason can you hear me do you have a question

00:22:27.620 saying is the epicenter and um it seems to me you know just being here that uh that's not the case

00:22:38.820 that it's very much overblown and um you know there are people obviously getting sick there is a lot of

00:22:44.420 social distancing uh but it doesn't seem nearly as bad as they're saying and i have i've seen a lot of

00:22:49.140 reports new york times had one that there were people dying waiting for beds etc um i i just don't see that

00:22:55.300 uh that uh that had actually being backed up but how but how would you see that my my understanding

00:23:01.700 is is it new york city where they've ordered refrigerated trucks for all the bodies yeah

00:23:07.220 where the only place you would see it is right in the hospital um so unless you're in the hospital

00:23:13.300 you shouldn't be seeing anything so i i mean i happen to know personally a lot of doctors uh who you

00:23:19.060 know family members in my social circle that right now are working are working in hospitals

00:23:24.020 uh in westchester in lower manhattan um and i haven't heard anything like that i just i think

00:23:29.860 i would have heard that it was a horror story like that so i just i think we should see we should really

00:23:34.420 see what's going on it seems to me to be uh a little overblown well my my understanding is if

00:23:41.540 you're looking you if you're looking at it as a snapshot in time then you're just looking at the wrong

00:23:46.980 thing because everything is about the rate so they delivered 4 000 ventilators which if you're

00:23:53.140 taking a snapshot would probably be you know 3500 ventilators more than they need right away

00:24:00.180 but since they think they might need 20 000 um we're not talking about a snapshot of today we're

00:24:06.900 talking about the direction it's gone and all the experts saying if you don't clamp it down it'll

00:24:12.020 it'll turn into a disaster so i i feel like the experts are giving you the amount of warning

00:24:19.460 that is appropriate to next week even more than appropriate at the moment and maybe that's what

00:24:24.820 you're feeling that the alarm the alarm is sort of a next week alarm so you're not seeing it on the

00:24:30.020 ground yet so that's my best guess but all right thanks thanks for the question all right see what

00:24:36.100 let's see what else we got here let's take uh brian brian you look like you have a question brian brian

00:24:50.100 brian disappeared let's try tracy tracy talk to me tracy you have a question

00:25:01.380 sir my sister lives in manhattan in manhattan and she's been quarantining herself because she's been

00:25:10.820 ill with an inner ear problem and she was just telling me she went to the hospital today to to

00:25:17.780 see a rehab person to help her with this maneuver they have to do she has crystals in her ears that are 1.00

00:25:23.780 out of whack and she said the hospital was not busy at all she doesn't know what i'm talking about when

00:25:30.180 i talked to her about the coronavirus because she said she was the only patient that this rehab woman 0.92

00:25:36.340 had today well so that's exactly what it should look like if it's really an emergency you get that

00:25:43.380 right so the way it should look like is they've canceled all the elective surgery and they've they've

00:25:48.980 massively increased their capacity in anticipation of what next week and the week after look like so

00:25:54.820 what you saw is exactly what it should look like in some hospitals they haven't been hit but they expect

00:25:59.860 to so i think that's all you're saying now of course we could be wrong but thank you thanks for the

00:26:04.420 question uh we you know anything could happen i'm curious what's going to happen if we do a really

00:26:10.740 good job of beating the virus and everybody's going to say see i told you it wasn't real

00:26:17.460 omar are you there omar omar come on technology work it's cooking trying to get omar on there but

00:26:33.300 looks like that's not going to work for some reason all right let's try somebody else let's try james

00:26:41.460 james can you hear me if we have oh there you are james do you have a question

00:26:57.140 hello do you have a question um it's it's a bit one-sided but um so we talked about the coronavirus

00:27:05.460 coming from china could this i mean just saying this is just a theory not saying they actually

00:27:11.300 did it but could this be as a could this be a test in a way that you could realign like all the

00:27:19.780 manufacturing is coming from china but in a way putting emphasis on it like medical supplies and

00:27:25.940 everything to be more based in china uh well i think the the result of this will be less stuff based in

00:27:33.940 china because we'll be pulling our supply lines back so so china will be worse off so if you're

00:27:39.780 trying to imagine that somebody intentionally uh let the virus out you'd have to say to yourself okay

00:27:45.780 who could gain by such a thing now in my opinion nobody did it intentionally i think that's it's uh

00:27:52.660 very very unlikely but if you want to go through the mental exercise you'd say who could possibly win

00:27:59.540 by a virus that is not selective i mean it's a little selective by age but not not by country

00:28:06.260 so if you couldn't control it by ethnicity or country nobody would let that out i mean nobody who knew what

00:28:13.380 they had would let it out so that that would leave the possibility that they thought it would act some

00:28:18.580 other way but even that sounds impossible so i i reject all of the intentional um

00:28:25.300 um theories but that doesn't mean that it didn't get out of a some kind of a research lab because

00:28:32.580 they could have had it for research that doesn't mean that they meant it to get out or that it was a

00:28:36.660 weapon all right thank you for the questions all right um so you saw me uh let me go back to that

00:28:46.180 you saw me uh block uh somebody here because they said uh look how you panicked scott now i don't know

00:28:57.940 how many times i need to tell you this the in in the early part of the um you know just knowing that

00:29:06.820 the pandemic was coming the experts said if we don't do anything it will turn into x and you know

00:29:15.540 a million million people die so i quoting the experts also said if we don't do anything

00:29:23.220 that will happen that's still true but we are doing things so those of you who have come to mock me

00:29:31.540 because i said it could be this bad unless we do something you're you just don't belong here you 0.85

00:29:39.140 just can't be here you're not smart enough if you don't know the difference between what it looks like

00:29:45.540 if you don't do anything and what it looks like if you try really hard to stop it you just you just

00:29:52.180 can't be here you have to find some other form of entertainment you don't you don't understand the

00:29:56.420 basics right i said to prepare um big and which is smart and anybody who prepared is probably pretty

00:30:06.340 happy about it because you have toilet paper so certainly uh mike cernovich was the um the superstar

00:30:14.420 of the early and correct predictions on this nobody nobody comes close to what he was saying and how early

00:30:21.140 but um and i saw an article that was saying that the the people who also saw trump coming early

00:30:31.300 tended to be the same people who saw the uh coronavirus early and i thought that was a good

00:30:37.140 observation because it's kind of true you know bannon me mike cernovich uh uh several others but we were

00:30:46.100 the the the people who saw trump early saw this as well is that a coincidence might not be so all

00:30:54.100 right um let me take another question here since i got a lot of people waiting let's see what sven is up to

00:31:04.420 sven i'm coming to you because i like your name can you hear me sven do you have a question

00:31:12.180 yes again go ahead

00:31:16.100 um after all this is over how do you want to see kind of the united states change um socially

00:31:26.260 governmentally well you know some of it will be changes that we didn't realize were changes you

00:31:33.940 know that there'll be massive changes just about how we do things to keep viruses from spreading

00:31:39.300 there'll be massive you know financial changes and dislocations so there'll be all kinds of fairly

00:31:44.500 predictable ones but the fun ones are the ones that you don't really feel and see you just sort of

00:31:50.260 notice it after the fact and one of them is uh what i keep talking about is that our government is no

00:31:56.580 longer really the government making decisions they're they're kind of taking their cue from the public

00:32:02.820 and from social media as it as it represents the public and so this idea of the of the public

00:32:08.660 being almost an equal partner with the government and and informing them and working with them and

00:32:15.220 you know pushing and pulling uh that that's a big deal because it's a whole new form it's a whole new

00:32:21.860 form of government that simply didn't exist until social media made it so now the other thing uh

00:32:28.580 that we're getting out of this is that a whole bunch of people met each other who would not have otherwise

00:32:33.700 met and by that i mean the scientists and the the benefit of you know cross fertilizing a bunch of

00:32:41.460 scientists this could be tremendous could be tremendous the amount of sharing they're probably

00:32:45.860 permanently connected at some point so the next the next pandemic can be that much better

00:32:52.020 but one of the other one of the other sort of unexpected big elements of this is that for how

00:32:59.860 many years have the green new deal people been telling us that we should do you know this this

00:33:05.220 big massive society changing expensive trillion dollar thing to address this one problem now without 0.96

00:33:13.140 arguing whether or not we should or whether or not you know the science is right or anything like that

00:33:18.180 forget about that for now just the fact of how do you manage your risks and i've been saying from

00:33:24.820 the beginning if you put all of your money in this climate change thing you've missed other gigantic

00:33:31.380 risks that you would be broke for example and i always said pandemic so that was on my short list i

00:33:37.220 would always say pandemic you know meteor climate change you can't spend all of your money on any one of

00:33:43.700 them so you have to figure out the right mix and i think that that lesson went from um just sort of

00:33:50.980 academic and people hear it and immediately forget it to oh my god we can't spend all of our money on

00:33:57.460 the green new deal and i think that the green new deal probably lost a lot of support in terms of

00:34:06.180 at least the energy behind it you know people the same people who supported it will continue to support

00:34:10.740 it but i don't know if it has the same heat anymore because now it's kind of obvious that we would

00:34:17.220 have been in a lot of trouble if we had started three years ago to become a socialist uh you know

00:34:23.300 socialist world and we we just you know put our whole budget into the the green new deal we would

00:34:29.300 kind of wish we had that economic strength now so a bunch of things what's that we would have been

00:34:36.180 pretty screwed in that case yeah yeah so the the trump doctrine of making sure that you're as strong as

00:34:43.220 possible because that gives you the most flexibility against the most different threats i think it's

00:34:48.420 proven and and so thanks thanks for the question thank you all right we're going to take another caller

00:34:56.340 let's take alex who got here early and you should be rewarded for this if you're still there alex

00:35:04.660 alex do you have a question

00:35:10.020 about uh robert cialdini yes and do you think that uh he is gun shy since uh he pushed the whole trump

00:35:21.860 is dark issue in the last election uh well i can't read his mind i i heard or read that he wasn't going to

00:35:31.540 be involved in politics um again you know he's i think he's in his early 70s and i think he was

00:35:38.980 you know maybe thinking that was a younger man's game or something but i'd be surprised if he hasn't been

00:35:44.260 asked to consult for somebody you know bernie or somebody else and i'd be surprised if he had been asked

00:35:51.700 that he didn't give at least a little bit of advice so i don't know and i can't get in his head or what

00:35:56.900 he's thinking but it would be surprising if somebody of that skill set had not been consulted

00:36:03.860 because remember he did work on the obama election so we we know that and uh he probably worked on

00:36:10.660 hillary clinton's because you could see his fingerprints on it so why wouldn't he i mean

00:36:14.900 it seems like they would ask him so yeah i just think he would be a little embarrassed if he had two

00:36:20.020 losses on his uh on his crib sheet well you know nobody nobody counts it that way it just looks

00:36:26.260 that way to you and he'd he'd probably say you know well must have been some voter suppression or

00:36:32.900 something i don't know yeah i don't i i don't want to put words in his head so i have no idea what

00:36:36.820 he's thinking but just the general point that people have reasons just because they don't look

00:36:42.020 obvious to you doesn't mean they don't have reasons all right all right thanks scott thanks for the

00:36:47.060 question senator mark is here hello senator um let's see if steve has a question for me

00:36:59.460 steve steve went away i think people get shy or maybe they're not really signed up here gabriel i want

00:37:07.380 to talk to you gabriel gabriel can you hear me do you have a question

00:37:17.220 i was reading a recent document stating that uh i guess the uk government downgraded

00:37:24.020 uh coronavirus to you know i guess whatever lower tier there is aside from like hantavirus and uh

00:37:31.540 you know some of the more scarier things out there right but uh i was curious uh

00:37:38.100 you know i i don't want to i don't want to like ask people to place a wager on this

00:37:42.420 and this is leading to something else but what are the odds you think that we can get

00:37:57.780 uh

00:37:58.340 oh here's what i think is going to happen i think that the the final death count will be shockingly low

00:38:05.860 and way lower than seasonal flu but only because it's a full core press i mean we close down the

00:38:12.020 economy i mean we're just doing you know herculean efforts so between the fact that the med the meds

00:38:20.500 seem to really be effective and once those come online this looks like a completely different

00:38:26.900 problem once you have enough test cats test kits once you have enough ventilators once you have

00:38:32.660 enough meds and protective equipment once you have enough supplies and that's guaranteed to happen

00:38:39.380 i think this becomes more trivial but and but uh but until we're armed we're some somewhat unarmed

00:38:46.580 and we've been on you know defensive retreat but we're just starting to turn the corner and and

00:38:52.020 weapons are going to go hot in the next week or so and then then we're going on offense offense will

00:38:57.540 be a lot more fun go ahead lastly i work as a pharmacist and one thing i would say is that

00:39:05.060 perhaps this will help us actually better approach the flu in upcoming seasons because yeah some of

00:39:14.100 these practices would definitely prevent some of the thousands and thousands you know deaths that

00:39:18.980 happen you know most years right yeah i would think i would think that the one of the unintended

00:39:26.180 consequences is that regular flu is either more treatable maybe they find something that works on

00:39:32.180 it or or at the very least our practices get so much better that there's just less of it so yeah

00:39:37.620 i'm optimistic about that as well all right right thank you for the question

00:39:41.140 all right um gabriel is one of the people i see on twitter making smart comments so i was happy to talk

00:39:51.460 to him

00:39:55.700 caller went away caller does not want to talk to me let's try omar again

00:40:02.260 omar don't run away this time omar how are you

00:40:04.580 good good do you have a question for me i do i do but first of all uh just wanted to thank you for

00:40:14.500 all your hard work every day you're getting on twice a day just to make everybody feel better uh

00:40:19.940 put on the right filters for us um you're your national treasure scott and i i just want to thank

00:40:24.820 you very much for that well um so i i think i think everybody all over the country are jumping in and

00:40:31.700 doing what they can do so you know that's that's the fun part is people just say what can i do you

00:40:36.820 know what what am i good at and then they're just doing it so it's it's pretty it's pretty sensational

00:40:41.940 did you have a question yes i do i do so uh i'm not going to read your mind but i'm assuming that you

00:40:48.420 were just as pissed off as i was about uh the uh um stimulus bill uh today as it seems like uh

00:40:58.340 it's corporate socialism where big corporations are getting helped out and the average man is

00:41:04.260 getting fucked over so my question to you is that since it's not necessarily that uh individuals 0.94

00:41:12.420 should be bailed out on their needs you know these corporations are being bailed out based on our need 0.97

00:41:17.860 for them so that makes them a utility so shouldn't the government put some kind of parameters as to

00:41:23.140 how they're able to use the bailout money so they don't just give each other promotions and stock

00:41:28.340 buybacks yeah um and i i haven't dug into the details but i know the president wanted that basically

00:41:35.460 everybody wanted it so if everybody who was talking in public wanted it and it didn't happen

00:41:40.740 then there must have been some lobbyist effect there but i would have to say that um congress failed

00:41:47.220 miserably just just failed right in front of us in a way that is somewhat spectacular because they

00:41:54.980 you know they may or may not sign something it sounded like the president was going to be pretty

00:41:59.140 flexible and he wasn't he wasn't gonna he wasn't gonna go to war about you know 25 million for this

00:42:05.140 25 million for that as long as they had a reason you know he may not prefer it but at least you know

00:42:10.260 get the country back in the road and i don't i don't think the president's wrong about that

00:42:14.180 i think that he is actually playing as smart he's being complimentary to everybody in congress even

00:42:21.140 though he shouldn't be you know based on their performance he should be uh castigating them but

00:42:26.100 i think he's playing it correctly he's smartly saying you know congress is congress if they can't do

00:42:32.260 better than that i'm going to take what i can get but i need this i need something not nothing so

00:42:37.380 something's better than nothing but um if congress's credibility could get any lower i just don't know

00:42:45.380 how i mean this i'm not really the guy who wants to criticize congress all the time because it's just so

00:42:52.260 easy and obvious and you know perpetual but wow this feels like a whole new level of incompetence

00:42:59.300 because you sort of imagined that when it was a national emergency they would they would let the

00:43:04.580 little stuff go and just focus but they did not they didn't even a little bit they failed us

00:43:10.420 completely and everybody involved with that should be removed from office in my opinion yeah no i agree

00:43:17.620 there's a one thing i wanted to mention something interesting i learned from a friend of mine who's

00:43:22.660 a chinese national but you know alibaba is actually uh fully functioning and they function very well during

00:43:28.500 the quarantine or during this uh the covet crisis and i didn't know why but something that i didn't

00:43:34.580 know was back in the early 2000s i believe when sars happened alibaba had to go through this whole

00:43:40.660 pandemic themselves and they had to self-quarantine the entire company so they were actually really

00:43:45.380 well prepared to handle this and i'm wondering if because the u.s companies all went through this

00:43:50.340 themselves that in the next 10 or 20 or 30 years if this were to happen again we would essentially be

00:43:56.180 anti-fragile in our in our economy do you think so yeah i think it depends when it happens if we wait

00:44:02.180 20 years and we don't have a pandemic in that time we'll probably get soft budgets will get caught and

00:44:07.620 we'll get you know we'll get complacent but i would say if a pandemic comes back in three years

00:44:13.700 we're really going to be ready you know it'll be fresh you won't have to tell people what to do

00:44:19.860 you know we'll just go into our routine so it kind of depends when but yes i think that's one of the

00:44:24.340 big benefits is we're going to come out ahead preparation wise and we'll be a much hardened

00:44:30.100 society when we're done that's my hope last last thing and i'll let you go scott again thank you for

00:44:36.260 the time i know that you know you you're on instagram now and love your pics but i'm going to suggest

00:44:41.380 something you should try and tell me what you end up seeing like a few tick tock instagram videos

00:44:48.500 and you'll get retargeted by a variety of these very impressive uh app companies for photos ar you

00:44:57.060 know vote video editing all of which not only are coming out of china but they also happen to be

00:45:03.060 coming out of wuhan and i just thought it was very very strange i kept seeing this so try that on your

00:45:09.060 end see see what you end up finding okay i'll i'll look for that all right thanks all right take care

00:45:19.300 all right let's talk to alec

00:45:25.140 see if alec has a question alec do you have a question alec

00:45:28.580 okay sounds like it's raining uh i'll get into a quieter place in one second uh my question is

00:45:40.900 what do you think what's your prediction on what's going to happen once this blows over or once we get

00:45:46.260 a handle of it uh in places like iran and hong kong do you believe the protests will return in full

00:45:54.500 force or is it a little bit too foggy to tell too foggy to tell because uh the even the protesters

00:46:02.180 are not going to want to gather so at the moment the more more virus there is in iran you know maybe

00:46:09.220 the regime is even safer because people just don't want to get in the same place but let's say we get

00:46:14.900 past the virus and people are no longer afraid to gather in public iran has a lot to explain you know

00:46:21.780 they need to explain the shooting down the ukraine airline the bad economy they need to explain why

00:46:27.700 they're a pariah they need to explain why their economy is the worst they need to explain why the

00:46:33.140 the virus was so bad there and less bad in other places so uh it's gonna hurt but on the other hand

00:46:40.020 so just if you just look at all the psychology that goes into that there is something about a national

00:46:45.700 emergency that does make people also pull together and put a little more trust in the

00:46:51.540 regime even if they hated him yesterday so it could work either way so i we're squarely in the

00:46:56.980 fog of war situation but good question thank you thank you all right take care um

00:47:06.420 let's do let's do eric

00:47:14.420 eric eric eric eric can you hear me do you have a question

00:47:21.540 why didn't the president set the pace more on the goodies in the bill like you know the payments

00:47:29.940 directly to workers directly to interest-free small business loans and then of course then when

00:47:36.900 all the big corporate stuff has to happen to the big bailouts well he blames that on congress

00:47:41.860 it kind of seems like he's been sitting back and letting the bill just kind of happen rather than

00:47:48.420 getting out in front taking credit for the good stuff yeah you know here's here's what i would

00:47:53.060 have liked to have seen i would have liked to see the president say uh both parties have failed us

00:47:58.980 here's your bill uh you know i need you to vote on this by tomorrow because i think the president

00:48:04.420 could just say you know here's what you gave us with all this pork here's what the republicans

00:48:09.380 wanted that basically is a giveaway to big business according to people who looked at it more than i

00:48:14.980 have i think the president could have said i know what it looks like when you're not doing either

00:48:19.460 of those things so here it is vote on it by tomorrow it's an emergency i think he could have done it in

00:48:25.540 any in any other circumstance of course you know that wouldn't work but i think he could shine enough

00:48:30.900 light on it to just embarrass them now let me give you an example if the president had said look you've

00:48:36.820 completely screwed the pooch on this it's too complicated it's too divisive it's it's just the wrong is

00:48:43.300 wrong in every way here's what we're going to do we're going to give everybody three thousand dollars

00:48:48.420 that's it and then the people who didn't deserve it people like me who you know my income is at

00:48:55.540 least some of it will be intact after this is over we'll probably be down about a third from newspapers

00:49:00.900 that go into business forever but um people like me i just want to fill out my taxes i just say yeah

00:49:07.300 i got three thousand dollars but i didn't deserve it so i'll give it give it back to you at tax time

00:49:11.460 it's the easiest because you don't even have to worry about the claw back until later you don't

00:49:17.460 have to worry that somebody got the got the money you based on last year but this was a bad year you

00:49:22.580 don't have to worry about any of that you just say boom here's your money corporations get nothing

00:49:28.420 now should corporations get nothing and will they go out of business and i think the answer is

00:49:33.300 no if the government wants to help companies stay in business and it's just a generally it's a short

00:49:39.620 cash flow problem well that's what banks do you know maybe maybe the government could guarantee

00:49:45.140 in some cases or the government could take equity they don't like that but the government could why

00:49:50.500 can't we make a profit on this why can't the government say yeah i'll help you out boeing

00:49:55.300 but uh you know i own ten percent of your company and when the stock goes back up i'm going to sell

00:49:59.620 because i'm not in the stock business i'm just helping you out so it feels to me that the government

00:50:06.180 could have done lots of stuff to make sure that the big companies at least have funding but we would

00:50:10.820 get paid back and it seems to me we could just directly give cash to people and if the wrong

00:50:16.340 people got cash well they probably spend it anyway and that's good but they can claw it back so i think

00:50:24.100 the president had a high ground um play now i don't know the politics of washington you know maybe i'm

00:50:30.260 being a little too a little too idealistic about how easy things are but there are things you can do

00:50:35.540 in a in emergency that you just couldn't do other times and i got a feeling that the that the public

00:50:41.140 was so primed for leadership that the president could have said i'm putting it on one page

00:50:50.100 vote on this tomorrow and i don't even want to see that stuff that you handed me it is so far off the

00:50:56.660 american people should fire every one of you but here's my one pager give it to me tomorrow by 1.00

00:51:01.460 tomorrow yeah that would if i agree that would be a total home run for him cernovich has kind of 0.80

00:51:06.260 talked about how trump's kind of dropped some opportunities for himself to you know hit you know

00:51:15.380 that robot thanks for taking my call agree with all that take my call whatever all right thanks take

00:51:22.020 care uh getting pretty good questions today all all the smart people are here today

00:51:33.300 that didn't work

00:51:38.180 how about that oh sorry i knocked you off that was a fat finger my problem try somebody else tony

00:51:46.020 tony can you hear me

00:51:51.060 i can do you have a question

00:51:55.460 what's going on with new orleans if you heard anything about there it seems like that's going

00:51:59.460 to blow up really soon after new york well um probably you know i would expect that all the metro

00:52:07.620 areas are going to get hit some more than others and if they're vacation places and you know older

00:52:13.460 places and people are more crowded you know all the usual factors so i don't have any special intel

00:52:18.740 on that but uh i think like with mardi gras in late february there was a lot of seeds that got

00:52:26.740 yeah started my my understanding is that bourbon street just continued on until the police came in

00:52:33.220 and said what the heck get out of here so so i think they had to close down bourbon street the big

00:52:38.740 crowded area there all right thanks for questions all right well i seem to be pressing the wrong buttons

00:52:48.900 here and here let's try that all right that's all for today i will be back with you at 10 easter time

00:53:00.420 in the morning eastern not easter and 7 a.m california time for the simultaneous set but do not miss

00:53:06.980 do not miss it do not miss it uh i'm here to tell you that things are going to turn around it's all

00:53:13.140 about supplies now supplies the tests supplies the meds supplies of protective equipment and then we've

00:53:20.820 we go on offense we go on offense very close very close very close i'll see you in the morning

00:53:28.980 you

Real Coffee with Scott Adams - March 26, 2020

Episode 872 Scott Adams： Ask Me Anything For the Simultaneous Swaddle

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