Episode 896 Scott Adams: My #Coronavirus Ventriloquist Act is Not to be Missed
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
149.44157
Summary
Bill Pulte is wearing a face mask, and it s time for the simultaneous sip of coffee, but is it too late to get back to normal? Plus, a special guest joins the Sip-a-day crew to talk about the coronavirus outbreak.
Transcript
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Hey everybody, come on in. It's time for the simultaneous sip. It's good to see Bill Pulte
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in the house. Bill, are you wearing your mask? Be careful. Can't be too careful.
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Well, today the simultaneous sip will be extra special because it always is. Let's face
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it. And all you need to participate in the simultaneous sip is a cup or a mug or a glass
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of tanker chalice or stein, a canteen jug or flask of saline and kind. Fill it with your
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favorite liquid. I like coffee. And join me now for the... Oh, okay. Well, this isn't
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going to be so easy. If you're listening at home, I'm wearing a face mask. Something's
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got to give. I can either risk my life or not have coffee. Risk my life, not have coffee.
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Sip time. Go. Oh, yeah. You've got to keep your priorities straight, people. Now, back
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to safety. Now, you might be saying to yourself, Scott, why are you selfishly wearing an N95
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mask when everybody knows that they should be reserved for medical professionals? Well,
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the story is I found this in a drawer. I don't know how old it is. I don't know why I originally
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ever had it, but I sort of randomly found it in a drawer and it had been used. So I don't
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think that the medical professionals wanted this one. Now, I'm always looking for the bright
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spot in the crisis. And I think there's one bright spot that everybody is overlooking.
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And I feel it's down to me to point out the positive in this bad situation. And the positive
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is, ever since I was a little kid, I wanted to be a ventriloquist. But if you've ever tried
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being a ventriloquist, it's really hard until today. So I'd like to do my ventriloquist
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act. I'm asking Dilbert to join me. Dilbert has his face mask on. And I give you now ventriloquism
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in the age of coronavirus. Hey, Dilbert. How are you doing today? I'm doing pretty good. Pretty
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good. Are you worried about the coronavirus? A little bit. Yeah, a little bit. Doing my
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social isolation. How's that working out? It's the social isolation, that is. Well, seriously,
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when you're a single guy, every day is Palm Sunday. What? Every day is Palm Sunday. I don't
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get it. That's okay. Well, so Dilbert, do you have a sense of smell? No. Do you have a sense
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of taste? No. Did they recently go away? Now that you mention it, yeah. It was sort of
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recent. Do you feel any fever? A little bit. I'm a little bit warm. I've got to admit. I
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don't know. Is it warm in here? Is it warm in here? I can't. It seems a little warm in
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here. Do you have any chest pains or a dry cough? Yeah, now that you mention it, a little
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bit of a dry cough and my chest pains. Oh, my chest pains. Yep. Yep. Chest pains. A little
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bit. Yeah. Now that you mention it. Well, I'm no doctor, but you're a little bit close to
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me right now. Really? Really? Yeah, you're really close to me right now. Really? Really?
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Is this close? I'm not touching you. I'm not touching you. No, this isn't funny. I'm not
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touching you. I'm not touching you. I'm not touching you. I'm not touching. This is not
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funny. I know you think this is funny. This is not funny. I'm not touching you.
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So, in the age of coronavirus, we all can be ventriloquists. It's much easier.
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Did you hear the news that Joe Biden has agreed that if he appears in public, he'll wear a mask, a face mask?
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And the simulation every day delivers to us a little delicious nugget.
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What is the one thing that you didn't necessarily think was true, but you couldn't get it out of your head,
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that Joe Biden, when he's only appearing from his secret basement bunker on video, he could be a deep fake.
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But you can't rule it out, because the technology could actually reproduce that.
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But, luckily, we'll see him in person, except that he'll be wearing a mask and probably his aviator sunglasses.
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So, what could be more perfect than a candidate for president who is unable to show proof of life?
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An insightful comment from Twitter user A.S. Fooley, P-H-O-U-L-E, and he says this.
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They have the same problem the FDA has when approving new drugs, and that they'll get criticized if someone ties their decision to a death, any death.
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Even though your name sounds like fool, it's a very wise thing to say.
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And I would agree that the incentives are wrong, because the leaders, their primary incentive is to avoid killing somebody.
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Whereas, you and I, if we were to make the decision, we'd say,
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Well, maybe it's better to get the economy running, and a few people could die.
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So, I don't think that our leaders are in a position to make the decision that is the most important decision.
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In other words, we have a system which handcuffs the decision makers,
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and they really can't make an independent decision that would be good for the country,
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because what's good for the country could be the very opposite of what's good for the decision makers.
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A good system is where, let's say, there's transparency and democracy,
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and everybody can see what the leader is doing.
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Well, that decision, it might be good for the leader, too, but it's so transparent,
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So, as long as the leader's interests and our interests are the same,
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it doesn't matter too much if a decision is also good for the leader,
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You know, if something's good for the economy, it would be good for the Trump business.
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I just say, Well, isn't it good that we have the same incentives?
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But as was just pointed out, we, the public, do not have the same incentives as our leader at this moment,
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It actually could kill people, that system imbalance.
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So what would it take to fix the system so that the people who are making the decisions
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could make a decision that would get people killed
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and still would be okay with the decision-makers?
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Who possibly could make those kinds of decisions?
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I hadn't thought about that, but that would be an interesting alternative if we had that technology.
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We have a situation in which we cannot depend on our leaders to make the right decision
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because what's good for them is actually not what's good for us
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because they're more about not being blamed for killing somebody.
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If you were in that position, you'd be a little reluctant to kill people
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But if the economy takes a big hit, well, you're a famous doctor or you're the president.
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You're not personally going to take much of a hit.
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Your life will be similar, but you don't want to be blamed for murder.
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So the one way to solve this that I can see is for the public to take control of the decision.
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I think you still have to give them a little bit of room to operate.
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There's still information being collected, et cetera.
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If at the end of this week our leaders are not doing the minimum level of competent behavior,
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I don't care if it gets revised, but there should be something like an initial plan.
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And something like telling us how many supplies we have for the hospitals and how many we need.
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If they can do that by the end of the week, and it's pretty easy,
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you know, there's nothing difficult about any of that,
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then I would say, okay, let the government keep running with the ball
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because they've shown they can get yardage, to use a sports analogy.
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And so as long as they're gaining ground, let them keep going.
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But if it looks like at the end of this week we don't have something that looks like a plan,
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and we don't have something that looks like good information
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so that we, the public, can make some decisions on our own
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or participate or show our support for something
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or put more money behind pushing to get more supplies of this kind or that,
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knowing how big the risk is so we can buy into the government's decision
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or not buy into it because we've been fully informed.
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So if we get to the end of the week, we just have to take matters into our own hands.
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Have you ever seen a situation recently in which the public made the decision
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Who forced the government and our experts to finally admit that face masks work?
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The public basically just overruled the experts, right?
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it's obvious that you're lying to us about that,
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you know, we're okay giving you a lot of freedom to be flexible
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and that blatantly about the face masks not working,
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Would you say that that was an accurate description
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Did you not witness the public simply took the decision away
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because it was obvious they weren't getting it done?
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Well, likewise, although maybe we don't know the right answers
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we do know the difference between having a plan
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We can tell the difference, and we don't have a plan.
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So we, the public, need to do exactly what we did with face masks.
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if we have a system where the incentives of our leaders
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that we think is in the best interest for the public.
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if we don't have something that looks like the government
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then I'm going to start putting together a plan.
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If three people break the law, well, they go to jail.
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And they say, oh, I guess we're doing this now.
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for what it means for them to succeed and to fail.
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we should have something like the bare bones of a plan
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You know, at least an outline, the beginning of,
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Doesn't even have to be one that I personally agree with,
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But something that shows they're doing the job.
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they're at least trying to give us useful numbers
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about the PPE and ventilators and all that stuff.
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because they need this hydroxychloroquine to not work.
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is that the president is not serving them well.
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Because here's what I'm watching the press doing,
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whether it's worth the risk of the hydroxychloroquine.
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I don't need the doctor to talk like a layperson.
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That's what would tell us that it's the safest.
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That's what would be required for me personally
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So, if I have to sit through another press conference
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where the press is trying to get Trump to talk like a doctor
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more useless than trying to get two different professions
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Trump referred to, or maybe it was the one before,
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that people who were taking hydroxychloroquine for lupus
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The problem with that is that that never happened.
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There is anecdotal evidence from China, I think,
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that they said that they noticed that correlation.
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So, the president was just dead wrong that it's a study.
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Here's an update from my local medical situation
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If you have all of the symptoms for coronavirus,
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because they're sort of reserving the hospitals
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So I can't use it for what I want to use it for,
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nor can I use it for the thing it's designed for,
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So you can't use it if you don't have coronavirus,
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but you also can't use it if you have coronavirus.
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and maybe also the hydroxychloroquine is working
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and we should have gone to work the whole time.
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They're just two completely different realities