Real Coffee with Scott Adams - Episode 907 Scott Adams： Swaddling Your Questions Like it Was Nothing. Get in Here.

00:00:00.000 Hey everybody, whatever you do, do not touch your face, do not touch your face, don't touch

00:00:15.540 your face, no, I guess I'll have to throw that away now, great, hey everybody, is there

00:00:27.780 something missing? Yeah, I think there is, I think there is. We're not properly swaddled.

00:00:34.980 I don't know what's become of me, really. There, oh, that's better. Oh, yeah. So one of the things

00:00:52.140 about this coronavirus thing is that it's allowing us to learn about society. It's allowing

00:00:59.720 us to learn about ourselves. And let me tell you what I learned about myself tonight. I

00:01:08.080 had always been under the impression that I would probably be good at cooking if I had

00:01:14.340 enough time to concentrate on it. Turns out that's not the case. Nope. Doesn't matter how

00:01:22.500 much time I have. Cooking is not my special skill. So, there's that. You want to hear a sign

00:01:34.620 of desperation? I was just watching a Bill Maher show, and he was asking, I think, Al Gore,

00:01:42.720 he was interviewing. And he asked Al Gore what he thought of this idea. What if Biden announced

00:01:48.900 that he was going to pick Obama to be the coronavirus czar? And I thought to myself, and of course, Al

00:01:57.660 Gore answered it the smart political way by saying, you know, you should ask Obama first

00:02:04.180 before you get too excited about it, because he might not want that job, which I would imagine

00:02:10.620 he didn't. But can you think of anything that sounds more give-uppy than asking, hey, wouldn't

00:02:22.120 be a good idea if Biden got Obama to do the hard part of Biden's job for him? That is really

00:02:30.280 desperate sounding. And at this point, I don't know if anybody is even pretending that Biden

00:02:38.140 is capable. It's funny, at least among the smart Democrats, and by, well, not just Democrats,

00:02:47.100 I'm not sure what Bill Maher is. I don't know if he identifies with the party or not. But

00:02:52.360 it feels like all the smart people who do identify with the left are kind of, you know, noticing

00:03:03.200 they don't have much of a candidate. So we'll see what happens there. All right. Have you noticed

00:03:10.580 that it's getting harder to tell the difference between people who just really love their constitutional

00:03:15.960 freedoms and sociopaths? Because at the moment, they look the same. The only difference is,

00:03:24.300 you know, whatever is internally happening in their head. But if you're observing from the

00:03:28.300 outside, let's say, let's say you're at the tail end of the baby boomer generation, just

00:03:34.960 as an example. Say somebody from that perspective was looking at some of the younger folks and seeing

00:03:42.340 that the younger folks definitely seem to value getting back to work more than the life of some

00:03:53.040 number of older people. Now, if you're just observing it from the outside, how could you tell the

00:04:00.240 difference between young people who are just sociopaths, and they couldn't care if you live 0.87

00:04:05.560 or die? It's not their problem. Or people who just put a really high value on freedom. Wouldn't they look a lot

00:04:13.740 alike? You know, whenever I see people debating, hey, if the government takes this freedom from us, yeah, it

00:04:21.840 might solve this problem in the short run, but then we'll lose all our freedoms. I'm not sure if people

00:04:29.840 know how many freedoms we've given up, you know, over the course of human history. We've probably

00:04:37.100 given up more freedoms than you can even list. You know, some of it's trivial. You know, you can't

00:04:43.020 yell fire in a crowded theater, even though you have, you know, you have a freedom of speech. You can't

00:04:48.880 libel somebody, even though you have freedom of speech. So we have lots of limitations. You know, I can't

00:04:56.220 go sleep in your house just because I want to. I mean, we have tons of limitations. Most of them

00:05:02.980 have the same quality, which is the reason that I'm limited. My freedom is limited. Because if it's

00:05:09.460 not, there's a good chance it would hurt somebody else. That's how laws work most of the time. So

00:05:17.000 what's the difference between every other law in the world, which is mostly about helping other people,

00:05:25.000 you know, helping the greater good and, you know, whatever draconian restrictions are being put on

00:05:31.800 people at the moment, isn't it always at the cost of freedom? We act like something happened in the

00:05:39.780 last month or so that changed the direction of things from our open, free privacy world, and now it's

00:05:49.600 heading in the wrong direction, to which I say, what? We're 99 miles down 100 mile road, and we just

00:06:00.600 went another half mile? I'm not even sure we'll notice it. So we've been giving up, you know, rights

00:06:07.800 and things for hundreds of years. And so far, it's kind of worked out. I don't know, can you think of

00:06:14.140 anything? There was a right you gave up that's really made the world a worse place that stuck

00:06:20.740 around? I don't know. All right. I've been pressing people on Twitter to give me a number of how many

00:06:31.980 people they would be willing to see die extra from the coronavirus in order to get back to work.

00:06:38.020 So, as I often say, if you can't put a number on it, then you don't deserve to be in, you don't

00:06:46.180 deserve to debate it. You know, nobody should even have a conversation with you if you can't fully

00:06:51.600 express your preference, which is go to work on this day-ish and, you know, take a risk of losing

00:06:58.940 about this many people-ish. If you can put it in those terms, that's a real opinion. But if you can only

00:07:04.020 say, well, you should go back to work. Or you can only say, lives will be lost. You're not really

00:07:09.980 helping. You're just sort of taking up space. So I asked somebody today, and I got this, somebody

00:07:20.040 who leans conservative. I don't know his exact. I'm not sure how he would describe himself, but just

00:07:24.860 based on Twitter interactions. Somebody who would be conservative slash libertarian, maybe? I don't know.

00:07:30.720 But his number was 250,000. So here's a person who lives and works among us, walks the streets

00:07:42.980 that you do, shops and stores just like you do. And he's okay with the trade-off. Nobody's okay with

00:07:55.060 people dying. But he would be okay with the trade-off of a quarter million people dying

00:07:59.900 who would not necessarily die otherwise, at least most of them, in order to get back to

00:08:05.000 work. And I had mixed reactions. The first reaction I had was that I always respect anybody who can

00:08:13.100 put a number on it. You know, it wouldn't be my number. I would want... Actually, I think

00:08:21.000 the number was gross, not net, in this case. When I do my predictions, I've expressed them

00:08:27.460 both ways. When I express it as gross, I was talking 50,000. When I express it as net, I

00:08:33.300 talk more like 5,000. I think those have been my consistent predictions. Anyway, 250,000 deaths,

00:08:40.900 just to put a size on that, that is sort of in the midway range between all the people that

00:08:47.880 the United States lost in World War I and all the soldiers we lost in World War II.

00:08:54.880 So, there's, you know, just somebody on Twitter who may actually be watching this right now,

00:09:01.760 who thinks it would be... And I'm not even saying he's wrong, by the way. If it sounds like

00:09:07.900 you're detecting my criticism, I would say, I don't think I can do that.

00:09:16.060 Because, you know, there is reason to believe people will die both ways, and there's reason

00:09:23.060 to believe that no one is smart enough to measure exactly where the right balance is. So, I would

00:09:29.100 say he's on the, sort of on the outside edge of something that, you know, a normal human

00:09:36.160 could suggest is reasonable. You know, it's further than I would go. But it's World War 0.69

00:09:42.300 size. And he'd be willing to take that risk. That's not, I don't know. I can't say it's

00:09:49.920 wrong. It's just, I wouldn't say that. All right. I ask you for questions. And I believe I have

00:09:58.780 some. Going to Twitter, where my question was asked. And where is my question? Let's see

00:10:10.300 what questions people have. I'm looking at your comments right here first.

00:10:17.840 Did China send this as a diversion? Now, I don't think anybody did it intentionally. I

00:10:28.620 don't think we'll ever find that to be true. All right. So, question from Skip. What is the

00:10:41.160 talent stack needed to be a great teacher and presenter, as you predicted we'll learn in the

00:10:47.820 Do you believe those skills can be learned and maybe outline the specific persuasion skills

00:10:54.000 needed? Well, I think that the future will be people who maybe don't have the full talent

00:11:00.380 stack. But it's a team of people just like making a Hollywood movie, where the directors

00:11:06.860 got these skills, the actors have different skills than the writers, etc. So, I think it's

00:11:12.680 going to be more like that. But if you were trying to do with one person, of course, it would be

00:11:18.940 being comfortable talking on camera. That would be number one. So, it really is about being

00:11:25.000 comfortable. That's mostly just practice. You just have to do it a lot. You need to be able to put a

00:11:32.060 thought together. You need to be able to organize your thoughts so that you have some content that's

00:11:37.020 interesting. And ideally, you'd want to, you know, look good, or at least know how to be, you know,

00:11:46.740 fit and fashionable. You know, whatever is the best that you can do, given what you're working with.

00:11:53.440 You should learn a little bit about maybe even makeup. And I'm talking about online, you know,

00:11:59.700 video makeup. Probably you need to know lighting. You need to know whatever equipment you need. You need

00:12:05.180 to know social media to promote it. So, it's a pretty deep talent stack you need. All right.

00:12:11.620 Erica says, would you consider following, oh, doing a YouTube cooking show and periscope it for us to

00:12:19.900 watch? Then you can surprise Christina when she comes back. Well, actually, I'm going to do that.

00:12:27.060 Joke as you might, Erica. I actually plan to do that. So, I told some of you that I'm starting to

00:12:36.960 move some content. I'll give, I'll do an announcement pretty soon, but moving some content over to the

00:12:42.540 locals platform. That's Dave Rubin's new platform where there will be no censorship of the type that

00:12:51.940 I get typically on everywhere else. But I'm going to put some extra content there. So, some fun stuff

00:13:00.940 that is a little off my normal stuff, I'll put that there because that's a subscription service so

00:13:06.300 people get extra. Rory says, holy cow. Oh, that is spooky. So, Rory asked me if I like

00:13:20.380 his art in progress. Well, you're going to have to see this because this is not to be believed.

00:13:31.760 Can you see that? What does that look like? Does that look like anybody you know?

00:13:44.480 Well, I don't know. Well, I don't know what that's made out of. What the hell is that? Apparently,

00:13:52.360 I've been cloned. So, all right, Rory. Rory, the sculptor. Clay, I guess. That's pretty,

00:14:00.860 that's pretty impressive. Well, Elisa says, thanks for so many helpful hints. Well, you're welcome.

00:14:09.800 Michael says, isn't a system just a way to achieve a goal? No, it isn't. No, it isn't. It can be.

00:14:19.900 So, it would include that. But what is magic about a system is it allows you to be flexible enough

00:14:28.660 to take advantage of opportunities that you didn't even see. So, having a goal, you set your focus on

00:14:37.200 something and you're marching toward that specific thing. Having a system can prepare you for lots of

00:14:43.140 different things and you might be more opportunistic and say, well, I never thought about this other

00:14:47.780 thing, but now that it's there, I have all the skills I need. I'm all practiced up accidentally,

00:14:53.480 but I have these skills too. So, it'd be a little like going to college and getting, say, an English

00:14:57.940 degree. You could end up with a variety of different jobs. You don't know exactly which specific one,

00:15:05.860 one. So, it's not like you, my goal is to get a job in that building over there, you know, to be

00:15:11.540 vice president of marketing. Rather, you get your college degree and then you say, well, I could do

00:15:17.440 a lot of things and you start looking around at all your possibilities. So, that's the big difference.

00:15:23.960 Why do many conservatives are so afraid of losing something, privacy, they don't already have?

00:15:29.640 Well, that's a good question. And it's sort of my biggest question. Why would you be afraid of

00:15:37.840 losing something that you don't have? Privacy. Because here's the way I look at it. If the government

00:15:45.140 has a legitimate reason to check on you, they can do it. They just get a subpoena to a FISA application.

00:15:55.160 Apparently, it doesn't take much to get those. So, the government already can get all your stuff.

00:16:00.200 You see that every time somebody's accused of a crime. So, you don't have any privacy if the

00:16:05.000 government cares. Now, what if the government doesn't care? Well, then, you don't really have

00:16:11.840 privacy in the sense that if they started caring, they could go get it. But as long as they don't

00:16:18.540 care, it's like a functional privacy because just nobody cares. But even if the government doesn't

00:16:24.820 care, there are going to be developers and programmers and people who have access to databases,

00:16:30.320 administrators, and they have access. There's no way to design this planet so that nobody has

00:16:38.600 access to your private stuff. It just can't be done. Because if it can be programmed, it could be

00:16:44.360 done. So, yeah, you live in a world where the only thing that keeps you private is people being

00:16:52.380 uninterested in you. That's it. As soon as people are interested for legitimate reasons, let's say

00:16:58.420 they think you committed a crime, they can find out anything they want. Now that the government's

00:17:05.880 assessment of this threat has proven wildly wrong, no, it hasn't. That didn't happen. It is true that

00:17:14.760 half of the country thinks that the government's assessment of this threat has proven wildly wrong.

00:17:19.800 It just isn't true. Here's why. I'll give you the short version. Models, prediction models,

00:17:28.060 are not meant to be photographs of the future. It's not possible. So having an accurate forecast

00:17:36.580 model is not even a thing. You can't say that it did or did not do the thing that can't be done,

00:17:43.880 nor was it designed to do that. The models are simply designed to give you a rough size,

00:17:51.100 how big the problem might be, and maybe how sensitive it is to certain variables. But that's

00:17:57.320 about it. Now, if they said it was good, we could get it down to 100,000 deaths with full mitigation,

00:18:04.840 but then they changed it to 60,000. Is that wrong? Not in my book. In my book, that's as close as

00:18:11.660 anybody could ever get with something this complicated, and with so many unknowns. If they

00:18:18.300 guessed 100,000 at the low end with mitigation, and we hit 60, I'm sorry, that's a home run.

00:18:25.580 That's a dart thrown from the length of a football field and hits the bullseye. Do you know why you

00:18:34.300 think it's a gigantic miss and the government was wildly wrong? Because the news does not interpret

00:18:40.300 things. They told you that. You can look at it yourself and see that the range was a million

00:18:45.640 to 100,000. And the 100,000 was, at least after the first initial confusion, the 100,000 was always

00:18:53.800 obvious if you mitigate. Now, the difference from a million down to 100,000 is a really big

00:18:58.820 difference. The difference further from 100 down to 60 is lost and rounded. So, given that

00:19:09.440 prediction models are not really made to predict, they can't, nobody can see the future, to get

00:19:16.200 that close, even by luck, would be extraordinary. If nothing changed, and all we knew is that they

00:19:25.040 lowered it down to 60, and let's say it was exactly that. You know, when it's all done, it's 60,000.

00:19:32.500 This would be hailed as one of the most successful models of all time, because it doesn't get better

00:19:38.060 than that. If you think it could be better than that, then you don't even understand what the models

00:19:43.320 are for, or why they do them, or what anybody's thinking. You can't interpret them at all. That's as good

00:19:49.000 as you can do. And if they worked to scare people into action, then they were the best models of all

00:19:55.880 time. So, I reject your premise. I can't answer the rest of the question. Joe says, how would you feel

00:20:02.460 about your smartwatch or your phone tracking your temperature daily? Not only would I like that, but I

00:20:09.840 would like an app that does the following things. I would like an app that asks me these questions.

00:20:15.940 Have I taken my temperature? It would be great if it were, you know, paired with a little temperature

00:20:20.520 taking thing. But let's say you've got your own temperature taking thing. So, every day it pops up,

00:20:25.660 it says, did you take your temperature? You're like, oh, okay. Take your temperature. And you put it in.

00:20:30.940 And then it says, do you still have your sense of smell? And you say, huh, hadn't really thought

00:20:39.060 about it. I don't think I do. And so, that's, you know, it's not a confirmation, but it's one of the

00:20:47.200 more frequent symptoms if people lose their smell. So, you go, yeah, I lost my sense of smell. Maybe you

00:20:53.320 say, did you have any body aches? Do you have any headaches? Whatever the other symptoms are,

00:20:58.020 scratchy throat, etc. So, every day, whether you had symptoms or you did not, you would at least

00:21:04.740 take your temperature. And then you would just say who you are. Now, here's the thing. If enough

00:21:10.580 people did this, that even a small rise in temperature, along with maybe paired with some

00:21:17.440 people who said they lost their smell, you could probably tell that maybe like an apartment building

00:21:22.080 was getting a, becoming a hot spot. I feel like if you just reported it on your own, just how you

00:21:28.740 feel and your temperature, I think you'd catch not all of it, but maybe, you know, a quarter of it.

00:21:36.960 It would help, I would think. All right. Based on Diamond Princess data, M. Meshin says,

00:21:45.700 without social distancing, infection rate would be 20%. Really? Data also shows with social

00:21:54.100 distancing, infection rate is 15%. All right, so much math, I can't figure that one out.

00:22:01.600 So, oh, so he's done the math and says that if his math is right, we, we spent $128 million

00:22:12.520 per death avoided. Well, I hope that's not true. But here's the way you, in any case, it's the

00:22:24.280 wrong analysis. So, um, if you buy insurance and then you don't, your house doesn't burn down,

00:22:32.700 you buy fire insurance, your house doesn't burn down, was it a mistake to buy insurance?

00:22:39.500 Was it? If you pay for insurance your whole life and your house never burns down, was it a mistake?

00:22:46.720 And the answer is no. I mean, if you had, if you had ESP and you can see the future, yeah,

00:22:53.720 but you can't. So from the perspective of when the decision is made, it's not, it's not a mistake.

00:23:00.520 So, um, the number of people we did save should have been a million. So what is two, is it,

00:23:11.260 what are we going to spend? Two trillion to save a million? Uh, I'm going to talk to my, uh, digital

00:23:16.980 assistant here in a moment and let me ask. So, Alexa, what is two trillion divided by a million?

00:23:27.320 Two trillion divided by one million is two thousand.

00:23:31.580 Uh, no. Uh, Alexa, what is two trillion divided by one million?

00:23:38.300 Two trillion divided by one million is two million.

00:23:43.340 It's two billion. So it'd be two billion,

00:23:45.940 two billion for, to avoid a million deaths. So it'd be two million per person.

00:23:54.100 Uh, is two billion per person too much? Is that too much?

00:24:01.480 Depends if you're a sociopath, I guess. All right.

00:24:04.460 Let's see what else you go. Um, do you think Bill Gates is a good guy using his wealth to try to preserve

00:24:12.660 and improve lives worldwide or a monster of a man trying to kill people off with yet,

00:24:19.560 with yet to be sufficiently tested vaccines? Uh, Vicky asked this question. Here's what I think.

00:24:26.260 I think Bill Gates is exactly what he says he is. I'm not sure he's capable of lying in that way.

00:24:36.380 Now, I'm sure when he ran Microsoft, you know, he may have exaggerated his sales numbers and,

00:24:42.240 you know, there might've been some hyperbole in there and, you know, maybe there's some shenanigans.

00:24:46.820 But in terms of who he is, I don't know if he's capable of lying about that,

00:24:51.360 about his own basic character and his goals for the world. The thing that always impressed me about

00:24:58.320 Bill Gates is that even when he was a young man and he was already the richest person in, I don't

00:25:03.140 know, country or the world or something, he was already the richest person. And he said that he

00:25:08.880 was going to retire early and dedicate his life to intelligently giving it away. So not just giving

00:25:15.740 it away, but coming up with a new intelligent way to do that. That became the Gates Foundation.

00:25:20.600 And of course, that's exactly what he's been doing. And I, if you haven't watched the Gates

00:25:26.340 documentary, I don't know what it's called. Maybe it's called Gates. I don't know, on Netflix,

00:25:31.660 where he talks about his mission to develop a better toilet for Africa that, that works everywhere,

00:25:39.780 et cetera. And he's really taking on some thankless tasks. I mean, Bill Gates has taken on all the worst

00:25:48.300 jobs, the hardest, most thankless ones. And my sense, unless I'm the worst judge of character in

00:25:58.320 the world, he's a hundred percent real. That's my assessment. And I don't think I would give anybody

00:26:04.540 a hundred, well, maybe I would, but there are many people that I would say, yeah, my opinion,

00:26:10.040 I'm a hundred percent sure that what you see is what you get in terms of Bill Gates, that he's

00:26:17.780 actually just trying to make the world a better place. Let me put it in concrete terms. If he thought

00:26:24.020 that pushing, let's say, a vaccine he has an investment in could make him an extra $10 billion,

00:26:29.780 dollars, but doing something else would work better for the, for the public, I don't have

00:26:38.360 any question. I don't have any question that he would push for the one that works better for the

00:26:43.860 world because he doesn't really need another $10 billion. He's trying to give it away as fast as

00:26:50.460 he can. He doesn't need another 10 to have to give away. I mean, I'm sure you would appreciate it,

00:26:54.920 but so unless I'm the worst judge of character in the world, Bill Gates is exactly as good

00:27:02.460 as you would think based on the fact that he's dedicating his life to charity and doing a good

00:27:08.380 job. All right. Do you think it is more likely California has a lower COVID cases because of

00:27:17.060 herd immunity, better policy or warmer weather? Well, I don't know, Nick bot. I think that's the big

00:27:24.340 the big question. The most obvious things are, you know, density. The weather might have something

00:27:32.220 to do it, but I think it's density and Californians are notoriously healthier. Californians are lower

00:27:40.500 weight, you know, eat better, more likely to exercise, more likely to spend time out of doors,

00:27:46.600 more likely to open the windows. I think we have, at least this winter, our humidity has been pretty

00:27:53.620 good in terms of, you know, keeping down viruses. So a whole bunch of stuff, but I have another,

00:28:01.400 I have another hypothesis. I don't think this is mine. Maybe I heard somebody say this,

00:28:07.300 but haven't you heard that there are two forms of the coronavirus? I don't know if that's confirmed

00:28:13.080 yet, but supposedly there's a bad one and a not so bad one. It could be if it's true that Europe

00:28:20.500 infected New York City and China infected California. I don't know if you can believe 0.99

00:28:26.300 that or not, but preliminarily, I think, you know, the New York Times is reporting that.

00:28:30.880 If that's true, that also opens the possibility that we got a weak one. And, oh, I wonder if that makes

00:28:40.340 sense. Somewhere along the lines, I heard this, and I don't know if it's true, that things are the

00:28:51.340 deadliest when they first, that they first jump. So it's maximum deadliest when it, when it first

00:28:57.360 jumps, but, but in subsequent jumps, it can get weakened. And I wonder if, I'm just going to put this

00:29:03.340 down here as a hypothesis. Does a virus weaken if it's given across ethnicities?

00:29:13.340 I wonder. So here's, here's the hypothesis. Could it be that the China, the China version was actually

00:29:21.320 not that strong? Maybe it was a relatively weak version. Maybe they had both, but the weak one was

00:29:27.740 the worst, the one that got around the most. So that would explain why China had a relatively good 0.96

00:29:33.860 result, because it could be that their, their form of the virus was more the weak one than the strong

00:29:40.000 one. Now, imagine that that also went to California, which would have meant California also got the weak

00:29:47.560 one. But what if the strong one got out and that one went toward Europe? So then the Europeans would bring 0.95

00:29:54.360 the strong one over to, uh, and that, that would explain Italy, right? So you'd see the strong one,

00:30:00.180 you know, laying waste to Italy, and then it gets over to New York and lays waste to New York. So it could

00:30:07.500 be, I mean, it sort of fits the data that I can think of. Maybe there's some facts and evidence that I

00:30:14.800 can't think of, but it could be two viruses coming in from two different directions. Just maybe I would

00:30:20.880 throw that, you know, on the list with 10 other possibilities. Um, so a dog is my co-pilot says,

00:30:31.460 what's happening with you? Is it theater or a true breakdown? Uh, asking because I like your work

00:30:37.600 and I would like to know you're okay. Do I look like I'm having a breakdown? Does anybody think, uh,

00:30:44.900 my mental health is, uh, at risk? I don't think so. I don't think so. All right. Anyway,

00:30:54.980 um, Melanie asks, has anything made in China ever lasted as long as this virus?

00:31:03.080 Um, you know, it used to be the old days that, uh, you know, made in China meant low quality. And 0.78

00:31:11.140 obviously sometimes it still does, but I think it really depends. You know, your, your iPhone was

00:31:15.720 made in China too. So it's, it's not like China only makes bad stuff that, but they, they do too 0.95

00:31:21.980 much of it. Um, what do you think New York city did so wrong, um, compared to the rest? Density mostly.

00:31:31.920 Um, is there any alternative to lose privacy or death from the virus? Well, I, I made a list

00:31:40.260 downstairs and I forgot to write it down of all of the different things that are floating around

00:31:45.980 that could solve this thing. So there are a bunch of things that could just by themselves be the

00:31:51.340 solution. For example, if hydroxychloroquine works and we can get enough of it in a few weeks,

00:31:58.100 maybe that's all you need. I mean, it's possible to do just that one thing. Now, also, if we get our,

00:32:04.360 um, if we ramp up our ability to test and we get so good, we can just test the heck out of things.

00:32:11.420 Well, that's all you need. You know, the testing alone would be enough. Um, then there's the serum

00:32:17.980 stuff where they give you the recovered people's blood. That might be enough. I mean, that could be

00:32:23.920 the thing that gets us back to work. It could be, I don't think masks by themselves are enough,

00:32:29.460 but isn't it, is it Norway or Sweden? Who's basically just saying be smart and wear masks

00:32:35.740 and go back to work? You know, some version of that. There's a, um, so there's several different

00:32:44.520 tests there. There's the rim, rim disavere that was tested and there's some early indication that

00:32:50.840 might work, but based on the story, it didn't look like it worked to me. So that is one of those,

00:32:55.580 the headline didn't match the story. The headline says, this drug makes a lot of people get better.

00:33:01.860 And then you read the body of it. It's like two thirds of the people who took the drugs,

00:33:06.400 you know, got better. And I thought to myself, two thirds who took the drugs got better.

00:33:13.900 Isn't that pretty close to what would happen without the drug? Cause they didn't really have

00:33:19.780 a control group. And I'm thinking even these were the, the more, the ICU cases, the worst ones.

00:33:26.560 But by the time you get into the ICU, don't you have at least a 50% chance of getting out?

00:33:33.540 Don't you? I don't know. All right.

00:33:36.340 Okay. Um, uh, what is, uh, how many Bernie supporters do you think will vote for Trump in

00:33:47.680 November? Well, probably there will be more staying home than there is voting for Trump.

00:33:54.260 There'll be a little of both. Um, everything depends on this summer. It's almost like nothing

00:34:02.320 that's happened between, you know, Trump's election and now it's almost like none of it

00:34:07.980 mattered because I think the election will be entirely decided on what happens over the

00:34:13.500 summer between, in between now and November. Um, what does Lexi says, what does hydroxychloroquine

00:34:21.940 look like as a prophylactic? I believe we do not know. I don't think anybody believes it will

00:34:28.300 stop you from getting the infection. I believe that people do believe that if you add it in

00:34:34.600 your body already, it might, you know, make it sort of a non-problem, but you would still

00:34:39.500 be infected. I think that's the current thinking. Um, will coronavirus have a second or third wave?

00:34:49.220 Well, at the moment we don't have a plan to be done with it. Do you realize that, right? That

00:34:56.080 nobody has described a plan that even on paper could work? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't

00:35:05.100 think anybody said, all right, if we do this and this and this, we can get back to work because

00:35:10.900 it's always based on the imaginary things, right? Everything I hear is, all right, once we're doing

00:35:16.560 widespread testing, then we'll get back to work on, you know, May, whatever. And then I'll say,

00:35:22.480 can we do widespread testing by then? No. Okay. So that's not a plan. If you can't actually do the

00:35:31.020 widespread testing, that's not the plan. Um, so at this point, since vaccines will take too long,

00:35:39.460 we're not hearing anything about hydroxychloroquine that feels new and updated and we can't test and we,

00:35:47.340 we don't have enough of the serum stuff. What's our plan? So at the moment, nobody can even scope

00:35:55.680 out on a piece of paper. All right. All right. This makes sense. You do A and then you do B and

00:36:00.260 then you do C. That doesn't even exist. The only plan that anybody has is that we all, the 60% or 70%

00:36:07.640 of the country gets it. We just get it slower than, than this summer. That's it. The, the plan is for

00:36:14.940 like 4 million to die. Well, help me, help me in the math. Let's say, uh, let's say 70% of the

00:36:24.000 country is going to get it sooner or later because it'll happen before the first vaccine is available.

00:36:29.880 So let's say 70% of the country gets it, but we spread it out. So the hospitals are okay because it

00:36:35.660 got spread out. But how many people would it be after, you know, a year and a half? Well, I don't know,

00:36:43.380 2% of 60% of 327. Yeah. That's a big number. That's a big number. So our current plan is for

00:36:55.340 millions of Americans to die. Did you know that? Did you know that the current plan is for millions

00:37:03.040 of Americans to die? Not a hundred thousand because the, the hundred thousand is if we can get it down

00:37:09.260 to that, you know, we'll, we'll feel like we're over the hump and we, maybe we can talk about going

00:37:14.040 back to work. But what happens if you go back to work? It doesn't matter how intelligently you do it.

00:37:20.100 It's the most viral virus of all time. So a little bit of going back to work basically just infects that

00:37:27.820 group of people. We pull back, they infect them. But the current plan is herd, is herd immunity

00:37:36.340 over a long period of time because there's no vaccine that will get there in time, right?

00:37:43.280 Yeah. So somebody did the math. It's around 4 million people would die. So that's the current

00:37:47.440 plan. So for those of you who are thinking this was overrated, consider that the current plan

00:37:55.300 by default, because we don't have any other plan, is for 4 million people to die. Now,

00:38:01.080 what would change that would be hydroxychloroquine works better than anybody has said so far and

00:38:08.660 we have enough of it. What could change that is that we're ramping up. I get, did I see the

00:38:15.880 CDC or the FDA or something? I think there were like 300 different companies doing various types of

00:38:24.400 testing. So just that, that whole field is being flooded with stuff. So if they ramped up,

00:38:30.980 then you'd have something to work with. But at the moment, those things don't exist. All right.

00:38:39.680 Which state will be the last to completely open up? Yeah, it might be New York City. That'd be a good

00:38:43.960 guess. What part of the movie are we in? Are we nearing the point where the hero finds an impossible

00:38:49.260 solution? Well, I hope so. Because as I said, short of a surprising pull a rabbit out of the hat,

00:39:01.180 nobody has a plan that doesn't involve 4 million people dying just a little more slowly than it

00:39:07.000 could have been if it had been faster. So I think, yeah, I think we're, I think the third act is

00:39:16.360 probably June 1st-ish. You know, that's when it will look the darkest. Things will look the worst

00:39:24.440 around the beginning of June. So that should be the third act. Why have American citizens so freely

00:39:31.960 given up their rights fear? Ben says, can you address this flaw in your model framing? Well,

00:39:40.820 I don't know what the rest of this sentence is holding for me, but apparently Ben thinks there's

00:39:46.420 some flaws in my framing. And he says, in order for a model to persuade, it must be perceived as

00:39:53.320 credible. True. Accurate and trustworthy to the public. True. Without that prerequisite, it cannot be a

00:40:01.060 persuasion tool. Where's the flaw in my model? You just, Ben, you just stated what I believe. I don't

00:40:09.280 see the flaw. So I think you're making a, or you should make a distinction between what is true and

00:40:18.960 what people believe to be true. That's probably the problem here. J. Rock Tiger says, I will never

00:40:27.100 submit. Why have you? Because I'm not a frightened little bitch. That's why. Here's why I'm not afraid

00:40:35.380 of losing my privacy. Because I'm not, I'm not afraid that the government will go too far. Because

00:40:43.660 I think the people are still more powerful than the government. If that changed, if the government

00:40:49.040 became more powerful than the people, I would be worried about temporarily giving them some rights

00:40:54.600 that maybe I couldn't give back later. But as long as the people are more powerful than the government,

00:41:00.240 and it's not even close, really, it's not even close, I'm not too worried that if they borrow some

00:41:06.300 of our rights to solve a problem, that we won't get them back if we care. Now, I do think it's very

00:41:12.300 likely that we won't care that much. We'll just get used to it and say, yeah, what you did with our

00:41:17.320 tracking location, well, just keep that on. We might need it later. I think people just get used to

00:41:22.560 giving up their privacy. Let's see. And to J-Rock Tigers, I would say, why have you given up so 1.00

00:41:32.980 much of your freedom? You can't carry a machine gun down the street. You can't buy a hand grenade.

00:41:41.680 There are just hundreds and hundreds of things that you can't do. And how did you give it up so

00:41:46.280 willingly? Well, it's always the same answer. It's stuff you don't care about. It's no big deal.

00:41:51.300 Why have you stopped doing a robot in Dilbert? Yeah, you know, I tried that character and he was

00:42:06.360 fun for a while. I'll bring him back. Actually, just you reminding me to bring the robot character

00:42:12.140 back is probably enough. So yeah, he'll be back. This week and last week, all the comics that I'm

00:42:19.140 writing for May and June have Dilbert and that's my dog dreaming, they all have the characters wearing

00:42:28.400 masks. And it's saving me a lot of time. Because the hardest thing to draw with Dilbert characters

00:42:34.500 is the noses. Because you kind of get the nose just right. It's just too prominent. You just got

00:42:41.180 to get it right. But now because all the characters have face masks, you know, my work is 20% easier

00:42:48.440 this week. All right. What is your opinion of Amazon banning the hoaxed documentary? So I've

00:42:59.720 been kind of watching the tweets on that. And I'm not sure I know the full story. But so Mike

00:43:04.240 Cernovich's incredible movie, Hoaxed, which I've talked about before, is honestly one of

00:43:10.740 the most enjoyable pieces of content that I've watched in a long time. In a long time. It's

00:43:17.980 really good. And I'm in it, but that's not why it's good. But anyway, so I don't know why

00:43:25.960 it took so long to get it on Amazon. There might have been some problem originally. Because

00:43:30.040 it's very controversial. It talks about fake news, etc. And Mike is controversial himself.

00:43:35.620 But there's nothing in the documentary that crosses any line. You know, you can be provocative

00:43:42.540 and controversial. But he's not even close to crossing a line. I mean, I've seen it. And

00:43:49.920 there's nothing in there that I would think is even a little bit suspect. I don't know what

00:43:55.020 it would be. So Amazon, obviously, according to tweets I saw, did not offer a reason. And

00:44:04.780 said, we don't have to offer you a reason. They just took it off. And they took it back

00:44:09.680 from the people who had actually bought it digitally. Somehow they can take it back from people who

00:44:13.640 already bought it. So I would say that that's, I don't know how else to interpret it, based on

00:44:21.380 what I know, except for a grotesque and obscene censorship by a private company that's so big

00:44:32.860 it's operating as a monopoly, basically. And it's one of the worst things I've ever seen,

00:44:39.340 really. I mean, it's so bad. Now, here's the interesting part. Amazon just made an enemy of 0.99

00:44:46.940 Mike Cernovich. And I have to admit that while my first choice would be that, you know, Mike

00:44:54.860 makes a fortune on his excellent movie. So that's my first choice. But if that's not going to happen,

00:45:01.100 at least through Amazon, watching Mike rip them apart from now until the end of time,

00:45:08.420 it's going to be pretty good. Now, I have some mixed emotions, because when the stock market crashed,

00:45:18.080 I put, you know, every penny I had in cash, I put into Amazon stock, because I didn't think I'd ever

00:45:24.320 see it that low again. So, you know, financially, I have a, you know, it's not a big percentage of my

00:45:31.660 investments. But it's a big enough number that it would influence me if I cared about that. But

00:45:38.380 watching Mike Cernovich figure out where the soft underbelly of Amazon is, you can see him already

00:45:47.200 working on it. You know, his tweets are suggesting he's already putting his attack plan together.

00:45:52.740 And I don't think they know what's coming for him. Because they may be under the impression that

00:45:58.880 he's a random gadfly on the internet. And if they haven't, if they haven't researched him well

00:46:06.740 enough, I don't know, there's something about it that's just funny, because they don't see what's

00:46:12.280 coming. Like, that's, that's the funny part. They're probably thinking, well, I think they're thinking

00:46:19.440 how much harm can he do? I think they're going to find out. It's going to be hilarious. Anyway.

00:46:28.880 So watch for that. So, and Mike, if you need any help, let us know. So, am I going to dress like the

00:46:39.140 Easter bunny for tomorrow morning? Probably not. Probably not. All right. Anyway, that's all for me.

00:46:47.780 I'll talk to you in the morning. See you then.

Real Coffee with Scott Adams - April 12, 2020

Episode 907 Scott Adams： Swaddling Your Questions Like it Was Nothing. Get in Here.

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