Episode 910 Scott Adams： Have You Been Brainwashed by the Government？ Find Out Today!
Episode Stats
Summary
In this episode of The simultaneous sip, Scott Adams talks to Bjorn Lomborg about whether or not he thinks climate change is a problem, and why he doesn t think it is. Plus, a story about a man who went from being in the ICU to miraculously being a lot better.
Transcript
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Hey everybody, come on in here. It's time for coffee with Scott Adams and the simultaneous
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sip. Yeah, it's good. It's really good. And then we'll talk about fascinating things.
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Hey Omar, thanks for the super art. And all you need to prepare for today's episode is a
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cup or a mug or a glass or a tank or a chalice or a stein, a canteen jug or a flask or a vessel
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of any kind. I fill it with your favorite liquid. I like coffee. And join me now for the unparalleled
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pleasure, the dopamine hit of the day, the thing that makes everything better, including
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the pandemic. It's called the simultaneous sip. Go.
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So I got a message this morning from Bjorn Lomborg. You may know of him as a well-known, let's
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say, voice. I don't know how to characterize him. But he's a well-known voice on climate
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change. And his special niche is saying that, yeah, there might be a problem with warming,
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but we're not doing a good job calculating the economics of it. So he's focusing on the
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risk management part of it, not whether or not it happened. He's not a scientist. And he's
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got a new book out and I'm going to offer to interview him. But here's my question. I'm
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considering putting any interviews I do, maybe putting them behind or putting them on only
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the Locals app so that I'm not so sure I want to do interviews for my regular Periscope.
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So that's the question. You could either message me directly or tell me in the comments.
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So the, no, I wouldn't call him a climate skeptic. Somebody is trying to characterize
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Bjorn Lomborg as a climate skeptic. I wouldn't use that term. I think he's more of a climate
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analyst. He works with economists as well as people who understand the science. So it's
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more about taking a more comprehensive look at the business part of it. I think that's
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how I would characterize him. I wouldn't call him a skeptic in the classic sense of someone
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who doesn't think there's a problem. All right. So if you think you would like to see me doing
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interviews in my normal morning Periscope, let me know. But I could also do those offline.
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And then they would just be available if you wanted to see them. And here's my, here's my reasoning
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on this. I think that the, the population of people who watch the morning Periscopes and
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temporarily the evening ones probably are coming for me, right? I mean, I don't know how to say
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that without, without sounding like too much of a jerk, but I'm just trying to be a market analyst
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here and say, all right, well, if people are coming for one thing, why would I change it?
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Unless it was better. So I guess that's the question. Would you like it better if I interviewed
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interesting people? All right. You know what I'm getting tired of? I'm getting tired of the press
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reporting on stuff without telling us whether hydroxychloroquine is part of the story.
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And it's starting to get really obvious, isn't it? Well, I'm looking at your comments. It looks
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like, okay. Yeah. It looks like there's a lot of support for doing it offline, meaning just put it
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on the, the locals platform. Oh, good. I actually, I'm a little bit surprised because I thought there
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would be more of a mixed response, but that's actually, my instinct was the same. That, see,
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see, here's, here's my thinking. The reason that you watch an interview is for the person who's being
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interviewed, right? So there's no reason to assume that people who were coming to my periscopes
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also want to see whoever the interview person is. So it just makes sense that you'd, you'd have
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they're separate. All right, we'll do that. So Boris Johnson, he went from being in the ICU
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to miraculously a lot better. Did he use the hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin, and zinc?
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Why don't you know that? Right? Or has it been reported? Has that been reported and I just missed it?
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Does anybody know the answer? Does board, did Boris Johnson take those meds? Now
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yeah, I'm, I think I've seen enough people saying no interviews on this platform. So I think I'll take
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your advice on that. And thank you. Thank you, by the way. One of the things that's really fun about
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this experience, you know, what we're doing right now, and I think you feel it as well, is that even
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though it's sort of a mass broadcast platform, it's also personal and, and sort of immediately
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responsive to the audience. You know, what I do is it's almost like it's a live audience. Well,
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there's a live audience, but not in person in the, in the sense that I'm adjusting based on the
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response all the time. So that's kind of makes it more fun because it can evolve in its natural way.
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Okay. Um, so yeah, press should tell us more about hydroxychloroquine. Um, so I had thousands
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of people unfollow me this week and all for the same reasons, uh, which is, uh, they, they were badly
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brainwashed at some point in their life and don't know it. Now that's my hypothesis. Let me, let me support
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that way of thinking with the following anecdote. When I was in sixth grade, my sixth grade teacher
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did an exercise with the class that I think changed me forever. Um, it didn't do it right away,
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but as I thought about the experience, I think it forever changed how I see the world. And here was
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the exercise. He asked us each, the students to come up one at a time and write on the, right on the
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chalkboard in front of the class, something we would be willing to die for, to die for. Now remember
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we're, we're 12 years old. So each of us go up and we're like, uh, I don't know, you know? And so it's
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my turn to go up to write something that I would die for. But of course I'm kind of anticipating what
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the teacher is looking for. He was a, he was a military veteran, you know, very patriotic kind
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of guy. And I think I intuited that what he was looking for, you know, sort of like, yeah, I'm good
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with, uh, multiple choice tests because I can tell what they're looking for. So I go up there and I
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think, I think he's looking for freedom as the answer. So I go up to the board and I write, you know,
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freedom. I'd be willing to die for freedom. And of course, you know, he praised me for my excellent
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answer, but it wasn't so much my answer as knowing that that was the answer he was looking for.
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But I've never forgotten that moment. And here's why. Can a 12 year old make a rational decision
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about life and death? Can they? Is there any 12 year old whose brain is developed enough
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that they can look at the whole situation and say, yeah, it does make sense that I would die for this
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thing? And the answer is no, no, you're not, you haven't developed adult critical thinking. So if you
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have a firm opinion about something at 12 years old, as everybody in the class seemed to, because we,
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you know, once I put that answer up there, everybody's like, oh yeah, freedom. We died for
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that. It's obvious when you look back at it, that it was just a result of brainwashing. Now,
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when I say brainwashing, I don't mean bad because society, you know, trains its youth to get an
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outcome that's good for society and ideally good for the youth as well. So when we're training and
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educating and, you know, teaching people their culture and giving them religion and giving them
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patriotism, that's nothing but brainwashing because it happens at children who are far too young to
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make any kind of critical decision anyway. But really, there's somebody saying no to this?
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are there actually people who are disagreeing that children are being brainwashed to be patriot?
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I don't know if you're disagreeing with that thought. How could you possibly disagree with that?
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Wow. Most of the comments are disagreeing that we brainwash children. I'm amazed. Well,
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you're completely wrong. So let's just stay with the assumption you're completely wrong. I will,
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I will default to my expertise in hypnosis and persuasion to say that the Pledge of Allegiance
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is just brainwashing, but it's very good brainwashing. In other words, if you were the boss and you got to
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decide, okay, Scott, would you continue doing the Pledge of Allegiance knowing as you're describing it is
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that it's brainwashing? I'd say, yeah, hell yeah. It's really good. Because there's nothing wrong
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with patriotism. It's a good system. And although I'm not a believer, I'm very pro-religion. So if
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children are brought into that religious belief well before they have critical thinking,
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most of the time it works out great. So don't be thrown by my use of the word brainwashing.
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You could easily just substitute in educated, right? And then it feels okay. It's like, oh,
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we educated kids. Just the way you do it for children is you don't ask them for their opinion. You just
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tell them what to think because that's how you educate kids before they have reason, reasonable skills.
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All right. So when it, and now these children who were, let's say educated, so it'll make you feel
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better. They were educated to value patriotism and the other values of our society. And that's all good.
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I'm glad that they were, and I'm glad I was. I'm glad I was likewise educated. But then you grow up
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and you've got these reflexes that are sort of designed into you. So once you do develop the
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ability to do critical thinking, do you use it? Because it's kind of hard to use your critical
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thinking if you spend a lifetime with just this reflex training. It's like, freedom, I'll die for it.
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You don't really think that through, do you? It's just a reflex at this point. You know, you love your
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country, you know, you believe in your religion. It's just a reflex. And so I would say that the
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thousands of people who unfollowed me, I won't speak for every one of them, of course, because
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they're different people. But my suspicion is that their early education and reflex thinking
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was too strong for them to overcome with their sense of reason. Here's why. So the thing that
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people got mad about was that I said, what if you had an app in which you could voluntarily,
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voluntarily give up your personal information, and maybe you would find some hot spots based on
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your reporting of your symptoms. And people said, no way, you can't give up your freedom in the form of
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personal information in this case. But, you know, don't give up freedom. But not really any critical
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look at the whole situation. Because if you're arguing that you don't want to give up your personal
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information, but you have a driver's license, and you have a credit card, and you pay taxes,
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and you have a smartphone, that ship sailed. You've given up all of your private information.
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If there's some other little minor thing that you voluntarily give up, say, did I have a cough
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on Tuesday? Did I have a cough on Tuesday? That's the personal information that you're worried about
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giving up? And it's voluntary? Really? You've given up all of your financial stuff, all of your
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preferences, because your financial stuff shows you your preferences. They can find out your
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browser history. They can find every conversation you made. They know your taxes. They know where
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you've been. And the thing you're worried about is that some people might self-report that they've
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got a headache on Tuesday. Are you kidding me? That's the thing you're worried about? Now,
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the argument is that it's, you know, sure, it's voluntary now, but what if the government
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requires it? Well, what if they do? They required a driver's license? That didn't kill you.
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They required a fishing license? You survived that, right? Kids have to go to school even if they
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don't want to. Somehow we survived. So routinely, the government makes restrictions on your freedom,
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and if you don't like them. And if you don't like them, the public can, you know, do something
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about it later. And then, and, but the most controversial thing I said, which there is a, some idiots
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on the conservative treehouse decided to take me out of context and misinterpret me. So here's what,
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here's what they interpreted. Let's see if I can find their quote. Because, yeah, I can't find it. I thought
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I wrote it down. But anyway, the thing that they got upset about, wrote a little hit piece on me
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today, is that I said that the sooner, so here's my tweet, the sooner that the public realizes
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that they will have to give up privacy to, to beat the coronavirus, the sooner we can beat it.
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What the conservative treehouse changed that to is should. They actually inserted the word should.
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My statement is an observation. I observe that, that our concern about privacy and our reflex for
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freedom is preventing us from the obvious solutions, which would be to know if somebody has it and doesn't
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have it, to check your, you know, genetics to see if there's anything that makes you especially
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susceptible, that sort of thing. Maybe, you know, checking your location or something. So I'm not
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saying that those are, you know, that you have to like those things, or even that they would necessarily
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be effective. But I'm pretty sure that the solution to the coronavirus will, will involve at least a
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little bit, whatever that looks like, at least a little bit of giving up your privacy temporarily.
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Now, you know, could the government keep, keep doing whatever it's doing forever if you give it up
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temporarily? It's a slippery slope. Well, yeah, they could, but that's the problem with literally
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everything in life, that somebody could do the wrong thing. Anytime. It's not special. There's nothing
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special about this. The government can do bad things and try to get away with it anytime they
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want. Nothing special. All right. Let's see. I made an observation that I'm sure will turn
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into nothing, but it's kind of interesting, so I'll talk about it. If there's a, if there's
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a genetic marker for who's more vulnerable, and there's some speculation in the scientific and
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medical community, there's something about your ACE2 receptors in your lungs, and I think you could
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genetically test to see if you have that, that characteristic. There seems to be something that
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in a general way, it might track with different ethnic groups, but that doesn't necessarily mean if
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you're within that ethnic group that you have those receptors or don't. It's just more correlated
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as I understand it. Now, that doesn't mean that any of that, if it were actually tested in more
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rigorous fashion, would be correlated with outcomes. I don't know that that's true, but here's what I
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noticed. There did seem to be, at least by eyeball, but not necessarily if you really dug into it,
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at least by eyeball, it seems that people of Germanic background were having better outcomes.
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So, for example, Germany has a low death rate. Denmark seems to be doing okay, and Sweden is not
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having a good outcome in terms of their death rate. Their death rate is above 8%, which if you ranked it
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in the world, it wouldn't be very good. But they also didn't do much mitigation. So, the fact that
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Sweden is higher than Germany is in Denmark makes sense, because they didn't do as much to stop it.
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But then you look at the United States, and you look at the states within the United States that have
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the greatest population of Germanic people who settled, and they also have, for the most part,
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you know, it's not 100% correlation. But for the most part, they have also low death rates. Now,
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they have other things and other correlations, so it would be hard to tease out what's really the
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cause. What is it? For example, the states that also have the greatest Germanic populations in the
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United States also happen to be not very dense, and they don't have a lot of international travel.
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So, it could easily just be that, right? It could easily be that it's just a coincidence.
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As soon as you studied it, the, you know, any kind of genetic difference would fall away.
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But, there's certainly enough suspicion that it's worth looking into, especially because young,
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healthy people do die. Don't you think that if you tested the young, healthy people,
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it's less likely that you would find they had some hidden health problem, like, oh, they actually
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had a heart problem we didn't know about. That could be the whole answer, actually. But the other
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possibility is that there is some genetic thing, and how hard would it be to find it? Some people in
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the comments on Twitter said, it's really, really hard to find a genetic cause for any disease because
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we've looked for other diseases, and it's really complicated. It's not like it's, you know, one
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part of your DNA. It might be a combination of things, etc. And I think, you know, that sounds like
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that's probably true as a general statement. But, here's my question. Here's my question. If you have
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a suspicion that it's these ACE2 inhibitors, couldn't you just look at that? Because, given that we know
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it's a lung-related problem, if you just looked at just lung-related genetic issues that we know are
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things, would we not at least rule it in or rule it out? So, at the very least, I would think, and I think
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I've heard that there is some genetic study going on, maybe more than one place. So, I suspect it can't take
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that long to get that data. Because it's not, the genetic study is, correct me if I'm wrong about
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this, but if you're looking at the genes for a correlation, you don't have to do a, I don't think
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you have to do a controlled study. I think you just have to look at the outcomes and then look at the
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genes and say, oh, the people with these genes had better outcomes. I think, right? So, we should be
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able to just take a bunch of blood samples from people who have known outcomes. Wouldn't we be
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done in maybe two weeks? Two weeks if you're working hard? Couldn't you test enough to know
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if there's something there? So, my feeling is that it's been about two weeks since I first heard that
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somebody, I don't know who, was going to start looking into that. So, any day now, I'm expecting
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that we're going to find out if that's a thing. And maybe that gives us a little more information
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for battling this thing. Now, of course, the things you have to watch out for is that
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pollution is correlated. We found that out for sure. Obviously, population density, whether there's
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mass transit, how much they tried to mitigate, when they got it, do they have elevators as an
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international hub? Do they have a lot of unhealthy people? Do the old people live with the young
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people in this town? So, you have lots of different factors. But maybe we could tease
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out if there's a genetic. All right. So, I'm moving closer to the opinion. I don't have
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a firm opinion yet about what the exact right go back to work strategy would be. So, anybody
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who's hating me for suggesting ideas is not really understanding that I'm not promoting
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ideas. I'm just brainstorming, right? I'm surfacing ideas, see how people react. If the way people
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react is, no, I will not give up my privacy, it doesn't matter if it's rational or not. If
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it turns out that you can't convince people they should give up a trivial bit of privacy,
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such as, did you cough on Tuesday? You know, if that's a problem, and people can't be talked
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out of it, well, that informs your policy possibilities. You know, because you have to
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deal with the whole person, the rational part that's small and the irrational part that's
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gigantic. So, of course, since you need compliance, you're going to have to get people
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on board. But I'm moving closer to this opinion. So, this is an unformed opinion. You can just
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see it in process. It goes like this. The big problem about sending some people back to work
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is not their risk. In other words, we do live in a country in which we sort of generally agree
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that if an individual has an opportunity to take a risk that only affects them, we're going
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to be a little flexible about that because that is just, you know, your human freedom
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to take the risk that makes sense for you. But we get a little prickly as a society, or
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any society, if your personal risks cost someone else money. So, if the thing you're doing is
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going to raise my taxes, or raise my health care, or make me pay for more police force, or
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whatever, if it's going to affect me, you know, then I want to vote on that. Now, here's where
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I'm going on this. We have situations in society where people have different risk levels, and
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we compensate for that. Take car insurance. The people who have the highest risk pay the
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most car insurance. And we mostly are okay with that, even though it seems to be terribly
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unfair, you know, compared to everything else we do in life. Because, you know, when I was
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a young man, I was in the category of risky drivers. But I wasn't personally risky. Because
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I didn't take, you know, I didn't drive especially fast, I had good reflexes, you know, you could
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do the checklist. So I just wasn't a risky personality. But I was still in that category. And I was
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still, I complain about it constantly. But I'm not going to, you know, start a revolution
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over it. Because there is a credible reason that it's done. And the reason is, you kind
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of do want to move the risk as much as you can, to the people who are the risky people.
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Because society says that feels better, feels more fair. We don't have to do it. But if it's
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the only way that society can say, yeah, I hate it. But I get why you're doing it. Sometimes
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that's the best you can do. And so here's my question. Is there a way that the people
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who want to take on the personal risk of going back to work, is there a way that we can let
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them do that, but also somehow wall off that risk, so that they're the only ones that take
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it? Now, the obvious answer to that is, yeah. Because the people at risk can,
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in most cases, they can choose to sequester themselves so severely that they're really
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not taking the same risk. So that's one way. The risky people can go to work, grandma can
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lock herself in a room for three months if she chooses. She doesn't have to, but she could.
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But could we go further than that? Could we? Because here's my concern. And it's not the
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only concern. But as we're working through the options, some things start to rise up as
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more important than others. I don't want my health care service to be unavailable to me
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because someone else decided that their risk-reward was sufficient for them to go back to work.
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In other words, other people's choice about risk will fairly immediately impact me, or could, could,
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in terms of my health care availability, etc. And that's very important. So is there a way
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that you could wall off the health care burden so that people who do want to take that risk would be,
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I'll just throw this out as a possibility. You could say, yes, if you get the coronavirus,
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you could go to this hospital, but not any of the other ones in your area. So just throwing in an
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idea here. So you'd have one hospital, you know, it would be, would not be over capacity when you start,
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but you'd say to the people who want to go back, all right, if you get trouble, the only hospital
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that's going to take you is the one we've designated. And if you going back to work causes
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a lot of you to be dying, well, you might have to be waiting in line and dying on the sidewalk because
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it's just going to be this one hospital. Everybody who's decided not to go back to work and just
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wanted to sequester, they're going to get, you know, these other hospitals so they can get their
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operations and their heart surgeries and everything else. Now, I'm not saying that's the perfect answer.
00:28:29.720
I'm giving you an example of how you could creatively shift the risk from the people who
00:28:36.320
say, that's not a risk I want to take to the people who quite reasonably say, I will take that
00:28:42.100
risk. You know, I'm an American. I've got freedom. I take that risk. Can you wall it off and just,
00:28:50.000
you know, find a way to limit it? Now you could do it with financially. That'd be another way.
00:28:55.680
You could just say, you can go back to work. But given that there's going to be such a burden to the
00:29:01.200
healthcare system, would you mind, those of you go back to work, let's say pay 10% extra on your
00:29:09.320
healthcare for six months? You can go back to work. We're just going to move the burden of the risk
00:29:18.320
so that you're the ones taking it. And the ones who don't want to take the risk don't have to.
00:29:23.920
Now, again, I'm not saying that's the answer. What I'm saying, you have the freedom to not earn
00:29:31.160
money, correct? Yeah, everybody would be weighing their physical risk with their economic risk and
00:29:38.100
everything else. But I have empathy for the freedom loving people who say, you know, let us decide
00:29:47.640
if we want to take that risk. That's a strong argument. But I think we could tweak it so that
00:29:56.680
the risk is moved to the people who accept it voluntarily. And then I think society would just
00:30:01.980
be more comfortable with that because all of our solutions are going to be suboptimal. You want the
00:30:06.240
one that's at least a little bit comfortable. Let's see. Why is it that the Swedes... So I've got
00:30:19.580
lots of questions on comparable countries. I tweeted out, I think it was real clear, politics had an
00:30:26.340
excellent list that looks like it's updated all the time. It's a really good breakdown of the deaths,
00:30:33.200
raw numbers, and also deaths per capita, which is the one I was looking for, per capita, deaths per
00:30:39.860
capita, for each country. So you can rank them and see if there's anything about them that you can
00:30:45.660
learn. Now, since all the countries are handling things differently, it's kind of hard just to eyeball
00:30:51.720
it. But when you do eyeball it, you see some of the correlations. One is the Germanic countries seem to be
00:30:58.480
doing well. So, you know, Germany, Austria has... I forgot about Austria. Austria has a super low
00:31:04.600
death rate. And so does Germany. So it could be that there are some countries that have more
00:31:10.940
hydroxychloroquine, maybe the ones that, you know, have a lot. So there might be other correlations there.
00:31:17.040
But here's the question that jumped down at me. So the Swedes famously did not do aggressive
00:31:24.720
government-mandated, you know, lockdown. Apparently, a number of citizens are taking it upon themselves
00:31:33.740
to work at home or not commute or keep their kids home from school. But in general, the Swedes did not
00:31:39.820
take the heavy-handed government boot process. But here's the data I don't know.
00:31:47.040
What's happening in their hospitals? So I can see the death rate. I can see the infection rate. And
00:31:53.460
that's good. That gives me a little bit of visibility. But the Swedes are deciding to...
00:31:59.660
Well, let me put it this way. Why don't I know if the Swedish hospitals are overrun already?
00:32:07.600
Why don't I know that? Doesn't that come down to, like, the most important thing? Because if Sweden
00:32:13.740
is saying, ah, we'll just play it by ear, and their hospitals are not overrun, that's kind of a
00:32:21.300
really important fact, isn't it? Like, really, really important? Somebody says 40% of Swedes work from
00:32:29.260
home? I think I need a fact check on that. I wouldn't doubt it. I mean, could be.
00:32:37.240
So... And also, there's some evidence that the Swedes are not doing as much testing. So it's
00:32:46.980
possible that their infection rate is higher than reported. But all of that would still end up
00:32:52.760
in hospital deaths. So the key thing is, what's going on in the hospitals in Sweden? And why are they
00:33:01.240
not worried that the hospitals are overrun? And again, what question does the press not tell us?
00:33:09.080
Hydroxychloroquine. Is Sweden using a lot of it? Are all the countries that are having a good outcome?
00:33:15.640
Germany, Austria, do they have a lot of hydroxychloroquine? Now, it could be that it's not
00:33:22.620
important. But I think I'd like that reported, too. So every time we see... In fact, here's what I'd like
00:33:30.280
to see. I would like to see the same chart that RealClearPolitics has that shows the death rates
00:33:37.680
by country per capita. But there should also be a column that says whether, you know, let's just say
00:33:44.140
high, medium, and low usage of hydroxychloroquine. Because it'd be hard to get, you know, too much
00:33:49.600
specifics on that. But you could probably rate the countries in terms of whether they're being
00:33:55.020
aggressive and giving it to people early, or they're playing it by ear, or they just don't
00:34:01.180
have any. You know, those three cases. Is there a correlation? I mean, by now, we should see it in
00:34:09.120
the death rates, right? What would you think was true if Germany and Ireland and Austria, who all have
00:34:19.700
unusually low death rates, what would you think was true if they also had high use of hydroxychloroquine?
00:34:27.780
I mean, that would tell you something, right? All right. Every day on Twitter, people are still
00:34:35.440
asking me what makes this virus special. Now, how do you not know that by now? Right? How could you
00:34:47.760
have gotten this far in the world, and this far into the year, and not know that this virus is not
00:34:56.000
like the other ones? How do you not know that? I mean, it's not even a criticism. I'm just curious.
00:35:02.400
Like, how do you not know that? At the very least, how do you not know that it's having an impact on
00:35:08.960
hospitals? Is that a fact that nobody mentioned? I don't know. It's puzzling.
00:35:20.320
All right. Let's see. So, yeah, all the people who don't want the government to collect their
00:35:29.120
private information, the reason that I say it's probably a reflex that they say that is I don't
00:35:36.740
think they think through that the government has all their personal information, and if the
00:35:41.160
government has any reason to look into you, they just file some paperwork with the courts,
00:35:47.220
and they've got all your information, everything on your phone, everything else. So, your private
00:35:52.700
information, that was gone a long time ago. All right.
00:35:57.020
Well, it looks like I've hit my high points here. Let me just make sure. Oh, here's an idea that was
00:36:08.220
suggested by a dentist. So, as you know, dentists have medical training of a special sort, and they're
00:36:17.540
used to dealing with infected people. You know, the dentist's office worked right through the AIDS
00:36:23.320
epidemic and still do. So, dentists are very experienced in using PPE and protecting themselves, etc.
00:36:32.420
And here was the idea. Since dentists can't really do their work at the moment, they're closed with
00:36:40.380
everybody else. So, this dentist suggests letting dentist offices test their patients. And I thought,
00:36:49.400
well, that probably makes sense. I'll bet a dentist would be perfectly qualified, you know, with a
00:36:54.320
little bit of instruction, how to work a test and make sure that, you know, the samples don't get
00:36:59.940
spilled on everybody. And then they could also test people. And if you have the kind of test where you
00:37:04.760
get a reaction fairly quickly, you know, the tests that are, you know, five to 15 minutes or even
00:37:10.140
faster, if the dentist says, all right, you're good, 15 minutes after you, after the sample is taken,
00:37:16.720
then the dentist can do the dental work. So, basically, you test them in the waiting area.
00:37:23.460
And if they test fine, you take them in the back and you do your work. And I thought, it's a pretty
00:37:29.360
good idea. So, that would suggest that maybe some of the higher priority places for testing equipment
00:37:36.440
might be dentist offices. Because I can't imagine too many dentists who would say no to that,
00:37:42.180
right? Because their offices are closed, unless they figure out some way to, you know, some way past
00:37:47.600
it. And given that most of them would jump in and help, and maybe people would pay for the test as
00:37:54.220
well as the dentistry, why not? Seems like a good idea. So, I was asked on Twitter to boost that idea.
00:38:00.920
So, that's what I'm doing. I'm boosting it. All right.
00:38:06.480
So, I think that's about it for today. So, oh, somebody says that's a brilliant idea. Well,
00:38:17.060
I wish it had been my idea. It is a brilliant idea, I think. It wasn't mine, but it's a good one.
00:38:26.520
All right. I'm just going to look at some of your comments. Is there anything that I said today
00:38:35.200
that is bugging you especially? Scott's Health app tells the feds you missed a dose and you get
00:38:42.860
cops at your door to force Trump pills. You know, the slippery slope people are the least rational among us.
00:38:56.520
Are you sticking with your 5,000 net deaths? I am, yes. I am sticking with it, which does not mean
00:39:03.440
that therefore it'll be accurate, but I am sticking with it as being closer than any other public
00:39:11.160
forecast. So, that doesn't mean I'm right. We'll find out. Now, for those of you who knew, when I say
00:39:18.060
net, we know we're saving tens of thousands of lives just by having the economy shut down because we're not
00:39:23.780
having the same kinds of traffic accidents, you'd have to add back in any extra suicides and
00:39:29.560
domestic murders, I guess. So, you'd have to include everything, pluses and minuses. But I think if you do
00:39:36.940
that, we might end up closer to 5,000 net deaths, which would be a gross of maybe 50,000. So, somewhere
00:39:45.020
around 50,000 gross deaths, because I'm thinking that the estimate of 60,000 will probably come down
00:39:52.780
again. But let's say 50,000 deaths, you're probably going to subtract down 40,000 people you saved.
00:39:58.980
That's going to be around 10,000. My estimate of 5,000 would be the closest one in the country,
00:40:09.360
Scott, is the idea that freedom is valuable for its own sake only the result of brainwashing?
00:40:15.380
Yes. Yes, it is. That is correct. Freedom being valuable for its own sake is a ridiculous idea,
00:40:25.760
and you would only have that if you were brainwashed. If you're not brainwashed, you'd say,
00:40:30.580
well, freedom is one variable. Let me look at my other variables. Okay, I'll balance them all,
00:40:36.880
and sometimes I'll give a little bit of freedom up, but I'll get a big gain. I'll give a little bit
00:40:42.400
of freedom up, but at least I got my operation. So, no, if somebody thinks that freedom is just
00:40:51.100
sort of a universal good, and you don't have to ask any other questions, that would be brainwashing,
00:41:02.480
Does the White House monitor my ideas? Well, I don't know what monitor means. I will tell you that
00:41:09.160
my followers on Periscope and on Twitter include lots of people in lots of places from Congress to
00:41:19.020
White House. So, I do know from confirmation from various people that I have high visibility.
00:41:30.500
So, a lot of people are seeing my ideas. I just don't know who and when.
00:41:35.320
Can I try to get Trump on Periscope with you? Yes. Yes, I will do that. I will try to get Trump on
00:41:41.340
Periscope. I think we have to get closer to the election, but there's not a zero chance that I
00:41:50.760
could get him. I don't think the odds are good. I think the odds of getting Trump to do a two-minute
00:41:57.080
connection on Periscope with me are low. The odds are low, but probably 200,000 people would see it,
00:42:09.360
you know, double my normal traffic if he was on there. And having 200,000 people hear your message
00:42:17.120
in an election season, it's not a terrible use of time. And obviously, I would be a, you know,
00:42:23.900
an interesting interview, let's say. Brainwashing or setting social standards, same thing.
00:42:31.480
Persuasion. Somebody says, you're constantly selling past the sale. It's your main way. Well,
00:42:38.680
people who know persuasion do that just automatically. So, you're right.
00:42:45.300
Is Chris Cuomo on the Trump pills? Well, my same complaint. Why don't you know that?
00:42:52.000
Don't you think that CNN should report whether or not Chris Cuomo is taking the Trump pills? I guess
00:43:00.340
George Stephanopoulos and his wife also tested positive. Don't you think ABC and they would want
00:43:09.160
to tell you if they used the Trump pills? You know, the hydroxychloroquine?
00:43:18.720
Anything more on your prediction from yesterday regarding a big news this week? Did I say it would
00:43:24.580
be this week? I don't know if the news will be this week, but there's some big news coming,
00:43:31.460
but no update on that. Oh, somebody says, start with Don Jr. Yeah, I probably would have a relatively
00:43:41.120
greater odds that he would say yes. That's a good idea. I'll try that, actually.
00:43:50.840
Do you believe we're being told all the government knows about this pandemic? No, I don't. Not that
00:43:57.700
that's necessarily bad. Let's see. He's doing hundreds of calls in a day. Yeah, you know,
00:44:09.280
the president talks to a lot of people during the day, so who knows? Interview Chris Cuomo.
00:44:18.360
I would love to do that. I doubt you'd say yes, but he would be a great interview.
00:44:27.700
Who did you discuss doctors across state borders with in telemedicine? All right, in the case of
00:44:32.680
telemedicine, I did make a direct contact with a staff member of Congress who did confirm that the
00:44:43.420
idea was immediately given to the task force and also confirmed that it got a positive response as
00:44:50.800
soon as it was there. Now, that's very different from saying that my suggestion for telehealth,
00:44:57.780
you know, allowing people to do it across state boundaries, it's very different to say that I
00:45:03.040
suggested it than it is to say that's why they did it. And that would be a big leap. Because the
00:45:10.040
reason I suggested it is that it was obvious. All right? So if you suggest an idea that smart people
00:45:16.900
who are working on a problem should have seen themselves, chances are they did. So I can't
00:45:24.660
make any assumption about anything I did that, you know, ultimately changed any policy decisions.
00:45:30.380
But I do think it's generally productive that if you see something that could be a gap in the
00:45:35.800
thinking, that you're trying to fill it in, you just check and make sure they thought of it. I mean,
00:45:41.100
that has value. You just don't know when it has a lot of value. When should we consider the
00:45:51.180
feat toll? A year from now? I don't know what that is. Do you read the Babylon Bee? Yeah, it's hilarious.
00:45:58.500
They're great. Do you agree with the Patriot Act? You know, I've never spent a lot of time looking into it.
00:46:03.640
Okay. When will a leader be bold enough to set a date? I think that's coming. A few weeks.
00:46:13.380
Which country will most hack our election? We already know that. It's China by far.
00:46:17.980
They're already working hard, apparently. When will Joe Biden drop out? I don't know that he'll drop
00:46:26.340
out. You know, he might turn things over to a vice president candidate and or vice president if he
00:46:35.020
got elected. But I don't, it's starting to look like he's not going to drop out. It looks like the
00:46:41.560
play is, you know, for the important Democrats to make sure that they've got their vice president in
00:46:50.040
Why can't you pronounce the Trump pill properly yet?
00:46:56.780
Hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin, no, azithromycin, and zinc. Takes practice. I'm not there yet.
00:47:11.780
Looking at your questions. Is Fauci off the reservation?
00:47:15.480
You know, I can't, I can't find myself getting interested in the Trump versus Fauci stuff because
00:47:22.660
that feels artificial, doesn't it? Like, do you see anything in the way that Fauci talks
00:47:30.420
in public that would lead you to believe that, or Trump, that would lead you to believe that
00:47:36.140
when the two of them are in a room talking about stuff that they have any problem? I don't
00:47:40.780
feel like it. It feels like they're working together just fine. That doesn't mean they have
00:47:44.600
to agree on it and everything. Yeah, the, Fauci is not going to get fired.
00:47:51.460
Do you think Mark Cuban will be on the back-to-work task force?
00:48:01.780
Let's see. That's a good question. Would Mark Cuban be on it?
00:48:04.640
I'm going to say no, but not because he wouldn't be great to be on it. And I think,
00:48:14.680
since I can't read his mind, I'm just guessing, right? So, so Mark can speak for himself. But just
00:48:22.240
guessing, I believe that both he and I have a similar situation in which we probably could give
00:48:29.900
all the input we want and it would get to the right place. So if you could make all the input
00:48:35.320
you want and it can get to the right place, you can do it publicly, you can send messages to people
00:48:39.880
you know on the committee, et cetera. Maybe you don't have to attend the meetings, right? Because
00:48:46.640
I'm not sure I have much to add if I'm one of 25 people around a big table listening to people
00:48:53.580
blather about statistics. I don't know if I have anything to add, but in my special case,
00:48:59.720
maybe I can suggest ideas that people haven't thought of, suggest models of, you know, how to
00:49:05.500
do it in a staged way. And maybe something I suggest, you know, triggers somebody to think of a better
00:49:11.580
version of that. So that's about all I can do. I don't have, you know, I don't have the statistics
00:49:16.500
or the medical background or I'm not going to do a deep economic model. So the total amount that I
00:49:22.720
could add to the process, I could probably do from the outside. And Mark Cuban might, and again,
00:49:29.800
I'm not speaking for him and won't imagine that I can read his mind, but he has a similar setup to me,
00:49:36.640
which is if he wants the task force to hear something, he could do it easily.
00:49:41.700
Let's see. Who will run the task force? Navarro? Maybe. Doesn't it seem like Navarro would be
00:49:55.660
about the right person to do that? Do you think Cuban will run for president this time? I just saw
00:50:01.720
an interview with him where it didn't sound like it. I think he was sort of keeping the option open,
00:50:07.460
which is just smart. But it didn't sound like he had the fire in his belly. And I think you'd have
00:50:12.780
to have the fire in your belly by now. It's just sort of too late. Cuban said he would do it.
00:50:23.440
I think he would do it under exactly the right conditions, which don't exist. So I don't know.
00:50:31.640
That's pretty hypothetical. I mean, I would do it under exactly the right conditions.
00:50:39.740
But if he asked me if I'm running for president, the answer is no, but under exactly the right
00:50:45.560
conditions. So actually, I had offered myself as the emergency backup in case Trump decides to retire
00:50:53.840
in the next few months. You know, you just vote for me and I'll just appoint some smart people to take
00:51:02.060
care of stuff as your emergency backup so you don't have to. But I think I would have to have done some
00:51:07.600
paperwork by now. So I can't really be, I don't think I can really be in it unless I think you have to do
00:51:14.120
the paperwork to be on the party. But do you have to do the paperwork to be an independent candidate?
00:51:19.740
Probably yes. You have to get on the ballot. Yeah. So I think it's too late. Anyway, that's all for now.