Real Coffee with Scott Adams - April 20, 2020


Episode 925 Scott Adams： You Know What Goes Well With Coffee？ Oh, I Think You Do. Get in Here.


Episode Stats


Length

50 minutes

Words per minute

151.17746

Word count

7,588

Sentence count

498

Harmful content

Misogyny

5

sentences flagged

Hate speech

9

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Happy 420! Join me for the unparalleled pleasure, the dopamine hit of the day, as we celebrate the holiday the way it was intended: with a cup or mug of coffee and a glass of water.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Well, it's time for Coffee with Scott Adams, and that means it's time to crank up the studio.
00:00:15.660 We've got the studio lights on, the windows are going down.
00:00:30.000 It's so cold in here today, I can see my breath.
00:00:46.840 Well, happy 420, everybody.
00:00:49.320 Welcome to the best Coffee with Scott Adams of all time.
00:00:54.340 No, seriously, this will be the best one.
00:00:56.980 You can judge it for yourself, but I think you'll agree by the end.
00:01:00.800 Now, many of you have gotten primed for the day.
00:01:05.080 Guess who isn't commuting today?
00:01:07.340 You aren't.
00:01:08.520 No, you're not commuting today.
00:01:10.800 Do you know what you can do today?
00:01:12.780 Finally, you can enjoy the holiday the way it was intended.
00:01:16.820 Yeah, by starting off with Coffee with Scott Adams.
00:01:21.540 And all you need is a cup or a mug or a glass, a tank or chalice or stye, and a canteen jug or flask, a bong.
00:01:30.000 Well, a vessel of any kind, fill it with your favorite liquid.
00:01:33.220 I like coffee.
00:01:34.760 Join me now for the unparalleled pleasure, the dopamine hit of the day.
00:01:38.920 Well, maybe the second dopamine hit of the day.
00:01:41.300 It's called the simultaneous sip, and it happens now.
00:01:53.720 Sublime.
00:01:54.160 Well, should we talk about all the things?
00:01:59.560 Oh, somebody's nephew is born today.
00:02:02.480 Congratulations.
00:02:02.880 I don't know if that's good or bad, to be born on 420 in the middle of a pandemic, sort of.
00:02:09.520 A little this, a little that.
00:02:11.760 Kind of good, kind of not.
00:02:13.320 All right, here are some things that are happening today.
00:02:15.420 I understand that in this pandemic, one of the biggest problems is we don't have enough tests.
00:02:23.340 And I'm talking about IQ tests, because what we really need is to IQ test everybody in the country,
00:02:30.640 just so we know who to listen to.
00:02:33.540 Because I get on Twitter every day, and I feel like I'm listening to a lot of dumb people.
00:02:40.480 And wouldn't it be good to have a filter on Twitter, where just during the emergencies,
00:02:46.580 because I like to hear the dumb people for entertainment in normal days.
00:02:50.940 But during the pandemics and other emergencies, I like at least the option of filtering them off.
00:02:56.920 So wouldn't you like a filter that just you could dial it to whatever IQ you're willing to listen to?
00:03:02.380 And I think during the pandemic, I'm not really willing to listen to an opinion from anybody under, let's say, IQ of 130-ish.
00:03:14.100 Now, I realize these tests are not totally accurate.
00:03:17.840 You know, you could get a false positive from Jim Acosta, for example.
00:03:22.720 So I'm not saying it's 100% accurate IQ tests.
00:03:26.240 But until we have enough IQ tests to get everybody tested, I don't see how we can go back to work.
00:03:32.380 Because without knowing who the stupid people are, how do I know whose advice to take?
00:03:39.560 Should I wear a mask? Should I not wear a mask?
00:03:43.400 Kind of depends who tells you.
00:03:45.200 They have to, of course, subtract from the smart people anybody who has a financial interest.
00:03:51.460 So I'm sure that the director of the World Health Organization, if you were to give him an IQ test, I'll bet he'd do great.
00:04:00.660 He'd probably score really high.
00:04:02.480 But you have to take him out of the sample size because he has a potential financial interest.
00:04:07.900 All right, so speaking of testing, I've reached the end of my patience in not getting useful information from my government.
00:04:24.860 And tell me if this is off base.
00:04:29.400 But I think the public can listen to its government, even when the government maybe doesn't have full constitutional authority in an area.
00:04:39.940 Maybe it's just a guideline.
00:04:41.560 I think it's a real good idea to listen to your government and take their advice, if you assume that they have your best interest, and they do,
00:04:50.680 and that they're on top of it.
00:04:55.300 But your government has a responsibility to be credible.
00:05:00.060 They have to act in a way that the public can say, oh, you know, maybe you don't get everything right.
00:05:05.720 You know, we get that you can't see the future.
00:05:08.020 We get that you're working with estimates.
00:05:10.840 But, you know, you're generally doing what looks like a credible job.
00:05:14.860 You know, nobody else is really doing much better, except maybe by luck, or they have different demographics.
00:05:19.580 So it looks like, okay, it looks like you're doing your job.
00:05:23.040 You care about the citizens.
00:05:24.620 All right, that's good enough.
00:05:26.100 What you ask us to do, even if it's hard, I'm willing to do it.
00:05:31.500 Because you've established yourself as a credible leadership entity.
00:05:37.080 Is that what we have today?
00:05:39.660 You know, I'm willing to put up with a little bit of fog of war early on in a problem.
00:05:45.900 But as of today, do you think that Mike Pence should not be able to tell you how many tests we have, who has them, how many are in the pipeline, and how many do we really need before we have whatever we decide is enough to get back to work?
00:06:04.120 Do you think we'll have any information like that today?
00:06:07.980 I'm going to predict, and I know I'm going out on a limb here, I'm going to predict that we will not hear the most important piece of data in the world, right?
00:06:21.460 The most important piece of data in the world, period.
00:06:27.120 Most important data in the world is probably not that hard to get, at least in estimate form.
00:06:33.960 The government surely knows who makes the test kits by now.
00:06:38.160 They surely are in contact with them.
00:06:40.100 They can surely ask, how many have you produced?
00:06:43.200 How many do you have in the pipeline?
00:06:44.680 How many can you produce this month?
00:06:47.000 Surely that can be obtained.
00:06:48.800 If your government does not present that information to you today, even in estimate form, it could be wrong.
00:06:57.140 It could be wrong because we don't ask perfection.
00:07:00.980 If you're asking for perfection in this fog of war or emergency, nobody's ever been here before, well, that's just unrealistic.
00:07:09.160 That would be a child's view.
00:07:11.060 It would be a child's view that your government is going to do everything right and also do it as soon as it could be done and better than all the other governments in a brand new emergency that nobody's seen before and nobody really had the right information.
00:07:26.060 It's not reasonable.
00:07:27.440 But here's what is reasonable.
00:07:29.040 On April 20th, many weeks into this, knowing that having enough test kits is really going to be the whole game, right?
00:07:40.320 Because you can't really do anything else without that base information.
00:07:46.200 And we don't even have the base information of whether the kits are available or in what quantities.
00:07:52.440 So let me give my government a failing grade, F.
00:07:58.200 That's not to say they haven't done a bunch of things correctly.
00:08:01.600 I'm strongly in the camp of agreeing with Trump that closing down travel from at least Wuhan early was a very strong sign that this is a big deal.
00:08:13.040 There's no way you can interpret an unprecedented closing of air traffic from a major superpower.
00:08:22.940 You can't interpret that as he didn't think it was important.
00:08:27.580 There's no way you can go back in time and say he closed travel from China without thinking that there was a big emergency.
00:08:37.000 You can't reasonably think that.
00:08:38.980 Now, you can certainly look at his language and say, we wish he had said it was more of a problem early on.
00:08:44.860 But you also have to understand that it is President Trump.
00:08:48.900 He's going to put the positive spin on everything, even if he's acting, even if his actions are proving that it's a big problem.
00:08:58.540 And they did.
00:08:59.300 He closed.
00:09:00.100 You know, he did what needed to be done there.
00:09:03.320 Now, lots of people are saying, and I think this is a fair criticism of the government, just of the government in general, that we didn't have the ability to quickly ramp up testing.
00:09:16.340 I don't think it's a criticism that we didn't have a test for a virus that didn't exist yet.
00:09:23.240 I mean, that's not a fair criticism.
00:09:24.940 But shouldn't we have had at least some kind of a quick ramp up plan for testing in general?
00:09:32.020 It looks like we did not.
00:09:33.840 So you'd have to say that one major part of the Trump administration's responsibility, which is to have a reasonable plan for a pandemic, that doesn't mean having enough test kits.
00:09:48.300 That means having a plan for quickly having enough, you know, which is different.
00:09:54.240 And I think it's fair to say we didn't have that, right?
00:09:57.260 Have you heard anybody say that we had any kind of a plan for quickly ramping up testing?
00:10:02.380 If we didn't, then I would say the government is in complete failure on that topic.
00:10:09.280 Now, do you say that that is therefore President Trump's failure?
00:10:13.520 Well, the buck has to stop the top.
00:10:16.220 So yes, yes, in the sense that everything is the boss's problem.
00:10:21.180 But if we dig down a level, do you think that there was ever a meeting in which somebody in the CDC said to President Trump,
00:10:29.920 you know, the only way we can really be ready in case of a pandemic, and by the way, these pandemics are almost guaranteed.
00:10:39.020 It's not like we even have to worry if we'll have one.
00:10:41.600 So pretty much guaranteed, do we have, you know, would you like to fund the preparations to be able to quickly ramp up testing should we have a pandemic?
00:10:53.920 Do you think that conversation ever happened?
00:10:56.060 And do you think the president said, no, no, I don't think that's worth any money.
00:10:59.820 I'm not going to get behind that.
00:11:01.500 I don't think that happened.
00:11:02.520 All right.
00:11:03.300 So if we could be adults for a moment, it's very unlikely that President Trump ever even was presented with a decision about how to prepare the country in case of there was a pandemic.
00:11:15.620 I'll bet he never even had that meeting.
00:11:17.740 Now, you could argue that he should have called that meeting.
00:11:21.440 And I think that would be a fair point.
00:11:22.660 But just look at the entire context.
00:11:28.200 I will go further and say that if we don't hear more about testing in the end today, really, because there's no reason not to hear it today.
00:11:38.660 I mean, even if Pence came out and said, I know how important it is to give you visibility on testing.
00:11:43.880 You know, we're about 80 percent of the way to adding, adding it up and giving it to you.
00:11:49.220 I'll give it to you tomorrow.
00:11:51.620 That would be good enough.
00:11:53.180 That would show that they have some sense of how important that is to be not only important.
00:11:58.580 They know it's important, but important to communicate it.
00:12:02.940 If you're if we're in the midst of a pandemic and there's protests in the street and we don't know exactly when we can reopen the economy.
00:12:12.480 And I've said this before, that if we don't have at least a target date for each area that they can rely on, as opposed to a if you meet these conditions, you can go back to work.
00:12:26.920 If you meet these conditions comes with a condition of its own.
00:12:31.560 You have to have test kits that you don't have.
00:12:34.680 So the government has created a situation and presented it to the public like this.
00:12:40.540 Here are the guidelines to get back to work.
00:12:43.900 By the way, it's not possible to achieve them.
00:12:49.480 That's what happened, right?
00:12:51.580 Am I wrong?
00:12:52.860 Because you would need a certain amount of testing to be able to achieve it.
00:12:58.680 And we have no information that would suggest we will ever have that ever.
00:13:04.240 Right now, one assumes that we're working toward it.
00:13:07.540 But what information do you have?
00:13:10.200 So if your government is just telling you that, hey, you can go back to work as soon as you complete this checklist, what's on the checklist?
00:13:17.420 Well, one thing that might be impossible.
00:13:19.380 We don't know if it will ever be solved before the economy totally crashes.
00:13:23.380 Thanks for nothing.
00:13:25.880 Thanks for nothing.
00:13:28.360 So without the information on the testing, your government is in complete fiduciary default.
00:13:36.440 And if Trump loses the election because of this, totally fair.
00:13:41.560 Now, I don't want Joe Biden to be president.
00:13:43.840 That's a problem in itself.
00:13:45.040 But if Trump loses the election because he won't tell us basic information, remember, they wouldn't tell us about the ventilators, but he got lucky.
00:13:55.820 It turns out it didn't matter because we made so many, it didn't matter.
00:13:58.860 But that was a complete failure of management that we, the public, didn't have visibility on that.
00:14:05.580 And now we're in another complete failure.
00:14:07.520 We don't know how much hydroxychloroquine there is, or really even if it makes a difference for sure.
00:14:14.420 And we don't know anything about tests.
00:14:19.260 That's a complete failure.
00:14:20.660 There's no other way to say that.
00:14:22.400 So I would say the government is in complete failure, federal government, as of today, easy to fix, could be completely fixed by this afternoon.
00:14:32.180 So when I say it's in complete failure, I don't mean it's over.
00:14:35.840 I mean if they don't fix this really fast while there are protests in the street, largely because of this lack of visibility, I would argue.
00:14:45.280 You know, people are not saying that.
00:14:47.400 Nobody is saying we're protesting because we don't think we'll get testing in time.
00:14:52.400 But if you haven't given them a practical, believable plan with a date, even if it changes, you have given us nothing.
00:15:03.720 Nothing.
00:15:04.820 And so if the public reacts as though the government has given them nothing, don't be surprised.
00:15:13.440 Don't be surprised.
00:15:14.780 If you give them nothing, and then they act like you gave them nothing, that should be what you expect.
00:15:20.340 All right.
00:15:26.580 I've got a huge influx of new followers on LinkedIn who are doctors.
00:15:32.700 Most of them follow me from Twitter or someplace else.
00:15:36.260 And it's really interesting.
00:15:38.740 I guess it's just because of coronavirus stuff and everybody.
00:15:42.820 I think doctors are probably more interested today in what the non-doctor community is thinking about this than ever before.
00:15:51.640 Because the doctors' fates depend almost, I mean to a huge degree, the fate of the doctors depends on what people who are not doctors are thinking about medical questions.
00:16:04.620 I'm not sure we've ever had this situation before, because the doctors are on the front line, of course, making the front line decisions.
00:16:12.060 But where we go in terms of opening things up, etc., will be medical decisions, essentially, balanced with economic decisions, but medical decisions made by non-medical people.
00:16:25.720 So, given that I'm one of the people who talks about this stuff all the time, it kind of makes sense that doctors are pouring in to see what the non-medical people are feeling and try to sample as many windows into that as they can, because their fate depends on it.
00:16:41.360 So, if we, if we, the pundits, get this wrong, it's a big problem, you know, it's a big problem, because the doctors will suffer from what the public decides, ultimately.
00:16:55.080 And so I do appreciate that many of those doctors have sort of stepped up to become my mentors and informers.
00:17:05.140 So, quite often, I'll be engaging on some topic on Twitter, and I'm very, very happy to see actual medical doctors pouring into the comments to clarify and fix misinformation.
00:17:19.400 So, it's a tremendously good, it's a really good trend to watch the doctors start following the non-doctors, because it's important right now, and to fix our thinking, specifically.
00:17:32.680 You know, there's going to be a lot of polls between now and Election Day, and I would argue, at this point, the only thing that matters to re-election is the coronavirus, I think.
00:17:45.820 You know, maybe, maybe the Supreme Court, but it feels as though, because people are more influenced by whatever happened recently, and also whatever was the biggest, and this is the biggest, and it will be the thing that happened most recently.
00:17:59.300 So, really, I would say that the few people who are swing voters probably are going to be mostly affected by the coronavirus response.
00:18:10.480 But, I would say that when you're in the middle of the battle, the polling is useful and entertaining, you know, tells you something about what the middle of the battle looks like, but it doesn't predict.
00:18:21.300 Because the only thing that we'll predict is winning or losing.
00:18:27.900 And by November, we're going to have a much better consensus, of course, the country never agrees on everything, but it'll probably be at least a two-thirds consensus, one way or the other, that what our government did either worked or didn't work.
00:18:44.120 So, that's all that will depend, that, you know, that's what's going to depend on the election.
00:18:50.460 The election will depend on that.
00:18:52.220 So, we don't know how that will go, because we don't know if we win or lose, and we probably won't know for several months.
00:18:58.260 But, I like to use this phrase, because it really explains so many situations.
00:19:06.900 You've heard it before.
00:19:08.520 Winning fixes everything.
00:19:10.980 I've said that in my books.
00:19:12.340 I think somebody famous said it first.
00:19:14.720 But, winning kind of fixes everything.
00:19:17.160 If you win, people will almost instantly stop complaining about how you got there.
00:19:23.180 If you lose, they will complain forever about all the things you did wrong.
00:19:28.780 But, the day you win, if you win, then all the criticisms of the dumb things you used to be doing, they just go away.
00:19:36.860 Do you remember when Trump won the election?
00:19:40.400 What happened to all those criticisms about the way he was campaigning?
00:19:45.860 All the criticisms of all the things that Trump was doing wrong, and we were all little experts, right?
00:19:51.680 We were all experts on the thing Trump was doing wrong to campaign.
00:19:55.580 Well, he's not spending enough money.
00:19:58.260 Well, he doesn't have the right endorsements.
00:20:01.520 Well, he seems to be insulting people.
00:20:03.280 That can't be good.
00:20:04.040 What's all this tweeting about?
00:20:05.680 And so, we, the brilliant pundits, had all these criticisms about what the president's doing wrong to campaign to be the president.
00:20:13.520 And then he won.
00:20:15.760 And then all those criticisms went away.
00:20:17.800 Because, as soon as you win, you realize they were either overblown, or didn't matter, or maybe were wrong in the first place.
00:20:27.080 All right.
00:20:28.460 I got into an interesting conversation, which I don't understand a bit, because I'm not qualified,
00:20:35.020 on false positives versus false negatives, and specifically looking at the tests in Santa Clara that showed there were a lot of people relative to what we expected.
00:20:46.160 There were a lot of people with antibodies.
00:20:48.380 Now, when I say a lot, it was, you know, a few percent.
00:20:53.120 You know, somewhere in that, you know, one to four percent, depending on how you're looking at it, et cetera.
00:20:57.920 So, let's say two percent.
00:21:00.480 And, unfortunately, that's also right in the range where you could get false positives.
00:21:09.000 But, so, then Naval was, you know, dealing with this question.
00:21:13.700 He's smarter about this stuff.
00:21:14.940 And, he was pointing out that the tests probably are calibrated so that they take into account what they know about the accuracy of the testing so that that's all, you know, figured into it.
00:21:30.360 And then other smart people came in and said, well, in order to do that, the only way you could be sure your test worked is to calibrate it against a test you know works.
00:21:41.780 But that doesn't exist.
00:21:43.020 So, there's, apparently, there are no, you know, really reliable tests that could be calibrated against something that you know is reliable.
00:21:54.080 Now, I'm not sure I believe that.
00:21:56.440 Because the manufacturer of the tests presumably is testing it against some other standard.
00:22:04.460 And it seems like if you got any kind of a positive, you would just retest it.
00:22:09.760 Say, okay, you know, are we getting too many false positives and they would just retest with other devices until they were sure that it was real or sure that it was a false test.
00:22:20.460 So, I think the manufacturer could use just a variety of other test kits to see if it was at least in agreement.
00:22:28.540 And that would get you pretty close to knowing if you had a false positive.
00:22:32.220 But what if you had a false negative?
00:22:34.100 If you tested 1,000 people and you got one positive, well, it's pretty obvious that you should run that one positive through some other tests just to see if it's real.
00:22:43.560 But what about the 999 negatives?
00:22:47.980 Would the manufacturer of the test that we're talking about, would they have rerun all 999 through all of the other tests which are available to see if they all get the same result-ish?
00:23:00.540 And if some don't, then rerun again to make sure that, you know, they know what's going on?
00:23:05.220 I don't know.
00:23:06.800 I'm guessing not.
00:23:08.560 But it would only be a guess.
00:23:10.120 I mean, you could imagine that they would say, yeah, that's the only way we would do it.
00:23:13.800 Of course.
00:23:14.660 You have to test and retest and retest against all the standards.
00:23:18.300 Otherwise, you don't really know what you have.
00:23:20.320 Maybe.
00:23:21.340 You know, my experience in the real world is that probably not.
00:23:25.080 But maybe, because it's a medical world and, you know, one has to assume that they have higher standards than most of the world.
00:23:30.800 But my point of it is that really smart people who are operating at a level that I can't quite reach, in other words, people who understand this world and can deal with the statistical ambiguities of it more capably than I can,
00:23:49.400 are not quite on the same page about whether these tests are reliable or not.
00:23:56.360 Now, I can't really judge, because, again, I'm not qualified.
00:24:01.740 But isn't it interesting that something you would think would be as easy to know the truth of it, even that you can't?
00:24:10.320 So, let me back you up to a bigger thought about all of this.
00:24:18.240 Wouldn't you say that the most standard information you've gotten is that we should use facts to make decisions?
00:24:26.600 And we should really know the facts.
00:24:29.600 Or anything we do with this coronavirus thing would be just nonsense.
00:24:34.140 We've got to know the facts.
00:24:35.480 But isn't it also true that all of our facts are unreliable or total bullshit?
00:24:42.500 Am I wrong about that?
00:24:44.340 Haven't all of our facts so far proven to be either unreliable or you can't be sure?
00:24:52.180 You know, might be true.
00:24:54.160 Might not be true.
00:24:55.580 So, I don't trust any results of the tests.
00:24:59.860 I don't trust anything that comes from any government source.
00:25:04.100 I don't trust anything that comes from a private source.
00:25:08.300 I don't trust anything that comes from a pundit.
00:25:11.700 So, how are we supposed to make decisions with facts when the only fact we can be sure of is that our facts are wrong?
00:25:21.740 And you wouldn't have to have many facts that were wrong to have the wrong decision, right?
00:25:27.420 So, let's say you had all the facts were right except, let's say, face masks either make things much worse or they fix everything.
00:25:38.300 So, let's say you had all the facts correctly, which is impossible, but only just one fact was wrong.
00:25:43.640 Well, that one wrong fact could totally blow your strategy, and we certainly have at least one fact wrong.
00:25:51.620 We don't know which ones exactly.
00:25:53.780 We don't even know the denominator of, you know, how many people have recovered.
00:25:58.900 We don't know exactly why this is...
00:26:00.720 We don't know a lot of things.
00:26:01.760 We don't know the genetic differences.
00:26:03.780 We're not entirely sure if smoking is good or bad for you.
00:26:06.880 We don't know how many people really died in China.
00:26:09.780 We don't know why Sweden is doing better.
00:26:11.880 We don't know why South Korea is doing better.
00:26:13.680 We have gases.
00:26:15.500 Masks, blah, blah, blah.
00:26:18.320 We don't know if social isolation works.
00:26:21.120 We don't know if it worked great.
00:26:22.460 We don't know if it works well.
00:26:23.800 We don't know if it's working better in some places.
00:26:25.940 We don't know anything.
00:26:26.720 So we should sort of abandon the childlike fairy tale that we're going to make this decision based on facts, because we're not.
00:26:40.440 The reason we're not is because there are no facts we can rely on.
00:26:45.000 There are only facts we've heard.
00:26:47.180 Facts sometimes come from credible sources and are also not true.
00:26:52.060 As evidence, the World Health Organization, the CDC, the Surgeon General, and our government.
00:26:59.840 All of them have told us things that are so insanely obviously not true, face masks being the obvious one, that we don't have any facts.
00:27:12.700 Yeah, we're still arguing about Dr. Shiva, whether all you need is some vitamins.
00:27:17.480 We are so far from facts.
00:27:19.760 And the Bill Gates rumors.
00:27:21.120 I mean, we're not close to facts.
00:27:23.500 So here's the question.
00:27:24.880 How do you make a decision in the face of such extreme uncertainty?
00:27:30.820 You know, there's some general things we know, such as if you do nothing, more people will get the virus.
00:27:37.140 So we know that.
00:27:38.480 So using just those general things plus some risk management, you're generally going to look for things that you can test and then pull back if you need to.
00:27:48.560 So if you don't know what is the right answer, it usually makes sense.
00:27:57.260 Every situation is different.
00:27:58.460 But it usually makes sense to take the strategy that is the most adaptable if it doesn't work out, that you can immediately say, oops, take it back.
00:28:07.880 Now, if we were to reopen the economy and just say, all right, let's see what happens, just reopen everything, and the virus took hold and, you know, a million people got infected in a week.
00:28:21.240 Could you think, could you easily reverse that?
00:28:25.340 Not really.
00:28:26.540 It would be kind of hard to reverse it once a million people were infected, although I think we have a quarter of a million already.
00:28:33.680 But likewise, it would not be easy to reverse shutting down the economy.
00:28:38.620 But which one would be easier to reverse?
00:28:41.740 Well, it depends how much you care about the deaths.
00:28:45.540 If you don't care about deaths, just open up the economy.
00:28:49.060 If you do, well, you've got a tough decision.
00:28:55.180 All right.
00:28:57.320 So we'll have to make a decision without facts.
00:29:00.380 I hope that goes well.
00:29:01.300 Well, here's one of the things that made me think that we need an IQ test, not a blood test for, or not a test for the coronavirus.
00:29:15.460 So I tweeted this, which is a lot of people, a lot of people who believe that Trump talks complete, you know, BS 99% of the time.
00:29:26.780 So his critics believe that pretty much everything he says is a lie, it's hyperbole, or it's BS.
00:29:35.080 And yet they can't understand why Trump would say that President Xi is an awesome guy and China is doing a great job at the same time that he's trying to get a trade deal done.
00:29:46.860 Do you really not understand how that works?
00:29:49.580 Are there people who are really so dumb that they don't understand that President Trump is standing right in front of you on camera and winking as hard as he can?
00:30:01.400 Yeah, I love President Xi.
00:30:04.180 He's wink, wink, doing a great job.
00:30:07.500 Great job.
00:30:08.680 Oh, yeah, I'll be concerned if they give us bad information.
00:30:12.080 But President Xi, he's my friend.
00:30:14.260 Wink, wink, wink, wink, wink.
00:30:17.260 Could he wink any harder?
00:30:20.140 Do you believe him when he says that China is awesome? 0.51
00:30:25.500 I believe that he's smart enough to know that you're not going to get anywhere with China if you try to humiliate them.
00:30:32.280 That I know.
00:30:33.920 Do you think the President knows not to humiliate somebody he's trying to do a deal with in the middle of the deal?
00:30:41.440 Oh, sure, maybe before and after, but not in the middle of the deal.
00:30:45.720 If you're actually negotiating with somebody, you're going to be insulting them in public.
00:30:50.880 Look, you need to get your IQ checked if you think the President should be insulting the President of China while we're trying to get something done.
00:31:02.260 Check your IQ at the door there.
00:31:04.680 All right.
00:31:06.040 It made no sense, but you know what I'm talking about.
00:31:08.020 I don't think the Roger Stone upcoming pardon, or whatever the word is for it, what's the other word?
00:31:18.300 It's a pardon or a clemency?
00:31:21.000 Clemency.
00:31:21.520 I don't think there's any question about it anymore, is there?
00:31:25.500 The President has so clearly signaled that he's going to pardon, or grant clemency, to Roger Stone.
00:31:35.300 It's just a matter of timing at this point.
00:31:38.260 Now, Manafort is another situation, because, you know, that's just a darker situation.
00:31:45.440 But I think the Roger Stone pardon is essentially guaranteed.
00:31:48.960 Nancy Pelosi was asked by Chris Wallace yesterday to explain how she was saying that the President was underplaying the virus,
00:32:04.360 and yet at the very same time, she was publicly going to Chinatown and telling everybody to enjoy Chinatown and the big crowds during the pandemic.
00:32:14.640 And, of course, Chris Wallace was calling that out and saying, you know, you're criticizing the President for not taking you seriously at exactly the same time you were doing that, not taking you seriously, and inviting people to hang around in big crowds.
00:32:30.240 And what was Nancy Pelosi's response to that?
00:32:33.920 It's a real head shaker.
00:32:35.180 She said that the real point of that was to counter President Trump's racism, because she was worried that because he was calling the virus the Chinese virus or the Wuhan virus, that it would stoke racism.
00:32:51.880 And so she decided to go to Chinatown and get all the Chinese-American citizens infected with coronavirus and maybe die, so that they wouldn't feel bad that a virus was named after a country that they don't live in. 0.64
00:33:09.220 So, this might be, if you could have some kind of an award for the most pathetic answer you've ever heard from a politician.
00:33:22.820 I'm not even going to call it a lie, because it's so obvious a lie that you don't really need to call that out.
00:33:29.380 You should at least, if you were going to lie, you should at least take a stab at making it sound a little bit believable.
00:33:37.600 Do you think there's anybody, even in the Democratic Party, so, sorry about that technical glitch.
00:33:46.760 Is it because of something I said about China?
00:33:52.440 I don't know.
00:33:55.660 We'll find out, because I'll test that again.
00:33:58.080 Anyway, so whatever Nancy Pelosi said, I'm wondering, were there Democrats who were thinking to themselves,
00:34:05.720 gosh, you know, that is a good question, Chris Wallace.
00:34:10.700 Why did Nancy Pelosi criticize President Trump at the same time she was inviting people to a big crowd to get infected in Chinatown? 1.00
00:34:18.940 Why did she do that? 1.00
00:34:21.140 And then they hear the answer, and Pelosi says, oh, it's to counteract President Trump's racism.
00:34:27.220 Is there anybody who is a Democrat who heard that and said, oh, yeah, that makes sense now.
00:34:34.660 I was thinking, God, do I want to swear.
00:34:39.300 I want to swear so much today.
00:34:42.400 I guess I swore too much already.
00:34:44.160 I'm going to pull it back.
00:34:47.280 Serenity now.
00:34:48.120 Is there any Democrat who heard Pelosi say that she was trying to counteract President's racism by going to Chinatown?
00:34:58.780 Does anybody believe that?
00:35:01.500 Is there any Democrat who's dumb enough to believe that?
00:35:04.580 Really?
00:35:05.460 Because at least, you know, to the credit of Trump supporters, when Trump says something that we know is not true, we kind of know it, don't we?
00:35:15.940 You know, don't you know it if he says, I had the biggest crowd size, you know, since the gladiators in the Coliseum?
00:35:26.720 You know, don't you listen to it and you go, oh, maybe, maybe not.
00:35:29.280 It doesn't really matter.
00:35:30.580 It's not really the point.
00:35:32.680 It doesn't really matter if you exaggerated that.
00:35:35.200 I feel like Trump supporters generally know when he's saying things that are complete BS,
00:35:40.300 but I don't know if Democrats know it when Pelosi says it.
00:35:44.460 I just can't tell.
00:35:45.940 Has anybody seen Joe Biden since Friday?
00:35:52.620 This is an actual question because I don't know.
00:35:55.380 Has Joe Biden been televised since Friday?
00:36:02.700 I'll wait for your comments because I want to see.
00:36:05.740 I can't tell if that comment is for this or the last one.
00:36:09.740 People are still talking, wanting me to swear.
00:36:11.960 By answering that question, has Joe Biden, put Biden in the answer so I know that's what you're answering.
00:36:20.340 Has Joe Biden shown himself in two and a half days?
00:36:24.680 Because it feels like, I'll wait for your answer, so I'll get over my skis a little bit.
00:36:31.560 If we haven't seen him, oh, let me make a general, I'm going to make a general observation.
00:36:40.500 If we did not see Joe Biden for two days, and I need a confirmation of that, so I'll make it a general statement.
00:36:49.620 If there ever is a time that we don't see Joe Biden, at least on video, for two days, it means he's going to be out of the race.
00:37:00.260 That's my prediction.
00:37:03.620 If you ever see a two-day gap with no Joe Biden live video, at this point, from here until the election, any two-day gap means he's out of the race.
00:37:16.160 That is my assumption.
00:37:18.780 Now, the way he leaves the race, of course, is a great question.
00:37:22.600 But I would think if he went dark for two days, and I don't know if he did, I need a confirmation of that.
00:37:28.060 I saw a tweet on it, but he may have reappeared right after the tweet.
00:37:32.700 Okay, people are saying no on Joe Biden.
00:37:35.680 So if it's true that we haven't seen him for two days, it means the Democrats are talking him into leaving the race.
00:37:43.480 Because I see no scenario that he would stay out of the public eye unless Democrats were talking him into getting out of the race and being replaced.
00:37:56.160 I think that's happening right now, if he's been gone for two days.
00:38:00.980 Because otherwise, there's no reason.
00:38:02.700 Now, you can say to yourself, no, no, Scott, the reason is he's not mentally capable, so they're keeping him off the airways, which I would say is really the same thing I just said.
00:38:11.400 Because if they've kept him off video for two days because they don't think he's mentally competent at the moment, that also means they're having the conversation about replacing him.
00:38:22.660 There's no way you would separate those two things.
00:38:25.340 All right?
00:38:29.260 And then I saw one article, an opinion article on CNN, saying that Elizabeth Warren was the obvious best choice for vice president.
00:38:39.860 And, of course, she made things interesting by saying that if Biden asked her to be vice president, she would say yes, which is sort of a weird thing to say.
00:38:48.940 Usually you say, well, I'm not talking about that today.
00:38:53.840 So what if it's Warren?
00:38:56.860 Because if they replace Biden with Warren, you end up with Bernie, right?
00:39:03.240 Because Warren is basically Bernie in different clothes.
00:39:07.580 So Warren gets you the woman.
00:39:10.400 So good for the woman vote. 1.00
00:39:12.640 And it gets you Bernie.
00:39:14.680 So the Bernie voters can say, we wanted Bernie, but okay.
00:39:18.400 She's younger.
00:39:19.660 She's pretty close.
00:39:21.040 So you could probably get the Bernie bros.
00:39:23.540 Many of them.
00:39:24.260 And I think the mainstream Democrats have proven by their nominating of Biden that they literally don't care who's running.
00:39:34.800 Right?
00:39:35.280 So you'd have the Bernie bros who would be back in if it's Elizabeth Warren. 1.00
00:39:38.960 Maybe.
00:39:39.400 At least you'd have an argument to get them back in.
00:39:41.880 You'd have the, and then the mainstream people just wouldn't care because they were going to vote Democrat.
00:39:49.640 It didn't matter who it was.
00:39:50.400 I don't know if anybody would vote against Warren if they're a Democrat.
00:39:56.340 I could see people voting against Bernie, but Warren has that, I haven't been a communist all my life kind of vibe.
00:40:05.380 So maybe she could soften her stance a little bit and still get in there. 0.67
00:40:10.920 So Warren's actually an interesting choice.
00:40:12.760 I'm going to stick with my prediction of Kamala Harris, in part because I think she has a better relationship with Biden, and Biden sort of has to be part of the decision.
00:40:23.400 All right.
00:40:25.620 So China, somebody official in China has stated that China is not the enemy of the United States.
00:40:34.100 So that's good.
00:40:35.840 Isn't it great to know that China is not the enemy of the United States?
00:40:38.880 But I would point out that China, who is not the enemy of the United States, has already killed more Americans this year with coronavirus and fentanyl than all of America's enemies added up over the past 10 years.
00:40:56.860 Am I right about that?
00:40:58.160 Check, check, check my math, but I think that China, who says they're our friend, has probably killed maybe approaching 100,000 Americans in 2020. 0.97
00:41:09.840 I think we'll hit 100,000 between fentanyl and coronavirus, probably over 100,000.
00:41:16.060 And if you were to add up all of the Americans killed by every enemy country over 10 years, it wouldn't come close to 100,000, would it?
00:41:29.180 Because you'd be adding up, you know, the two wars, and they don't even come close.
00:41:37.800 Yeah, Massachusetts doesn't even like war, some people say.
00:41:40.760 All right.
00:41:45.320 And I'll go back to something I said.
00:41:47.620 If I didn't say this on the morning periscope, I'd like to reinforce it.
00:41:52.160 We, of course, are going to decouple from China now. 0.99
00:41:55.520 The question of whether we'll decouple has been answered.
00:41:58.960 It's just a question of how long it takes.
00:42:00.940 Because the government doesn't even have to be involved in it anymore.
00:42:03.700 There's enough social pressure that if you were to move a production facility to China from this day forward, it would be news.
00:42:14.100 In the past, that would not be news, right?
00:42:16.360 If a Fortune 500 company moved production to China, that wouldn't be news.
00:42:21.400 Until now, now it's news.
00:42:23.720 So they kind of can't do it.
00:42:25.520 So social pressure and consumer pressure will completely stop any big company from moving to China.
00:42:31.620 They could move to another country.
00:42:32.840 I mean, they could probably get away with Vietnam or Mexico. 0.94
00:42:36.660 But, no, the decoupling, that's just going to happen.
00:42:41.000 So there's no question about that.
00:42:43.460 But the way we should present it is to avoid humiliating or offending China because there's nothing in it for us. 0.98
00:42:53.440 You know, I think it's okay to hate China.
00:42:55.480 But they have a different reaction to, you know, obviously every country has people that hate them.
00:43:02.600 You know, people are sort of used to being hated.
00:43:04.120 But people don't like being disrespected and they don't want to be humiliated, etc.
00:43:11.820 So we should look for the way to decouple that sounds the most like, you know, it's not you, it's me.
00:43:19.840 You know, when you break up with somebody, it's not you, it's me.
00:43:22.760 And we need a version of that for China when we decouple.
00:43:26.560 And my version of that is we should say our systems are not compatible.
00:43:31.020 It has nothing to do with you.
00:43:32.480 It has nothing to do with you, President Xi.
00:43:35.100 You're awesome.
00:43:35.640 It's just that you've chosen a system that, sadly, doesn't fit with our system.
00:43:43.420 And we have transparency.
00:43:45.660 You don't have transparency.
00:43:47.240 And those are two systems that can't fit together.
00:43:49.760 So if we became non-transparent, well, maybe we'd have some, well, that probably doesn't work.
00:43:55.740 Two non-transparent systems are not going to be very successful.
00:43:58.260 But if they were to become transparent, and, of course, we're not your boss, we're not going to tell China they need to be more transparent.
00:44:06.940 We're just not going to be in their game.
00:44:09.860 So I don't think we should be in the business of telling China what to do because it doesn't work and it would be humiliating and there's no upside. 0.97
00:44:19.700 But we could certainly tell them that while they're doing whatever they want to do, that system is not compatible with our system.
00:44:27.140 So we're going to take our ball and go home.
00:44:29.680 It's nothing personal.
00:44:31.340 We wish they fit together.
00:44:33.420 But transparency and non-transparency are just two systems that don't fit.
00:44:37.840 No way around it.
00:44:38.920 We tried.
00:44:40.020 It was worth trying.
00:44:44.600 All right.
00:44:46.680 Something weird happened this morning that I just have to call out to see if anybody noticed it.
00:44:52.060 So I woke up around 3.30 this morning, which is not unusual, and I just got up, went to work, because that's not unusual for me.
00:45:03.120 I hate sleeping.
00:45:04.460 I hate sleeping more than I hate really anything in my life right now.
00:45:08.900 I don't like getting into bed.
00:45:10.640 I don't like staying there.
00:45:11.720 I don't like being asleep.
00:45:12.900 I don't like any of it because I like my life.
00:45:15.260 And I realized that I get up so early in the morning that I've effectively had two lifetimes when most people have had one.
00:45:24.520 And what I mean by that is if you look at your 24-hour day, those 24 hours are not equal, right?
00:45:31.100 Because there's the hours you're asleep that are like you don't exist.
00:45:34.540 And then there are the hours that you're commuting.
00:45:38.740 There are the hours in the afternoon that you're so sleepy you can't get anything done.
00:45:42.340 So the hours are all different.
00:45:44.100 They're not equal quality.
00:45:46.200 And I would argue that because the first hours of the morning are the premium hours of the entire day,
00:45:53.360 that people like me who routinely get up at 4 in the morning,
00:45:58.280 by the time the rest of the world wakes up,
00:46:01.240 let's say people are just starting to get up at 8-ish,
00:46:06.000 or getting to work at 8-ish anyway,
00:46:08.580 that I've got a four-hour head start,
00:46:11.680 sometimes five hours per day
00:46:14.320 on people who are getting up and living their life and their normal schedule.
00:46:18.940 And I often feel that by my current age it shows
00:46:25.040 because I feel like I present myself like somebody who lived two lifetimes
00:46:31.080 because it actually physically feels like that to me.
00:46:34.320 I have a whole lifetime that I lead before most of you wake up,
00:46:38.540 and I do the great majority of all my useful, creative, and productive work.
00:46:44.380 It happens before most people wake up.
00:46:46.140 Now, Jocko Willek, somebody mentioned in the comments,
00:46:53.380 and he's one of the people who made me wonder.
00:46:55.920 So this morning he showed that he was up at 4 in the morning,
00:47:01.880 and I saw at least three other Californians
00:47:08.420 who were clearly up at about 4 a.m. this morning and tweeting.
00:47:12.840 You know, I send a text message to my brother at about 4.45 a.m. or whatever it is,
00:47:22.620 and I get an instant response.
00:47:25.000 You know, people, I think California has just stopped sleeping.
00:47:31.940 And I think Californians are just getting up really early.
00:47:35.300 So, I don't know, maybe they were getting up at 4.20 for a reason.
00:47:45.400 Those were my comments.
00:47:48.420 What time do you go to bed?
00:47:49.840 I go to bed whenever, whenever, whenever.
00:47:53.340 I like to be in bed, at least during the coronavirus,
00:47:56.980 I like to be in bed at 9.30ish, 10 o'clock.
00:48:00.300 During normal times, it's not unusual for me to stay up later.
00:48:05.340 You know, stay up until 10.
00:48:09.100 But it doesn't matter when I go to bed.
00:48:11.080 I just don't like sleeping, so I just get up.
00:48:13.640 If I wake up any time after 3 a.m., I just stay up.
00:48:17.800 Yeah, maybe that's why.
00:48:26.840 I do 2 times 8 hours per day.
00:48:29.660 You sleep 16 hours a day?
00:48:32.460 Okay.
00:48:34.400 Yeah, it's easier when you don't have to.
00:48:36.160 That's true.
00:48:36.960 It's easier to wake up early when you don't have to.
00:48:41.080 Maybe all the successful people have moved to California.
00:48:43.520 Well, you know, California has one advantage, which is for getting up early.
00:48:48.540 When Californians get up early, they have somebody to talk to.
00:48:52.320 Because we can talk to the East Coast, because the East Coast has been up for a while.
00:48:57.140 If you're on the East Coast and you wake up early,
00:49:01.820 the only people you have to talk to are people on the East Coast.
00:49:07.360 All right.
00:49:10.600 Do you take naps?
00:49:11.700 Naps?
00:49:14.060 Rarely.
00:49:15.260 I do.
00:49:16.400 I do.
00:49:17.480 Naps are definitely in my toolbox.
00:49:21.420 But I'd say maybe a couple of months.
00:49:31.760 I've changed to get up now for you.
00:49:33.840 Well, thank you.
00:49:35.740 Thank you for getting up for my periscopes.
00:49:38.360 Yeah, I think people are different.
00:49:43.940 I'm not sure that everybody can learn to be a morning person.
00:49:46.540 I wish you could, because the morning is definitely the best part of the day.
00:49:53.400 Yes, the Brits.
00:49:54.760 There's always the Brits that the East Coast could talk to if they get up early.
00:50:00.660 Good point.
00:50:01.320 All right, that's all I got for today.
00:50:03.540 I'm just babbling.
00:50:04.640 I will talk to you tonight.
00:50:08.340 And remember, you're going to have a great day today.