Episode 363 Scott Adams: Sonic Weapon Hysteria, Climate Change and Dancing AOC

Date: 2019-01-06 | Duration: 37:02

Topics

Discussion of various climate change topics Debunking both the skeptic and believers arguments The sonic weapon (or crickets) attack on our Cuban embassy

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> [!note] Rough Transcript
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> This is an auto-generated transcript and may contain errors.

## Transcript

[0:07]

bum bum bum bum bum bum bum well it's a beautiful Sunday morning unless you're watching this on replay and then there's a one in seven chance that it's a Sunday hello and good morning you know why you here I know why you here everybody knows why you're here it's because you like the simultaneous F and the simultaneous F is gonna happen in just a moment grab your mug your cup your glass your chalice your tankard your Stein fill it with your favorite liquid I like coffee and join me for the simultaneous it so the news is not really interesting at the moment if you haven't noticed and I can't think of a better endorsement for the president if you could come up with

[1:11]

the president if you could come up with one single sentence that would tell you the president's doing a good job what would it be maybe it would look like this there's no news right because the news doesn't kid they don't really cover good news and we've had plenty of good news the economy is going well etc you know we're not we're not especially going toward war we seem to be going away from war on every dimension so what does the news have to talk about the the biggest story in the news I'm not even making this up the biggest story in the news is a OC dancing on a video in college and and desperately the news business is trying to turn this into a something and I think the latest the latest attempt is to say that the Conservatives were offended by it or or somehow they

[2:12]

were offended by it or or somehow they were they had a bad reaction to an attractive young person dancing and I'm thinking to myself well that didn't happen yeah there were certainly people who wanted to mock her for acting I know silly when she was in college but does anybody take seriously anything that anybody did in college especially dancing wise do you do you want to be criticized for your college dancing I don't I don't think I could handle that criticism my college dancing not so good so anyway when you have a non-story like that dominating headlines that's really good news because if there were bad news to report that would certainly be a lot of reporting of that bad news don't you think so that's all good let's talk about my favorite topic climate change

[3:13]

about my favorite topic climate change so what i'm doing here is for those of you joining late i'm not a denier and i'm not a believer I'm someone who believes that we citizens can't penetrate this topic it's an impenetrable topic and people just default to their biases or their teams because they can't really understand it but I'm drilling down and I'm gonna try to make this sort of an extended tutorial so as I learn things I'll try to simplify them and then share them and I tell you it is fascinating I thought that I would get to the boring part of this topic but it doesn't get more boring they're just levels and levels and levels and what you could learn about this seems infinite and I'm not even talking about the science so I'm completely outside of the science part of it because that's not the part I understand but just watching the the psychology of it the way is communicated the persuasion of it trying to trying to

[4:16]

the persuasion of it trying to trying to solve it like a mystery is really really interesting to me and that's sort of the love I'm gonna be talking about so I'm gonna be essentially taking the side of you viewers in the sense that I'm gonna be talking about this as someone who is in the public and is asked to make a decision about climate change we're all being asked to decide what we want to do about it so that we can influence our governments etc so I'm gonna help you decide and I'll I'll take little chunks of it as we go so here's here's an interesting thing one of the biggest arguments that the skeptics make to say that climate change is not a problem the skeptics will tell you that there was a medieval warming period and they say that if you include that medieval warming it doesn't make it look that warm today in other words there was a warming period and then there was a little mini ice age and that is warm again but all we're doing is getting

[5:18]

again but all we're doing is getting back up to normal so that would be the the skeptics claim about the importance of this medieval warming period now here's what I've been learning about this medieval warming period and it's interesting in both ways first of all it seems that science does agree that there was a medieval warming period but their defense against that is that it wasn't everywhere that there was a warming in the North Atlantic you know the European kind of area but there are other parts of the planet at the same time were unusually cold and that if you looked at all the proxies and I guess sir there may be 10 different ways that you can measure temperature so you're looking at everything from leaves to ice cores to
that I can't remember but there I just read list of something like 10 different

[6:19]

read list of something like 10 different ways you can study things and say ok or tree rings is another one and so the scientists say the the medieval warming existed but it was localized and it was extra cold in other places so now I say to myself okay and some of the theories about why it was extra warm in that one place included maybe there were volcano and volcanic activities there were unusual the Sun activity and maybe the ocean circulation was different in that area for a time now what do I tell you when you see more than one explanation for a thing if you see one good explanation for something that's a good chance is true but would you see multiple explanations that are different for the two explain the same thing you should get a little suspicious so we have a situation here which again

[7:20]

so we have a situation here which again I wasn't there I didn't have a thermometer during the medieval period I didn't measure the earth I'm not a scientist I don't understand all the proxies that they use to measure temperature you and I can't penetrate the reality but when you're looking at how is communicated it's like oh so you're saying that it was warmer but only in one part of the world okay so doesn't your skepticism go up a notch when you hear that because is that the case right now is it the case that if you're not measuring everywhere in the world you don't know what the average temperature is so are we measuring everywhere in the world now it's a it's hard to imagine that we really can get any kind of precision about temperature a thousand years ago so let me ask you this so one of the ways that they can do a temperature proxy is by me looking at tree rings so

[8:24]

proxy is by me looking at tree rings so I guess they can find in fossils or I don't know what the oldest tree is but they can look at tree rings and they can determine what the temperature was a thousand years ago here's my question how accurate is a tree ring and and what kind of temperature differences are we talking about are we are we talking about tree rings are accurate to a tenth of a degree do you think that's the case do you think you could look at a tree uh and determine within let's say a tenth of a degree what's happening I don't know are they accurate to with him one degree I don't really know do you but all I know is that if the temperature differences that we're talking about today are you know it's a very big difference if we go up two degrees are

[9:25]

difference if we go up two degrees are you telling me that I can tell the temperature from a thousand years ago with a tree ring to within a degree or two is that the claim now again remember that everything I say about this topic is coming at it as a consumer of the news I'm not coming at it with any kind of you know deep understanding and that's the point I'm talking as a a well-intentioned citizen who legitimately doesn't know if I should be concerned about climate change I just don't know and I can't penetrate the topic but when you tell me that it used to be that the coolness and the hotness were localized and there could be good reasons for that doesn't that make you wonder if they could measure it today measure it today does it make you wonder if given that they don't have measuring instruments everywhere in the world couldn't there also be places we haven't measured that

[10:25]

also be places we haven't measured that are cooler than normal and and today are there places on the earth that are unusually warm compared to the rest of the world was the medieval time the only time we had this weird thing where one part of the world got warm and the other parts got colder because I don't know any argument and correct me if I'm wrong again this is this is not an argument it's it's displaying the absent my logic Kenny is it true that today we have similar parts of the world that got a lot warmer while other parts are getting a lot colder is that true because if it's not true I have trouble believing that it used to be true and I have a terrible you know terrible time believing that they can measure it a thousand years ago to the level of accuracy a few degrees that we would really know anything today about the long term trend so there's that the Tony

[11:30]

long term trend so there's that the Tony Heller famous skeptic I talked about him a lot has said that a number of the the temperature measuring devices around the world have been adjusted and that the adjustments were sort of judgment calls were statistic I think they call that statistical methods so when they needed to adjust let's say a temperature device they used to be in the shade but now it's in the Sun or vice versa they would you know use some science to say okay if I had better than the Sun that would be this based on other measuring devices that are nearby etc and again I ask myself can we really measure things to that level of a precision using statistical analysis is that a thing can you really tell what the temperature was with precision based on statistics based on measuring other things of other

[12:31]

on measuring other things of other places on the surface it doesn't sound credible and again remember you have to remember my context is different from anybody else you're hearing almost everybody else you hear talking on this topic has already decided that it's either true or fake you know the real or not real I haven't decided I'm looking at the information and I'm telling you which parts look credible even if they're not true and which parts do not look credible even if they might be true and when you tell me that you can measure the temperature of the earth on an average through all these many proxies and that they can get you close enough with them I don't know with him do you have to be within a degree or within within a tenth of a degree and why don't I know that why is it that I've gotten this far in my you know citizen research on the

[13:32]

my you know citizen research on the topic and I don't know if the accuracy of these proxies these different ways that they can measure things I don't know if they're accurate or not or if they're accurate within a degree and if I don't know that what do I know right it's hard it's hard to know anything if you don't know that here's another thing I learned that 90% of the warming is in the ocean now that's good to know right because it means that all the measuring devices that are on land collectively are only going to add up to 10% of whatever the temperature is so it seems to me you could throw away all the land measuring devices couldn't you why do we even have land measuring devices when the ocean is 90 percent of the warming and the ocean probably doesn't suffer from the problem of being in the shade sometimes so shouldn't we just throw away the land measurements and

[14:33]

throw away the land measurements and just look at the ocean I don't know the answer that question and if we did it would give you a different result latter no another argument against the critics and against Toni Heller's argument that the past temperatures have been adjusted are that he's only talking about American or the United States measuring devices apparently so around the world there have not been these same adjustments but even if all of the even if Tony Hillier is correct and that the u.s. measuring devices were rigged meaning that they were intentionally adjusted to make it look like there's more warming in the present even if there were two because it was only the United States and it was only some of the things in the United States it would have been this tiny tiny percentage of all the measuring devices in other words even if Tony Heller is

[15:35]

in other words even if Tony Heller is right the argument is it wouldn't be enough of a change to really even notice so he could be completely right but it wouldn't may really change the total global average but here's the problem what's left out of that criticism is that the claim is that these changes were made all in the same direction and that there may have been some intention behind that if that's true it doesn't matter there's a small percentage of the overall temperature it would show is some kind of a willingness or pattern or the beginning of a pattern of intentional intentional jiggering with the numbers which would lower the credibility so that wasn't addressed I saw a claim that the that the real reason for climate change is wealth distribution and that the the people

[16:35]

distribution and that the the people pushing climate change are really a there really is part of a secret plan to distribute wealth from the rich to the poor or something like that and then the argument is that I see people you're agreeing with that okay I consider that the least credible argument any time you have the secret cabal of of elites or behind the secret worldwide scheme that's not believable because there are way too many people working in this area for them to be all on the same leash if in fact there were you know a small group a secret cabal of y'know George Soros or the Illuminati or something and they had the secret idea to push the fake idea of global warming they wouldn't be able to control that that secret right

[17:35]

secret right now you're saying they haven't controlled it because I know the secret now you know you don't have any you know have any document from some what are you talking about the conspiracy you don't have anybody who was in the conspiracy coming forward there is no evidence of this that I've ever seen and again every time I say there's no evidence it only means that I haven't seen it so I would say if you want to be credible you probably need to stop talking about the secret cabal of people who want to transfer wealth by telling you that there's global warming that's the least believable skeptical argument of them all now I was watching a a famous skeptic dr. Lynn zijn you've probably heard of him if you follow any of this sceptical stuff and he's a I forget where he works but he's one of the more serious more credible skeptics so he's an actual scientist works in the field

[18:36]

an actual scientist works in the field you know he's close to everything so if he if he disagrees with climate science that means something because he's a credible guy working in the field and I watched a Prager University video in which he speaks in his own words and he describes his position and I watched the whole thing and here's what he did not address the central claim of climate science so he was he was presented as really one of these strongest critics is it MIT he was presented as one of the strongest critics most knowledgeable and after he was done with his opinion he had not even addressed the central claim of climate science so he was a critic who didn't talk about the topic I mean he talked about the topic but not the central claim the central claim is that the rate of warming has accelerated recently if you don't talk about the

[19:37]

recently if you don't talk about the recent accelerating rate of warming and all you talk about is that it's getting warmer and it's gotten warmer in the past sometimes it gets cooler you haven't even talked about the topic so here's your red flag and remember I'm giving you red flags on both sides right so your red flag that the the scientists don't have the credibility that you might want is that they claimed in the past there used to be warm parts of the world and that that explains the medieval warming well but there were other parts were extra cold but do we see that today and if we do see that today how confident are we that we've measured the earth correctly with our statistical measurements if it can be getting warmer in one place and colder and the other seems like we would have heard of that secondly when the scientists tell you they can measure the temperature a thousand years ago by looking at tree rings maybe and maybe if

[20:37]

looking at tree rings maybe and maybe if you've combined it with your other proxies maybe but it is not convincing to me that they can measure the temperature a thousand years ago with any kind of precision enough precision to really make a difference so I could be wrong about that so I'm talking as a consumer as a consumer of this information it's not believable on on its face with the amount I can understand as a citizen it's not believable at least in terms of precision but now go to the other side so now it's now I've criticized the credibility of the scientists let's go to the other side so I was just talking about dr. linson somebody's reminding me he's at MIT very knowledgeable he's in the middle of it he gives his I would say as a skeptical view and when he's done he hasn't even talked about the topic which is the unusually steep warming that is claimed for the present now if you're if you're

[21:41]

for the present now if you're if you're one of your strongest critics talks around the topic but never talks about the central claim can you feel confident that the the skeptics are onto something remember the best-informed closest guy probably to the topic and he didn't really have a criticism that goes to the central claim so that raises a red flag all right there's also the question of and this one fascinates me there are legitimate people who say then nobody has demonstrated how this small amount of co2 even if it doubles or triples from word is now nobody's explained how that small amount of gas could cause a big enough temperature difference to be what people are projecting and even measuring and my understanding and again gaps in

[22:44]

and my understanding and again gaps in my understanding so I'll just tell you what I understand and maybe it can get corrected over time my understanding is that the reason we think the co2 is the primary lever maybe not a hundred percent of the warming but the vast majority as scientists claim the reason we think that is that we can't figure out what else it could be am I wrong about that in other words there's a correlation with co2 we know the co2 in principle can raise temperatures the the exact amount it raises temperatures is hard to know but the scientists are still willing to say it's the majority of the reason for the the change the vast majority maybe ninety percent you know but at least over fifty percent they're willing to say that based on the correlation and the lack of other alternatives isn't that the argument is

[23:45]

alternatives isn't that the argument is the argument that we can't directly look at the co2 raising temperature in other words you can't take a microscope and say oh there's some co2 oh I see it raising the temperature there it is we've confirmed the co2 is raising temperature by exactly this much we don't have that kind of measurement we're simply looking at temperature we're looking at co2 we know this co2 is a greenhouse gas and we don't have other explanations is it true that the main reason that co2 is considered the primary driver is that we can't think of anything else that would be doing it there hasn't been debunked I think that's true right does that sound convincing to you because here's the problem it leaves the it leaves open the option that there's just a reason we don't know that do we still have open the alternative that we

[24:46]

still have open the alternative that we just don't know seems like that's always open alright the other claim that just blows my mind way this just blows my mind way they're the skeptics say and I and I saw this even just minutes before I started this periscope skeptics say how do you explain that for 17 years the temperature has been flat to which I say what that's exactly the opposite of what scientists say scientists say the temperature is going up steeply how is it that people in 2019 can get on the internet and say well all the evidence is the temperatures temperature is not going up at all now I think it might be because of the satellite measurements so they're you know one of the popular ways to measure things is with satellites but the satellite measurements have been debunked by the scientist as being you

[25:48]

debunked by the scientist as being you know not a not a good enough measure compared to all the proxies compared to things on the ground so I guess the the satellites can measure the upper troposphere so they're measuring the air but they're not they're not measuring they're not measuring the water and they're not measuring the land per se the air and I guess there are there are enough reason there are enough reasons to discount that that the the claim that the temperature is not going up in 17 years I believe is just false isn't it isn't the one thing we could probably know better than anything is whether the temperature's going up in 17 years and I haven't seen anybody shoot nobody send me a link to show me the temperature not going up but you know there's always some skeptic with a graph how is it that we could be in 2019 talking about the biggest topic in the world climate

[26:51]

biggest topic in the world climate change biggest topic in the world and we don't know for sure if the temperature has gone up in the last 17 years now here I would put more credibility on the scientists it does seem to me that it would be almost like impossible for the scientists to be wrong about the temperature over the last 17 years and we've been really looking at that stuff so somebody's saying but it didn't will somebody send me a link to anything that claims the temperature has not gone up but here's the trick you can't use satellites as your source because they've been already you know that that has been debunked by the scientists so if you have evidence that the temperature hasn't gone up let me see it alright yeah what is the margin of error

[27:54]

alright yeah what is the margin of error for temperature measurements so I'll say this as a citizen I don't believe the claim the science knows the temperature of the earth historically within certainly with him two or three degrees I just don't believe that right now it could be true but to me it doesn't sound unbelievable let's talk about I'm gonna end up talking about the sonic weapon remember the Cuban embassy and there were people who had apparently real health problems that they say were caused by maybe a sonic weapon used by someone now I told you in the very start I said this is a classic mass hysteria and that there are no sonic weapons and then it happened again in Canada and the Canadian embassy and again the reports were another sonic weapon and I told you again there are no sonic weapons it's a

[28:55]

again there are no sonic weapons it's a mass hysteria today the New York Times or the other day reported that they have a recording of this sound which they had suspected might have been the problem and it was literally crickets crickets
and now they're still saying we still think it was a sonic weapon but the thing we recorded that we were you know there was a strong suspicion that was the sound that was causing the problems was a cricket it was a cricket and
here's here's what I'm here's my follow-up prediction the follow-up prediction is that the news industry will slowly walk back the idea that it was a sonic weapon now and they're they're several in between stages until they get to the point where historians will say ok it looks like it was a mass hysteria in between them they're going to be

[29:56]

in between them they're going to be stories like the one I just mentioned where they say well there were also coincidentally some crickets but the crickets happened at around the same time as the sonic weapon and by the way we've measured all these people and we found that they had real identifiable physical changes in the brain and and real health problems with their inner ears and stuff now here's what I asked you if you took a hundred people chosen randomly and you told that hundred people that they may have been victimized by a sonic weapon that could affect their brain and their balance and he was just a random under people and nothing like that actually happened and you take them to the doctors and you tell the doctors hey doctor we suspect there's something abnormal about some of their brains we think they've been affected by a sonic weapon do you think you'll find 10% of those hundred people are diagnosed by

[30:58]

those hundred people are diagnosed by possibly even more than one doctor as having brain damage that is probably caused by the sonic weapon what are the odds you get 10% of them with a positive diagnosis even if they were just chosen randomly and there was no sonic weapon probably a hundred percent I would say the odds that some of them would be diagnosed you know incorrectly as having some brain abnormality because we all have different brains right probably 10% of them at least would look like they had actual sonic weapon damage so this could not be more identical to a mass hysteria it couldn't be more perfect and I told you that from day one it's like okay this has everything about it that is mass hysteria and now just watch it play out and you'll see how right I am I remind you that when the Vegas shooter first shot and I said it's not Isis and then the news said it's probably Isis

[32:00]

then the news said it's probably Isis and I said it's not Isis and then the news reported that Isis had taken credit for the Vegas shooter and these people said well what do you say Scott no you're wrong Isis almost never takes credit for something they didn't do and what did I say this is the time that they're taking credit for something they didn't do it's not Isis time goes by and we find out it definitely was not Isis so I'm pretty good at predicting these things ahead of time and the Cuban sonic weapon I probably have never been more confident about a prediction it's probably as confident as you'll ever see me about a prediction and I've been pretty confident about some predictions alright
so the challenge for today on climate science is to show me any evidence that warming has slowed in the last 17 years well you can't use satellite data you

[33:03]

well you can't use satellite data you have to use any of the other measuring mechanisms because the satellite is limited all right never been more wrong on this one you say I could be wrong but I've never been more confident I do have a I do have a history of being confident and wrong just like the rest of you it's loaded so people just keep telling me the temperature let stop doing this how about how about you stop doing this stop simply being person on internet who tells me the temperature hasn't gone up the that's useless if you can't show me a link that goes to NASA or the IPCC or or even a skeptic who's a real scientist if you can't show me that don't just tell me the temperature didn't go up you must read it in some some non-scientific

[34:03]

it in some some non-scientific publication why do they make a satellite device that doesn't correctly measure the temperature I would guess because that's not possible I'm surprised that a satellite can measure the upper troposphere or the lower troposphere or whichever troposphere that are measuring I think it's a lower I'm impressed by that but making a satellite they can measure the temperature in the ocean would be pretty darn good so there's a graph you say in the Forbes article I post it don't point me to my own article tell me the source what was the source of that and why is it that Forbes you know routinely report stuff like that and it's not in other publications you have to ask yourself that - why not use satellite data

[35:12]

that - why not use satellite data satellite data you can google it yourself but the satellite measurements have been debunked by they've been debunked by the climate scientists so they're not ignoring it they have a specific reason why it doesn't tell you what you think it is
what is your link saying this satellite temperature is unreliable you could just go to Wikipedia and you know don't don't depend on Wikipedia's description I know you don't like that as a source but Wikipedia will point you to the sources that will tell you that so but Wikipedia is great i collecting links to things that are dependable how much would you factor in vested interest well as I like to say there's more than one science involved in climate science and one of those Sciences is cognitive science psychology etc and all of the psychology

[36:14]

psychology etc and all of the psychology of it - suggests that we shouldn't trust anybody involved on either team so if you want to ask me who to believe based on vested interest you should believe neither side both sides are pursuing self-interest and in case in both cases it should be according to all we know about science and brains both sides should be acting irrational at least to a degree so I would say it might be a tie in terms of the irrationality on both sides
yeah all right I will talk to you all later I hope there is better news or more interesting news tomorrow bye for now