Episode 852 Scott Adams: Afternoon WuFlu Chat
Date: 2020-03-15 | Duration: 27:44
Topics
My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a An afternoon chat with Scott
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## Transcript
[0:12]
hey everybody come on in it's time for a special afternoon whew flu chat with Scott Adams now I do this partly because I love you partly because sports got canceled and what are you gonna do how many of you were sitting at home thinking what are we gonna do for the next however long this is we're a little bit bored well luckily luckily you have me now I was going to skip the simultaneous sip but I can tell you need it you do I don't have any coffee with me so we will be substituting the delicious aqua aqua it's some other language for water plan I know doesn't matter does it well if you'd like to join me for these simultaneous sip really the second one of the day this was the bonus one this
[1:13]
of the day this was the bonus one this is just you know almost too much all you need is a cup of our glass of tanker Telesur sighing I can't eat Karger blast FSL of any kind fill it with your favorite liquid I'm liking the water at the moment and join me now for the unparalleled pleasure of the dope immunity of the day the actually the second dopamine to the day the thing that's going to make everything a little bit better still it's a simultaneous up go well I think it's up to me to give you the good news you've been you've been watching the bad news and all those other channels and I'll have some tips for you to to manage your stress here in a moment at some point I might have to hypnotize you directly not every one of you you know you can always turn it off but at some points you might want that you might want a little hip
[2:13]
you might want a little hip for stress relief or even just entertainment oh you know what I just thought I bet I could use this time to develop like a class on persuasion or something and then then you'd have something that was you know dependable will be like every time every day at this time we'll talk about a lesson or something let me think about that looks like we're all gonna have a little extra time on our hands starting today first a little update from my area of the world our grocery stores pretty pretty wiped down at this point and what's interesting about where I live is I live in the same town as the executives and the headquarters for a Safeway the biggest supermarket now if I had to guess I think I'm in the you just by luck I'm in the one of the safest places in the world in terms of being sure there'll be stuff on the shelves
[3:14]
sure there'll be stuff on the shelves because I think Safeway will make sure its own executives are somewhere near the beginning of the pile here's the thing that you need to know if you're worried about running out of stuff you ready because if you see people you know hoarding and you haven't hoarded enough you might say oh no it's the end of the world but it isn't it is not it is not because this is a weird kind of crisis it's not like any others and if you compare it to anything you're gonna get the wrong answer the the only thing you should compare the blue hard and floow2 is itself you know don't compare it to anything else so here's why you should not worry in the long run this short run there's gonna be some hiccups and you'll get scared because there's not enough of this of that but the grocery stores make a lot of different kinds of food and if I had to guess I don't think that I do have to guess we're really good at making stuff
[4:17]
guess we're really good at making stuff and putting it where it belongs and we could still do all of that with you know 20% of the people hiding and the other 80% of the people working staying six feet six feet away from the other people here's what you need to know about people let's say there's a loud explosion in your block and you think it's a whatever terrorist attack or something watch what happens to the crowd for every for every person who runs away thinking uh there's some unknown danger I run from unknown danger you watch and there's some number of human beings who run toward it every time every single time human beings most of us will run away from danger you know depending if we have the capability to do anything well we know and who we are at cetera but we are we are a species that is full of people or way braver
[5:18]
that is full of people or way braver than I am who will run directly a danger a lot of them it's not even a rare let's call them in the context of this you know this coronavirus thing let's call them ordinary heroes people who do not possess you know some special superpower but they're gonna be taking more risk than the rest of us there are some people who will step into the breach and say you know I could get killed but I'm gonna do it anyway because that's what we do people do that I'd love to say something that I could be one of those people but the good news is there are plenty of them so for every you know idiot who's over hoarding toilet paper you know we have just as many people who will say you know hey if you can't deliver bread in that truck hand me the keys am i right if there's a truck they can't get to a supermarket you think
[6:20]
can't get to a supermarket you think nobody's gonna step in of course they will if there's something in the field that needs to get picked do you think we can't find some people to pick it yeah we can you know they might need to stay away from each other in Washington and stuff yeah it'll get picked if it needs to be stocked on the shelves of Safeway and you know the person who does the stocking is sick that day is they gonna get a stocked yeah sure because people are just gonna step in the thing with the food the food supply chain and really it's true from the paper goods and every other part of that is that it's all easy stuff meaning each each individual little slice of it that's pretty easy so if you get sick I could do your job probably tomorrow carrying driving cash register I could do that so you're not going to you're not going to run into people and therefore you're not gonna run into food as long as people have money to buy it so the people who are maybe losing their income have a you
[7:22]
are maybe losing their income have a you know a bigger short-term problem than the rest of us but they will also be surrounded by people who did not lose their income and for whom you know feeding one extra mouth is not a big deal so wallet you know I would never advise you not to take precautions because you just be ready for adding captain if a emergency I think the thing you should worry least about while also preparing I'm not talking you out of preparing I hope you don't hear that preparing is good if for no other reason than this stimulated the economy do you know how much the grocery store and you know maybe even you know other businesses like Costco and drugstores everything do you know how much that you guys stimulated this month Oh somebody guess about how hard cash I think there's another good example the the odds of the banks being closed minimal that there's
[8:23]
banks being closed minimal that there's a good chance that you won't be able to go into the lobby of a bank you know without certain precautions or something but it'll get done you know most of that stuff is telephone stuff anyway ATMs should probably work fine I imagine that there will be people stay in the game side with you know cleansers or they'll tell you to use your elbow or a pencil to push the buttons or something that might be a good idea but no I don't I don't think there's really any real risk of running and banks cash food electricity gas both you know both the liquid kind in the gas stove runs on I don't think there's any chance of those things being impacted in any in any long-term light so other than a given day you might begin convenience but you'll be fine so what's different about this and if you're if you're saying to yourself yes Scott but I see pictures of emergencies
[9:23]
Scott but I see pictures of emergencies and other countries and they don't recover that fast well what's different about this is that we're not we're not running out of anything we actually have so much extra in terms of extra labor you know that if we need it
it an extra everything so we mostly need to make sure that the people who are not getting a paycheck yes some kind of compensation and I would say again and I'll probably do this on the next day or so but I'm planning to just buy gift certificates and all the local restaurants you know and that's just a good idea and then later you can use it use it so all it does is you know shift your spending because the moment I can go back to restaurants man am I going back to the restaurants you know I guess I'm pent up traveling in some pent up buying and some pent up a lot of stuff so I'll say it again when the economy comes back it's going to come back faster than you expect so whatever you
[10:24]
faster than you expect so whatever you whatever you thought was the long-term implication if you were to take the average of all the experts put me at the fastest yeah I would be the public figure saying that the once we get a handle on the on the virus which we don't have yet but once we get it the recovers could be frankly astounding I think it will be just breathtaking Scott do you think we have a diploma see opportunity with Iran nope I do not and that's very low on my list of things to worry about this week but I don't think Iran is going to budge I think they're just deal with their problems we'll deal with ours and then we'll get back to things here's what I found who worked with kids all of you were adults are having a problem right now telling your kids that their time with their friends is going to be shut off I did a
[11:25]
friends is going to be shut off I did a little AP testing and the a/b testing determined that there was one thing I said the seemed to be completely effective so here it is the one thing I said was the government says you go stay six feet away from your friends which is true so it has the advantage of being true it's not a law per se but I don't say it's a law I just say the government says you need to stay six feet away from your friends now let me explain a way that works and everything else doesn't it goes like this hey mom or dad can I have gonna go to sleep over no can I have can I just go over to one friend's house no can one friend come over here No so the point is you get negotiated to death but if you say the government says you have to stay six feet apart that hits
[12:27]
have to stay six feet apart that hits that hits hard because that's serious business that's not a well there's three friends better than four friends is you know should I stick with two should I face it into one as soon as you get it to anything that could be negotiated yeah you're you're gonna end up negotiating and you shouldn't so try it at home see if it works and give me some feedback if you say yeah we just got stay six feet apart because the kids wouldn't want to play with their friends if they had to stay six feet apart anyway there is some good news coming and it's pretty big it's pretty big this this virus thing affects you every part of our human experience and one of the play one of the things that affects the most is our psychology so the way we think about things just got changed and we don't know exactly how that that will play out but let me tell you I'll just give you a small example how good are you gonna feel when
[13:31]
example how good are you gonna feel when this is over now I don't know if it'll be over like you know there'll be one day where they say hey everything's good probably it will phase back to normal slowly the way it sort of you know phase in to where it is well it's gonna feel great and here's the other thing you're going to appreciate your normal life like you have never appreciated it before because man do we take for granted everything really but it's not your fault it's not your fault that you take for granted you know that things work around you it's now your fault at all because the way your brain is designed you're supposed to stop paying attention to the things that are not a problem you wouldn't be able to live your life if you put as much attention on the things that are not a problem as the things that you need to solve so of course we take you for granted but man is it gonna feel good when it's over like seriously good and it's gonna last I give you I give you an example two
[14:31]
I give you I give you an example two examples actually there was one time way back in my past when I couldn't eat for I don't a week or something this is some dental issues all I could have is you know gruel and the first time I had a solid meal after not eating regular food for a week you cannot believe people you can not believe how good that food felt likewise I some of you know I had a problem where I lost my ability to speak for a few years when it came back you have no idea how happy I have and continually grateful all day long I'm grateful all day long that that old problem was solved and I don't have that anymore so it's gonna feel good and it's going to be a very connected feeling because you're all going to feel good at the same time so look forward to that but all right so here are some other good good news coming and it all has to
[15:33]
good good news coming and it all has to do the same point that our psychology just changed the psychology changed but we've never had a time in human history so 15 billion billion years yeah 15 billion years have transpired since the Big Bang give or take two or three billion and we have never ever had all the smartest people on the planet the galaxy if you like the smartest people in the galaxy focused on the same problem at the same time not there's nothing like this you know you could go back to well what about the Manhattan Project nope nope because in the Manhattan Project communication was kind of bad and we just had to use the scientists that we had it would happened to be here you know but on this problem the entire world the smartest most capable people are all immediately engaged and they're working hard and they're putting in
[16:35]
working hard and they're putting in they're putting in the serious time and effort now here's what you need to know do you ever wonder what your dog or your cat thinks of you because your dog or your cat looks at you and you know is that you can do some things that they can do but on the other end the dog and the cat can do some things you can do so I don't know if your dog your cat recognized how smart you are because it's a curious thing that if if you're the smart one in the room you can tell how dumb the dumb one is but the dumb one can't tell how smart the smart one is right because you can only understand things up to the level of your own intelligence if somebody's above that you don't know how much more above that they are because it all doesn't make sense to you so they could be twice as smart 10% smarter and it's all just confusing to you just like your dog looks at you this is sort of how you and I are looking at the geniuses literally geniuses around
[17:36]
the geniuses literally geniuses around the world MIT you know at basically every you know sloan-kettering basically everywhere that you've got geniuses all working on this you got your Silicon Valley geniuses you got people building apps you got you get a lot now our government is not really staffed with the same level of genius if we could be honest but they don't need to be because their job is to get us focused moving in the right direction and close airports get rid of regulations stuff like that and they're doing it well so there are two types of jobs in this crisis there's the everyday hero job where anybody can do it you know if you need somebody to finish driving that bread truck to the supermarket so we don't run out I could do that give me the keys I can't I can't invent a new vaccine but luckily we have people who can geniuses and we have politicians who are a closer to the everyday hero type of person than
[18:36]
to the everyday hero type of person than the genius but they're doing their job to do I care that they've made mistakes not right now not right now later when this is all over I'm gonna be one of many people saying hey we'd better look at what we did here to you know see what we can learn find out what went well and what didn't not so much for blaming people but you need to know what worked and what didn't so I'm all for that later at the moment blaming each other for doing things wrong is sort of not the right vibe for an emergency because our president does not operate in our government at the moment anyway in 2020 it doesn't operate as some kind of independent machine that's off they're making decisions that's not what's happening that machine is wholly dependent on the public and the experts feeding it what works and I have heard nobody say and
[19:38]
works and I have heard nobody say and correct me if I'm wrong here's the point where you would lose confidence and I don't think this has happened where somebody very smart or ideally more people that want saying hey we we made this presentation to the president we said youth we think you should do X and then he used his lack of expertise to override us if you hear that you have a right to be worried if what you hear and so far this is all we've heard we've heard it even from political enemies in the president that people are bringing him ideas fully formed that's the kind of idea you want you know a fully formed idea and they say can we do this and the president say yes we'll help do you need you know what what can they do to make that happen better so everything's working quite quite well the problem is gigantic I mean gigantic we haven't seen anything quite like this recently so it's gigantic but we've never had
[20:39]
so it's gigantic but we've never had this kind of capability focused on it so what I would expect somebody says the Fed got reach to 0% well there again so you've got your financial experts jumping into the into the fight what can we do and then they did it now if I feel as these little tweaks to the economy are primarily for our psychology every time every time the government tweaks some little things or the Fed tweaks some little thing you say to yourself Oh smart people are watching they're reacting they're paying attention I'm part of a part of the big enterprise here where the right people are making the right decisions so what I see the Fed cut its rates I don't know that it makes any difference economically except that the economy is a psychology machine and if you think it makes a difference if you think it mattered it did it did does that translate some to people acting rationally in the way the capitalism likes here are some things
[21:40]
capitalism likes here are some things that may end up a way better after this crisis passes and other people have said this but it's worth seeing them in the list online education do you think do you think education in person will ever be the same because if you get enough people to try enough online education you can get a lot of people saying first of all I kind of like this it's a little bit better and the other thing you're gonna get is a lot of people being exposed to it and then people say you know maybe I want to work on this maybe I want to make this online education thing better maybe that's the industry that's gonna be growing like crazy because I think it is so unlike that online education might have gotten this huge you know unexpected boost I think you can see a bunch of inventions come out of this whenever there's a war people invent stuff because you always need to invent
[22:41]
stuff because you always need to invent stuff to get an edge on the enemy I I don't know my history very well but I think radar would be an example correct me if I'm wrong but I think radar was invented for war purposes and look how useful this so we're gonna see a bunch of inventions and these inventions might be the type that really make a difference now I mentioned this thing called the fari UV light I don't know if that's real meaning there's a type of light with a certain frequency it's not regular UV it's far UV and allegedly it can knock viruses that in the air basically and kill them on surfaces and things now I don't know if that's true or if it works well enough or it only works in some cases or whatever but you're gonna see stuff like that that maybe you just wouldn't have been invented so quickly before you know anybody who's got an idea for something that would help in a pandemic well they're gonna get funded right so you're
[23:41]
they're gonna get funded right so you're gonna see a bunch of businesses jump up about this you're gonna see the door dashing world take off you know I've said for a long time that restaurants will probably you see in a little bit already sort of transmogrify and to takeout or delivery only so I think some restaurants are going to survive by being super proactive and take out as long as they can get their kitchen staff there so that might be a difference you know you might you might see the cost and and and convenience and availability of home delivery of warm food just go through the roof the other thing is people are designing all kinds of systems to live better I've told you my system for decreasing any unnecessary stress is you know exercise and staying busy and having a purpose and all that stuff I'll go through the
[24:41]
and all that stuff I'll go through the list you've already heard it but I think a lot of people that I'm hearing it already have already implemented systems for them for their own world so your system might not include taking walks every day like mine but you probably probably will find some kind of system for exercise and eating and fitness and they might have Stick healthcare will never be the same the president I guess the federal government said it would be okay for doctors to practice across state lines for telemedicine for the the length of the crisis but apparently there's still state restrictions and I thought oh wow I thought to myself oh wow state restrictions that means 50 50 different entities have to say yes before you've got full practicing across state boundaries but I'm expecting that to get solved I hope it does and if that got solved that would be gigantic that would
[25:43]
solved that would be gigantic that would that would affect that would affect the the cost of healthcare in general so that might be some good stuff coming out of that I told you that South Korea has these portable CT machines so they can they can actually test people with a portable machine so why can't we have those I'm sure we will we turned off my phone if you notice that the the messaging from people is going up pretty bit pretty much yeah grocery stores are also helping with delivery you'll see young people helping old people you can see all kinds of stuff the other thing that might change is immigration
and here's the the psychology part of that Oh actually I'll be on I'll be on dr. Drew's later so I'm gonna I'll get
[26:43]
dr. Drew's later so I'm gonna I'll get off so you can watch him if dr. Drew's on periscope I don't want to compete with that so let me just say that stay six feet apart and I think that immigration people may have a different opinion of it after this because it's one thing to say yes we should let people come across our open border you know people on the Left saying that but it's another thing when you've just put in your emergency supply of food and people are still coming across the border you're gonna think of it differently because there's nothing to stop people from walking up and taking your food and it's you know people are gonna figure that out so I think the psychology of an open border may be dead now so I think open borders is a dead idea but I'm getting it off and I think I'll watch dr. Jews periscope as well and join me later I think I'll be on at California time 3:30 ish so add three hours for the East Coast and I'll talk to you later