Episode 858 Scott Adams: Come Relax With Me. You Need it.

Date: 2020-03-19 | Duration: 35:19

Topics

My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a Human ingenuity, especially in an emergency situation

If you would like my channel to have a wider audience and higher production quality, please donate via my startup (Whenhub.com) at this link: https://interface.my/ScottAdamsSays

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## Transcript

[0:08]

everybody come on in let's talk so you've probably gotten a lot of time in your hands I don't know about you but I've picked my my skills my challenges you know I've told everybody that they should commander this with an extra skill because you have all this opportunity to learn something you know online or some hobby you wanted to get together and somebody's yelling at because Tucker's on you've got a DVR work it out
so I didn't forgot it what else was talking about I'm sure it was fascinating everybody's yelling at me because Tucker's on you know you could watch the Sun replay or you could watch him on replay it's the thing you know I'm having a harder time watching Tucker because he's been right about everything which normally would be a good reason to watch something but he's right about how

[1:09]

watch something but he's right about how terrible things are and I find it a little overwhelming so I get it I'm giving myself a a major diet from TV news at the moment and pundits I still love the five you know still like you know some of the some of the shows I think I'm gonna get me get a smaller scare so I'll watch the ones I don't think are gonna scare be basically as long as I can get the the news in any way that I want but I thought I'd give you some good news now good news should not be mistaken for hey everything's gonna be good in a week I think we got a couple of tough weeks out of us but there are some really good things sort of shaping up and bubbling up some of them I know about and I thought I would share them with you so though I was gonna mention the two skills that I decided to to enhance so I'm gonna still work on my studio set up I've got yet

[2:10]

work on my studio set up I've got yet another path to go on that I think I've finally figured out something that would give me a stable stable way to have callin guests and then you can't stop me because that really is what you need in order to have a you know have something that a lot of people want to watch is you have to have guests every doing in and since I live stream I would like the live stream and have a guest and there's apparently no hardware and software in the world that does that reliably there are lots of them that do it and you know lots of people are using them but if you talk to them privately it's like okay privately does this work every time oh no that's a big problem you know some it's there's always some little thing that changes you got to update the software anyway enough about me so I'm working on my biceps and my studio and by the end of this crisis I expect really big arms and a kick-ass studio because I can I have the time there's

[3:13]

because I can I have the time there's absolutely nothing would stop me from having those two things and if you haven't picked that with something that you're going to be better at well maybe it's time alright so here's some good news in the past two days just just think about human ingenuity so that's the context how good are people and how good are they in an emergency and how good are they when everybody's on the same team looking at the same problem at the same time my hypothesis has been the you ain't seen nothing that you know there's there's gonna be a long delay while we're making weapons but man are you gonna see some stuff that'll be mind-boggling and and it's starting now the mind-boggling part is starting now here in 48 hours this is what human beings did just with ingenuity we tripled the capacity of doctors today

[4:13]

tripled the capacity of doctors today just today do you know how we did that Mike Pence announced that the I think it's Health and Human Services is going to announce a regulation on what the word is that was let's say it's a regulation but it or advisory it doesn't matter what it is but they're going to allow doctors to practice across state lines now if you want to feel confident about your government consider that you know that's an idea that I put up through the pipeline you know ordinary guy sitting in in Pleasanton and next thing you know it's the law of the land and effectively it triples the capacity because there would for every city that's impacted there are plenty of doctors who are not yet impacted we're happy to help retired doctors etc so in 48 hours we tripled the number of physicians who are

[5:16]

tripled the number of physicians who are available at least remotely you know we still need hands on people in last 40 hours 48 hours humans figured out how to quadruple the number of available ventilators without buying ventilators you know I told you about this they there's a there's a quick little hack you can do just using stuff that's already in the in a regular hospital so they don't have to you know go to go to Orchard Supply or Home Depot and buy anything it's just some medical stuff that they just repurpose turn to a ventilator into a four person Bennett ventilator now I think they may end up staying with two but that would be a doubling so in 48 hours and this is not counting adding doctors and not counting buying new ventilators or making them we could you pulled the ventilator capacity potentially and tripled probably at least tripled this is just my own numbers off the top of my head but something like that tripled our medical advise capacity Wow

[6:17]

medical advise capacity Wow 48 hours our food supply coming back online we have the most robust maturer you know experienced food supply line probably in the world I would think I maybe somebody maybe somebody has a better one but I would guess we have the best one and sure enough snapping back it's snapping back I would say if you could put a number on this I would bet that the average person has reduced their number of contacts you know this is just for sizing this is not any kind of real data but from something like 25 people a day to maybe five and most of the five or the people in your family or the people you were gonna see anyway well I'm thinking about that putting numbers on this you know we've reduced it from probably 25 to 5 you know that's just numbers

[7:19]

25 to 5 you know that's just numbers that make it up but it feels like that number of test kits who we we've scaled up so that already anybody who dr. says should get a test can get a test pretty good now we're way short of being able to massively test everybody who doesn't have symptoms so you really know what you're doing but there's all kinds of stuff happening you know companies are going into wartime footing the the smartest best most capable people are just spinning up factories you know I noticed I know more than you do I'll be telling you more as the days go on but I there's some things that I've heard that are still still a little early in the incubation stage but there are some heroic stuff happening out there you know people are stepping up like crazy so here's my guess is that the number of test kits will you know it got

[8:21]

number of test kits will you know it got off to a slow start but when we start cranking these out you know America is still pretty capable and we're gonna crank out a lot of tests and apparently there's some kind of breakthrough that I don't know how hard it would be to develop it but just I'll mention it for a something you would test at home and get a result at home I guess or maybe you mail it mmm probably mail it I would guess but still you could do the test at home without having to go somewhere now I don't know if that'll or it could be scaled up as quickly as it used to be but you know don't count anything out at this point you can't count anything out that we might be able to scale this up like you've never seen same with all the other supplies from from masks the gloves to everything else I I can guarantee you that there's a lot of manufacturing muscle going into that right now a lot the number of potential meds that can be used to treat this that

[9:23]

meds that can be used to treat this that now different countries are reporting are effective the report it's effective and I think there I was trying to keep track of how many there are and I think there are something like ten of them now there's something like ten different meds that various countries have tried and have written up reports this I you know without the benefit of a clinical trial they're saying basically everybody we gave this to got better and the people that didn't get it you know not even close so I've seen at least three of the ten that the evidence you know just again anecdotally looks really promising and I don't know what it would take to make more of these bills but it can't be you know it's not like the Manhattan Project it's it's a pill machine operated a faster and more built another one we can make pills then what

[10:28]

another one we can make pills then what about the record we set for getting a vaccine into a trial sixty-five days is that did I get that right I may have that wrong but fact-checking this but didn't we break records you you couldn't even imagine it could be broken 65 days to get a vaccine into trial and there's a whole bunch of others that are right behind it that's amazing now here's a an interesting thing that's happening and well and I'm going to tweet around as soon as I as soon as this is written up I'll give you more information about it but there does seem to be some suggestion that blood serum from recovered people gives you some immunity and you know the other countries have experimented with that and they they thought it worked so here's the question you know could you could you scale that up and I'm going to have at least a well

[11:29]

up and I'm going to have at least a well thought out answer to that pretty soon so people are stepping up and then you'll know where we came from when it happens the New York Times did a despicable hit piece on dr. drew I don't know if you saw that I don't recommend you go look for it but they're loving him in human with you know the so called flu deniers now here's the problem as far as I know and you'd have to fact check me on this but I believe that dr. drew has always been a hundred percent compatible with doctor foul Qi who are you listening to I mean if if dr. drew listens to the top expert in the country who's running the thing and his opinion you know he's changed his opinion but also so as fetch e in terms of what we should do and web right am I wrong I'm pretty sure that ouchies opinion of what we should do and when has evolved

[12:30]

what we should do and when has evolved as as the situation was evolved my impression is the drew matched him in lockstep as evidence came out as more facts gaming I think it was perfectly compatible am I wrong about that I feel like I've been watching them both and I've seen I've seen no I've seen no distance between their opinion and in fact dr. juice stops and says almost every five minutes when he's talking about it you know that his North Star as doctor foul cheese and he's known him from long before he's the best and and he just conforms to his expert opinion this it happens so I really have a bad feeling about the New York Times deciding to make political hay under this especially a medical professional who's completely compatible with the top expert in the field and that's kind of despicable I think I think they have some explaining to do when this is over now again we'll

[13:32]

to do when this is over now again we'll do our autopsy when it's all over yeah a lot of people will have some explaining but let's focus forward you know that happened can't take it back and go back in the past it happened so let's let's focus forward oh you guys feel it I have to say I'll give you a little road map of how my sort of attitude and worry has migrated I think I was most worried when I wasn't sure that the president was on his game I think we all had that feeling right you know it felt like he got you know did a great job of stopping the airport travel can't take that away from them that just will always be one of the greatest presidential decisions of all time and probably in my opinion that will that will rank as one of the great presidential decisions no matter what

[14:35]

presidential decisions no matter what else you like or don't like about what he does here so you can't take that away from but his communication was a little spotty and I want to correct myself and apologize to the president for a criticism that I didn't realize I didn't understand the full context and now I do and the criticism was that when the president tweeted in the middle of the emergency that it was a you know blah blah it's a Chinese flu or Chinese virus I winced along with much of the country because I thought okay I said you know he's doing his thing where he's being provocative and it draws attention it's productive for him he uses it you know maybe it makes the base happy etc but despite all that you just seemed to me it's like now now now you're gonna do that yeah I love it when you do it in normal times I mean nobody likes it more than I do you see you see me laughs

[15:36]

than I do you see you see me laughs until I cry at his tweets I mean you've seen it yourself but now now really this is the time to do that but here's where I was dead wrong because I think some of you had the same feeling maybe dead wrong completely wrong here's what the President did he saw the reports and by the way this is from the president I'm not reading his mind I'm telling you what he said directly today that you know yours asked his press conference why did you call it the Chinese flu because we're so dumb we can't do real investigative journalism but maybe if we can trap you into saying something provocative we'll take it out of context one so why'd you call it Chinese fruit I believe that was exactly what they asked them I think I nailed it exact wording and the president you so I forget what the reporter was it's forgettable doesn't matter it says why'd you come why are you calling it the Chinese flu and the president dead serious just looks at her and he goes because it came from China now if he'd stop there

[16:42]

you know I might he said well you know I still this is still in the weeds I don't want to care and then he said and then he said that a Chinese diplomat and I saw this tweet myself is claiming that the virus was spread by an American service person maybe intentionally in Wuhan and the president said that when that rumors out there that America started the virus from that point on it's a Chinese flu I don't know if he was calling a Chinese flu or Chinese virus I forget but with all due respect to the people of China let's not make this personal but if you're going to try to brand us with this with this don't try the brand do you have children at home everybody has children at home we'll turn off the sound or or ask them

[17:44]

we'll turn off the sound or or ask them to leave the room there will be cursing are you ready for that there will be cursing it's coming I gave you a warning so you only have yourself to blame in the context of the Chinese government obviously the Chinese government had to approve of this diplomat and he was a minor diplomat but still you know he was a ambassador for some country it doesn't matter and so he says he blames the United States for it now if you're gonna try to brand that on the United States a good time to do it would be if the president the United States was maybe Obama President Obama you know it'd be a good time to try branding us with this would be I don't know Bill Clinton President George Bush George Bush either George Bush you know that might have been a good play China

[18:45]

that might have been a good play China might have been a good play to try to brand us for that but you know what it doesn't work when the president of the United States is the best Brander in the whole universe sorry China you're not going to brand our president you're not going to do it he branded them like they were cattle and if he didn't catch it let me explain it when the president said it's a Chinese virus he knew well that it would cause a shitstorm and what do you remember about it don't think what he said don't think what the question was what are you gonna remember about it it's a Chinese virus is what you can remember my president did that I'm proud of him good job and what are we talking about Chinese virus Chinese virus Chinese

[19:47]

Chinese virus Chinese virus Chinese virus do all of you now know that China made the dumbest move they've ever made they tried to help brand Donald Trump like and it didn't work he just branded their ass right back to Wuhan I loved it and so let me say I apologize for criticizing my president for doing that I didn't know the context and why he did it but good move nice play and China don't with us like that you know try something else try hacking us you know try try a negotiating a better trade deal you might have a chance don't try out branding President Donald Trump that's just not going to work dumbest thing you ever dead she all right swear it was done the the

[20:50]

all right swear it was done the the cursing is over now let me tie this story back to my original point when when the virus first started I felt like our president got off to a shaky start but as I've said often the one thing you can't take away from them I even even his critics can't take this away from him he's a really fast learner I mean you've seen him jump from industry to industry and then dominate it and you know becoming president on the first try well wasn't first try but he became president without practice of being a president or a politician so so here's why I feel so much better I feel so much better because we're on war footing the president has fully embraced the war president model and boy is he good as so he wasn't really good at the what was us baddest bad stuff is coming our way but

[21:51]

baddest bad stuff is coming our way but man he give him you give him an enemy let's say China he's really good at that so you don't want to be his enemy and so you know he's just one part of the a very large machine that's working on this and I would say that and I've said this before but the more I say this the more this is going to be a filter you're going to want to look at long before the coronavirus I had told you that we were approaching the Golden Age doesn't feel like it today but we're approaching the Golden Age because we no longer had material shortages and there all of our problems that were remaining were information problems in disguise in other words if you had enough information you can solve it the virus is the perfect example it is purely an information problem that is disguised as a medical problem because that's the outcome of not having the right information but watch our

[22:52]

right information but watch our information acquisition process seven billion human beings all on the same path in terms of the same objective at least those that are paying attention each of them have you know hands and eyes and ears and brains and they're all like little sensors and all of those sensors in the form of human beings all over the world are sensing their world and they're absorbing information at an incredible rate and filtering it and finding you know what's good so the information that it would take to to defeat the virus is moving very quickly but the nature of it is you don't see the impact until it reaches some critical mass so imagine if you will that our information went from nothing you know fog of war if we had information it was more likely wrong and right to something to something much bigger and we're sort of here right now we need to get here you know something like multiple of that but the rate at

[23:55]

like multiple of that but the rate at which were going that's not going to take long so the in the testing kits for example or information gathering the the knowledge of what worked and what didn't is information the knowledge of had a you know change of ventilators so it helps for people the information have had operated if we need more people is information the you know even even starting up these little wartime factories to rapidly build medical equipment I'll bet that's almost entirely an information problem in terms of how long it takes because in an emergency you get rid of you know the obstacles so you got the money everybody's on the same page you're gonna you know skip some steps of approval and stuff like that but imagine you don't have that friction you're trying to build an emergency factory and there's no friction of complaints or policies or programs it's all been wiped away what's left what is the obstacle that's left it's pure information

[24:56]

that's left it's pure information because if everybody who is involved in the project suddenly could magically know exactly what to do and here's the important part when in other words they they would only drive to the to the site just as the the site was ready for that exact piece it that'd be an information solution so information ultimately is how we beat all these things it gets translated into technique and strategy and and weapons against it and our information is increasing insanely there's a story out of Israel that Israel and I know what you're going to think about this before I say it but Israel is apparently tracking every residents phone location and and there's a record of where it's been and they're they're crunching those numbers so they can find out if somebody is identified to have it they can actually reverse the history and find out all the people who

[25:58]

history and find out all the people who had cell phones that were standing with an infection distance and they send them a text message and say are you coughing because you stood next to somebody who's infected maybe you should stay away from people for a little while now
that's what can be done now do you think that other countries couldn't do that no of course they could I mean the the more advanced countries would be better at it but yeah every part of that is is well within the quite doable range now if you're wondering how is that possible the phone companies already have a record all the time of where you're where you are with your phone they just don't share it but it's an emergency so apparently in Israel they shared it I don't know other another situation with their phones over there so how do you feel now right because under normal

[27:00]

you feel now right because under normal circumstances the public would say no effin way you are not gonna track me everywhere I go but at an emergency if it's the difference between you know crash in the economy and not would you allow the government to track you let's say for three months now of course you're all cynics and you say Scott Scott Scott if we let them do it temporarily they will build the capability and then they'll just do it permanently to which I say what reality are you living in they already have the capability do I know that no of course not
not it would be a state secret if if anything like that were happening but do you think there's any chance that the countries who can do it are now looking into it right because now the Israel's announced it the cats out of the bag people could react to that we can see how people react to that etc so I tweeted when I saw the story about the Israel situation I said in public in the

[28:01]

Israel situation I said in public in the tweet that I give permission to the United States government to track my phone for the duration of the crisis now of course they don't need my permission right that's what that's what an emergency is you know there's no point having an emergency if they have to get my permission to do something they just need to do what they need to do but it's got to make it easier you know it's got to make you know you've got to make at least it more possible if citizens say you know under every other condition no way
way under this condition go for it but you know check in when check it again in three months because you know you need a hard stop on this in three months you know maybe you need a maybe you need a federal judge or something appointed just to make sure it gets shut down at some point you know you could take care of it these are these are the kinds of things that could be fixed um so I would say that our our leadership team is a plus you know I had

[29:01]

leadership team is a plus you know I had a few things I was sort of waiting for to make a judgment on how competent the government was being one of them was to see how long it would take for for an announcement that doctors could practice across state lines for the duration of the emergency at least and turns out it didn't take that long I don't know how long was it a week but that's that's pretty darn quick you know in governmental terms so you're welcome you know I don't have any way to note that that wouldn't have happened on its own I just know that I worked really hard on it and and I do know that you know the the idea got to the right people at the right time so that's all I know but one has to one has to think that you know for every time you have a brilliant idea of doing something probably somebody else had that idea because it wasn't it wasn't so non-obvious certainly the telehealth people probably had to have that at top of mind but if

[30:03]

had to have that at top of mind but if the citizens helped broad it along a little bit you know maybe we helped in some small way so I was looking to that to see if it got done because if that simple thing couldn't get done what kind of confidence would you have a new government I mean really so that was like a real marker of confidence to me that that that a no-brainer thing indeed was treated like a no-brainer nobody pushed back that was it no push back I think it just sailed right through the other thing I looked for is whether politics is taking a side you know a side seat and when you see the you know the Republicans try harder to give money to you know the low-income people to get through the crisis that even the Democrats I don't know that that's true to just you I'm just saying that for hyperbole both the Democrats and the Republicans are trying

[31:03]

Democrats and the Republicans are trying hard sincerely to do something that looks pretty socialist at least in the short run you know we'll we'll call it a different thing it'll be emergency but it's got a socialist in the short run so we're seeing people get at least in some sense you know free health care for this particular situation the ubi is almost certain to happen and I don't think anybody's paying their school debts at the moment so nobody on the Republican side well maybe somebody probably somebody is but I haven't seen it they don't seem to be pushing back against doing something that Andrew yang thought was a good idea a year ago I mean you would expect that right if we were just being political if you were just being politically you'd expect that the Republicans would say no keep your socialism we'll work it out but they're not so watching the Republicans become completely flexible about what's on the

[32:05]

completely flexible about what's on the table and what's not it's encouraging it's very encouraging somebody says somebody says Nancy Pelosi is being political well she's also you know other than approving some money I'm not sure she has much of a role it looks like an executive branch thing once the once the Congress gives them money and they have let's see just looking at your comments
this isn't socialism this is stimulus and healing yeah yeah you're also well-trained that you don't want to use that word socialism but yeah anytime you're redistributing money from from the rich to the poor even if it's going through the government you can call it whatever you want the point is that the Republicans are not blocking any idea that looks like it could be productive so that's why you want to see if you want

[33:05]

want to see if you want have confidence that's exactly what you want to see so we got that so if you ask me every part of this looks like we're getting smarter and better and if we're focusing on the past it's a mistake I think we can look at that stuff later and learn something what about the election with the virus stuff going off well I think we're gonna work it out my guess is that November is a long ways away in emergency time I've said this before but in you know a normal time you wouldn't be able to you know retrofit your your entire election process and do it quickly and get it done but I have to think that you know I have to think that in the context of an emergency we probably have ten different ways we could you know retrofit the system and you know make it work so people don't get infected so my guess is the

[34:06]

get infected so my guess is the primaries are probably going to get cancelled maybe the convention will get cancelled but maybe both conventions looking cancelled if if one of them does they'll both get but I don't know that we needed any of it because nobody's doubting the Biden is going to be the nominee right nobody's really doubting it do you need a bunch of people to be in a room to figure that out there's got to be some way to work that now so I think it'll just be an inconvenience in terms of the political process and people will work it out that's my guess somebody says should I buy a gun well it's probably too late probably too late that's a personal choice all right somebody says flu season has to end sometime does it well regular flus do we'll see all right I think you said everything I want to say I think doctor

[35:08]

everything I want to say I think doctor must be having a good day over there because all my audience went over to watch him but I will talk to you in the morning so stay alive stay alive