Episode 864 Scott Adams: Pls I’ve Thoughts Before Bedtime While Self-Swaddling In a Warm Blanket
Date: 2020-03-22 | Duration: 37:45
Topics
My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a Yeah…I don’t know what that title means either.
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
> [!note] Rough Transcript
>
> This is an auto-generated transcript and may contain errors.
## Transcript
[0:14]
hey everybody come on in it's time for self swaddling you know warm soft blanket with Scott Adams still working on the branding I know it's not catchy it's not crisp it will never be a famous international brand but it sure feels good all right happen if you have tried it be honest when I told you it just feels good to wrap yourself in a nice soft blanket and you'll just feel better how many of you tried it if you did you have already realized that it works somebody's saying that Greg Gutfeld is on well you should record that or watch me on recording after you watch that that is the beauty of technology you can have it both oh yeah you could have it both ways but one of us has commercials and the other doesn't and if I were get
[1:17]
and the other doesn't and if I were get a record one I would record the one that commercials sorry Greg but Greg's got the number one show in his time slot in addition to his other number one show in his time slot so I think he's doing okay I would like to give a special shout out to the people who are going to work the ones were running the essential services because there are a lot of us and if you if you're being honest about it the first several days of the stay home not so bad at all not so bad a lot of people will admit that stay home for a few days if they can afford a or if they're still getting a paycheck pretty good deal but there are other people and we should now forget them not just the men professionals of the front line not just the first responders who have their own
[2:18]
the first responders who have their own job plus you know this on top of it but just the the people were keeping the lights on there are people who still going to work still thinking the chance and they don't really have much of a choice about it because you need your water you need your electricity you need your essential services and so special thank you from all of us who've got to stay home and be safer because of your good work so thank you so I'm seeing lots of people prognosticating about where it's all going and I feel as though they're all making the same one of two mistakes so I haven't seen anybody make both of them but maybe I have but they make at least one of these two mistakes in the analysis and it's a mistake by omission in other words if if these two variables didn't exist then everything they say would it be quite
[3:19]
everything they say would it be quite sensible but the two variables that keep getting left out are how effective are the pills you know the what is that the chlorine oxy hydro clunk la whatever it is and the is this - I think I said them both correctly but we know there's this cocktail the president tweeted about it the the professionals the experts doctor foul cheese playing it down as you should because remember he's a smart guy so if you see two smarter people and I would argue that the president is quite brilliant in his you know his field ouchy is brilliant in his field if you see them seem to be in a different page you have to sort of you know dig a little deeper and I think what's happening here is that the president wants to give the country hope so he's a little biased or the the Hopi side of
[4:19]
little biased or the the Hopi side of things but that he's been told there's reason to have hope I don't think he's making it up you know I don't think you wouldn't rogue pretty sure he's talked or you know real people who said yeah this combination of pills looks pretty promising but here's the thing everybody in the world wants those pills and they want them before they even have the coronavirus right because I mean you know seriously if you could you know on the down-low get a little batch of that medicine so now you do it once you just to keep your family safe if not yourself and you'd say well if I got enough of it I think I'll just be chopping these for a while because they they don't have a gigantic risk unless you take them for a long time and maybe that's not your plan so if you could hoard them would you oh yeah oh yeah you would be a hoarding son of a son of a
[5:21]
would be a hoarding son of a son of a beehive wouldn't you my kids my children who are awake late and home from school yeah so here's what I think is happening and the media is reporting it like it's some kind of a mistake of communication or something I think they're missing the whole story which is the president sort of depending the good cop you're not used to that are yeah when was the last time the president Trump played good cop right he usually plays bad cop but he's playing a good cop you know I feel good about this I'm no doctor can't guarantee it but feel good about these these pills and doctor foul she's playing bad cop productively productively if you said to me Scott you know I'd really I'd be a lot happier if pouchy just agreed with the president or conversely I'd be a lot happier if the president just said exactly what foul she said there was
[6:22]
exactly what foul she said there was just no difference would you would you would you be happier I wouldn't because I think that they got their act exactly right you know I doubt they talked about it and say you do this I'll do that and I don't think it's like that but I think it's just two smart people who knew that they had a slightly different job so they did they're slightly different jobs did them well ouchy kept us from you know having a run on these things president Trump said there's a reason to be optimistic I kind of like those dual messages actually that works pretty well for me but so here's the first thing when people say where it's going to go they kind of discount the fact that if the early reports are right the pills are kind of a solution it's a way out now you'd have to design your path out but it's the variability you need to complete the designed because right now
[7:23]
complete the designed because right now without without the pills and without the testing kits which is the other variable that people forget actually the testing kits people act as if they exist and and very smart people will say people people I don't know what you're all missing here all we have to do is test like crazy and then we can all go back to work yeah with the non-existent tests now of course they exist in great quantity but the quantities we need are even more vast than the tremendous amount that we've been able to put together so far so yeah there's nobody there's nobody who has missed that trick if you're explaining to us that we need to do massive testing I don't know what you're really telling me because I think that's what every single person in the world wants to do if we add massive number of tests and are pretty sure we're working pretty hard on that so any analysis of
[8:25]
pretty hard on that so any analysis of where this is going needs to mention those two things that the pills will probably have I'm guessing sooner how hard it is it to print additional pills I'm guessing is something you do do pretty well I mean it feels like you could you know you just crank those babies out like crazy couldn't you so if I had to guess we're get enough pills way before we're given get enough test kits so I see it as sort of a two-phase thing which is phase one if we're happy that the pills work then we can say okay if you're young healthy and under sixty under these conditions and in these places give it a shot go back to work you know and as soon as you get a symptom boom go and get a pill because we have enough of them now so that's phase one phase two is the tests and you have to have enough of them and you have to they have to be used in a statistically wise way which we can
[9:27]
statistically wise way which we can figure out and then you can start to free up the over sixties and the people at risk you know you need the tests to get to that last level but you could rescue the economy before you get as many tests as you need and this is what I think it would take I think it would take pop-up tents staffed by your nurses and you know maybe retired medical workers who know enough to put on a mask so do we have enough and they know enough to you know keep to keep a distance from people and then make them drive up and and this is just how I would do it and this is only because it's an emergency right so if it were not an emergency this would be way too reckless but although all the rules are suspended in favor of what makes sense at the moment so we're not we're not just going by the rulebook and now we're going by what works you know what's my risk balance and that might
[10:29]
what's my risk balance and that might make you know it might be different in any moment so here's what I can imagine a set of rules that would be something like this you you feel like you've got a cough you drive immediately to one of these pop-up tents that's ideally it would be walking distance from a major hospital in case anything needs to be quickly identified for escalation you're right there you drive up you get a line behind the other car so you're not you know you're not being contaminated by someone who has it and maybe you don't have it so you're not staying in your in your car as the car as the cars move up the medical professional says checklist have you filled out the checklist that we you know that we put through a crack into your window while you were you're waiting earlier so you had time to fill it out and the checklist would be you know a prior medical history trying to find out if there's any reason these drugs would kill you I do you have any underlying conditions
[11:29]
I do you have any underlying conditions you know what kind of symptoms are you having and then when you get there maybe you don't even hand the paper to anybody maybe you just hold it up to your closed window and you say you know here's my deal and if there's just a one-page checklist the medical professional from 6 feet away says all right looks you know looks good you you qualify we don't know if you have coronavirus but here's here's the important part of the idea it doesn't matter if you have enough of the meds and they work and and we have a good feeling about them being safe enough in short-term doses so then let's say that you've held up your thing you your checklist looks good the medical professionals 6 footed way behind behind there your glass window they don't know if you have it or if you have seasonal flu doesn't matter because they have enough pills so everything depends on having enough right it's all about that and then you say ok you qualified the
[12:31]
and then you say ok you qualified the checklist works pop your trunk so without getting out of the car you pop your trunk they they throw the pills in the back with some instructions and want to take them they close it with their elbow and you're off no physical contact not even not even a hand off contact nothing changed places come somebody says no trunk I don't know I don't know why I mean you can just throw it in the backseat the point is you could do it easily without any contact and then you can and then you could just start cranking now now the big variable is is a safe enough is it efficacious is it will we have them in large numbers and do we know who it would be dangerous for exactly you know do we have enough so those are some big questions but they feel very solvable that's so you know the reason that I I
[13:34]
that's so you know the reason that I I try to draw the picture this way so you can actually visualize it because I hope I drew a picture where you actually imagine the cars in line you saw the pop-up tent you saw the professionals and you saw the whole scene and the reason I do that is that if you have a problem and you can't even imagine how it could be solved that's just the worst kind of problem so whether that's the solution as I described or a go to some other path we're definitely going to get to the other side of it that's the only thing that's beyond question we'll get to the other side of it you know one way or the other but if you can imagine this series it should make you feel comfortable because it's pretty practical and then you know you do that get the economy back to work that new 75% and a few few months later you've got enough test kits to start phasing in the over-60s so that's how I see it going down and that's all good I told you to put some
[14:36]
that's all good I told you to put some questions in my Twitter feed and so I'm going to answer some of these questions
tesla p90d says what would need to happen for quarantine to end next week well I don't know if we're calling a quarantine but I know what you're talking about what would need to happen to I don't think there's any chance it ends as a complete thing next week so I wouldn't want to give you any optimism then next week it's just all off hey everything's back to normal I'd say that's a zero chance but I'd say there's at least a 50% chance that in one week the medical profession will say yeah we don't have the the largest best longitudinal studies in the world for these meds but darn it seeing such good results we just have to go with it it wouldn't make sense to hold off at that point so then it's a
[15:37]
hold off at that point so then it's a matter of do you have enough pills and pop up tents or whatever your mechanism is to get it to people doesn't have to be tense all right so I'd say 50% chance you'll have really good news next week on on a path out but really bad news about number of people infected that's just going to keep going up for a while aren't they what do you think contributed to New York's current situation the most well it's probably not one thing it would be density would be one it would be a climate where people are still kind of indoors a lot for another it would be more international travel than maybe any place else in the country it's a large population you know crowded areas is basically everything you know every possible thing that you could have there would make things worse except elderly right now I'm talking off the top of my
[16:39]
right now I'm talking off the top of my head but having been too you know mostly Manhattan but been to New York lots of times I'm often struck by how young it is San Francisco is similar so it could be that New York will have you know just tons of infections and baby because they're you know they have also the first-class hospitals and I think a lower percentage of elderly somebody's saying true in the comments but you know I'd have to see a source all right alvaro says el faro says is Trump going to be a really always liked to express that in a if nothing changed which is ridiculous right because everything will change nobody saw nobody saw the corona virus coming a month ago but from day one when people have been asking me about reelection I always say if nothing changes and of course it will so sorry
[17:42]
changes and of course it will so sorry useless too for prediction when you know everything's gonna change and it will matter it's going to be big stuff but if you straight lined it and just said what we know today is just exactly the only things we'll know on Election Day you would win in a landslide it wouldn't even be close and that's already and that's before we get any kind of a good result with this by Election Day will will certainly be on top of it so yeah he'll I think it will just might be one of the biggest it's possible it will be one of the biggest blowouts in election history it's possible I wouldn't say that's probable but it's very definitely possible all right Marsha asked me have you stayed so upbeat during a turmoil
practice you know a lot of it is just being able to see the field you know I talked about this almost too much which is you know the longer you live the more
[18:43]
is you know the longer you live the more things you've seen so I just have a larger framework of things I've seen but on top of that my actual life experience is really varied you know from corporate and economics our marketing you know branding persuasion communication so I you know I'm not I'm not like world-class of any of that stuff but I've done a lot of it and I've I've seen a lot of it so when I see our current situation it would be how do I say this without making me sound like a genius there's nothing like that going on it would be like a chess player who's experienced versus a brand-new chess player so I can I can just see a few extra moves because I've studied economics and you know the few other things that inform my opinion so when you can see a few extra moves and it looks like there's a path out and it's a path out a certain this is a weird
[19:45]
path out a certain this is a weird problem because as enormous as it is our victory over it is actually not in doubt and it's hard to think of any other situation where that would be true almost any situation we say to ourselves well it's a big problem we're gonna work on it and we just don't know how this is going to turn out but this virus is very different we actually know how it's going to turn out we went we don't know how long we don't know what it'll cost but we win so it helps to know you win and it helps to know that there are a number of winnable paths beyond that part of my technique which I've been recommending all week is that you just you treat your nerve management you know your own just a sense of anxiety that where you used to think that was also important it's like well I got a lot of things I need to do I got to work you know take care of my family whatever but
[20:46]
know take care of my family whatever but I you know it also like to you know work on relaxing so you know I'll spend half an hour exercising that day that's not what I'm talking about now this is a major worldwide psychological phenomenon if you have the time and a lot of us do because we're locked down if you have the time your full-time job should be taking care of your own mental state because we need you at your best and it's also how you stay healthy so your your immune system will just be better if you keep your attitude good and your you're working on your your stress reduction and your fitness and everything and and I've been saying this for several days now and it's it's actually getting truer every day I've never been so healthy I'm like crazy healthy right now I don't know if you can tell you know because I've had a rough several months just you know one little nagging thing after another nothing important but man I mean I'm
[21:46]
nothing important but man I mean I'm exercising just right I'm sleeping well I've gotten rid of a lot of other stresses in my life just because life simplified so much I just have less to do and I'm just taking it like it's my full-time job I talked to you I do my cartooning but other than that you know it's a nice warm shower a nice long walk outside play with the dog it's my full-time job so if I see him I seem like I'm handling the stress well that's not that's another a genetic gift that's the result of hard work and in a strategy and working on it literally every day and putting lots of hours into it
it somebody says your your polyps sound worse well do they do buy polyps sound worse I said I feel like I sound a little less nasally to myself but you
[22:47]
little less nasally to myself but you know you can never hear yourself exactly so what was I saying Oh so in terms of relaxing so because
this might be a little bit too much behind the curtain information but watch out it doesn't change anything because those of you are regular viewers of my periscope have formed a relationship with me and I don't think that's too strong a word you know that you know I I'm always you know gagging when people on TV say oh we're all the family and stuff like that but I think you would you would agree there's something about this medium the live-streaming and especially the way periscope does it their interfaces is just tremendous that makes this personal this feels like a personal connection and because we have a personal connection that sets up what
[23:48]
a personal connection that sets up what a hypnotist would describe as pacing and leading you've heard we talked about this before so because you've pasted me meaning that you know you sort of you know you've done the simultaneous if you've done what I did you you meet me here in the morning 7:00 a.m. my time whatever your time and because it's part of your routine we formed like a connection as if by an invisible string you know when you pull I go you know and you're pulling as well as I'm pulling because I'm reading your comments and responding to them in real time and you can feel it you can feel you you know commenter will pull me and i'll go and then I'll pull you and then you'll pull me we're just connected by this invisible stream and because of that that created an opportunity that I could relax myself and it would relax all of you and that was actually a conscious part of my strategy now of course I would have done it for myself under any under any circumstances but but I
[24:52]
under any circumstances but but I realized consciously that because of this connection we informed the more the more relaxed I am the more you will automatically be relaxed you know almost independent of what I say about things as long as I don't you know whip you up into a frenzy so it's all very intentional and I and you know I'm not trying to hide anything I am trying to pace you and lead you to relaxation and I hope that I'm doing that so let's look at some more questions are you using let's say Simon Says are you using your same movie slash story slash narrative framework you know what I mean says Simon for understanding coronavirus and how humanity responds well so for those of you don't know what that question means I'll give you a little framework I've I've often said there for reasons I can't explain and it's it's entirely
[25:52]
can't explain and it's it's entirely most likely confirmation bias so there's a little bit of sort of an illusion about this or maybe not if we're a simulation maybe it's not a coincidence but here's the concept that real life at least that the public stuff the you know things we watch like elections and stuff like that conform to with the three acts of a movie so often that it's hard to explain how it happens on its own unless of course is just selective memory and confirmation bias so there are lots of reasons I can imagine it's happening but if you were to somehow scientifically measure it you know you wouldn't be able to find it but with with Trump i early on in the process I predicted because I'd seen this pattern so many times in life I predicted that it was starting to shape up like a movie and the way you know it's a movie is that as three acts and there's something special about the third act and the third act as
[26:55]
about the third act and the third act as they call it in script writing is where the hero is in so much trouble it's impossible to get out and you the viewer watching the movie and you go well I know this is gonna take some fancy script writing because there's just no way the hero can get out of this mess and then it happens and that's what makes it a movie so when President Trump was running I had said there's going to be a third act and it's going to look like it's impossible and then somehow he'll win anyway and you know you could argue what was the third act you know the in the summer before the election the the Democrats and Hillary Clinton started saying it's dark it's dark and and it looked like he was just gonna be branded as racist and he made fun of the the gold star family and you just thought I there's this is the third act it can't get worse than this and then the Access Hollywood tape
[27:56]
this and then the Access Hollywood tape came out and I said to myself darn it I got fooled because I've been telling people also that a good movie has faked third acts things that you think are shaping up to be impossible to solve but then your hero salsa you know it's it's not until you get the to the real third act that is really looking unsolvable and that of course was the Access Hollywood tape and I remember the day I I heard that I just thought oh no I'm watching this movie and there's no way anybody anybody could recover from that but a few days later I don't know why but my confidence returned and I said to myself you know I actually think he is going to beat that I think the movie is going to be a movie a proper movie and I feel like I was the narrator of the movie at least for some people who are watching me at that time so back to
[28:58]
are watching me at that time so back to your question is the coronavirus taking a three-act structure and I don't know what you would identify as the third act because most of its been a little bit predictable I would say in other words smart people were saying early on this is the way it's going to go and then it sort of just it's going just that way yeah you could argue about the pace and and the scope of it but it's basically going the way smart people said it would go if it were a movie there would be still ahead of us maybe you know in the summer there would be something that made it look unsolvable and I don't know that we're gonna hit that because if you ask me everything does look solvable and we can sort of see it from pretty far away so it would be a crappy movie if you could see how the movie was going to resolve itself from you know six months
[29:59]
resolve itself from you know six months away and that wouldn't do it so I love the question by the way and I had been thinking about it in those terms but it's not shaping up like the like a movie a favorite NBA player growing up what a random question which I'll answer
Walt Frazier on the Knicks and at Larry Bird I was just watching ade I was just watching an old I don't know some YouTube clips of Larry Bird have you ever watched Larry Bird play basketball I'm not even like some big basketball fan but oh my goodness it was like not even possible the things he did I mean I guess you could say you know Michael Jordan was was similar but Jordan looked like he had monstrous talent you know and the whole game of s was a monstrous talent and you could and just look like Talent but when Larry Bird played and I
[31:01]
Talent but when Larry Bird played and I was watching when he just of old clips and it's just jaw-dropping because it doesn't even look like talent it looks like magic you know I guess that's why I'm a Jew Magic Johnson guy has his nickname because his plays look like magic but you really get that sense when you watch Larry Bird all right have you ever met Gary Larson I'm not I of course know people who have met Gary Larson and you may I don't know if you know it but might be some news about Gary Larson might be some news about you could be seeing a little bit more of his stuff don't know the details but there's some some motion in that direction somebody says Nico says if you get a mild case of CO fit and recover are you immune I will tell you my non-scientific answer subject to fact-checking the answer is maybe kinda so here's the best
[32:01]
answer is maybe kinda so here's the best I can determine I've been looking for that answer myself and asking it and looking at different people's answers and I don't know if I've ever talked to you know I don't know if I've asked the right expert about this but here's my best understanding that you do get some immunity but it's not permanent in other words you know couple years later if you are not a tree exposed to it it might might bite you again and by then maybe it's morphed a little or evolved a little so it's slightly different I don't know I don't know the details so you should ignore anything I say on this topic but my understanding subject to somebody please fix it is that you do get immunity but it might not be forever
let's see all these masks and respirators is all based on demand cases in the future will we need that many they don't see it happening the vast majority of people would get
[33:02]
the vast majority of people would get infected recover well I've seen anecdotally I've seen some reports from in fact may have tweeted it I'm not sure if I did or I just read it but there-there is a doctor who goes to the math of it and the thing we don't understand is how often they need to change them because if you're dealing with one infected person you need one set of protective equipment and masks and gloves but as soon as you're done you have to toss that stuff or whatever you do with it but you can't wear it a second time if you're doing things properly so apparently the number of masks gowns and stuff that they go through is just incredible yeah we're talking about tens of thousands of them you know per one hospital in a very short amount of time tens of thousands tens of thousands of masks in one hospital in a fairly short amount of time I don't know if that's
[34:03]
amount of time I don't know if that's you know a week or a month or whatever but it's tens of thousands so you know you get the big numbers really quickly because that's just one Hospital Taylor says is this the Black Swan event for blockchain crypto Bitcoin you know it feels like crypto has to prove itself maybe that's why you're asking I feel as though if if Bitcoin had gone up when the market went down I would have said you should never again not own Bitcoin if it's the last thing you do make sure you go a little bit about in Bitcoin if they had done that but in fact it did the opposite and attract the market so why do I need something that tracks the market you know unless I want to I don't hide something or you know I find some other advantage of crypto but it did not did not perform as an asset class in a
[35:05]
did not perform as an asset class in a way that you would want it to see well we got a lot of questions there probably won't be able to get all these estimates a time of return to normal if ever that will be a a phased return and if I no human being by Election Day we're gonna want to have it kind of wrapped up if you know what I mean so you have to assume that the administration being you know human animals who win elections as well as help the country recover you know that it's not it's not inappropriate for political people to act politically in a political season you know you they're doing a an okay job I would say of keeping the politics down to an annoying you know kind of acceptable and annoying level but you know if we start getting let's say 70
[36:07]
know if we start getting let's say 70 percent control on it as if you could measure it that way if we started getting like 70 percent control on it over the summer there's going to be all kinds of push to get it done before Election Day now the excuse of course will be so everybody could be safe to vote but of course the president would have you know a second benefit from that that you can't really ignore so to answer your question I would expect based it based entirely based on what the medical profession says about the efficacy and availability of the meds if you get a good answer about those in the next week or two I think you see people to start going to back back to work in the third week if they're young and depending on where they're going then lots of accommodations and somewhere around Christmas time things looking kind of normal but on our guard because it could flare up again in the
[37:09]
because it could flare up again in the winter so that's my best guess so I'll say that again serious returning to week to work in three to four weeks based on the the pills being good that's the big assumption there but not over 60 is necessarily right away and will phase them in by Election Day ish that's just a prediction by the way so and I think nobody who nobody will go without food and we will recover fairly quickly actually impressively as my guess