Episode 880 Scott Adams: Enjoy the Simultaneous Swaddle and DIY Ventilator Instructions
Date: 2020-03-30 | Duration: 39:09
Topics
My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a Content: A DIY ventilator for about $100 President Trump’s best press conference to date Disappearing medical supplies sent to NYC Bill Ackman proposes biggest infrastructure program ever
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## Transcript
[0:14]
hey everybody come on in it's time for the simultaneous swaddle it's that time when you get to enjoy the unparalleled pleasure feeling connected to people all over the world at the same time wrapped in a soft blanket or just thinking about it or just wishing you were wrapped in a soft blanket well we got plenty of news lots of stuff to talk about a lot of people are gonna bring you the bad news about the corona virus and I figured that beats pretty well-covered all the bad news but is there no light at the end of the tunnel is there nothing that we can appreciate while we get through these tough times well I think there there are lots of things one of the things that I would like to celebrate is human ingenuity quite quite impressive wouldn't you say today in fact I tweeted an article i retweeted an article that
[1:17]
an article i retweeted an article that MIT came up with a design where you could make your own ventilator for parts that I guess are easily obtainable for a hundred dollars now who saw that coming you know what's a real ventilator cost probably I think it's over $10,000 it's pretty expensive right somebody tell me in the comments how much does a good ventilator cost so when I saw that the geniuses at MIT had invented a do-it-yourself $100 a ventilator I thought I'm gonna make one of those and I thought I'm not going to be selfish and just sort of make it for myself I want to also teach you how to make it so trust me this is easier than you think so I'm going to teach you how to make $100 possibly less because you'll be using material say you could obviously I think all of you have around your house so this is be
[2:19]
you have around your house so this is be the first time I've tried this but I'm confident a lot of people you don't know that I'm not just a cartoonist I worked as an engineer for years at the phone company and when I say I worked as an engineer I mean as an engineer on my business card I didn't have any actual training but I worked near engineers and I had the same job done and if you work near people long enough you can pick up you can get the vibe right you don't have to you know spend four years in college you know MIT you know you work near people you pick up things and so I started to assemble the parts and make sure that you're writing this down they're not many parts to it but write this down so you want to look around your house and just use common household items for example grab your air hawk I
[3:20]
items for example grab your air hawk I know you have one of these so this normally would be used for filling up a tire that's a to inflate a tire but you know by itself well this would be a pretty poor ventilator by itself right and think we could agree but then you want to take a tube that comes from your hydroponic garden that turned out to be a huge mistake and you want to insert the tube now watch this into the air hawk like that all right then that and then the other tube is available now this isn't the kind of thing that you want to just start using on an actual patient without a little testing so you're going to need to run some kind of a clinical trial I've been safety first so you're going to need one other thing you need one of these now I don't know exactly where you
[4:21]
these now I don't know exactly where you can get one of these probably a home depot I got mine in the back yard when I was digging of digging a little foundation for a shed and and I thought you know I might need it someday so I thought well not gonna throw it away and if you were gonna throw it away what bidden would it go and it's not exactly trash you can't really recycle it it's not lawn clippings so I was kind of trapped I wanted to discard it but I'm also a good citizen so I'm like well maybe I'll just reuse it someday more it's almost like a recycling thing so anyway you see you take the tube that's attached to the airhawk that goes in here that then you turn on the air Hawk and then and then
[5:41]
turn on the air Hawk and then and then you remove the ventilator again less than a hundred dollars in parts stuff that's that's already in your home your your patient has recovered as you can see you have to use a little bit of imagination here it's not I mean I can't do everything for you and you can see that the hundred dollar ventilator was quite successful now somebody's suggesting duct tape that's a fine upgrade that's a good upgrade all right so president I gave a press conference tonight I rank it he is guess one I would say in number one and you know of course people have and will continue to mock me sometimes was good with good cause because when I say good things about the president they say you only say good
[6:44]
president they say you only say good things about the president no matter what he does but that wouldn't be the case lately I think most of you would agree I've been pretty pretty brutal on his earliest you know his some of his earlier communication but I would have to say of all the Trump public things he's done I mean not counting rallies they're their own category but the if you count you know press conferences I would say this is his best one not just of the not only of the pandemic situation but the best of his presidency I would say and I think actually clearly I think it was actually just a clear best best of class so far so good job there mr. president I thought he had all the right notes he had the right tone I loved it when he fought with CNN that's
[7:45]
loved it when he fought with CNN that's just part of the show somebody on Twitter said you know was was mocking him and by extension me was mocking the president for bragging about his ratings for his press conferences and you know I guess the the assumption was that it would be bad to be dealing with this you know catastrophe but also you know in the same breath is saying that your ratings are really good and I thought to myself what kind of an artist are you because in my world one of the most important functions of the government and certainly of the president is to inform the public to tell us what to do what's coming up and you know even you couldn't argue in the details about some little stuff you know the details were wrong and had to be corrected I don't think any of that's going to matter in the long run but I'll tell you what does matter what matters a lot is that the
[8:48]
matter what matters a lot is that the citizens feel that they they really have some kin action to its government and the government is doing lots of stuff which the citizens don't know is the right thing the wrong thing the right time we don't really know but we like to feel connected to something that's happening because just being connected to it hearing about it you know learning battery figuring out what we're supposed to do knowing what to expect and all that stuff is super important so what would be what would be more important than having good ratings you know the way the president does it is always more interesting and provocative than someone else would do it but should he not is this going too far I mean it's just too much for Chile or for the president to say that it's absolutely functionally superior to have more people watching him inform the country what to think and what to know and you know not what to think exactly but you know what what to
[9:49]
think exactly but you know what what to you know what we need to know that they know that sort of thing what can be better than having a big audience it's crazy so I mean he nails have done that that that's probably the strongest thing he does that nobody will ever be able to to equal you know in the history of future presidents I doubt they'll ever be one who can command attention the way this one can and see if you have the same response that I did so today the president was showcasing a number of I guess CEOs of big companies that were being especially helpful for the pandemic so there's CEO of ups and CEO of this and that hospital and whatever and so some of the CEOs got to say their little piece first a table there was an earlier setting where they were sitting around the table but with some good distance and yeah and then later when they was at the podium you know some of them would come up and say a few words
[10:50]
them would come up and say a few words and I was really struck by how little charisma these top-level CEOs have compared to Trump yeah if you have it to play it back or anything just look for that just look at the the raw wattage of the CEO it's just as a charisma scale they forget about whether you like him or don't like him I'm just saying pure interesting charisma and then you watch the president come on and like that you know the stadium lights come on and he's just it's just like a billion watts brighter then then these guys who are top CEOs in the whole country you know and I'm not saying this is any kind of an insult the CEO is because they're they didn't get their jobs by you know being bad at what they do obviously you know I assume that all those CEOs are just you know the top
[11:50]
all those CEOs are just you know the top level kinds of performers or they wouldn't be in that situation but even they kind of disappeared a little bit when Sean when Trump was in you have the same zip code it's I don't think people will quite understand how good he is history is gonna be so kind to him if nothing worse happens you know assuming that he doesn't break anything in the future if if all that happens is we get past this and get back to something kind of normal he will be judged so well by how well he captured the audience and got our attention at least at least for that stuff anyway at this moment the death toll from the corona virus is negative meaning more people are alive because of it now I'm not saying that's going to stay that way but it is a fact
[12:53]
going to stay that way but it is a fact that the actual natural deaths that we would have had from car accidents and such is actually been studied now there's enough data that we can look at and say well how do we do for you know accidental deaths that week and I think they're down like five to five to ten thousand so since the the lockdown got serious something between five and ten thousand people are alive that would have otherwise been dead now the cost of that is a little over I think I think it's crossed 2,000 people have died so far now you can't compare because the coronaviruses is far from done all right so we don't know what that number grows to and that's the only thing that matters in the long run but will we save another five or ten thousand lives next week you know or I'm not sure if it was a one or two week period whatever it whatever it was but certainly we're going to be in lockdown some more so
[13:54]
going to be in lockdown some more so wouldn't you therefore conclude that we will get whatever we say it before would probably continue so we might save
fifteen to thirty thousand lives I mean a great cost of course because you know people are dying a coronavirus the economy's you know taking a hit so at great cost but you have to add all the costs of the benefits if you're actually going to have a an adult opinion about things you have to say this counts because it's all the same decision it caused the side benefits those have to be in the calculations so I'm gonna I'd like to go on record as being the most optimistic person who also thinks that the corona virus is super deadly there there are people more optimistic than me who never thought the corona virus was going to be worse than the flu so I'm not counting them that they can have a
[14:55]
not counting them that they can have a competition within their own category I would like to be the biggest optimist in the category of people who also think it's exactly the same pandemic that the experts think that they that the the topside worst case actually is somewhere in the general vicinity of what the experts say so I believe that to be true I don't know it to be true but we're all we're all kind of guessing are we I don't know it to be true how could you you know my years on this earth you know whatever whatever brain cells I have have converged on that opinion fairly strongly that the the downside risk is pretty tremendous if this got out of hand so I'm you're I believe that we have several ways out and that if we can hold on as the president has now moved the target date if we can hold on to the new
[15:55]
target date if we can hold on to the new target date will will either have a lot more supply of things we need include masks tests ventilators will have we might have more kind of lessen serum you know we might maybe we'll have DNA tests we're probably getting better read social distancing so there's a whole bunch of stuff that can happen in the between now and the new deadline which is April 30th I believe so April 30th is sort of the new expect to be locked down until then date but of course everything is flexible based on changing data now I would like to update something that I had said earlier so before the President had ever picked a date and before he had ever said let's you for Easter I had said he should give us a date even if it's wrong even if it's revised because you'll feel better and it won't
[16:57]
because you'll feel better and it won't change what we do because they'll always have the ability to revise anytime they want but you just feel better if your government said well we don't know what we're going to shoot for this so that was the Easter date almost immediately some of the experts were saying wow you know it's sort of aspirational which is the word that president used today and and when he revised it he talked about talking to all of his experts considering all the options you know I think the public and this is something he did really well I think the public really thought he wanted to get back to work soon so the fact that he you know that you knew that was his bias and then he described talking to the experts and then coming to this decision which is very much different from where you from where you knew his bias was so that
[17:58]
where you knew his bias was so that gives you actually some confidence because you can see the range of his you know flexible thought and that it landed compatible with the experts now are the experts right no it does I think in this case they're the smart bat at least in terms of sizing the thing and and guiding us toward solutions but my point is the next several weeks will get us to and probably have you know way more tests and masks and hydro chloric wind and test results and stuff so where do we go hard at it we're gonna be pretty well-equipped so given all that and the fact that I think the hydrochloric Queen is sort of already working am i right so my understanding is that if you get the hydroxychloroquine if you get it as you know sort of soon after you get symptoms your odds of never needing a ventilator
[18:58]
your odds of never needing a ventilator are really good but if they don't give it to you until you're sort of you know on or near the ventilator it still can work pretty well but it's not the it's not the magic that it would be if he got it early so why should you expect if that's actually true versus just my anecdotal hallucinations which it could be right we could all be who's hallucinating that there's evidence for this but it's really just anecdotal so what you would expect to say is that the the number of deaths would start to level off at the same time the number of infections with skyrocketing and I think you're gonna start to see that I think maybe you've already seen the first signal of that but you have to wait a few days to see if it's just noise I guess or a coincidence but that's what that's what to look for and I would expect to
[19:59]
what to look for and I would expect to see that so if they hydroxychloroquine that works as we suspect we could get the death rate down below the point that even though it could be a few tens of thousands of people we could actually get a below the point if you net you out the people who didn't die because they're not on the road this week with drunk drivers you know for that same time period so my moat my optimistic projection is that the net all things considered will be under five thousand five thousand deaths now that's not anywhere near what any experts saying and by the way I'm even calculating you know just not with anything that any science behind it but I'm assuming in my opinion I'm not forgetting any deaths from extra poverty
[21:00]
forgetting any deaths from extra poverty from the you know the economic dislocation so I'm gonna be the super optimist on this with the understanding you should know in advance that almost nobody who knows what they're talking about thinks it will be this good I'm kind of alone on this but that's what makes it fun right have you ever seen me make a prediction in which I was completely alone and that it turned out well so if you have all right I couldn't believe that Trump called out New York City not not necessarily the government but apparently they're a lot of masks have been shipped to New York City but they seem to be maybe disappearing now that's not and I mean by disappearing I mean stolen and now that's not confirmed but
[22:02]
stolen and now that's not confirmed but what's interesting about this is that Trump I think Trump has a really good sort of BS detector yeah crime detector you know say what you will about him but don't you think he can sniff you know sniff out a you know a little impropriety like he would be good at that don't you think especially if had to do with New York City and let's say the the the underworld connection to moving goods back and forth in New York City so if Trump looked at those numbers and said ah maybe those numbers are real but I really think the press on a look into this because it doesn't look real to me it looks like something's falling off of the back of trucks and I don't think I could have loved more the fact that he put that out there even without proof because I don't know
[23:03]
even without proof because I don't know if I had to put odds on it was 70% chance he's right wouldn't you say that's worth looking into if you had if you had to guess is Trump right that there is massive criminal activity going around these you know these so valuable masks when you kind of assume there must be you know in especially in this environment and the fact that it's probably easy to get away with it yeah I think I think Trump knows might you just might sumela from you know ten states away and you might be right let's see what else we got going on here so the experts were predicting that zero to two know what was it from zero to two million or twenty know twenty thousand to two million or something two hundred thousands of two million
[24:04]
two hundred thousands of two million some gigantic number I hope not here's the idea so Bill Ackman hedge fund guys sometimes not that popular in some circles if you're on the other end of a trade and you lost money you don't like him but he he tweets less and I don't think he's some big friend in the president but this was a productive idea you know no matter who you are so listen to this so Bill Ackman says mr. president in his tweet why don't you launch the biggest infrastructure program of all time now roads bridges and other infrastructure involving outdoor work pretty clever huh that allows for social distancing that's not bad he says doing so will put Americans back to work now and good-paying virus safe jobs and you know I have to say like why
[25:04]
jobs and you know I have to say like why didn't I think of that you hear that idea and the first thing you think of is why didn't somebody already say that did nobody say that before I didn't think of it but what would be a better time to do the biggest bipartisan infrastructure build of all time seriously what would be the better time to get a bipartisan enormous infrastructure bill and just put masses of people back to work outdoors it's kind of brilliant you know being honest there's nothing wrong with that idea right okay
of course with all this big news CNN decided that the thing they would focus on is that when the president was sparring with a member of the press he referred to her as part of a group meaning the press then he doesn't like
[26:06]
meaning the press then he doesn't like as you people which was immediately interpreted as what what was that that's right yes it was interpreted as racist so that's what CNN decided to focus on say you got that I would like to read to you before I take your questions a tweet thread that might make you feel better so suddenly you already saw this but I think it's worth reading it to you again and goes like this the Kuroda virus is acting like an unwelcome Olympics for scientists doctors engineers entrepreneurs techies leaders parents and ordinary heroes of every kind setting records in every event you can almost feel humanity getting smarter the most capable among us are forming lasting connections sharing best practices learning
[27:08]
sharing best practices learning shortcuts building a working trust creating tools of blazing speeds one way to imagine the future is that the economy will lose trillions of dollars and we'll never get it back another filter in the future is that energy doesn't disappear it only relocates and changes form a huge amount of energy is leaving the economy we know that for sure what is less clear is where that energy is going my filter shows a global mind being formed in real time to find our common enemy the virus that mine needs a lot of energy like a newborn and Wow
Wow is it getting it I had resisted the common pundit prediction that everything would be different after this crisis because I expect a speedy recovery but I revise my opinion while I still expect a
[28:12]
revise my opinion while I still expect a speedy recovery I also think this experience is rewiring the rewiring the collective mind of civilization we probably crammed years of innovation into months will be coming out of this with a lot of extra knowledge about our systems and about ourselves and that energy will get channeled back into the economy the coming weeks will test us all but when it is over we will be far smarter and far tougher in every way as Steve Jobs proved the right thoughts and the right skill stack can turn into trillions of dollars civilizations skill stack is undergoing a major upgrade watch how much energy that later pumps into the economy it will be amazing so that's my positive thoughts for the day if any of you have any if any of you
[29:22]
if any of you have any if any of you have a question I would be happy to do take a shout out all right yeah that was a tweet thread that I wrote earlier today so it's pinned to my pin to my Twitter feed if you want to see it and yes somebody says the energy released thanks to deregulation yeah one wonders if you can put that genie back in the bottle so easily that we all kind of witnessed something incredible which is what humans can do if friction is removed in the friction in terms of government requirements now of course that's dangerous but it was pretty amazing and we were right in the middle of it and watching it is it's sort of a yab it's a privilege to be able to watch this this degree of human capability coming together at this time what does
[30:25]
coming together at this time what does the ideal government look like well I think we might be evolving into it oddly enough here's what I mean when I talk about the energy that's being taken out of the economy and then stored into the global mind imagine if you will that before this crisis that people were sort of like independent Islands you know each person just think of them as an Island just visualize this and some of those islands had you know bridges connected him so now in your mind connect a few of the islands to each other but make sure not all of the islands are connected to all the other islands or just you know you can get from every island to every other island but maybe you have to do a two hop or something but what this crisis did is it took those existing islands and suddenly everybody could talk to other people and they did and they did it easily because of the internet and we formed these connections instantly that didn't exist
[31:27]
connections instantly that didn't exist before so there were a whole bunch of bridges that just went springing out from each Island so that everybody now was only one jump away from everybody else you didn't have to do it to hop to get to anybody you could pick up a phone you could send a message you could DM and you were talking to anybody in the world and if they needed you and you needed them and you recognized that you connected immediately and that and if you visualize that those islands first with just a few bridges but enough to get from anywhere to anywhere and then suddenly bridges from every island in every direction that's where all the energy went so all of our all the energy that we had been putting into the economy we suddenly just turned in the same direction as one following our leaders who were pointing us at the common enemy the virus and over several weeks we've taken all of that energy that would have otherwise been put into the various parts of the economy focuses
[32:30]
the various parts of the economy focuses on this one incredibly important task and something amazing is happening and I think that you know because we formed this global mind if you will the after we beat the virus those connections not every one of them but many of them will remain and will have a will have a let's say a shared civilization memory of what worked and what didn't we'll all see a whole bunch of rapid models and tests we'll see how a B testing works we're all going to be better decision-makers because one of the weird things is this has been like a a harvard business case and had to make decisions with inadequate information that's changing all the time and lots of interests and lots of variables and because it's such a shared experience we all were engaged in the harvard business case we all got to see all the variables
[33:31]
case we all got to see all the variables we all got to say alright if this were me what would I do yeah how would I handle this and so we all we all sort of learned almost like a college class in crisis management if you think about it you it would take you a while to to make a list but if you thought about all the concepts that are really good ones the things that you'll learn at the end of the cycle because it's like taking we're all at college basically we're learning a ton about how do you approach these situations what do you do how do you get ready how do you assess risk how do you manage risk how do you balance things when you know these kinds of lives are at the risk versus these kind had it you know how do you apply you know ingenuities the problem versus you know money versus all those things so you know I think we're going to come out of this with a global mind that's grown all these new
[34:33]
global mind that's grown all these new neurons that many of them will be permanent and we'll just know how to solve problems differently we'll have a different maybe a different feeling about red tape maybe we won't tolerate it perhaps we'll have procedures that we do in good times and a set of procedures that immediately go into effect where there's a crisis and at the very least this situation has surfaced who the leaders are and who the capable people are and who the people really you know you can depend on and you know in a crunch and I think some of that's permanent to there were there will be people within corporate America probably people in government whose entire careers will be determined by how they get through the next several months you know just the way 9/11 made a rudy giuliani this is not just New York although they're getting hit hardest this is all of us so every mayor every
[35:34]
this is all of us so every mayor every governor every every senator every representative every person on the task force they're all audition for a better job or more more responsibility later so if nothing else we're going through the greatest talent filter our country's ever experienced that's good and I do think even though I'm a bit of a cynic and a skeptic I do think that some of what we're learning about being able to work together is good a last not all of it you know there there's gonna be a lot of goodwill that's happening now because people understand there are higher priorities and then arguing about you know politics and most of that will go away you know as soon as we get back to normal we just go back to being humans we get a little tribal because we would have that luxury but I don't think it's all going away I think there's going to
[36:35]
all going away I think there's going to be a good solid ten percent that is a lasting civilization of memory that says yeah I'm arguing with you now but when you know when the when the stuff goes down you're you and I are gonna be on the same team I've always thought that that's why the the United States and France for example will always be best buddies you know internationally no matter how much we argue with them and you know if you don't like them for this or their attitude or their policies or socialist whatever yeah we might bicker like siblings forever but the one thing that we sort of believe about each other you know France in the United States is there based on history we would have each other's backs that feels permanent doesn't it you know what when was the last time I mean in your lifetime when it was left last time you had to have Frances back
[37:35]
last time you had to have Frances back or France had to have our back you know in skirmishes and Iraq and stuff but those were sort of you know over there I'm not sure if that was a case of anybody having any buddies backs but you know we would right and part of the reason that we would like you know with a hundred percent certainty if you live in America that if France were you know seriously threatened by an external threat the the next thing that France would hear is could you step out of the way could you you know you know we love that you want to fight this out on your own but seriously just just step out of the way give us ten minutes and the United States would take care of business because we would always have Frances back and the reason we would is because they've had our back right historically and vice-versa so that kind of feeling can last you can last generations and there might be this is
[38:35]
generations and there might be this is the hopeful part of me there might be just a little bit of this experience when we get to the end of it that we just remember as a society we just remember that we're capable we're just capable of being on the same side when it's important so that's the last thing that I'd like to leave with you and now I'd like you to go off to a really good night's sleep and I will see you in the morning you know what time make sure you've got your simultaneous sipping beverage have a good night