Episode 891 Scott Adams: Sip and Learn

Date: 2020-04-04 | Duration: 38:23

Topics

My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a Content: Listen to scientists, the WHO and other experts? Cell phone location tracking for disease control Fired Navy captain protecting his crew? Checklist to Identify who is safest for return to work The Daily Show misleading compilation clip mocking FOX News

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

[0:15]

hey everybody Maui mkj now he's one of my favorite places in the world hey Mateus and Phil and the rest of you come on in it's time for coffee with Scott Adams yes it's the simultaneous shelter-in-place thank you for that suggestion Quinn and today we're going to enjoy the simultaneous hip and doesn't require a lot of preparation it really doesn't all you need is a cover of Margar glass of tanker Challenger styling the canteen drinker flask a vessel of any kind fill it with your favorite liquid I like coffee and join me now for the unparalleled pleasure the dopamine hit of the day the thing that makes everything including the pandemic so much better it's called the simultaneous up go mm-hmm I can feel the death rates falling places all over the world all right let's talk about some

[1:17]

world all right let's talk about some stuff I was saying a quote from Joe Biden this says quote we need to leave the way with science so he was criticizing the president and saying that we'd be better off if we listened to science a little bit more science told us that face masks don't work the virus cannot be transferred from animals from human to human and there's no reason to close travel from China so
what is the lesson here exactly should we listen to experts because certainly you have to listen to some of the experts because it's not as if they're wrong about all things all the time and they only have to be right once if you don't listen to them your dad so we're in sort of a tough bind here imagine how the world would look

[2:17]

imagine how the world would look different if everything that the scientists and the experts had told us had turned out to be right on and just everything they they said just was right on what what would that mean for let's say climate change just imagine if we had gone through this experience and we're still going through it but we can already determine that what do we get to the end of it we're not going to be trusting experts as much as you might like because the experts failed us in spectacular fashion I mean really in the when people make lists of how experts failed us as a public this is gonna be in the top three right no no matter what happens whether it's as big as the experts said or not as big what's already happened especially with the face mask thing I mean that was that was

[3:18]

face mask thing I mean that was that was so damaging I mean to the whole scientific trust situation so I think what we found is that even if experts know the answer even if they know the right answer you can't trust them to tell you the right answer because that's what we learned because they might be managing other requirements they might be they might have some loyalty to another country let's say China they might be politicians they might be paid off by some industry they might be trying to prevent hoarding they might be trying to manage your expectations they might be trying to manage their career because they don't want to be wrong it's worse to be wrong or it's you know it's okay to be wrong but you don't want to be wrong in the other direction so you can imagine a whole bunch of reasons why the experts would know the right answer but not tell you so that's an extra risk it's not as easy as listen to the

[4:20]

it's not as easy as listen to the experts because you don't know if they have the same incentive you do you don't know if you're talking to the right experts certainly I think we can conclude that before this coronavirus stuff most people I think would have expected the World Health Organization to be credible experts I mean I didn't know anything about them but if you had said to me oh there's a worldwide organization it's called the World Health Organization and here's their mission I would have said oh yeah you could trust those guys I mean why wouldn't you obviously they're working for a world health obviously they have experts they're not going to say things that other experts disagree with it's not in public anyway why wouldn't you expressed the World Health Organization but of course it turns out that they're just lying completely we don't know what they knew or didn't know but we know that they gave us bad information so I think if you're a proponent of the green

[5:23]

think if you're a proponent of the green New Deal and you're trying to convince people that the scientists and the experts got it right and that there's a you know a massive risk for climate change independent of whether there is or is not a massive risk you know we not experts have to trust the experts but can we I mean after with this with this experience fresh in your mind would you trust a climate change expert now there are different domains and different you know different levels of evidence and one has decades of research and one was sort of a fog of or new things so I'm not I don't say they're even comparable but I'm just talking about the psychology of the public is the psychology the public such that we're gonna believe whatever the next experts tell us no matter who those experts are no matter what the domain is I think we're I think we're kind of spoiled right I think we got a

[6:26]

kind of spoiled right I think we got a little bit ruined in terms of our trust of experts by this experience and that's gotta bleed over into other categories there's no way that that doesn't influence how you think about the next thing all right
I have so here's a little insight on the toilet paper shortage and I have a solution for it that's right I have a solution for the toilet paper shortage are you ready it goes like this so the first thing and this was a good insight and I don't know why I didn't think of this myself but it's so obvious once you hear it in a normal world people are using the bathrooms at work and they're using the bathrooms at home it turns out that the suppliers of toilet paper are different for the industrial market where you get this really bad toilet paper that goes into your stalls at work versus the home market where it's a little more upscale and you know and stuff so it's different

[7:26]

and you know and stuff so it's different manufacturers with different supply chains then what happened was a lot of people went from one of those supply chains to the other by staying home so what's happening is that it's not one supply chain for toilet paper there are two separate ones one for the industrial market one for the home market and the industrial market presumably has plenty of capacity because fewer people are going to work but it doesn't fill in for the other market so they they can't just flip it over and say oh now we'll just ship it to your grocery store this it's not even the same kind of toilet paper doesn't fit the same rolls and stuff so so that's one of the problems but that said I believe I could still fix it and here's how bear with me now now if you're new to my periscopes I should warn you if anything you know not to take anything I say too seriously alright so if anybody's new don't take me too seriously the rest of you know

[8:28]

me too seriously the rest of you know what's coming so here's how I would solve it and it goes like this presumably there are people who have extra toilet paper right because that's what hoarding is so there's some people I have way too much and there are some people who didn't get enough now how would you normally solve that well normally you'd solve that with some kind of a market system where the people who know they got too much I could sell it get out of markup or a profit to people who didn't get enough and then in overtime it would solve itself because if that market became efficient then the people who had too much wouldn't worry about selling a little bit of it because I can always buy it back you know worst case scenario they sell it into the free market later they have to buy it back maybe they pay a few extra bucks but they get the toilet paper so if you had a market for people for individuals selling toilet paper and

[9:29]

for individuals selling toilet paper and if that market were efficient which is the big that's the hard part you're getting everybody to agree that it's a real market and they'll really sell and sell stuff and so here is my suggestion somebody says he's a cartoonist I'm a cartoonist with a degree in economics and an MBA in 16 years of financial experience in modern and corporate America but if you'd like to say just a cartoonist that's fine too so here's my suggestion to create a a market for toilet paper consumer to consumer using two apps that already exist and are free so so nothing needs to be invented there are two apps that could create this market today and they're free you can download them now nobody has to do anything but here's the trick you know how cryptocurrency is are kind of worth nothing at the moment you know Bitcoin salsa value but a lot of the lessor of cryptocurrency is they

[10:30]

of the lessor of cryptocurrency is they just sort of you know became vanishingly small well in order to have a good currency it would be ideal to have it backed with some physical good some people say that the dollar was better when it was backed by gold but at least the dollar is still backed by the faith of the the government so the government will always accept it for taxes so as long as your currency is backed by something it can maintain its value it's a crypto currency that's not backed by anything by psychology that can disappear so here's a suggestion my cryptocurrency for my startup went up it was called the when whe n so it exists and you could trade it and I've decided that I'm going to back it with a physical good so from this point on one when is equal to one roll of standard toilet paper now it

[11:32]

roll of standard toilet paper now it only works if everybody agreed agrees it's true the moment anybody says down I just don't like that that it doesn't work but if everybody agreed that one when equalled one toilet paper then you could trade them but suppose you don't want to train in cryptocurrencies you want to trade in money I still got you covered so here's what you could do you could go on the interface by one hub app that's one mine startup mix and you could be any kind of an expert but you don't have to be an expert you could go onto the app and say your job description is hashtag toilet paper and then put your zip code I'm just brainstorming here none of this is really practical so don't don't worry about this actually happening I'm just thinking it through right so you go to the interface by one hub app and you can put in your zip code and toilet paper then somebody who needs toilet paper in your zip code so that there's no shipping costs you know somebody you could you could just drive

[12:34]

somebody you could you could just drive it over and deliver it so somebody your zip code has it and you just call them up on the app and say hey I'll buy some your toilet paper how much is it they say 20 bucks you know it's a markup 20 bucks and you say ok can you leave it on my front doorstep and I will pay you through the app because the app lets you tip so if the guy says yeah it's 20 bucks you could say all right you send them 20 bucks right through the app and it could be cash or it could be cryptocurrency you just get to choose now
now there's another app also free in which you can watch the guide deliver on a map so let's say the guy says ok I'll bring it over and leave it on your front door and I'll send you a link and you can watch me drive over so you don't have to worry about somebody's stealing it you know once it's left on the doorstep because you don't want to touch him right social distancing so the other app is called approach it's also in the stores it's also free and you could if

[13:35]

stores it's also free and you could if you wanted you could add your name to the app that's five bucks a month but you don't have to so you just use it for free so you make your deal on the interface by one hub app and you say when it's delivered I'll tip you through the app for your toilet paper and I'll be able to watch you on a map in the approach app as you're coming to my house so that I'll know when it's there and you know I'll be able to take it in without somebody stealing you huh so one when is equal one roll of toilet paper now it's not currently worth that but all we'd have to do is agree that it does you simply would have to all agree that's it you just agree that it's equal this and it is it's completely a psychological phenomenon so if you want to solve the toilet paper crisis one when equals one toilet paper or just create a market that uses regular money and use any kind of app you don't have

[14:36]

and use any kind of app you don't have to use my app right you could use venmo but but the interface by when hub app allows you to discover right if you use venmo you're not going to be able to find somebody to pay you'd have to say something I'll find them another way but if you use my app people can just put it in their zip code and toilet paper you just search for it that way and you're like okay there's guys three blocks away that'll sell me a roll so I'm not terribly serious about that but I am serious about the fact that if you created a market if you created an efficient market it would be solved tomorrow and it would also open up the possibility that your workplace could sell their extra toilet paper right because the workplace market isn't really impacted because that's a different chain so you could just create a market for buying the toilet paper from companies they have too much and somebody could just go in and say yeah yeah I'm not selling any

[15:37]

and say yeah yeah I'm not selling any product today but I'll sell you my toilet paper not using it all right so enough for that then so apparently there are companies that do have access to your phone location and depends which app they're using for that because some of your apps already you've given it approval to track your location so there are third parties that can get that randomized information they can't tell us you but they could tell this somebody's around there and I guess they they they could track all the phones that went to spring break and then they could track them as they left spring break and went back and in fact of the rest of the country and so that technology's really got some future my guess is that by the time we have an the next pandemic that there will be apps that tell you when you're close to people and apps that will tell you who you've connected with recently so they can do contact tracing so I think I think your phone will be your primary virus healthcare or device by the time

[16:40]

virus healthcare or device by the time the next pandemic rolls around apparently Russia is already using their public cameras and facial recognition to bust people for not socially isolating so that technology I expect will be much more robust by the next pandemic to so you can actually get to the point with existing technology you just you would just have to decide to use it basically because we already have facial recognition in cameras and phones and stuff you just have to decide to use it but if you did you could probably solve a pandemic without drugs right if you knew everything about everybody's location and you knew who exactly like exactly who was next to WHO and when I think you don't even need drugs I think you just say whoa pandemic we just found 10,000 people who had some kind of association you 10,000 you got to stay

[17:42]

association you 10,000 you got to stay home for two weeks that's that and then it's over you you just carve out this big area and say yeah we know exactly what's happening there you just stay away from these people I may be oversimplifying but in theory you could solve it with just information and no drugs so you know that story about the the Navy captain who wrote the memo and showed it to too many people about his crew not being sufficiently protected from coronavirus and the Navy fired him so the firing defense was that he took his communication to have aside the you know the the naval appropriate chain of command and I agree with that you know I have to say you know emotionally I agree with the captain who was just trying to protect his ship but there is something

[18:43]

protect his ship but there is something to be said for the rule of order in the military and he violated it quite grossly and that was the obvious outcome now the weird part about it as Mark Snyder pointed out and I didn't even catch he's probably saw some of the video of the crew of the ship you know gather again mass - you know clap and and cheer the captain after he had you know left the ship but here's the thing the entire issue was about the people in the ship being exposed to the coronavirus and not being safe and the captain who gets fired for bringing up this issue becomes the focal reason that everybody in the ship gathered in a large confined space shoulder-to-shoulder and probably killed a few of them you know statistically speaking so there's a story within the story about what the hell is going wrong

[19:45]

story about what the hell is going wrong with this ship and if the captain was okay with everybody meeting in a large tight group to say goodbye to him then maybe he needed to be fired because it seems to me that way he should have been doing even as he was exiting the ship is saying whoa get out of this crowd the whole point is I'm trying to protect you idiots how about not standing in a tight crowd to wish me good luck because that's the opposite of what I got fired for I'm trying to protect you don't stand in a big crowd to wish me well so that's weird all right can you calculate for me or can anybody based on what we know already now maybe you and I can't calculate it but I think this can be calculated I'll be it with you know numbers that subject to change but I

[20:48]

numbers that subject to change but I tweeted this earlier can you calculate the coronavirus risk of death for the following person a 35 year old American nonsmoker average weight not overweight not underweight no known underlying health conditions who practices social distancing wears a face mask commutes to work alone and let's say has some space that worked also socially distance and let's say that that person doesn't have any vulnerable people living in the house that they go back to what are the odds of a death happening because this guy this person goes back to work can we calculate it oh sorry a little it took my back sorry I'm looking weird it seems to me that we should be able to calculate that right and what would that risk be and then who gets to decide if

[21:51]

risk be and then who gets to decide if that risk is acceptable is it the government at this point yes so I would like to see that calculation made first of all because what do I tell you over and over over again the things which are not measured are not managed so if we're trying to manage this crisis but we can't measure the individual risk of this kind of person that versus this kind of person then we're not managing so if we are managing I think the task force should be able to say at some point maybe it's a little premature they should be able to say look we've calculated the risk and if you fall into this category you're fine go back to work we'll we'll monitor it maybe we'll try one you know one metro area first or something like that and here so I did a first draft so I tweeted this around you can see this is fresh at the top of my Twitter feed I know you can't see here but just a sense of what it is so what

[22:53]

but just a sense of what it is so what it is is a this is my first draft just to get the ball rolling in terms of what we need right so as I've told you a million times the coronavirus situation is a participation sport you're not a spectator so if there's any idea you have anything you can do anything you could do to make people safer or better go do it all right don't wait around for somebody to tell you what's your job it's your job if you can do it it's your job you know an emergency so one of the things that I'm especially good at if I do say so myself because I have a lifetime of practice is simplifying complicated stuff if I've said this before but if there's one thing that I have a skill in that actually is above average to the average person I have a whole bunch of skills that are just sort of pretty good but not world-class you know I don't draw better than you know great drawers or

[23:56]

better than you know great drawers or anything but I think I might have one skill that is a little bit a special meaning that there wouldn't be many people in a group of a thousand who could do this better than I could do it and that is simplifying a complicated thing and a lot of it has to do with the fact that it's it's been my full-time job for you know 40 years because in my day job I used to simplify financial analyses for management so I was always calm simplifying complicated things and then of course as a cartoonist and as an author that is mostly about simplification too so I thought I would use my special skills to simplify the question of how to get people back to work and so here that yours the checklist so you can some of them have no is next to them some of them yes so if hasn't no next to it it means you can't go back to work yet let's say in the first phase so all of these would mean you could not go back to work right

[24:56]

mean you could not go back to work right so anything on this list means you're not the first phase but going back to work if you're over 60 and female or over 50 and male now the difference is that males have a much greater risk and an age as a factor so these two would have similar risk a a woman over 60 would have roughly and again this is a first draft I would need an expert to tell me you know how to tweak this exactly but if you're a woman in you're over 60 you're in the high-risk group but if you're a male and you're over 50 you're already starting to get into the high risk because men have a higher risk so if you're over 16 female or over 250 and male stay home on the first one if you've got diabetes your smoker or an ex-smoker you've got hypertension and cardiovascular disease diabetes chronic respiratory disease or a cancer that's not in full remission I think there's a

[25:57]

not in full remission I think there's a difference right I think if you have cancer versus cancer survivor' there's got to be a difference there so if you have any of those conditions that would be no you can't go back to work but then I would add some more things that are more about your situation so the first ones are more about who you are and then the second group is about your situation so if you need public transportation to commute maybe you don't get to go in the first phase so in other words if you walk to work or ride your bike or drive your your car by yourself then that would be considered okay but if you had to get out of the crowded transport maybe not in the first phase is there anybody vulnerable living with you if you come home from work and you bring something with you is there anybody vulnerable and old at your house if not maybe you're okay Israeli reason you can't wear a face mask at work I can't think of a situation but there must be where for

[26:58]

situation but there must be where for some reason you can't wear a face mask I don't know what that would be but so if you can that's good if you can't maybe not in the first phase and then the other one would be if the hospitals near you or at capacity so if you're in an area where your hospitals are still look like they're not going to be you know slay them too hard that would be a factor as well and then two two things would allow you to go back to work for sure is if yet confirmed antibodies maybe you have to get tested twice again this is what the experts would tweak let's say you've got confirmed antibodies and you've been tested twice and let's say there's X number of days that have gone by so then you're fine doesn't matter what else is true you're fine or if you have essential services so that would be the the other factors so it really comes down to one page that you could put on a website or something and you could have people say all right under under you know threat of jailing

[27:59]

under under you know threat of jailing for perjury I fill out my form if it's a no but I think you shouldn't be I should be able to compensate with a doctor's note so for example let's say the checklist is said I don't know hypertension but I go to my doctor I say look I've got hypertension but it's like just barely and I'm 35 and everything else is good it just barely have a little hypertension well the doctor might say okay you know you know the risks it is a little more risk but not much I'm gonna prove it so you need some mechanism for a doctor to override the checklist for there the grey areas but that's my plan so I would like to see the administration come up with something similarly simple it doesn't oh

[29:01]

yes somebody in the comments says I do not have BMI and that is just an oversight so I'm going to fix that and republish it yeah so wait wait is the other factor your body mass index so thank you for that that is exactly why I put it up as a draft so that you could do that somebody says too complicated well I don't think a checklist is complicated because it's just yes/no do you have this condition yes or no I don't think it could get easier than that you don't have to do any research that like there's there's no human being who couldn't answer this easily just by looking at it you don't have to go talk to a doctor you don't have to do anything do I have diabetes yes or no it says something yes your location is important but primarily yeah actually that's true so if it's a hot spot or not I don't know how you defined that so I'll add

[30:05]

know how you defined that so I'll add that to I was going to say that you could have that cover too by how much impact the hospitals have but that's probably another variable you know you want the hospitals to not be impacted but also not to be a hot spot ideally all right so the Daily Show sent around a clever little clip in which they clip together all of the Fox News hosts who were saying the wrong things about the corona virus early on so as all the people who said that it's just the flu and don't worry about it and go about your business and go out to dinner and when you see all the clips together it's pretty damning pretty damning but here's the thing where's the where's the compilation clips of all the experts who are wrong - because he's sort of missing the context right a little bit of context missing yes it is true that many many of the

[31:06]

is true that many many of the personalities on Fox News said things early on that turned out to be just dead wrong so it's fair to show that in a compilation but it's not fair to show it unless you also included in the compilation that the top experts the World Health Organization doctor foul key information we were getting from China all of it was wrong so yes the people who were not doctors were wrong do you know who else was wrong the doctors yeah give us some context how about the fact that everybody was wrong everybody was wrong there weren't any smart people said here's a challenge to you The Daily Show put together a clip of all the people who were right who's gonna be on it Mike Serna me you know jack boo Sabich is that the is that the compilation the clip you want

[32:07]

that the compilation the clip you want of all the people who are right early that's not the compilation clip you get a show in The Daily Show because it's not going to it's not going to support your point so as much as I like the compilation clips you know the humorous ones they they are funny so I'll give them that but it just could not be more misleading it basically was fog of war and nobody had the right answer early on and those of us who did well you know somebody was gonna be right yeah yeah you can never know if you were right for the right reasons you can only know that some people are right and some people are wrong no matter what no matter what the prediction is no matter what the topic is somebody's gonna be right because there are so many people making different predictions but it doesn't mean they're right for the right reasons it just means that people were all over the board and somebody was gonna be right so I try not to let myself get too big of a

[33:10]

I try not to let myself get too big of a head if I'm ever right about any of these things because I never know why I'm right really you just know that you were okay
how many of you have lost weight during the pandemic I think I've lost around eight or nine pounds and I was I was trying to gain weight I was actually trying to put on a few extra pounds because I thought you know especially at my age if I if I guess I'm kind of a health issue it's good to have just a little extra weight you don't want to you don't want to go all the way to an overweight condition because that's worse but being underweight at a certain age is not really good you know you want a little little cushion in case something goes wrong so I was trying to gain weight and I ended up losing about nine pounds only because I'm eating so well you know just healthy food and I'm exercising diligently yeah so I'm doing

[34:11]

exercising diligently yeah so I'm doing all the things I'm supposed to be doing and I I can't even gain weight by trying
taijuan had the right answer two months before you they probably had a lot better information I think we were getting bad information from China they may have had better information michaelsavage was right at the same time as me you're saying yeah so imagine that compilation clip the compilation clip of the people who are right nobody's going to put that together let me make a prediction you're never going to see the compilation clip of the people who are right early because does that group doesn't have good PR if you know what I mean all right I think that's all I got for today somebody's back up to 300 push-ups today they have you gonna be a beast a beast

[35:12]

somebody says gained weight well some of you have your your isolating with a somebody who's a good chef if you're isolating was somebody who's a good chef that's could be tough can't go to gym yeah you know I I don't think there's anything better than taking a long walk for your general health I you know I I made lifelong exerciser and I've you know spent lots of time trying to understand the best techniques and stuff and I've probably tried most of the ways you can exercise so I've at least sampled just about every sport every kind of exercise and they got to tell you the one that just always stands out is a long walk at any age you know if you're younger maybe you walk further but it's the most gentle compatible with your biological nature it's what your you know your body evolved for it's just always good and you don't get injured

[36:13]

always good and you don't get injured typically so what I'm wondering is there's so many people who are taking walks now because it's one of the few things that's available to you I'm wondering how many people will get hooked on it because it because I'm definitely hooked I used to like to you know drive to the gym and stuff but at this point every time I take a walk on a nice sunny cool day that's perfect for walking I feel great I sleep great feel great don't have any stress I mean it really it's transformative fairly quickly somebody said how long where I walk they're usually Hills so and they're pretty steep so I might do two to four miles you know just depends how I feel dr. Andrew Weil says walking is the best exercise I I think that's just got to be

[37:13]

exercise I I think that's just got to be true gaining muscle is different from gaining fat of course it's hard to walk around in the city yeah it might be hard to walk around in the city because of trying to avoid people out here there's no traffic you know there's no cars and you can walk for a long time without being on the same side of the road as somebody wait in my neighborhood there's always somebody out walking you know they were walking a dog or something but people cross the street so I haven't I haven't crossed somebody on a sidewalk who was on the same side of the street as me in weeks probably probably two weeks I haven't been on the same sidewalk with somebody I just cross the road when somebody's coming all right that's all for me and I'll talk to you at 10 p.m. Eastern 7:00 p.m. Pacific for your evening swaddle time

[38:15]

Pacific for your evening swaddle time best part of the day that isn't the morning all right that's all for now have a great day