Episode 902 Scott Adams: I Tell You About My Experience With Models. No, Not That Kind.

Date: 2020-04-09 | Duration: 55:23

Topics

My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a Content: Models are meant to be useful…not accurate #Loserthink in the news, Rachel Maddow and others Prediction: A Biden ticket switcheroo China’s wet markets remain open?

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
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## Transcript

[0:09]

bum bum bum bum hey everybody come on in here it's time for a coffee with Scott Adams and it's another wonderful morning sure we got problems world has problems it always does what is that gonna stop you from enjoying the simultaneous sip no no no you're not the kind of person who would be deterred by things like that I just realized you can't say deterred without a turd hmm never thought about that before but you can't say pandemic without dem that's the thing - all right get ready you're all in here I know you're poised you're ready oh yeah you're ready you know you need this is a cup or a mug er glass of tanker chalices tie the canteen jug or flask a vessel of any kind and fill it with your favorite liquid I like coffee enjoyed me down for the unparalleled pleasure the dopamine and the day the thing that makes everything including the pandemic better it's called the simultaneous up then it happens now go

[1:22]

yes I can feel my blood plasma getting stronger every moment I don't know what that means yeah tonight I think I'll be giving myself a haircut I I had been hearing some suggestions and maybe I should work on the mullet it doesn't look a little naturally mullet II this is not a time for photographs I think I'm gonna lose all of my photographs well nothing I took anything during this period all right let's talk about some of the things in the news it's fun of course last night I already talked about Bernie Bernie dropping out Bernie's dropping out and of course goes without saying that now the big question is who will Biden pick as his vice president and will he pick a vice president before he's replaced at the top of the ticket what would you say do you think that Biden will select his vice president before he is replaced as the top of the ticket because if he has a vice

[2:24]

ticket because if he has a vice president they can't really replace him without moving the vice president up because if they don't if they don't promote the vice presidential candidate to the top of the ticket should they decide that you know Biden can't go on then what does it say about who he picked for the vice president if the vice presidential pick is not the automatic one who bumps up to the top other than that person probably was not well chosen to begin with so that's not I mean it doesn't follow completely 100% logically but people are gonna think of it that way uh-huh yeah I'm going for the Tiger king look thanks for making that comparison how much did you love the fact that Trump got a tiger King question during the press conference on one hand you say to yourself my god what a waste of the public's time and the government's time to ask such a silly question at a time

[3:28]

to ask such a silly question at a time when we were more concerned about the massive global death toll and all that but I disagree I disagree first of all you could tell the Trump sort of enjoyed it
it he sort of enjoyed the question it was sort of like a palate cleanser like you just needed a little change of pace from the heaviness of the the topic and I think the country enjoyed it too so to the reporter who asked that question well it wasn't wasn't news per se so you know that's you can't say you were necessarily doing your job of getting the news but on the other hand the country sort of appreciated it so I don't know which news outlet it was we asked that question but to the reporter who did I say thanks thanks you know I don't think we should be silly all the time but every now and then things get so heavy that I don't mind somebody the class clown I don't mind somebody he

[4:29]

the class clown I don't mind somebody he tells a joke I don't mind somebody tries to you know break the mood a little bit so thank you I appreciated that well the the debate has already started ahead of time about whether the models were always bogus or they were you know they were good and useful and incredible and the arguments shaping up like this some people are saying well of course the death toll is lower than even the lowest estimates of the model it's outside of the entire range of the model but it's better it's because we did such a good job that even the models could not predict how effective we would be so that's one of the movies and the other movie and of course we don't know how it all ends but so both of these movies assume that they can predict there were you know turning the corner then the other movie says that the models were just baloney from

[5:32]

that the models were just baloney from the start and we should have ignored them all and just kept going to work and we would have never known the difference here's my take on this I don't think people understand that models are not designed to be right and I think that's probably I don't know 95% of the public is under that impression then if the experts build a model that the whole point of the model especially if it's got a very wide range you know between a hundred thousand and two million people are dying you figure that range is so wide it's gonna be in there somewhere right so that's the usefulness of the model so if you're not anywhere in that gigantic wide range critics get to say hey I told you I told you now and of course the critics will also point out that the bottom of the range assume that you tried as hard as you could to mitigate so if you do even better than that well what good was the model

[6:34]

than that well what good was the model you know it just shows that the model was completely in its own world for a reality I disagree because that's not what the rock the models are for the models that are meant to be useful they're not meant to be accurate now I say this is somebody who built many financial models in my corporate days is my main job and I was always acutely aware that my estimates and my predictions were not accurate so instead I designed them to be useful and since most people will never be able to understand the distinction you could explain it to them forever and they'll look you right in the eyes right after you've explained it and they'll say yeah but it's not accurate and then you'll start again you say okay okay I don't think you're hearing me nobody can predict the future so being accurate wasn't even than the set of possibilities unless you were just lucky so being accurate it's not even a goal because it can't be done

[7:34]

even a goal because it can't be done nobody if anybody could predict the future the way these models pretend to well anybody who could do that would be rich from the stock market that they'd be rich from a dozen other things that they could predict and they could bet on because anybody who anybody who can accurately predict the future of anything of anything from a hurricane from climate science to the economy the stock market to the coronavirus anybody who could accurately predict the future in those multi variable situations would just go make bets and be rich but it's not a thing it's just not a thing so that's why people don't do it if they couldn't do it they do it they'd say well this this model is giving me an edge I'll go make a bet on based on this model instead the models are meant to be useful now how many are you confused because you're thinking to yourself and

[8:35]

because you're thinking to yourself and by the way I'm using a a persuasion technique now I'll call it out in a minute but how many of you are thinking to yourself Scott Scott Scott you're talking crazy because you're saying that the models don't need to be even accurate like even even accurate within a gigantic range they don't need to be and still they're useful explain that cartoon boy those are like opposites if it's completely inaccurate to not even be in the general range it can't also be useful except that everyone who makes models know that they can be you'll see a few people say yes the people who have some experience in this field the models are not meant to be accurate they're not designed that way they're not it's not a hope it's not a dream it would only be lucky if they were accurate what the models are supposed to do is change your behavior that's the only thing you need to know the point of a model is to change your behavior and if the model

[9:38]

change your behavior and if the model does that and it changes you may behavior in a productive way then it can be said that the model was useful even completely inaccurate so let's take this case of the coronavirus what did the the models which were completely inaccurate did they did they persuade us I think you'd say yes at least enough of us were persuaded that it was a gigantic risk that huge changes in behavior happened fairly quickly so did the models cause us to change behavior yes now the second question is should they you know was it right to change our behavior well that's the part that becomes the two movies and the baby will never settle but the argument goes that if we hadn't changed her behavior this much we would not be getting a result then at least preliminarily looks like it might not be so bad compared to the models now can the models predict accurately how well

[10:41]

the models predict accurately how well people will respond even in the near term not really nobody can make a model like that because they can't pick up innovation did the models for example predict that somebody would find a way to split ventilators and effectively double the capacity at least in those emergency situations and temporarily did the model pick that up did the model that have a number in it for the for the the effectiveness of the hydroxychloroquine because if the model did have an estimate for the effectiveness of the hydroxychloroquine how do they know that we don't know that why would the model numbers why would the model people know the effectiveness of the hydroxychloroquine if we don't know and the scientists don't know so keep in mind that these models are persuasion and if they persuade you in the right direction they worked they were useful now of

[11:42]

they worked they were useful now of course they could over persuade you right they could persuade you to do the wrong thing so that's the distinction if it persuade you to do the right thing and even if you can determine that is even after the fact we'll never really know what was the right thing even after the fact we can only know here's the only thing you can know is if the model got people to act in the way that the consensus of the experts thought was the right way to act that's about as that's about as good as you can do so I would argue that we are not acting so much to satisfy you know the requirements of the model but rather I would put it this way as a person who has developed many models for the purposes of management management decides what they want to do and then they have you build a model that supports the story and if the experts collectively say you know I don't think we can model this honestly I don't think

[12:44]

we can model this honestly I don't think we know how big a problem this is but from the little hints we have about how how viral it is the information we got out of China of how bad it was the the number of you know body bags that we had to order the number of ICU rooms that were over a capacity so based on the little hints we experts not me but talking about the experts look at it and say we should try as hard as we can to avoid the worst case that might be the only thing that could be known with any kind of confidence that all of the experts come actively had sort of the same feeling about it and I think they did I think if you were to survey the ones who are the the viral Aegis I think that in general they would all say whoa based on these little facts which are anecdotal but very scary it does look like in my professional opinion as a expert violinist for example it does look like we should put the maximum

[13:44]

look like we should put the maximum effort into stopping this and then they build a model because the public isn't going to take an opinion the public needs something a little more convincing what would be more convincing than just interviews with scientists who say hey you should do this thing a picture so the scientists know and everybody involved knows that a picture is more influential so it gets turned into a graph a picture arranged a statistic because that's how you communicate it so that the graph and the pictures should not be seen as something which should be viewed as true or false or accurate or inaccurate because they're not even built for that purpose they are built to persuade in a way that the consensus of the experts legitimately feel is in the best interest of the country because I think mostly they're you know they're good eggs who want the the best thing to happen so this argument we're having

[14:46]

happen so this argument we're having about whether they were accurate and whether they had to be revised and all that is all is people who don't understand what the models are so these are arguments from people who have never modeled and don't understand the world and so neither the pros nor the con arguments are even a little bit sensible they're not even the right argument really and what you should see with any model is that they start out wildly and accurate because nobody can predict the future and then as you get closer to whatever date you can you can measure for sure whether you're right or wrong as you get closer to the to knowing the answer the models start getting molded and retrofitted and and tweaked until they come into conformance with reality they saw that in 2016 the the the poles of who would win the election were wildly off but as you got closer and closer to Election Day they started to narrow I think Rasmussen you know nailed it but most of the other polls were at least

[15:47]

most of the other polls were at least closing that gigantic gap that said Hillary would win most of them narrowed toward the end and that's normal does that mean that the polls were all wrong well if you think polls are right in the first place yeah but you know polls are polls are pretty gross objects too so all right here's the here's some examples of loser think in the news so this is a let's see Kevin Miller on you use just some user on Twitter said that there's literally no argument to the numbers would be higher if we didn't do all that we did and yet people will argue it so Kevin is saying that you can't reasonably argue that the reason that the numbers are good is because we did all the mitigation so Kevin saying

[16:48]

did all the mitigation so Kevin saying it's so obvious that should be the end of the argument the mitigation is the reason the death rate is low it's the reason it's an obvious reason we did it for that purpose the experts said if you do this the death rate will come down and then it came down that's why I came down so so Kevin is saying there's no argument the numbers would be higher if we didn't do all that we did so this is loser think and it's a specific form of loser to think that I write about in one chapter of my book loser think which you should all buy because you have time to read it and this is what I call the failure of imagination so whenever anybody says there's no other explanation there are two possibilities one it was at the right there's just no other explanation but the other possibility that's gigantic is that you're not good at imagining other possibilities and that's the case here so let me give

[17:48]

and that's the case here so let me give you an example so Kevin cannot imagine based on his comment I'm saying he can't imagine because he says is literally not figuratively literally there's no argument except that the mitigation worked it's the only thing you could say looking at the evidence to which I say no no I'm afraid that's not the only way to interpret it here's the other way do you tell me if this is crazy the other way to interpret is the mitigation worked a little bit just like everybody thought it would work but a little bit and the biggest difference was that the models were wildly inaccurate how do you roll out that possibility because Kevin is correct that it has to make a difference that everybody did social isolation and a lot of people wore masks and and it had to make a difference so Kevin's right about that but how can Kevin measure how much of the total

[18:48]

Kevin measure how much of the total difference can be ascribed to that that one factor he can't can't be measured you can't measure it I can't measure the experts can't measure it it can't be measured and if we tried to compare it to other countries say well let's compare it to one of these other countries we'll find one that did everything the same except maybe this one variable and then that'll tell us something it's like oh you did everything in the same except you didn't wear masks well we'll compare you to the countries that did wear masks and see if we learn anything probably doesn't work because there aren't two countries that are enough alike yeah I'm seeing people mention the country as well what about Sweden what about the fact that Singapore have a good result but they didn't wear masks but they did do good contact checking my point is that all the countries are gonna be so fundamentally different on so many big points from you know is it a country where they hug a lot do they have old people living inside what's the what's the you know the size of the country

[19:48]

the you know the size of the country what's the quality of the healthcare or what's the flexibility you can't you just can't compare two countries I don't think I don't think we'll ever have a good a good answer about what works except that we'll know social isolation has to work I mean logically has to work in the same way that face masks logically had to work a little bit you just don't know how much so Kevin I would say that you were you were blind to the other possibility that of course the mitigation works but we don't know how much and it is easily possible easily possible that the biggest difference in the change of the estimates had to do with the estimates were that good in the first place now let's say that's the case I'm saying you can't rule it out and it's so dead simply obvious that it's possible and it would be routine there wouldn't even be unusual if that were the case nothing about that would be weird can't rule it out all right now there

[20:51]

can't rule it out all right now there will be much scent about the fact that the bottom range of the models was a hundred thousand deaths and very quickly it got modified down to well under two thousand we meant a minimum about sixty thousand and when that gets modified down which it might be I think it'll get at least a 50% chance to look at modified down again people will say we'll see how wrong the bottle was and other people will say see how good the mitigation was and we'll never get to the end let me ask you this what are the odds that a big complicated model would be accurate in the first place what are the odds that even if it gave a range and it's a really big range of possibilities one of the odds that it's still going to be in that gigantic range there's a really 95% bit like they might want you to believe in my experience even big ranges are just routinely wrong I mean it's not even unusual temperature in kantak range of possibilities and

[21:52]

in kantak range of possibilities and still be way under it or way over it not unusual roll all right
here's some other stuff the question of who vice-president or yeah who Biden picks for his vice presidential running mate is getting really interesting because the timing because you know this conversation is happening among the Democrats they're thinking oh my god what are we gonna do about Joe Biden because we can't have him as our standard bearer you know that conversation is happening I know that conversation is happening because actually talk to people who are who are prominent Democrats and let me tell you that conversation is happening but there are two logical ways to go about it well three I guess three one would be to just replace them at the convention and just have some kind of a revolution at the convention and pick somebody else that's possible

[22:53]

that's possible but I think that would be very divisive that's risky the other possibility would be to replace him now you know have somebody talk about a running and say look look that like you know we still have time to slot him Mario Cuomo or somebody I'm not Mario of Andrew Cuomo and so let's do it now I don't think that's going to happen because we're a little too close to the convention and it would look like the entire oh it would look like the entire Democratic nomination process was a sham it'd be one thing to argue it out on the floor of a lot of three if it will even be a physical convention but let's say there is it would be one thing to argue it out among their members on the floor because that would feel like a process of some sort even if you didn't get your way you'd feel like all right you know the people who care the most in my party they all went to one place or they were online or they do it they argue they

[23:54]

online or they do it they argue they worked it out they negotiated well at least it's a process you know I don't love the outcome but at least you know and I see how it happened and got a little bit of visibility okay I can live with it but if they replace them before that if they found some you know clever way to say hey Joe just say you're not feeling good and and we'll just slot somebody in there right away I don't think they could do it before because as long as he's still able to appear in public and put three words together they don't even have to make sense and we've seen that right he doesn't even have to he literally doesn't even have to make sense when he talks and the Democrats are still willing to say yeah that's okay yeah well let this play out a little bit I got I would love to know what they're thinking you know the the just mainstream Democrats who don't want anything except what's good for the country and they just want they just

[24:54]

country and they just want they just want a credible candidate to be able to vote for them and they're looking at what their parties serve them up has their choice it's got to be terribly frustrating so I wonder about that internal process but here's my so here's my prediction based on what is most has the least friction so here's the least friction way to go Joe Biden picks maybe even early before the convention picks a vice presidential running mate because if he assumes he's going to get the nomination he could sort of presumptively say let's get this out of the way give you voters a little comfort about what's coming I'll just pick my view vice president I think at that point whoever that vice presidential pick is assuming is somebody you could reasonably see as qualified to be president that Joe Biden could then just go through the go through the charade of

[25:54]

go through the go through the charade of running for office but voters would say we're sort of item voting for the vice president you know in our minds that's really who we're voting for so it feels like and then maybe sometime between now and the convention it wouldn't be so hard to flip the party and say hey let's let's take the vice president put the vice president pick at the top because the vice president was after all picked by the person who had the most votes and then maybe you could let you know let Joe Biden slide off and say he's not feeling well and you know it's all very elegant so I think it's gonna be the vice presidents switcheroo would be the least friction the way for the Democrats to get what they want which is somebody else at the top of the ticket so that's my prediction all right let me ask you this uh-huh if China believes that the wet markets were actually the source of the corona virus would that keep them open now there

[26:55]

would that keep them open now there might be something about China that I don't understand I'm sure there are lots of things about China I don't understand but on a risk/reward basis if you look at the entire GDP of China how much of the entire GDP of China would be represented by the economic activity of the wet markets 1% 0.0001 percent there can't possibly be any serious economic impact of keeping the wet markets opened but the you know the at least in terms of the upside gain of making money it can't be that much money involved how bigger these web markets I mean I don't know enough about the area but it can't be that big right and but the risk of keeping them open is so well understood because if this is indeed the second time that something came down in that same environment this time closing down

[27:58]

same environment this time closing down the economies of the world is there any argument that China could make for keeping them open well let's put it this way suppose we went to China and we said hey China here's the deal we're just going to decouple and move everything home and stop training with you because we need to completely close travel because we can't have any kind of physical connection to a country that has wet markets because they're too risky for the other countries what would China say would they say oh okay we don't want to lose our whole economy so we'll just close these wet markets so here's my question is China not signaling to the world that they don't believe the wet markets were the problem because you can't do these two things that they've done which is say oh yeah the problem that almost you know killed millions of people and did kill I don't know hundreds of thousands when it's all done you can't say we're gonna keep it open if you think that's what the problem was through it no yeah

[29:00]

what the problem was through it no yeah and somebody saying in the comments it's a cultural thing maybe maybe what I don't understand is the cultural importance but the Chinese Communist Party is pretty cold-blooded engineering efficiency and there's nothing that I could imagine where these cold-blooded engineering efficient technocrats are gonna let are going to risk trillions of dollars again for what would be the smallest economic benefit of these little wet markets that can't possibly be a good idea so I think China is basically signaled that they are not willing to be a credible partner in the world they there's there's a line below which if you're below the line of credibility you just can't work with those people you know you have to just make a choice and say you know nothing personal but we can't work with that whatever whatever you're doing over there it's nothing

[30:01]

you're doing over there it's nothing personal but we can't we can't expose ourselves to that risk anymore so we have to do what we need to do so I love this comment from Lauren Pesce I think from some other country on Twitter dropped into my comments to mock me because I was making some comments about the models that the same kind of comments I was just making here as making on Twitter and Lauren goes in to say and it's better if I say it in the mocking tone that thing when a guy who draws a cartoon thinks he knows more than epidemiologists or people who can pronounce that word I guess epidemiologists about modeling infections do these Fred hahaha look at the cartoonist that guy who draws the cartoon thinks he knows more than epidemiologist about modeling infectious diseases oh it is too laughs how is silly that the

[31:03]

too laughs how is silly that the cartoonist thinks he knows more than all the expert doctors in the world well you know Lauren that would not look like such an ignorant comment if it didn't happen this week this was the week in which all of the medical experts in the world finally said yeah the cartoonist was right now they didn't use those words but who was it who told you face mask really do work for lay people when CDC and WHO and the Surgeon General and doctor foul she told you they don't it was the cartoonist there was the cartoonist that was also many of you because common sense got you too they in the same place but Lauren if your point is that the cartoonist cannot have an opinion which is superior to all of the experts in the world I don't think you're paying attention because I just

[32:05]

you're paying attention because I just did that in public I did it aggressively in public I disagreed with all the experts in public shamelessly and we know because all the experts have now said yeah yeah you're right cartoonist guy they didn't of course refer to me but they've all come around to my point of view am i right yes I am so well let me say this and how about the experts how about the medical experts who told you that because we don't know exactly the hydroxyl chloroquine test results that you shouldn't use them right where didn't you have experts saying we don't have the test results so it's dangerous so you shouldn't use the hydroxychloroquine because it hasn't been you know tested through the test results the the medical experts told you that I wasn't that the

[33:07]

told you that I wasn't that the epidemiologists and everybody else and what did the cartoonist say the cartoonist disagreed to that and said oh wait a minute if these drugs have been around so long that we know which people have a risk and which do not for example the people with heart problems and the people with hypertension have a little extra risk and we also know that it's a long-term use risk and we're not contemplating use it for a long term under those conditions said the cartoonist it's probably still a good bet because even if it doesn't help we can be pretty sure it doesn't hurt and there's so much anecdotal information that alesis suggests there's a nonzero chance it could be helpful so on a risk/reward basis who was right every medical expert who told you know you know you don't want to use this because it's unproven or the cartoonist the cartoonist because the medical experts

[34:08]

cartoonist because the medical experts pretty much when they were already you know undercover they were already turning my way which is to say well we don't know if it'll work but it's worth a shot on the risk/reward basis so who was right all of the medical experts in the world the CDC the Surgeon General were they right was it was it the World Health Organization that was right or was it the cartoonist it was the cartoonist and everybody else who had the same opinion who was not a medical expert right it was President Trump his president Trump's stupid old dumb old president Trump who doesn't believe in science was his opinion about hydroxychloroquine superior to what was coming from the top medical experts yes yes it was we can see that plainly because both the medical experts and Trump exactly agreed then it's unproven it would be better if it were proven there's some anecdotal evidence that works but that's not a guarantee but the

[35:12]

works but that's not a guarantee but the risk reward is still worth it that came from the president that didn't come from the medical community that came from a cartoonist it didn't come from the medical community but now what is the medical community coming around to oh yeah that was more about shortages yeah we knew that we knew it was about shortages we knew you were lying we knew that you were being irrational for whatever that reason was to prevent the shortages in the hoarding but Lauren Lauren + Co any other year it would be reasonable for you to say oh yeah let's believe the cartoonist not the medical experts let's believe the cartoonist that makes sense yeah that makes sense any other year that would have been a reasonable mocking thing to say but you're saying it right in the middle of me proving in public that my opinions are superior to the medical professionals now do you need another

[36:12]

professionals now do you need another example how about the example where I'm the only one who said that the low number is going to be below the models did I not as not being an epidemiologist and not being a biologist and not being a medical expert was I not loudly and publicly saying that I believed the numbers would come in well under the bottom estimate who was right all of the experts in the world or the cartoonist who was right the cartoonist or the experts Noren so at least pay a little bit of attention who is being right okay I totally get the you should not ignore experts even I don't ignore experts as much as I complain about it even I take experts as the first you know that's the first position and if you're gonna deviate from what the experts are saying you have a good reason you're gonna need a pretty good reason if you're gonna disagree with a consensus of experts but I show my work you can decide all right

[37:16]

I show my work you can decide all right Wow I think I've beat that to death
here's another example of loser think from Rachel Maddow so she was responding to the Attorney General had a tweet about you know about America needing to get back to work alright so the Attorney General was making sort of a general statement about we need to get back to work he was not putting a day on it he was not saying let's forget about the people who will die because he wasn't saying that he was making a general universally true statement that we would all like to get back to work no real detail Rachel Maddow decides to mock him for that universally true statement that everybody agrees on and she says that this way in her tweet more than 40,000 Americans have already died one American died every 45 seconds today but sure mr.

[38:18]

died every 45 seconds today but sure mr. Attorney General yep go on yeah go on about this get back to work
here's the loser think it's one variable thinking if the only variable we had to worry about is how many people were dying well I'd say good back to work or how many people are dying specifically from the coronavirus then Rachel Maddow would have a world-class excellent opinion here and it would be the sort of thing she should be proud to show to the world but if you're in a situation that has many variables and you've got the economic you know pain and death that comes with that and you've got the health care coronavirus death and you've got lots of variables that ties it all together the psychology of the economics the the credit the you know this world the sea of variables and Rachel Maddow goes in and she picks out just one of them just one of the important variables to mock somebody who may have considered more than one variable if you want to

[39:21]

more than one variable if you want to really be the champion of loser think be the person who says only one variable matters in a big multi variable situation and then go in public and mock the people who think it's a multi variable situation if you want to if you want to reach the peak of bad thing King rachel maddow you have achieved the summit all right anything else happening
I keep saying questions about dr. Shiva and whether I agree or disagree so I will reiterate what I said about that dr. Shiva has a whole range of opinions within this category of the coronavirus stuff and I don't know which ones you find controversial or you would like my opinion on so if you wanted to be more specific put it in the form of his statement dr. Shiva says X what do you

[40:23]

statement dr. Shiva says X what do you think so I'd be happy to give you an opinion and that but you have to narrow it down a little bit I've I've sort of skimmed his opinions and I didn't see anything that far ahead of what I would think I didn't say anything that shocked me so I don't know what you're talking about exactly when you're a Linda trip story so here's one of the weird things about my life and I notice about this about other people as well have you ever noticed there are some people who for completely or at least what it looks like to be coincidences often find themselves to be a somehow attached to the biggest stories in the world never noticed that there's some people who just go through their life and they're not even trying to do it but suddenly they get there's somehow attached to or they're their brother is doing something or or their spouse is on something they're always just connected to the biggest stories in the world I've

[41:24]

to the biggest stories in the world I've never noticed that it's like this weird pattern that can't be explained now I assume it's just confirmation bias and selective memory and stuff but it's one of those fun things about reality that looks like that and I'm one of those people so I observe it in others but I observe it in myself as well that the number of times I'm connected to a major story this is sort of weird and the Linda Tripp one is one of those examples so yeah and there's no importance to this story it's just an interesting connection so Linda Tripp if you remember she she had her knowledge about what Monica Lewinsky was up to and she didn't know what to do with it as she sought advice now here's the interesting part the person she sought advice from was a book editor yeah a publishing editor kind of person and that publishing editor kind of person I happen to know so I actually know the

[42:24]

I happen to know so I actually know the new she's I think she's passed away but I knew the the woman the agent that Linda Tripp went to and that agent told her to make her or her story public all right so that's the part of the story you know that Linda Tripp had some information she got some advice from a publisher publisher said yeah you should take that public here's the part you don't know the person who gave her that advice was a huge anti-clinton person so the advice was not unbiased it was just pure political advice to take down a president yes it was a Jonah Goldberg's mother that is correct now Jonah Goldberg's mother who gave Linda Tripp the advice was married to the I believe the senior vice president of my cartoons syndication company and so I knew well the husband because I you know worked with him as part of my cartooning so I knew well the the guy

[43:28]

cartooning so I knew well the the guy who was married to the woman who gave the advice and and those two people are the parents of Jonah Goldberg who I met at an event during those times so there's there's no real point to the story except the number of times I find myself you know connected to a story and then you know time goes by and most of you know that Jake Tapper and I did a thing where Jake is also a cartoonist and Jake drew a week of Dilbert comics that we use for a charity for wounded veterans and so we did that twice so so I have you know this sort of you working professional connection with Jake Tapper who also dated Monica Lewinsky so in this weird way I'm just minding my own business over in my life and I've got you know two separate connections this whole Monica Lewinsky story I mean how random is that it's not even

[44:28]

I mean how random is that it's not even six degrees it's likely you know one degree or is it to like however you count that all right dr. Shiva somebody says does not believe HIV causes AIDS well I don't know about anything in that topic but that's not what you were asking me about dr. Shiva you know and by the way that's not a secret or anything Jake is actually published I think at least one article in which he in which he talked favorably about Monica just being a good person and by the way as far as I can tell you know we've had a long time to observe Monica Lewinsky in the public eye and I think we can say she was a good person that that's my observation she looks like a

[45:28]

that's my observation she looks like a good person she was in there she was in a difficult situation but she just seems like a good person to me all right the prediction on when California will relax its stuff well I don't think anybody's made a decision but here's what I did today to try to move the ball forward so I tweeted today that I think we should get back to work whenever the experts can tell us that doing so would keep the death count from coronavirus specifically below 50,000 now here's why I'm doing it there's having spent many years doing predictions and estimating things and doing budgets the sort of thing one of the things I learned is that you can often estimate the cost of something or the price that somebody would be willing to
to without knowing any information about the topic now you say to yourself well sky how's that possible how could you reasonably estimate what

[46:29]

how could you reasonably estimate what somebody who would pay for something if you had very little information about those people what they want what the what the item is and I would say you need to know something about it but here's how you can make predictions without knowing much about anything it goes like this where you would feel comfortable is probably not that far off from where other people would feel comfortable so for example if somebody came to you and said I've developed this new product it's a it's a blank and it has these functions and you want it because of this reason doesn't matter what it is and you look at it and you say ok what would you pay for this and so I hold it in my hands and I look at all the features and I figure out what it would do for me and I say to myself I would pay I don't know 50 bucks and what you would find is that you could do this experiment all over the country you'd probably have to keep it within a country but you'd say okay hold this product tell me what you would pay for it

[47:29]

it and people are saying I don't know 60 bucks but you're gonna find out they don't say a thousand and they don't say two dollars people people have for just psychological reasons for bias reasons for irrational reasons we tend to gravitate toward the same perceived price of things there's no reason for it it's not based on being smart it's just a phenomena which I have you know I've observed over the years so I believe that people will also gravitate toward 50,000 for the following reasons 50,000 tends to be sort of a weird cutoff in our experience of life 50,000 is sort of the number of people who died in Vietnam and we say that was too many 50,000 is roughly in that neighborhood of how many people die from guns 50,000 is sort of where people are dying from automobile accidents 50,000 is sort of

[48:31]

automobile accidents 50,000 is sort of where the overdose the numbers are now you know it's in the $30 thousand but I'm just saying fifty thousand is that range right fifty thousand has taken a a psychological and emotional meaning for us this is a hypothesis right so there I can't point any science behind this so don't take it too seriously I put it down as a hypothesis maybe we'll see if something happens this way we'll never know if it's because of this but so here's the basic idea yeah and the flu somebody says in the comments the average flu kills in the range of you know give or take fifty thousand so I believe that in our minds there is a magic number which we accept in the United States as too much and then below that that's like well I will accept up to fifty thousand deaths because I need a car you know that society needs transportation I will

[49:32]

society needs transportation I will accept fifty thousand deaths from illegal drugs overdoses because the alternative is what you know closing all the borders and not accepting mail from other countries and you know so they say well given the trade-offs I'll accept that so I'm gonna continue to put out the fifty thousand number and by the way I heard Lindsey Graham use the same number I don't know it's possible they heard it from somebody already for me but I think it's more likely that they he came up with the same number I think the most likely scenario is that Lindsey Graham did the same thing I'm doing right now which is okay just if I had to think about it as a just a citizen where would I be comfortable to get the economy back knowing that X number of people will die what is X what's my X and he said fifty thousand the more of us who can say that the more fifty thousand becomes a thing and even

[50:35]

fifty thousand becomes a thing and even and even it could be we're debating whether it should be above her above or below fifty thousand as long as that number gets in her head then we've got something we can tell our experts hey experts we know you can't be that accurate but give us your best you know estimate of when we can go back to work and under what conditions that will keep us under this psychologically important level of 50,000 and I think that makes so this is the what I call the the drug dealers trick where you find a way that you're both psychologically happy even if you don't know you've made the right decision so we need to be as a society we need to be psychologically comfortable with whatever we decide but also completely aware that we can't know what's the best thing to do it's just not knowable you can take a guess and you can adjust as you go but you got to be comfortable or you're not going to get off the the first square and I think to do that we need to float the number

[51:35]

to do that we need to float the number 50,000 and just wrestle with it all for a while until that but that number becomes something we feel is comfortable I see a very insightful comment this is
somebody says too low too low you're saying too low because it won't get us back to work well I think that we can get to 50,000 and I think we can get there simply by keeping old people locked up and doing a better job you know here's an idea that here's an idea that nobody's talked about suppose you had only one now let's say you had two tests and you had two extended families so there were two you know families that had from children to parents and let's say one grandparent is living in the home and there are the two of these situations two households have a grandparent there you only have two

[52:38]

grandparent there you only have two tests available what's the best thing you can do if you have two tests you test the two grandparents of the two different households and then you put the grandparents in the same house and you have the young people move over and double up in the house that has the young people in it so then you've got the two tested grandparents so you just say well nobody's coming into this house for six months you know we're going to shove pizzas under the door but nobody's coming in the house you guys have tested your good you just live in this house and the rest of us will live with the low risk people no I don't know how often things like that would happen I use that as an extreme example to say that we have not exhausted the cleverness that we can apply so if the government said right now our models say that we're still going to be at 60,000 but I don't think our cleverness has been expired we have not gotten the bottom of the well of our cleverness so even though our models are still saying

[53:38]

even though our models are still saying 60,000 we feel comfortable saying that human ingenuity can get us below 50,000 so I think our experts have plenty of ability to say yeah this is this is the time and this is the way and they could also say going to work without masks won't get you under 50,000 going to work with masks with hydroxychloroquine once we know a little bit more about the effectiveness so they could they could give us a prescription that is effectively a checklist I created a checklist for you but they could create a better one that says all right if you meet these criteria yeah you're good to go
go and I think they could keep it under 50,000 so these are the things I'll be pushing the most the number of 50,000 a checklist so our experts can tell us you know whether we're on the list to go back first and then a decision on the end of the month if you can give me those things plus plus some confidence that we're not going to run out of

[54:39]

that we're not going to run out of ventilators and stuff and I think we're getting close to that then I feel like we have something that looks like a plan and I would be very proud of living in the country that could get us to that point actually if we can get to the point where we've got a number that we're managing to and we've got a checklist where we can all say yes yes that applies you know no no science need it either I have a mask and I'm going to wear it or I don't check checked that's a plan so let's get to that point all right that's all I got for today I will talk to you tonight you know man 10:00 p.m. Eastern Time 7:00 p.m. Pacific and I will see you then