Episode 906 Scott Adams: Simultaneous Sip Doesn’t Happen on its Own. Get in Here.

Date: 2020-04-11 | Duration: 57:43

Topics

My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a Content: The current Democrat dilemma Back to work by location or individual risk? Outrage by privacy and freedom people Freedom or privacy…we can’t have both anymore

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-bum-bum bum-bum-bum hey everybody come on in here we got stuff to talk about if you caught me earlier this morning at around I don't know 4 a.m. my time you probably think this is a bonus that it is I did not do the simultaneous if I was just testing my microphone situation yeah the test was successful yay but this is the real thing yes I've combined the simultaneous swaddle with the simultaneous sip this is a first now I don't want to blow your minds but these two things can happen together so for the first time ever a world premiere the most important thing that will ever happen this year the simultaneous swaddles sip yeah it's coming at you and what do you need besides the blanket well it would be

[1:10]

besides the blanket well it would be good if you had a cover of Mugler glass of tanker Challenger side a canteen juggler flask a vessel of any kind fill it with your favorite liquor I like coffee and join me now for the unparalleled pleasure that dopamine hit of the day the thing that makes everything better including the damn pandemic it's called the simultaneous swaddle scent it happens now go and just as I suspected it's twice as good swaddling good sipping good put them together I think you see where I'm going alright so I feel great empathy for different groups of people during this time of crisis but I have a great deal of sadness and sorrow for this group there called Democrats you've probably

[2:10]

there called Democrats you've probably heard of them and the Democrats are an especially tough time because until Trump makes a decision about how to open up the economy they don't know what to disagree with so they're all poised to oppose the president but the longer he goes without saying which way he's going to go the longer they have to go without knowing what they're opposing so what do they do in the meantime because they can't they can't offer an opinion that would be the most dangerous thing Majan you're a Democrat and your number one thing in the world is beating Donald Trump that's all that matters and and you don't know why he's gonna do you only know that when it happens you have to be on the other side but between now and the time it happens you have to have an opinion because you know a lot of us are on social media or pundits so somebody asks your opinion and they say

[3:11]

somebody asks your opinion and they say should we go back to work let's say May first or should we stay lock down for a while what are you gonna do if you're a Democrat this week any Democrat a pundit politician and somebody says tell us what you would do how would you do it they can't give you an opinion because if they do there's probably a 50% chance that it's going to go in the other direction if they say open it up Trump might say hey how about a few more weeks of keeping it closed and vice versa and all of those Democrats don't want to take a 50% chance of being on on film you know on video not film but on video saying that the president should do exactly what he ends up doing think about that what if Joe Biden comes out and says you know I've talked to my own experts and I think we should open up May 15th let's say Joe Biden says that they in

[4:12]

let's say Joe Biden says that they in advance so and week goes by and then President Trump says I've talked to my task force and it turns out that May 15th is a good day so I'm gonna open up everything on May 15th well what does Joe Biden do he just said that's the right decision but he yeah I know may 1st is the date but you la is already talking about extending it so I'll give you a little prediction probably it's not going to be May 1st everywhere so I think you're going to see some big places push it in a few more weeks like la is my guess but yeah the Democrats are completely silenced except for weird questions about how the Surgeon General refers to his own grandparents you get that one of the biggest criticisms of the president's coronavirus task forces like the best the best they could come up with because remember until they can commit to an opinion of their own there's not

[5:15]

to an opinion of their own there's not much to criticize you kind of have to say you would go the other way in order to say he's going the wrong way so the best they could come up with is they they send else endure the the woman to to accuse the Surgeon General of using the wrong language when referring to his own grandparents that was it that was the sharpest criticism of the administration is that an african-american Surgeon General referred to his own grandparents in the way that they lovingly refer to their own grandparents and his family and that became a national headline because it was all they had so that should tell you something about the slaughter meter shouldn't it i'm very amused to watch what i call the the growing locusts and and the red pilling of people on this whole prediction model questions you

[6:16]

whole prediction model questions you know the the idea that there is such a thing that people believed a little while ago say last week people believed that you could do something with math and your algorithms and your spreadsheets your formulas and your variables and if you did it just right the alchemy would work out so that you could actually predict the future until a week ago people thought that was actually a real thing that there were people with spreadsheets and formulas and and math who could actually and I'm not joking predict the future most of the world believed that that was the world they were living and they thought they lived in a reality where there were such wizards you know in little windowless room somewhere we don't know who they are but the Wizards have done their math and their magic and they can actually see the future now I know nobody claimed that they could see the future perfectly I'm not claiming that but the whole

[7:18]

I'm not claiming that but the whole point of the models right what you thought last week didn't you think that last week the models were more likely true than not at least statistically and they would give you at least a statistical glimpse into the future you thought that right what do you think this week this week this week you probably think the models are just things that experts make up to persuade you
you because models are just things that experts use to persuade you the models are used to persuade you what the experts believe is true in most cases they actually believe it's true but they don't have a good way to explain it and to convince people to act on it so they build the model but the model is not truth the model is just complete BS is just marketing and then people think that the model actually produced information when in fact the model produces no information is simply a reflection of what the experts are trying to persuade so watching people

[8:21]

trying to persuade so watching people like I'll use Brit Hume as my example part the reason I use them as my example is because I have a lot of respect for them so that makes it more interesting because it's not very interesting if people that you know are idiots were wrong last week and you know now they're trying to figure out why they were wrong last week that's not interesting you know dumb people being dumb is not a story but when you see somebody as experienced in smart and accomplished as britt hume who certainly sees the whole field or so you would think and I feel as if just watching his tweets and his reactions to the the models and kouchi and stuff I feel like I'm watching him getting read pilled in real time like he's understanding that the experts were not intending to tell the truth in other words they were intending that the model would scare you because that's how they could get the compliance that they they legitimately thought they needed so I believe

[9:22]

thought they needed so I believe everybody involved is doing their level best to produce a good result nobody nobody in this story has bad intentions nobody in the story is not smart everybody in the story is smart smart very accomplished professionals you know Brit Hume in the news business ouchy in the medical business but watching watching people realize that the models were never intended to tell you the future they were only intended to persuade is really a big mind effort if you know what I mean and a lot of people are waking up into a new reality in which they realize that the so-called experts certainly know more than we do I'm not saying you should ignore experts but you can't trust them to give it to you straight when that doesn't work so in a perfect world the experts would say here's what we know here's what we don't know here's why we you know have a

[10:23]

know here's why we you know have a strong consensus in this direction but this is all we know we don't know more than we know here's what we know and here's our recommendation if they did that I think the I think the scientists know it wouldn't work because it wouldn't be persuasive it wouldn't scare anybody people would look at it saying well you know no right you just said you just told this expert you know some stuff but you're not sure and there's a whole bunch of stuff you admit you don't know and lots of variables that are just assumptions so am I going to act on that am I going to act on your big bunch of guesses you know probably not so said they they put it in the form of a model and then people look at the model and they say well I wouldn't necessarily trust these scientists their opinions hey but hey the model is a model I mean now it's now it's just evidence now it's just objective now it's just a fact look at this graph and of course it's not objective it's not a fact it's just the

[11:25]

objective it's not a fact it's just the experts finding a way to communicate that it works so I I asked this question on just before I keep on one minute before I came on and I wanted to see in the answers if anybody yesterday and the question was this I said does there exist this kind of American anywhere in the country and of 327 million Americans is there any one of us who would fit the following description this week okay does this person exist someone who believes that the coronavirus models were bogus but they believe that the climate science models are credible does such a person exists this week now if that sounds like an opinion I'm not trying to make it that way I'm trying to make it I'm not giving you an opinion on climate science or coronavirus I'm just saying that if you are of one kind of

[12:25]

saying that if you are of one kind of mind which is that models don't work wouldn't you apply that to both situations given that they're both highly complicated lots of assumptions etc so I think that the the most consistent kind of person is someone who believes the coronavirus models were good or good enough but also believes that the climate models are good or good enough directionally and I'm just curious if there are people out there who have split the difference since that yeah models can be terrible and this one's bad but well this is still pretty good do they exist I think there'll be fewer and fewer of them
I've seen a question that says is Mark Cuban on the task force I do not know I do not know the composition of the task force is going to be really interesting isn't it the president said something like he wasn't even sure what party they belong

[13:26]

wasn't even sure what party they belong to because he was you know he indicated he was thinking bipartisan terms for the committee but I wonder if it actually ends up that way because you know Republicans could be more likely to search out and ask other Republicans but it would be good if you had some Democrats on there I think that would be the smart way to go so here's my big question for the week or maybe the month you know let's see if any of you have some visibility on this room maybe you could tweet it at me afterwards and the question is this there seem to be in a general sense two ways to reopen the economy one of the ways is to do it by geography and say this this is not a hot spot so you this this zip code can open up and you could imagine that there would be obvious logical reasons why that makes sense but another way to go and of course it might be a mixture of the two but another way to go just to

[14:26]

the two but another way to go just to keep them straight in your head is you would reopen the economy to people who were low individual risk so it wouldn't matter where they were it would only matter if they individually had a risk of dying if they caught it so that could include people who are recovered people or young people don't have you know complications of other health problems that sort of thing and the question I asked is if you had to have a plan the Saint was biased in one of those directions because it's probably going to be a combination right my guess is there'll be something about geography but they'll also be something about individuals right it's gonna be a little both but if you had to emphasize one over the other which one would get you the greatest statistical effectiveness while also opening the economy I'm gonna look at your comments here for a moment because yeah so everybody who says do both that's not the comment I'm looking for because I know it will be a combination

[15:27]

because I know it will be a combination of both I'm asking about weight yeah stop saying both please we all know it's both some amount of both but the is it primarily okay it looks like people are just gonna say both in the comments because nobody wants to make a decision here today so and today here's somebody in Cummins is saying I favor individual but is that the same as saying it would be the most effective yeah you might have a personal preference because it gets you back to work faster but define effective I would say effective would be the best balance of economic recovery with low death rate but you would have to make that decision yourself so I'm not going to give you a standard for that just what's your sense of it is because the the thing that has me stymied is a usually risks or at least a

[16:28]

stymied is a usually risks or at least a little bit obvious on you know from 30,000 feet usually you can look at two choices and know which one's the risky one but in this case I actually don't have a guess if somebody says they missed the question so I'll ask it again if we reopen the economy would it be smarter to focus on geographies that don't have a problem or would it be smarter to focus on individuals no matter where you are and if you're a low risk individual go back to work knowing in advance then it will be a combination of both but you could have an emphasis on what you know it could be mostly about geography with a little bit of individual stuff or vice versa
somebody says regional is most effective now I don't know why if it's been studied that I think I would accept that answer but just stating that one would be more effective than the other without a reason is not convincing me because

[17:30]

a reason is not convincing me because I'm trying to I'm trying to game it out in my hand I think you're doing the same thing right now which is you're you're literally creating a little picture in your mind of like a zip code and then you're seeing people coming in and out which is of course you're ruining the integrity of the zip code they had no problems until people started coming in and out so if they go back to work don't they just get the same infection rate eventually as New York and everybody else it was just a matter of time right so I actually I'm starting to form an opinion very preliminary and it goes like this if you do it by geography but you don't limit travel you are guaranteed to bring the virus em into a situation in which nobody's in lockdown so the risk of spread is basically guaranteed and if you've also not limited the high-risk individuals if you haven't make any made any difference about anything else you should expect

[18:32]

about anything else you should expect that you would reach something like sixty percent infection eventually because that's what it takes to get to hurt immunity I guess so so that's one model but compare that to the model where you still have mass infections because you're sending that people were safe back to work except the mass infections would be almost entirely on people who have a very low chance of dying from it so if you said the people who are individually most likely to survive they can get you close to Hurd infection or herd immunity which by the way is now even questioned we're not even sure we have herd immunity but still operating on that assumption so I'm gonna say that your best play would be to send as many young people out to get infected as you possibly could and then try to get them to herd immunity with the fewest number of deaths as you

[19:34]

with the fewest number of deaths as you possibly could that's my current opinion because if you just do it by zip code there's too much leakage from other places and then they have exactly the setup that causes Italy which is you're not doing any social distancing you know at least nothing aggressive kind so all right that's my preliminary opinion but I would like to your experts because I don't feel like I could settle on that ISM as a strong one somebody says geography with strict two borders I thought about that and it depends it depends how you would define strict you would of course have to let supplies and you know goods and service well Goods mostly cross the border you could probably limit services if he had to it would be really inconvenient but people could get you know their service within the boundaries if they had to it might just make some adjustments yeah I could see that all right

[20:34]

right here's one of the big question marks in my mind I course have a special place in my heart for the restaurant business I used to own a couple of restaurants didn't work out for me as it which is no surprise by the way I like to haste them to tell people that when I opened to my restaurants I did it when I was rich enough that it didn't matter to me financially if they made it or not no they didn't make it but it was it's not like I was surprised or anything however it was an immensely rich experience which I would probably do again if I had the choice and I learned at just a ton it was you know good for the town and I heard you know I employed a lot of people during that time so I'm glad I did it but so I have a little bit of insight into that business that you wouldn't necessarily have if you had only been a customer not an owner and here's what I think might happen because of this coronavirus situation it certainly in the next year I don't see

[21:36]

certainly in the next year I don't see how restaurants could be profitable and and most of them would go out of business the independence especially and the reason is that most independent restaurants have to operate pretty close to 100% of capacity to even have a chance of profits so if you take your average in your neighborhood independently owned restaurant and you take ten percent of their profits away there are already negative that's probably all needs to take out no 75% of restaurants into negative territory because it's not a big margin business so my guess is there for the next year there isn't really any reasonable way that the smaller restaurants could possibly stay in business for that long you know doing doing things the way they've always done it which is trying to pack the the room and it may not even be illegal so here's what I'm thinking I'm imagining the ways that restaurants could quickly refigure reconfigure to

[22:37]

could quickly refigure reconfigure to become a different kind of business without spending a lot of money something that would immediately boost their income and maybe give them a chance and just here's some brainstorming ideas what idea is to rent tables in the restaurant for work at home people who just want to go someplace that's not their own house now if you work at home every day you already know where I'm going with this right if you work at home and you got kids there and you got you know you got a spouse their grandparents you got dogs running around you got people deliver and stuff it's kind of hard to get any work done in your own house sometimes so I know a lot of people who would be willing to rent a table in a restaurant let's say during the afternoon hours let's say 2:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. and let's say the morning from 7:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. and you could just rent a

[23:40]

to 11:00 a.m. and you could just rent a table now you can stay there and get some food to go or eat your lunch there also or you could eat your lunch and then just stay and rent the table for a few hours you just bring your laptop and you just do your work but you don't make any phone calls so that's one model it's basically combines what Starbucks already does successfully which is essentially they rent your tables but they don't directly charge it they sort of embarrass you to buy Starbucks products and if you buy their products well then you sort of have indirectly you rented a table you can so that usually the president's already talking about baking meal meals tax deductible for businesses I think that'd be a big change and great here's another change since we're all getting a lot of us are getting hooked on takeout and delivery but the problem with takeout delivery is the same analogous to the problem of online

[24:40]

analogous to the problem of online school I complain about online education because all they did is take a camera and point it at somebody who knows how to teach and that's not even close to where online education could be if you you know have the right team and you did it right
this likewise with restaurants what restaurants did for takeout and especially during the crisis is they took the items that are on their menu at the prices that they're listed on the menu added on top of it you know the delivery fee which is usually the fee that you know you're the delivery company does and then basically they just took the same business model and said well how about if we bring it to your house now that's ok you know it meets a lot of needs and if you have a high income it's a good alternative but if restaurants are trying to succeed like in this new environment one way they might go is to become a meal

[25:41]

they might go is to become a meal replacement business maybe in addition to the high-end stuff but you could imagine the them changing their their business into almost an exclusively meal replacement business in which they maybe are not you know doing the high-end steaks but every night they have three or four choices that a family of four would want to eat and and then they price it so that it doesn't you know it's not outrageous so a lot of ads to do with the pricing so I think they could make a meal replacement model which they do not have now right now it's a restaurateur that they deliver to your house which is not the best of both worlds that that could be redesigned I also imagine that you could turn regular restaurants into drive-throughs or drive ups or like the old days where you went to a diner in your car and the server

[26:41]

server you know rolled up on rollerskates to the door of your car so I there's a business in my town that sells ice cream it's called the the dairy and it's been there forever and it's an institution in my town and it's a drive up so basically you you get in line in your car and the usually teenagers come out and they ask you what you want you know in line so that by the time you get up to the front of the line they're almost ready and they just hand it to either you pay so it's very efficient but here's what's interesting the business was not really designed as a drive-through business I think it just sort of evolved that way because and and then they started changing the street so there was so much business for this one ice cream place that the town started putting cones out and sort of making it easier for a long line to form and so I could easily imagine that some restaurants would transform their parking lot into the restaurant so you could drive up in your

[27:43]

restaurant so you could drive up in your car order from your car maybe there's a movie or something playing in the parking lot and you got people on rollerskates or not bringing your food up but they're there trying to keep a distance right or maybe they don't even praise the food up maybe they just you know leave it on the table with a number and you go and get it yourself whatever is the least contact I also think that maybe movies will just go into business because I'm not sure they're going to the movies even makes sense anymore in my opinion going to the movies was sort of the default plan if you didn't have anything fun to do I mean in the old days going to the movies was actually an event that you liked doing but today with our attention spans being so small and movies being so bad and the alternatives on our phone from Twitter to YouTube being so good there's actually going to a movie and sitting there in suboptimal conditions

[28:44]

sitting there in suboptimal conditions well it's just not as good and I feel like the pandemic might just end movies as a business and just move it to your house and your phone all right I am fascinated by the fact that this Russia collusion coup situation has gigantic breaking news right in the middle of the crisis and nobody cares like you I'm gonna talk about it and even I can't find a way to care about it even as important as it is because of the alternatives and so I guess John Solomon confirmed on Sean Hannity's radio that there are multiple grand jury subpoenas going out on behalf of Attorney General John Durham and we're also learning that the FBI knew the FBI knew that the FISA applications were bogus and that the the investigation was bogus and they did it anyway so now a lot of stuff is

[29:47]

anyway so now a lot of stuff is unredacted and we're learning more we saw an unredacted thing with george papadapolis in which the whoever was the intelligence operative was trying to get him to admit some kind of crime and he was doing whatever is the opposite of embedding a crime he said no nobody do that that's illegal and stuff and he sounded like he meant it because he didn't know that he was being he didn't know that he was talking to an operative and he was talking it looked like he was just talking frankly and it's pretty clear he didn't know about anything that was out of ordinary you didn't know anything I'm just pretty clear wouldn't even see the the conversation and now we know that and now we can now we can sort of go back in and rewrite our own personal histories of whatever we thought about this situation before because I started out skeptical I started I was skeptical that there was some kind of organized coup attempt I'm still not sure what organize means as in

[30:47]

still not sure what organize means as in I don't know if they had a leader I don't know you know I don't know if they had meetings I don't know if they were all aware of other people in the plot I'm not saying that that's demonstrated but it's pretty clear that a lot of people had the same somewhat spontaneous notion that if they could degrade the president in any way it would be good for their team so my guess is there was a little bit of colluding you know certainly there were individuals talking to each other about what they could do or would do but I don't know how organized it was I mean was it organized down to the point of trying to put their own person in charge or was it somewhat autonomous people just knew they didn't like the president that they didn't care maybe they didn't care who replaced them as long as it was a Democrat because that's a different coo you know one kind of COO says I'm gonna get rid of the person who's there but I'm gonna put it in a specific person who's my person that's a coup the other one is just sort

[31:49]

that's a coup the other one is just sort of people acting out their own personal trauma you know just deciding I'll I can do this and I feel bad about the president so I'll do this small thing I can do and I'll hope other people are doing things and oh I see the news is doing their thing and and now I see the other Democrats are doing their thing Oh looks like we're all doing this thing now I feel like it might have been more like that but we'll find out here's so there's the big debate I'm seeing is about the police state you know are the things we're doing for the coronavirus is a pushing us too far - no 1984 and Big Brother and dictatorship and police state these are all things to not joke about and they're all serious but some of the examples are you know churches are being forced to not hold services together license plates are being recorded if anybody who does so they can

[32:49]

recorded if anybody who does so they can be followed up with later and one town the sidewalks have been designated for which direction so you can get in trouble if you're on the wrong side walk walk in the wrong way you can get in trouble if you're surfing by yourself sitting on the beach all by yourself so there are all these things that you know you can get dragged off a bus for not wearing a mask depending on your city and then there's the talked of some kind of identification documents if you can prove you have antibodies now of course a lot of the freedom freedom people which is most people but a lot of the Conservatives I'm saying they're saying you know dammit you know it's gone too far we're giving up our freedom our freedoms for this and it's not worth it I have no respect for any of those opinions none I have no respect for that so all the people who say you can't be closing the churches and telling us

[33:50]

closing the churches and telling us where to serve from the beach and giving us ideas and all that I have no respect for the people whose opinion is we can't do that because it's bad for freedom unless they believe all those things and they can put a number on it if you could put a number on it then it's actually an opinion otherwise it's just bitching alright if you can say to me look I think that the state should not put all these restrictions on us I think we should be allowed to live our lives the people who were in more danger they know they are they can hide the rest of us why don't we reopen the economy that's a good opinion if you can put a number of deaths on it that you're willing to accept for your preferred plan without that without that you're just bitching yeah and nobody should even listen to you whatsoever so if all you're complaining about is somebody wasn't allowed to go to church wasn't allowed to surf whatever I have no respect for

[34:52]

to surf whatever I have no respect for your opinion none unless you can tell me how many people you're willing to kill to reserve that right and that I might agree with you or I might disagree but I would fully respect an opinion that had a number on it here's the worst thought you're gonna have I don't think it's bad but you might take that way I think in order to get past the coronavirus situation we're gonna have to make one of the hardest choices a free country ever made and it goes like this we can have privacy or we can have freedom but we can't have both anymore and here's a specific example freedom would be the freedom to you know go to work go where you want go to the beach go to church so that's the freedom I'm talking about the freedom of where you go and what you do in order to have that in the age of

[35:55]

in order to have that in the age of coronavirus you would almost have to give up your privacy because I don't see any way we could ever get there unless some people are willing to have contact tracing let's say have their phones monitored where they are so you know who touches who gets in contact with somebody else maybe something like the ID cards you know it could be digital it doesn't have to be a physical document or a card he a veneer wallet but I think probably the very minimum we're gonna need to do is to give up our privacy about who's been tested what the result is and where they been in terms of contacting other people short of doing those things I honestly don't see any way past it I don't because even if you had testing you still sort of need to know who's tested and who isn't right don't you feel like yeah you have to have you have to have some records of who got tests and who didn't so there's

[36:55]

who got tests and who didn't so there's your privacy there so people will know if he didn't get tested probably now I don't know if they're even collecting that information but I don't think we can get to the other side without giving up freedom now here's the good news this something Eric Weinstein was saying talking about going to Mars and one of his points I hope I'm I hope I'm presenting it accurately there's always that risk on that but one of his points was that as humans become more godlike in our powers in other words one person will have the power to build a nuclear weapon and destroy half of the country so as individuals get more and more powerful which is just a given right we'll have our drones and our weapons of mass destruction and you'll be able to buy a corona virus on the darknet so people will get more and more dangerous and the only way to protect against that Eric Weinstein was saying well some of us are just gonna have to leave the planet and go to Mars I don't know how that solves it because

[37:57]

I don't know how that solves it because how do you get only good people on Mars I mean eventually some terrorists are gonna end up on Mars too so so I don't think you can escape it I believe that the only way we will be able to live together as each of us individually gain godlike powers is to give up to give up privacy in other words the system is going to need to identify people who are developing the plan so they can stop them before they do it otherwise we just won't be able to live on the same planet no you know it if there's only 1/2 of 1% of us who are crazy and willing to kill the rest of us that's the end of the planet because they half of 1% will have the complete capability to ruin the rest of the planet will have the motivation the ability to do it and nothing can stop them except a complete loss of privacy so that you can see it

[38:58]

privacy so that you can see it developing so this is the toughest thing we will ever have to do since maybe the American Revolution we will actually have to explicitly decide to give up one of our most cherished rights privacy but here's the good news I think we can figure out how to do it without the big downside risk now of course as soon as you give up privacy and I don't know if somebody send us in the comments yet but I would expect it the moment you give up privacy smart people will say well that's just the beginning of the end because once you give up privacy the government knows too much about you and then tyranny can happen and dictatorships because they have too much control over you because I know too much about you now I I have empathy for that position but I think we can cleverly get past that with this insight as long as the government also doesn't

[40:00]

as long as the government also doesn't have privacy you'll be fine the worst situation is if the government let's say the people running the government they have all of their privacy and they can operate behind closed doors and you don't know what's happening but you've lost all of yours that's the worst possible situation because that's pretty much begging for a dictator at that point right but suppose our our transparency of a government is complete whatever that means so I'm talking conceptually now so if the government has a meeting you find out what they talked about if somebody decides to find out your name in a government database maybe the system is designed so you get a message and it says huh the governor just looked at your name on this list and then you could say hey I'm gonna tweet about this why is the governor looking at my name on a list what's the you know what's that got to do with anything now I'm just trying to make up examples of their bad ones but the point

[41:01]

examples of their bad ones but the point is if we the public could see everything that our leaders were doing which we can't now so would require much more transparency then we would not be in so much risk that they would abuse our lack of privacy now I think also you could game the system to protect privacy while getting still some of the benefits for example Apple and Google have this have this announcement where they're they're going to make it possible for you to have an app that would track who came in contact with whom because your Bluetooth would be on and your Bluetooth would recognize each other when he came close so if you get the virus and you get tested and you have it some app an algorithm can find the people you were with and send them a message and say you know be careful or whatever whatever the advice is now it would be easy to write this system so that no human being was ever directly alerted to who

[42:03]

being was ever directly alerted to who was involved in other words the programmers could create the system and then just let it run and nobody would actually see who is getting the texts so you know you could have some anonymity built into the into the process of but as all of you will quickly note that doesn't really protect you because the programmers can find out who you are they write they wrote the software they can find out who you are and the government can tell the programmers to find out who you are so really the government has full access to finding out anything they want about you but they already have that the government can already find out anything they want about you you only think it's different so my point is if we can build some tools that you would think would give up some of your privacy as long as the government was also more transparent than it is now we could make it work and we could protect your anonymity except for maybe the programmers but then if

[43:05]

for maybe the programmers but then if you have enough visibility they even they can't they can't do anything bad with it because everybody's watching so that's the basic idea I think that's where we're going utopian thinking is it I would say utopian thinking would be if you believe that people would act upon their good nature and good impulses so I would think an impractical utopian opinion would be all people will share people will not be selfish once people have all they need they won't steal but I don't believe any of that so so my what I just described I think is the opposite of utopian because it makes the worst assumptions about human nature you should build us if your system is going to survive it needs to make the worst assumptions about people and still work didn't let me give you two examples democracy democracy works and a

[44:09]

democracy democracy works and a democratic republic they work even though all the individuals vote or I'm sorry even though all the individuals voting are mostly idiots and still it works right so you can make the worst assumption about the citizens but you can still see that a a system well designed cancels out the idiots and you still get something that all the idiots say well it looks good I yeah I voted and I feel good about this even though my persons didn't win likewise with capitalism capitalism makes the worst assumptions about human beings that were selfish and they will do anything to screw somebody else as long as we can get away with it and then they built the system called capitalism we all act selfishly and it makes us rich that's it that's a good system so likewise with this privacy question you would have whatever you did you'd have to design it so the worst impulses of human beings is built into the system

[45:09]

human beings is built into the system and it still works so whoever said I'm thinking like a utopian you would be right if I had ever made any assumption about people doing the right thing but I always aggressively make the opposite assumption that we're all evil and selfish unless somebody's watching so that's why I add the transparency because the government would be evil and selfish if you weren't watching all right
saying things could be more efficient is not utopian correct correct yeah we're a constitutional republic with democratic principles I'll give you that Scott is famous so he's already a non private person with nothing to lose well first of all I respect that comment because it echoes some things I've said before then I've effectively lived in your future which is that I've lived in a world for decades in which I don't have privacy

[46:13]

decades in which I don't have privacy the way other people do meaning that I assume hackers are trying harder to get my stuff I assume the people in the government people in social media have snooped in my messages I mean I just soon all right do you assume that would you assume that any big social media network has looked at your actual messages your private messages would you ever assume that probably not right because they wouldn't care so you have the privacy of nobody caring but I do assume that everybody who is a famous person probably has had theirs their private messages looked over by programmers and developers and other people like that so I've always assumed that I don't have privacy the way other people do just because there's more interest in violating it and of course it's possible you know the people who program the systems have every ability to look at all the information of course but the specific type of privacy I was

[47:14]

but the specific type of privacy I was talking about even I still have which is the privacy of movement without being tracked so the specific privacy I was talking about is you know losing losing my privacy of who I talk to and where I was and I'm saying that I would give that up too because at the moment I have that same privacy you do nobody you know nobody knows where I drove my car yesterday only I know but I would give that up if it meant it's the only way to go back to work are you saying the nanny state is inevitable with advanced technology I would call I wouldn't I don't want to use your term because there's something different about what I think what I think is that the system that'll work is not the nanny state where the government is sort of the nanny and you know you like the children but rather something more like a standoff no mutually assured destruction is what I call so instead of

[48:15]

destruction is what I call so instead of saying it's a nanny state I would say what I favor is mutually assured destruction which is hey politician you have it you have the physical ability to violate my privacy but if you do you're going to lose your job because I'm going to know about it we have we have so much transparency I'm going to know about it so if you violate my privacy for no good reason you lost your job so the system that I think would work would be mutually assured destruction now nothing's perfect so could you design a system in which there's just no way anybody could violate your privacy without getting caught no probably not but I'll bet you could get most of it you know I'll bet you could do a real good job you know nothing's perfect and if you can't design it then then I'd probably vote with you that you don't want to give up your privacy I wouldn't give up privacy unless we had that extra transparency okay the death rate for healthy people

[49:19]

okay the death rate for healthy people is much closer to flute-like why would they lose freedoms I feel like you haven't been paying attention can somebody in the comments answer this question before I have to why would why would the people who are not at risk any more than regular flu the people were healthy and young let's say Fievel why should they be prevented from going out when their risk is no greater than it is for other stuff now it actually it is greater but you know you could argue it's in that range does anybody want to give the answer because I'm frustrated that it's not obvious all right so it might take a while Chris or sometime like let me give you the answer the answer is that all you people who do not have a risk of dying not much risk the young people the idea say you'll go out and get infected and take it home and kill grandma so it really isn't about you so if you are the only person who

[50:20]

you so if you are the only person who existed and only your personal risk mattered yeah I'd go back to work in fact if the only thing that mattered was you why would we be doing any of this the odds of you dying are pretty darn low right the entire purpose is to protect people you don't even know whose names you'll never know now if you say I don't want to do that you know the cost benefit doesn't work that well you could make that recommend but don't make the argument that individuals can just manage their in risk we don't live in that world your risk could kill me and we have a pretty long history of saying that you you could have your freedom unless it kills me yeah you can smoke your cigarettes unless it's around me you can drive you can drive without a license unless it's on the road that I'm on you know a public road so you know with all of our

[51:24]

public road so you know with all of our rights are balanced against other people's costs and benefits as well and how could you change that I mean that's not the way chase so anybody who thinks that this situation will be the one situation in the world in which only your individual risk will matter that you need to wake up you don't live in that world you don't live in a world where only your individual risk will be the determinant of what the policy is it's always about what you do and how it affects other people they couldn't be any other way there would be no point in having a government there's no point having a government if everybody can just do what's in their personal best interest that's the whole point all right this comment says I am stuck on this if we do this for a hundred to two hundred thousand lives why now for 80 thousand or fifty thousand good question here's my answer almost everybody who is

[52:25]

here's my answer almost everybody who is thinking wrong about this makes the same mistake which is to compare the mitigated low low number with the the unmitigated number of regular flu so the unmitigated number of regular flu could get up to you know fifty thousand or eighty thousand right and we as a society have decided yeah if that's how many people you lose 50 to 80 thousand here we think we should leave the economy open for that so the questioner asked well if it's only 50 to 80 thousand then we keep it open from the regular flu and it looks like it might only be sixty thousand for this why wouldn't we keep it open for this because they're not the same one is with full mitigation one is with no mitigation you're comparing a rock to a giraffe if you're if you're stuck on that you haven't been paying attention

[53:27]

that you haven't been paying attention to anything the most important thing you have to understand is that if we did not mitigate the coronavirus it's not going to be a hundred thousand deaths it's going to be a million but it's going to be a million now I ask yourself how how powerful is the shelter in place the social isolation how much does it work well according to the models the difference between what we're doing to mitigate and not this is the difference between a million people dying and something closer to a hundred thousand and maybe it'll even be lower so it's about a ten to one or a twenty to one death rate between mitigating and not mitigating is that not clear all right
what if the flu is added 200,000 if the regular flu was a 200,000 then we would certainly have a conversation about

[54:27]

certainly have a conversation about closing the I hate that phrase having a conversation we would be debating whether we should do something about it but you're also still missing the point if the regular flu had the risk of killing a million we would treat it just like this one so maybe I can summarize it this way for every risk that has a risk of killing a million people we always treat that risk the same way as very serious and if a risk might kill 50,000 ish it has been our way to let it go fifty thousand people die in cars or less so you can think of lots of things in which sub 50,000 people die but you can't think of too many things that kill a million people o smoking actually Smokey's kind of a special case because it's grand there didn't were people are literally hooked on it somebody says I will never

[55:29]

hooked on it somebody says I will never trust the rulers well that's a good
somebody says exasperated Scott is most amusing well could I'd be more more exasperated than intelligent people comparing a fully mitigated flow with one that's not I mean if I see that comparison one more time I think my head is going to explode because that's really that's the most basic thing you have to understand if you don't understand that we can only have the 60,000 or hundred thousand desk with aggressive mitigation if you don't understand that and that the real number to compare to the flu is a million and I think that's low by the way as some smart people are starting to say we don't really have a plan that doesn't kill two percent of our population times 0.6 let's say you heard let's say herd

[56:29]

0.6 let's say you heard let's say herd immunity it happens around 0.7 seventy percent of the public has it you can get hurt immunity according to dr. oz 65 to 70 percent so let's say 70 so if we even if we slowly go back and manage our risks we're probably going to get to 60 percent of 327 million times 2 percent people are gonna die they just won't die all in 3 months so we might be able to spread out the hospital impact which would be importantly impossible which would be a thing but when you talk about going back to work unless you've got the testing in place or DNA testing or therapeutics or vaccines or something unless you have those things you're kind of talking about killing a million people just spreading it out so we'll see what happens anyway that's all I got for today well no I'll have bored today tonight more tonight so he says what

[57:31]

tonight more tonight so he says what about fentanyl Fencibles not legal as a recreational drug so that's already illegal alright and I'll talk to you tonight you know what