Episode 918 Scott Adams: I Evaluate the Economic Reopening Strategies so You Don’t Have to

Date: 2020-04-17 | Duration: 1:05:23

Topics

My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a Content: Dr. Phil and coronavirus Keeping hospitals empty and waiting, waiting…waiting? Democrats eating their own lately $20Hydroxychloroquineversus$1,000 Remdesivir Naval’s observation about coronavirus under age of 45

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

[0:13]

Hey good morning you came to the right place good for you so far your day is going well oh I got an itch don't touch your face use the official face scratching tool that's what we've learned well I think it's time for the simultaneous simp mm-hmm yeah it's time and all you need is a cup or a mug or a glass of techno chelators tie the canteen Joker flask a vessel of any Chinese fill it with your favorite liquid I like coffee enjoyed me to go for the unparalleled pleasure the dopamine the end of the day the thing that makes everything better it's called the simultaneous it but it happens right now go hey Tom from Stockton good to see you so here's the question that I asked

[1:13]

you so here's the question that I asked so we've got these hot spots of the country with the virus but we've got other places where they're laying off staff because the hospitals are empty they don't have much to do so here's a here's a basic question that I wonder about why do we assume it's better to keep those hospitals at the lowest possible level of activity as opposed to an alternative which is to allow those places to go back to work until the hospitals are start to get impacted and then maybe you could pull back a little let's say you get to 25% of capacity and you know that it could very easily at 75% of the week well then you pull back you know maybe do a little do something a little differently but here's the bigger question I feel as if we are a country full of people who are not good at evaluating things and it might kill us all and bye-bye evidence of this I give you

[2:20]

and bye-bye evidence of this I give you dr. Phil so dr. Phil is getting some heat because he went on TV and passionately compared automobile and other types of normal deaths to how many people have died or are predicted to die with full mitigation from the coronavirus now how smart is dr. Phil I think he's very smart right wouldn't you say if you had to you know measure is IQ obviously he's successful his career very very smart talented guy but what the heck is up with that I told you before in my best-selling book loser think there you could be really smart in one field and be blind to how other fields look at problems and this is a clear case where dr. Phil brilliant accomplished guy is blind to how somebody should look at this problem

[3:21]

somebody should look at this problem it's just obviously it's just not an experience he has has some you know contact with and the way you should be doing of course just looking at the problems without mitigation versus you know with mitigation if he wants to compare it to other problems so we'd really be looking at a 1 or 2 million people dying compared to 35,000 dying in cars now you could still say hey it's still worth the risk but that's a different argument dr. Phil is a perfect example of people who don't know what they don't know because he said that pretty confidently and pretty pretty passionately in public so you know that in his mind that made sense doesn't make any sense it's it's it's the analysis of a sixth grader basically it's not even comparing the right things so and again no no insult intended to dr. Phil it is

[4:23]

no no insult intended to dr. Phil it is most typical that people have experience within their domain and don't have experience of other domains it's the reason I wrote the book because it's the most typical situation but we we need to be careful about who we listen to because not everybody is qualified to compare things and make and make important decisions I'll give you some more examples of this as we go so in my question about the hospitals that are in the areas that are not yet impacted here's my question given that we have no nothing that looks like a cure either now or anytime within our planning you know a zone and it looks like even if we get a vaccine a vaccine might be 18 months away long you know far past the point where the economy would have been destroyed if we waited and if we wait

[5:25]

destroyed if we waited and if we wait that certain disaster because that's just too long times the economy down and if we wait and then we get there all we have is the vaccine vaccines don't really stop infections just sort of slows it down so whether you have a vaccine or you don't have a vaccine chances are you really have to get to hurt you either have to get to hurt immunity and there's some question whether that's even to think does there's evidence of people getting reinfected or you just say it looks like this is how we live now so so if you think that the question of whether we have heard of unity or not should determine whether we go back to work you're not good in it you're not good at analyzing C so that's not a difference of opinion or priorities that's just not being good at analyzing a thing because in all in all cases most of the country gets to the fact that no matter what you

[6:26]

gets to the fact that no matter what you do so if you if we have something that can give you immunity that'd be great but if we if we don't if you can't get immunity it's the same strategy that makes sense you just have to live with it because it is what it is the alternative of closing the economy forever or even 18 months that's not a real option that's not a real option because sure it would keep you know some number of people alive in the short run but the devastation of the economic meltdown would be far greater far greater so let us not destroy the entire planet because other people are not good at analyzing things and so that brings me to my other questions suppose this is more of a just a thought experiment suppose that the the president's policy group for reopening the economy had now

[7:31]

group for reopening the economy had now this is just a thought experiment because this is not describing reality but suppose he forms this advisory group and has the following professionals on it now let's assume that each of these professionals is the best kind of their type so none of them are dumb they're all really good at what they do but they have you know their experiences in their domain so who should be the one among all the experts because you need lots of different experts with their opinions it looks like it's going to be a big crowd I don't know what good an advisory group is if every Republican except Mitt Romney is on it yeah is it there a problem with your advisory group got a little too big well that's a separate problem but back to my thought experiment let's say these are the job experts so let's say you had a doctor a scientist an engineer politician lawyer CEO economist entrepreneur psychologist and theologian and let and of course they'd all be good to give their inputs

[8:32]

they'd all be good to give their inputs but who would be the best one to synthesize all of their different expertise and put it into some coherent model which job is best for that some of your way Hanabi yeah the correct answer is engineer now of course this is an opinion and of course it's a thought experiment in which unrealistically all of the people in my list are very highly qualified which in the real world is never the case right so in the real world if your best person is any one of these jobs yeah you still want to get the best person right but you know if you could imagine that they were similarly talented I would go with the either the engineer and some people said CEO now I'll give you partial credit for CEO but the but there are a lot of CEOs who are also technically oriented so if your CEO is Elon Musk all

[9:36]

oriented so if your CEO is Elon Musk all right if your CEO is Elon Musk okay I would let him make a decision because he's an engineer and an entrepreneur and the CEO and you know we know he's marked and seems to have the right instincts so yeah somebody like it would be great so I doubt that the committee is going to be as well organized as you know in our minds we think would be a perfect situation so it's just going to be sort of a mess of competing competing opinions and I don't know how they come up with a coherent opinion and of all that but I look into the the mess and I see am I wrong about this that am i incorrect that he the Advisory Committee includes like just a ton of politicians mostly Republican that's true right because I don't know how you could ever come up with a decision with a large group of people of that type it just doesn't seem

[10:38]

people of that type it just doesn't seem like honestly it doesn't seem like it's designed to get you a recommendation it doesn't look like that it looks like it's designed to just to sort of give cover for whatever they decide to do but I don't know how they could come up with a coherent you know agreed upon proposal and all those people now here's what gives me some confidence so my understanding is that among the people in the working group are marked Benioff somebody has to fact-check me on this but I think Marc Benioff is one of the people on the advisory group he's not like other people I've spent a little bit of time with him and I gotta say you know when you spend time with famous or accomplished people usually you walk away thinking oh they're kind of normal you know there might be smarter or whatever but they're kind of normal people Marc Benioff is not normal and I mean that in a good way there's no

[11:40]

and I mean that in a good way there's no there's no negative to that at all whatever's going on with Marc Benioff you just spend a little bit of time with him and you walk away thinking okay that's not normal whatever's going on over there you don't see that a lot whatever that is and I gotta tell you that whatever that is is really good stuff because he does have a mix of the technical the CEO he's he's an enlightened being you know he's just got a bigger a bigger view of what's important so you know having a Marc Benioff in a group makes me feel a lot more comfortable likewise in the group is Mark Cuban Mark Cuban in the group it makes me feel more comfortable because you know he too has been in the situation where he's a CEO of a technical organization yes business management entrepreneurial has made decisions and complex environments as the best interests in the country in

[12:41]

as the best interests in the country in mind it's great that's great so I don't feel good about the number of people involved especially the politicians but I feel very good that there are some specific personalities than the group that I hope will come to dominate the conversation Peter Navarro yes Peter Navarro I don't know a ton about him but my understanding is he's got a he's got a good broad background and would be good at integrating stuff so Peter Navarro is somebody who gives me a lot of confidence so what we can hope is that the people with the most capability within that gigantic working group all we can hope is that the other people in the groups recognize who is the most capable among them and I'd be looking at a Benioff I'd be looking at a Mark Cuban I'm sure they're you know several others who who could be arguably in that class I don't

[13:42]

could be arguably in that class I don't know them all but I sure hope the smartest people are making the most decisions let's hope that's true all right that's weird my notes are all out of order so you're going to get the out of order presentation today okay so Democrats are eating their own like crazy lately have you noticed that so David Brooks wrote a article in The New York Times called the age of coddling is over the the essence of it being that you know the Millennials have been took on old and you know this would be their first big big challenge and as you might imagine Millennials did not did not appreciate that argument and so they went after David Brooks pretty happily on at least on social media so David Brooks you know typically associated with the left he gets attacked by his

[14:43]

with the left he gets attacked by his own people that Fox News puts on dr. oz and of course that makes him a target so dr. oz is being attacked because he said something about sending schoolchildren back first because it wouldn't change the overall death rate that much because they don't get the corona virus too badly and of course everybody said you monster dr. oz why do you want to kill children so dr. oz of course you you imagined him more associated with the Oprah so you imagined him more in the left so because dr. oz said that and dr. Phil went on and honestly just embarrassed himself by not knowing how to compare things in public so that that of course brought the pressure back on Oprah because Oprah is blamed for making dr. Oz and dr. Phil famous and of course Bill Maher you know is getting attacked for it and anytime he goes any time he goes just a little bit off the reservation and says anything objective it gets totally

[15:45]

anything objective it gets totally attacked and I saw Andrew Sullivan on the list I don't know what he said that makes people like just like him but but if you watch the left are just eating themselves alive now I saw on social media somebody said commented to me and said can you believe that the you know we live in such a politicized world can you believe that even the corona virus got politicized and people are just taking sides by what political party they're in to which I said I don't see that I don't see that at all now it could be true but is it but do you see that because let me tell you what I see I see the distinction between the the you know the the division there's definitely a division but the division I see is almost by experience or I don't want to say IQ but sort of experience

[16:46]

want to say IQ but sort of experience like let's say experience the the people who are the best at analyzing things seem to be all on the same page the people who are really not good at analyzing things seem to be on their own page so there's definitely a split there's a division in the country but I don't think it's by politics you know certainly people are attacking politically like all the left attacks the right no matter what they say the right attacks the left no matter what they say but if you were to take anybody on the left or the right and say let's let's talk just privately and this let's get off the social media for a moment nobody's nobody's looking let's just talk privately and I think that you would find that the only division is people who are good at making decisions largely on the same page people are not good at making decisions they're largely on the different page so that's what I see that's what I see I

[17:46]

so that's what I see that's what I see I don't see this as a political division except you know we're sniping at each other but when it comes down to the decisions that doesn't look political to me it really doesn't but I also could be very wrong about that so Scot Gottlieb who was an MD and was what was he the prior head of the FDA I think and he's saying that the remm des aveer trials at least the early information might be already strong enough to suggest it should be used for compassionate use which means that anybody who was in bad shape would be able to get it even though it's not going through all the correct approvals no now how many of you made this prediction early on prediction hydroxychloroquine only cost you $20 to get better REM des aveer cost you about $1,000 to get better early on how many

[18:50]

$1,000 to get better early on how many of you said I'll bet I know which way this is gonna go it looks like it's going that way honestly you know if you're again we're only based on the anecdotal but as I've said before I think if the hydroxychloroquine worked as well as we wish it did I feel like we'd know that by now as opposed to having only anecdotal information I feel like we know it and we don't so it could be that REM does aveer is the real thing and hydroxychloroquine is not but why did we all know it was going to go this way like that's got to bother you right did the simulation did the simulation just broadcast this months in advance hello I'm the simulation you know how this is going to go right you got the one that's practically free the one that it riches the pharmaceutical companies we're going to do some scientific trials guess how it's going to come out now maybe maybe it's entirely legitimate

[19:56]

maybe maybe it's entirely legitimate maybe it could be I mean could be legitimate but do you trust it I don't know we live in a world in which I don't know if you can trust anything anymore and when something so conveniently goes in the direction that every cynic in the world said watch this watch this let me call this two months in advance it's gonna be the expensive one all right why did we all know that you know it could be it's true but I don't know all right China apparently has a commercial on television which I saw a clip of that has to be seen to be believed I'll describe it but you if you know go look at my Twitter feed you have to see it all right and it's part of the larger picture which is the anti China sentiment is just going through the roof and I don't think it's going to reverse

[20:56]

and I don't think it's going to reverse it looks like a one-way trip toward decoupling how many of you thought I was crazy two years ago talking constantly about decoupling from China and you said to yourself well you can talk all you want I know your stepson dive and you feel bad about it but I'll tell you what's not going to happen if we're not to stop doing business with China come on Scott you can do your little hashtags all day long you hashtag decouple but we're not gonna actually D cumple from our largest trading partner or superpower in the world well except that we are something we are that's certainly not because if anything I persuaded but the simulation offered it up and I gotta admit I didn't see this coming so anyway the ad I was talking about there's a commercial in which and I'm not making this up there's

[21:58]

which and I'm not making this up there's a young Chinese woman who's doing some laundry and it looks like she's in some kind of a place where I don't know there's a housepainter or something comes by and the house painter is an African well he's not african-american because he's in China he is a black man in China now apparently there there's some number of black residents of China I don't know how many can't be a lot but so the black man comes around the corner and he's got some paint on him because he's a house painter apparently and he starts you know leering at the the woman and she acts like maybe she's into it and he gets closed it looks like maybe maybe the guy is gonna kiss her and then she shoves a laundry one of those laundry pods into his mouth grabs him by the back of the neck and miraculously shoves him entirely into the washing machine his legs and everything go into the washing machine she shuts the top of the washing machine sits on it and the washing machine goes

[22:59]

sits on it and the washing machine goes as you're imagining the black guy who's now being murdered but hey it's good news after the end of the commercial she gets off the machine opens it up and she takes out of the machine a Chinese guy who's really handsome he's not black do you believe that that that's like your commercial in China that she washed the black off a guy and turned him into according to the commercial a better guy because he wasn't the black guy anymore seriously this is the country where we want to do business with now it's not like it's you know brand new news that the China is racist but what is the news is that the American public is engaging with this topic more and D couplings of the way Tom cotton is tweeting about China somehow is using some kind of paperwork approval process problem to

[24:02]

paperwork approval process problem to hold up medical goods that are bound for the United States so there's stuff in China that's ready to go but there's some kind of paperwork holdup in China it's time to decouple right do you think do you think China can't authorize a plane to take off with some medical supplies to the United States these are not our friends they're not our friends whatever's going on over there not good D couple oh I've got a proposition I'm thinking about and it's spurred by two things I there was a story about some student I believe asked President Obama if you would give a graduation speech I don't know if it was like a digital one just for this guy's college whoever asked for it worth it was a if he was asking for a digital commencement address for all graduates I

[25:02]

commencement address for all graduates I don't remember which one it was but it it gave me this idea so I had been scheduled to to go record a commencement address a digital one and and I didn't do it so because they're prone to virus why am i I'm having the blank for some reason I'm just noting Joe Biden moment here I'll think of the I'll think of who I was doing it for in a moment Prager Prager you so Prager University had asked me to do a video with a commencement address basically based on one of my books and I wrote it but I had some health problems that limited me from trail travel and the coronavirus thing pops up so anyway that that got postponed forever because who knows when

[26:02]

postponed forever because who knows when anything like that could happen it's not going to happen this year for sure but I've already I've already written the commencement address I don't believe that Prager you would be upset if I went ahead and just recorded it because I don't you know it would be next year before I could record it for the next season you know everything's different by that so I'm thinking of doing a graduation address for the country anyway I'll just put that out there I'm thinking about it update on Chris Cuomo's of CNN so unfortunately his wife got the coronavirus too and oh my god what a what a terrible situation because now neither the parents can essentially take care of the kids but you know at least because of the separation issues and they can't even be with each other because even though they both have the coronavirus it's not entirely clear that that that makes you safe from each other so they're playing as smart but Chris

[27:04]

so they're playing as smart but Chris Cuomo was he likened it to Lord of the Flies because the children are in charge and I guess his 17 year old basically as being the parent and I let me say this about that and it kind of ties back to the David Brooks comment since when did a seventeen-year-old since when is a 17 year old not capable of taking care of a family you know if this were a little Little House on the Prairie that 17 year old would have three kids are rode by now so I'm not too worried about 17 year olds handling a household for a while you know I if it were my own 17 year old I'd be far more worried about it I suppose but let me extend this point I feel as though the very young have not been asked to step up in our society too often and what do we do ask them they do for example there are lots of young

[28:04]

for example there are lots of young people to join the military do the young people who joined the military step up yeah of course they do yeah the process just turns them into whatever the process Stern is going to do but you know most of society does not require them to step up like that until later in life but if we asked I think they could here's what I'm getting at one of these strategies we could use to reopen the economy is to let very young people do jobs that normally we wouldn't in other words just give a lot more responsibility to 16 volts 17 drills let's say let's say this summer there you know businesses that need to open up but a lot of their employees are over let's say 50 or 60 and it's not yet safe to come back to work how many of those jobs that are done by a 45 year old let's say working on an assembly line how many of those jobs could not be done by a 16 or 17 year old who's just

[29:06]

by a 16 or 17 year old who's just filling in for the summer you know they they wouldn't be doing the hard jobs but you know the manual stuff worked a forklift is there a 16 year old who couldn't work a forklift yeah it wouldn't be as good as the 35 year old but I'll bet we could yeah about we could get pretty far yeah would it would it be the worst thing in the world if the server at your restaurant is 14 not really I mean it's illegal for them to serve alcohol and stuff so there's some problems with that but you know in the old days people that age were stepping up all the time so there's at least some possibility that we have a resource that's underutilized that might be you know part of the larger solution to who knows story on CNN about some people in the in the isolation are doing what's called Corin teaming teaming as an they form a little team of friends I

[30:07]

an they form a little team of friends I guess this is mostly single people and they just live together because if they're gonna be quarantined they don't want to be quarantined alone so several friends who already know they get along just say I will just quarantine well I'll just stay at your house now I suppose they could go between homes as long as they're the only ones who associated with each other and I thought not a bad idea but this made me think of an idea that I think is a bad idea but I want to run it by you I want to run it by you and it's based on the idea that if you wanted to inexpensively and quickly test to see how many people were infected in an area one of the ways you could do it is take all the blood samples and just throw them into one sample and then test them say ten at a time instead of one sample at a time because most of the time depending on what you're looking for most of the time you'll get negatives on all ten tests

[31:08]

you'll get negatives on all ten tests because you're looking for something that isn't that common so it's a little easier just say alright we'll throw them all in a batch test all ten and then if you find a hit you you've kept a little of your sample left and they say Oh which one of these ten but most of the time you don't have to so most of the time you just test the pool there's nothing in it you say okay everybody we put in the pool is cleared so taking that concept and I think this doesn't work but I'm having trouble thinking new through so maybe you can help me could we form clusters of quarantine to people either around let's say around a workplace and then if anybody in that workplace gets it you know then maybe they're already quarantined basically it's a it's a quarantine cluster so that if you have a cluster with nobody who has it that whole cluster can interact with each other and can't give it to each other now if you've got leakage and

[32:09]

each other now if you've got leakage and I think this is a hole in my problem there's the hole in my idea if there's any leakage then of course you know the whole cluster can get infected but so I'll just ask the question is there any scenario in which you could just put people in clusters keep them just in clusters and then if one cluster gets a hit then you you quarantine that person or that cluster where you do your testing on everybody else in the cluster but just I'm just wondering if mathematically there's any way that that could give you some advantage Israelis did the best testing somebody says one family well we already do it with families right so the families are already a cluster so could you extend the idea and say alright this family has been quarantined really well and this one's been quarantined really well and these two get together or they get along can these two have as much contact as they want as long as they just keep it

[33:10]

they want as long as they just keep it to the two families now again everything is imperfect and there's always a leakage so of course there would still be infection getting through but could you slow it down and it wouldn't be any advantage that just just questions in other words let's put it in concrete terms if somebody said you can reopen this business but the only way you can do it safely is if the people who are the workers only interact with other workers families in other words you could you could see anybody who's a family of the same with the same business but then of course you've got two workers and the family doesn't work okay I think I talked myself out of it
China raised its death estefan by 50% suddenly on Friday you know that joke about the cats on the roof I think China of course knows how much trouble they're in with you know the international community so they're trying to like just slowly we'll just edge up that estimate

[34:13]

slowly we'll just edge up that estimate so it isn't as obviously ridiculous let's just add it up a little bit then the next week you know hey we found a few more just edge it up a little bit so that maybe they can try to try to close the degree of that embarrassment that will cost them essentially their civilization so you can see them sort of moving in that direction
all right now did I already talk about this or did I think about it you know one of the one of the hard things about doing this much talking in public is they sometimes you just can't tell did I just talk about this or did I think about it so much of the last 10 hours that I think I just talked about so I actually don't know so we're gonna talk about it again in my opinion if we are to wait 12 to 18 months for a

[35:13]

are to wait 12 to 18 months for a vaccination first of all the vaccination is not likely to be like a kill shot it just takes a little edge off so the vaccination is not like to just sort of work and if you have the vaccinations you're safe because it doesn't really work that way with flu type viruses even if this is not exactly one of those so I don't think we have reason to believe that a vaccine would just you know make you safe I feel as a vaccine would make some people safe under some conditions which would be typical to vaccines there are vaccines that do work you know think things like mumps and measles and chickenpox and stuff those are more protecting everybody but I don't see that happening with the viruses the flus I don't see us having vaccinations that just you know wipe it out so given that waiting for the vaccine is a bad strategy how would

[36:14]

the vaccine is a bad strategy how would you compare these two risks so risk one is that we go back to work but everybody's smart about it so the people at greatest risk protect themselves the most and we just do the best we can but we go back to work what is the risk of catastrophe under that scenario and I'll say catastrophe is that the outcome of that destroys let's say the economy and a million lives so you lose both your economy and a million lives and maybe your health care too so let's call that catastrophe and let's compare that to staying close down as long as possible which could be months and months to get as close as we can to the vaccination which probably is that be-all-end-all let's rank those two risks I'll give you my opinion first my opinion is if we play for the vaccination in other words that's our big plays like hoping the vaccination is just what we have to

[37:15]

vaccination is just what we have to stall as long as you can to get closer to the vaccination I believe that would be a hundred percent chance of global economic meltdown now these are just opinions because there's no way to really model this stuff in a way anybody would believe right it's just my feel of things my experience etc doesn't mean is right that's just where my head's at is that if we wait for the vaccine it's an it's an insured destruction if we were to go back to work let's say earlier than the experts want but we do it as carefully as and as smartly as possible we reconfigure things do everything we can do I think the risk of destruction let's say of catastrophe where you lose your economy and you lose a million people too and by the way in both scenarios you're going to lose a million people just one is slower so you're gonna lose a million people either way I think the risk of catastrophe if we go back to work soon

[38:15]

catastrophe if we go back to work soon is 50% that's my guess if we go back soon which most people would consider too soon I think there's a 50% chance of total catastrophe yeah I think if we play it for waiting as long as we can to get close to a vaccination my feeling of it is that's closer to 100% catastrophe so the adult decision is to take the 50% chance of catastrophe that's my opinion all right now as you know the children in the conversation will say dr. Oz or Scott Adams you ghoul I've actually been called a ghoul this week several times you ghoul how could you be so happy about all these deaths well nobody's happy about it your goal how can you say it's okay to go back to

[39:18]

how can you say it's okay to go back to work when you know it means more people dying how would you feel if it were somebody you knew these are all stupid questions of children adults just have to make the tough decision just before I I signed on somebody on Twitter challenged me this way in the comments somebody sent Scott if you personally had to decide which 300,000 people were going to die and it was on you and you had to you had to personally decide would you be okay with that Scott would you o be okay if you have to decide who personally dies to which I said yes yes I want if the assumption is is still the best the best path they're all bad but on one of the paths 300,000 people have to die and somebody has to decide yes I will do that I will unambiguously and without hesitation decide which 300,000 people die now what I'm done

[40:19]

people die now what I'm done somebody's gonna kill me right away right because I you know I will have decided somebody dies so my life expectancy would be about 10 minutes after I made that decision but I would still do it in a heartbeat so I would be dead at the end of it but I would have saved humanity by being the adult in the room who said you know there's no right answer here's here's the best I can do I'm gonna be dead too I'm gonna be just as dead as these three hundred thousand people but I'm going to do the best I can for those of you who remain so that's the setup so yes yes I take that job with no hesitation I take that job and no hesitation somebody says yes you first well how do I go first until I've done the job now if you're saying go first as in once I've decided to the three hundred thousand are then I'm immediately killed that's exactly what I'm talking about I would be immediately killed as soon as

[41:20]

I would be immediately killed as soon as I made the list and well before any of those people were dead I'd be the first one dad that would be guaranteed it's you know if you get to decide well you know unless you live with 100% security forever of course you'd be dead and yes and yes if I would be dead immediately the first one of the 300,000 I take the job with no hesitation no hesitation it's that easy trade-off if you wouldn't do that you're a ghoul I say a ghoul all right
let's see what else we got here going here who is who has done the modeling between these two opinions I saw in the comments somebody was reminding me to talk about navall rava Kant's solution well his proposition that he put in in a tweet and looked like this if you just send to work the people under 45 who

[42:22]

send to work the people under 45 who don't have health conditions or bad health conditions if you just did that you would end up with a death rate for coronavirus that wouldn't be too different than the normal flu death rate so why not start today say if you're under 45 and you don't have any health condition go back to work everybody else keep hiding you know stay out of the of the trouble now of course the the young people coming back would be bringing some disease back to older people you couldn't stop that but the older people would have some control I mean you know they could do a lot and we could probably get better and better and better at protecting them you know however good you are on day one you're gonna be a lot better at protecting people in you know dating ID right we get better at everything so here's my question who is capable of or who has done and who and would believe it anyway who has modelled those differences

[43:23]

who has modelled those differences scenarios let's call it the navall model where everybody under 45 was healthy just goes back to work today or soonish you know you could argue that there's a modified version of that if we're really close to having an answer on you know one of the therapeutics or we're really close to knowing if convalescent plasmus works you know if somehow we had a vaccine that looks like we can have it in a month you know if we have something that really really could matter and if you just wait a little bit longer you'll know the answer well that would be an argument for risk management saying well let's at least wait for this stuff that's only a few weeks can you just wait for this stuff you can have that conversation but generally speaking let's just compare sending the healthy under 45 s to work ish today ish versus the current plan which is all the governors are going to decide and it's going to take months and and whatever with that was saying that I

[44:25]

and whatever with that was saying that I prefer one of those models over the other who can tell me that we have studied them right do you believe that anybody's modeled those two things and more importantly do you believe anybody could do you believe anybody could model the difference between those two things because there's so many unknowns right you don't really know how it's going to turn out I would say it can't be modeled in other words you could never reliably know if the navall under 45 and healthy plan goes to work now is the best one or this patchwork governors decide every situation is different etc how do you know which one of those is better here is my decision-making process in the in the face of unknowns so if you don't know which one's better but you have two paths and they're very different how do you decide without the right information you still have to

[45:25]

right information you still have to decide you don't get you know you don't get to not decide you have to decide and you couldn't possibly have the right information but you still have to decide what do you do number one you ask yourself which one has a catastrophic downside it turns out they both have a catastrophic downside you sort of in different ways and it's sort of hard to calculate so if you can't tell which one has the best upside and you can't tell one which one is the most catastrophic but you can tell which one opens the economy sooner that's it right isn't that the end of this isn't that the end of the analysis I would add to that that you also have the option of pulling back if it doesn't work right so those are the things you would look to given that there's great uncertainty two paths you cannot tell you cannot model which one is better be done and if you cling to the

[46:27]

be done and if you cling to the childlike fairytale that experts can model the future you just shouldn't be part of the conversation it can't be modeled so if you have two plans that can't be modeled one of them keeps the economy closed to a potential catastrophe one of them opens it up at least partially right away and we could pull back if we need to which of those two plans make sense don't ask dr. Phil he's that equipped for this brilliant guy by the way I love dr. Phil brilliant guy you know you could criticize specific things he's done and I have too but overall he's a positive force successful smart guy who's good for the world I don't mean to mock dr. Phil he's he's far more good than the negative but it is just the fact as we observe him talking about this topic he doesn't have he doesn't have those analytical skills it's a special kind of thing now let me put it

[47:27]

special kind of thing now let me put it this way you've got a choice let's say dr. foul she comes out I'll just give you this example dr. foul she comes out and says well he did
did he's obviously backing the president's plan of the three phases and letting the governors make individual decisions so you've got a doctor foul she says this is the way to go but it can't be modeled to how it turns out what can't be and let's say you've got a navall Rafa Conte who has a different skill set brilliant guy was succeeded in lots of different fields and specifically has shown success over and over again on being able to integrate lots of different highly technical opinions and possibilities into businesses because he's done just that both in his investments and in building up his own company and companies so or let me give you another example if you're not as familiar with navall let's replace that

[48:28]

familiar with navall let's replace that with Elon Musk let's say I don't know if this is the case but let's say you let musk agreed with navall and said yeah this is a plan that would do and doctor foul she says no I would do it this way which one which one would you prefer given that it can't be known you just can't know you have to pack but you can't oh there's a good answer there's a good answer somebody in the comments just said one word freedom that is a good analysis if you can't tell the difference which one is good you pick freedom now the kicker to it is that the freedom option also gives you a little bit ability to pull back you know if you wait a year it's just gonna be too good too late you know there might not be anything left if you wait a year but if you start now and say all right so let's send these young people back to work let's see what happens hospitals start get to

[49:28]

see what happens hospitals start get to get impacted you pull back a little bit make an adjustment but let me just say this if you would pick doctor foul Chi's recommendation over an Elon Musk or an eval Rafa Conte I'll throw a Mark Cuban in there if you would pick if you would pick doctor foul cheese recommendation over whatever Mark Cuban comes up with are you good with that are you good with that I'll tell you if it comes down if we get to a point where Mark Cuban is saying look this is the way to go and foul she is saying now look this is the way to go whose side are you gonna be on for me it's a slam dunk because I I know Mark Cuban is going to listen to the I'm just using him as a stand-in as a rational player all right and you know Mark Cuban is gonna listen to all the medical advice and risk and reward but he's also going to have the bigger context and he's he's a more skilled decision maker I would say I would say

[50:30]

decision maker I would say I would say that any of the people I mentioned who are not doctor pouchy are our world-class proven decision-makers in the context of not having all the information there you go
right um and there are some people who would still go with dr. Pham Chi I would argue that anybody who has that opinion probably doesn't have a great breadth of experience you could be brilliant and nice so it's not an insult I'm just saying that people with a breadth of experience are far more likely to say yeah I'm gonna go with you know you'll honor navall or or Mark Cuban because you know they've integrated all all the risk management into the decision you can't be so sure about a doctor let me give you a little insight when I was when I was a banker I was a lending officer for a while and I was in headquarters I had to approve loans from

[51:30]

headquarters I had to approve loans from the lenders in the field so I was I was allegedly an expert and they would there was suddenly their loan applications from the the branches and I specialized in professionals meaning in this case doctors doctors and dentists and stuff would you say that doctors are good credit risks probably you would write because the doctor has almost a guaranteed good income and they're very smart so if you've got somebody who's very smart and they have a guaranteed high income that's a pretty good credit risk right to give them a loan to play start a practice doesn't work out that way it turns out that doctors are bad at credit risks as a group because they tend to be real good at the doctoring stuff and they tend to be almost childlike at the economic stuff it's it's such a pattern consistent pattern and of course it's not true of every doctor right you know I'm just saying as

[52:31]

doctor right you know I'm just saying as a generality that that my bank where I worked we actually had them segmented in their own class for special evaluation by me you know I was one of the two people who evaluated their loans and the and the filter that we were put on it is okay if this were anybody else this would look like a good loan but it's a doctor so it's not you would automatically say sorry doctors are just not as good alone now one of the things we would do for dentist in particular is we would require them to have insurance against suicide and no I actually you can't get insurance against suicide so we had we would calculate the suicide risk with dentists but you wouldn't calculate that risk when he made a loan to somebody who's just a business person in general because business people in general will have some risk of suicide but dentists have an unusually high one or at least

[53:32]

have an unusually high one or at least that used to be the case so anyway the point is that in my experience which actually is is pretty extensive in which I've seen doctors operate outside their domain so I've seen doctors do doctor stuff and they're great at it you know general but I've also seen them try to navigate economics and business and it doesn't work out and it's very it's very consistent so I'd rather have a a brilliant engineer take the input from a doctor and then integrated into a larger decision then I would like to see a doctor try to understand what the engineer is saying and have the doctor integrate that into a larger decision that's probably a the wrong way to go
how much how much do we know about kind of lesson blood plasma treatment apparently there are a number of trials I think what is approved and a number of them are submitted for approval but how long does it take to do that how long

[54:35]

long does it take to do that how long does it take to do a convalescent blood plasma trial because are we really worried about are we worried about side-effects so here's here's my question to any experts who may be on your if there's any doctors watching this is there would you do the same kind of trial with blood plasma so this is the taking the antibodies out of the blood if people have already had it and recovered if you're putting that into somebody else do we already know from enough work in that kind of area do we already know that there's no special risk do we know that because if we know that so that's the question for the experts if we know there's no special health risk of trying it then the only thing we need to know is if it's working and and given that the entire virus only lasts you know two weeks from the moment you start the trial

[55:36]

trial shouldn't it be only two weeks before you know you have something and it all depends on that question of do you also have to monitor it for a longer period to find out if there are any weird side effects or interactions you know about so that's my question to the experts is there any medical risk there's always some but is there a medical risk that's big enough that you would even care to test it is it is it beyond even worrying about testing it I don't know yeah so let's get an answer to that because it does seem to me that the blood plasma thing might be one of the good wildcards that could be ramped up but given given the uncertainty of whether there is even any such thing as you know what would you call it immunity I guess I'm not smart enough to finish this sentence so somebody needs to help me if if somebody gets the blood plasma treatment so

[56:40]

gets the blood plasma treatment so they've got some antibodies there's some suspicion that antibodies don't protect you because people who have antibodies are in fact getting reinfected we don't know what rate or if those are special conditions yet but it's certainly a big big big big big red flag that you know lots of people lots meaning over dozens at this point have been identified as definitely getting the virus again but one must ask yourself did the people who got infected the second time have a bad problem or did they simply become carriers we don't know that do we so the people who got reinfected did any of them end up in the ICU or did all of them say well I barely audit even know I had it my antibodies were so good I got reinfected and sure I got a little reinfection in there but that'll be gone in a week because my antibodies are all charged up we don't know the answer to that so therefore we cannot guess

[57:41]

that so therefore we cannot guess whether the that treatment will have a big impact or not all right did you see that so Mike Mike sorowitsch has been tweeting about Amazon kicked his documentary hoaxed off of Amazon's platform and since that happened I believe he's still on iTunes I think that's where you can get it but you could google it and find it it's called a hoaxed I'm in it and apparently it has risen to become the second best-selling documentary here's the good part it's the second part of the sentence that's the fun part Mike's Irma bitch's documentary host is now the second best-selling documentary of all time of all time it says it's the

[58:42]

of all time of all time it says it's the second best-selling documentary of all time and and Amazon kicked it off its platform now that probably helped right because it helped him get a little publicity obviously Mike knows how to navigate publicity better than you know most people in the world and so he's capitalized on that too to crank it up to the number two best-selling documentary of all time now what does this tell you what does this tell you well first thing it tells you is that the number of people who watch documentaries in general is probably not a gigantic number right the the the biggest documentary is going to be small compared to a movie it also tells me that he's in striking distance for a number what and if I can ask you one favor I don't usually ask you favors right so this is a favor it's not a recommendation it's just a favor by the goodbye it because

[59:45]

just a favor by the goodbye it because let's say if we had pushing it into number one so my my experience has been there being the second best all-time of something is terrific for you know bragging rights and you can make more money you know that but the difference between me being number two and being number one it's a galaxy of difference now I I learned that when I had a book my first number one best-selling book thus added number two for weeks and didn't really make much of a ripple in the universe the day it went to number one the the heavens opened and my whole life changed so going from two to one in any category like this is not just one unit it's the difference between the heavens open and the heavens don't now given that Amazon kick this off their platform and they did it without offering even a reason and it's a good thing they didn't offer a reason because

[1:00:45]

thing they didn't offer a reason because it wasn't one I mean I've seen it lots of people have seen it obviously it's the number two best-selling documentary of all time so a lot of people have seen it how many of the people have seen it would say there's something in there that should cause anybody anybody of any type to think you should not be viewed by the public there's nothing in there there's nothing in it that he that even comes close to crossing the line there's no line that gets crossed and I'm not even I'm not being generous there's just nothing in there that should be considered controversial at all somebody says how to buy I think it's on iTunes but if you google it or just you could just ask Mike or just go to his I'm sure if you went to his Twitter feed or his webpage there must be links so here's one ask of you and it's a favor this is just a favor if you got a few extra bucks see if you can push it up to number one because I like just putting a thumb in Amazon's

[1:01:47]

like just putting a thumb in Amazon's eye over this it's got to be worth a few bucks right you know be part of something push it up to number one and and as many of you have heard my review of it it is exceptional I mean there's a reason it's the number two documentary it's exceptional it really is special and if you watch it I'll give you this watching advice you have to watch it all the way through and you have to do it in one sitting because it's it's designed so cleverly as a full experience you know you don't want to watch 10 minutes and come back and do the rest etc you want to watch it as one entity with one sitting it'll just blow the top of your head off so go do that see if you can push it up to number one all right that's about all I have to say except I would like to change the word where do we talk about minimizing infections I would like to change that word to

[1:02:47]

would like to change that word to managing because I don't know somebody saying you can rent it on Google Play for 399 so I don't know but that's what somebody says in the comments I would like to say that we should manage the infection not minimize it because minimize it minimize it tells you to keep the economy closed forever managing it tells you that there's a balance and words matter because our brains get tuned by their choice of words so just it seems like a small thing but I don't know if it is it might be a bigger thing than you think if every time we think about infections we replace the word minimized with managed it gets our mindset closer to understanding that there's a balance and that the number of people who die can can be on either side of that seesaw all right there's a new model from the University of Washington saying sixty-eight thousand deaths but a

[1:03:49]

saying sixty-eight thousand deaths but a little confused because at one point we had 60,000 was that a different model and
and there's some thought that it would come down to even even less and we'll see all right I think that's all I got for today
thank you thank you to those of you who are doing that I can't think of anything that would make me happier you know in a small way then to see Amazon kick that off the platform and it becomes the number one best-selling documentary of all time I mean anything short of that is it's just not going to be pleasing to the simulation the simulation requires us to be number one you know it does you know it does you know the simulation requires that movie hoaxed to be number one it just because it's too perfect alright number

[1:04:50]

because it's too perfect alright number two you just suggests where it's heading but number one the simulation requires it all right it's called hoaxed go take a look somebody says hoax just became number one on iTunes I think that's number one for current sales which you should be but if it stays number one on current sales it won't be long before it's number one of all time let's see if we make that happen all right I'll talk to you tonight you know