Episode 924 Scott Adams: Learn the User Interface For Reality

Date: 2020-04-20 | Duration: 40:02

Topics

My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a Content: Dan Crenshaw interview by Bill Maher Vitamins and coronavirus Rethinking restaurant concepts Whiteboard: Filters of Reality Sleeping tips

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## Transcript

[0:09]

hey everybody come on in we got some stuff to talk about good stuff fun - fun stuff things that will blow your mind possibly delight you possibly blow your mind and then delight you
you it's all happening here oh I don't know if it's morning or evening I'm gonna put down my shades so let's see if I look more handsome when there's less light on me because I think I do if you know what I mean all right let's get to it yeah let's get to it Cristina nice of you to join so I was watching the interview with Bill Maher did with Dan Crenshaw you don't do Crenshaw and if you know who Dan Crenshaw is you know that he's one of the probably one of the better communicators on the on the right probably one in the top probably the top

[1:10]

probably one in the top probably the top five or so you put it in there with Matt gates and I don't a few other people
darker police so less light much less light would be much better anyway so if you watch the interview is going around the internet and you people were saying that Crenshaw dismantled Bill Maher and everything but here's what I saw now of course I can't read minds but here's a some speculation and you can decide how close this sounds to you does this seem reasonable to you that Bill Maher probably hears a lot of arguments that agree with the left probably hears him all the time but I'll bet he doesn't hear many good arguments from the right he probably he probably hears the the one pundit to CNN allow us to be on their air every you know ten minutes or every you know ten days or something

[2:10]

something and you know he probably samples a little bit of the stuff that clips and League quotes taken out of context and stuff but I'll bet about Bill Maher and this is just speculation through no fault of his own it probably has a gigantic blind spot for what the good argument is on the right I've noticed this a few times it doesn't ever seem as though Bill Maher is disagreeing with the best arguments on the right but of course he's disagreeing with the dumb ones that don't make any sense and what the reason I'm somewhat more fascinated with Bill Maher is I've been watching it for years and I know that he is capable of changing his mind under any circumstances so long as there's a good argument you know and there's some data so if you've watched him forever you know that he's you know four people on both the left and the right he can be maddeningly frustrating because he doesn't just automatically agree with

[3:12]

doesn't just automatically agree with one team and so people you know everybody finds some reason to be mad at one thing another so here's what I saw and I think that Bill Maher got a little flavor of this one I was on his show back in 2016 I guess and it goes like this I think that when Dan Crenshaw started talking it looked like you could see in bill's face that he was learning for the first time that there's another curtain behind the curtain in other words you know somebody as you tuned in as Bill Maher can not only see the show that everybody sees you know the one that's in public but he's he's one of the few people can look behind the curtain and I think he thought that if he could see the show and that he could also look behind the curtain that's all there is to say and I feel as if what I was watching and again this requires a lot of speculation and assumption of my

[4:13]

lot of speculation and assumption of my part but it felt like what I was seeing was that Bill Maher was learning from dan Crenshaw's better communicating that there was a curtain behind the curtain that there might be a whole bunch of stuff who knows how big might be a little might be a lot but it was like it was like bill was for the first time hearing something that made sense that was coming from the other team and I think it made him think is there something here now if had been anybody else they would just be dismissing it because it's just team sport but what makes somebody like a Bill Maher and I would say Sam Harris would be in the same category even if you don't agree I think he is people who can't change their mind they just have to you're a better argued see facts to support it so that was fascinating a lot of people asked me for last few weeks to talk about dr. Shiva's ideas of treating

[5:14]

talk about dr. Shiva's ideas of treating coronavirus and I hadn't really looked into them until today so I had so I have a preliminary opinion a preliminary opinion my preliminary opinion is that in essence what he's promoting or not promoting you know it doesn't have any money as in it as far as I know but what he's recommending is that some kind of a intensive vitamin treatment with specific vitamins I think a and T and C would make a big difference in the coronavirus you're treating him now here's the thing I have to give you some background some of you know years ago I tried to start a food company making this burrito product that I tried to stuff with all the vitamins and minerals you would need for the whole day I thought would that be great you can either delicious burrito and make sure you've got all your vitamins and minerals so even if the rest of the day didn't go well you'd be set and in

[6:15]

day didn't go well you'd be set and in that process what I learned is that the science of nutrition is is largely made up it's just all just garbage and the the science of vitamins and minerals is extra garbage so part of the reason that I ended up bailing out is that I couldn't I couldn't make a product with a claim that hey it's got these vitamins and minerals if all the science was evaporating behind me you know when I started it I thought the science was pretty solid but there was honestly just an assumption I just assumed we knew the vitamins are good for you right did you assume that science knows if vitamins are good for you and which ones and how much there's no such thing the the science of vitamins is largely just ridiculousness now I'm not saying that vitamins have no no value obviously you need your vitamin

[7:16]

value obviously you need your vitamin C's you don't give scurvy vitamin D probably does have all kinds of benefits etc so some of the basics we certainly know but beyond the basics it's just the Wild West so I may be biased by the fact that I I spend time in this domain of vitamins and what I found is that it was all charlatans and garbage that was my experience now does that mean that the next thing that comes up is untrue because all the last stuff was it doesn't it doesn't mean that at all so I'm so I'm confessing my bias so here this part really clearly my bias is that what I hear a remarkable sounding claim involving ordinary vitamins even that high dosages or even if they're intravenous but if I hear something that's an extraordinary claim about vitamins I just assume it's not true

[8:19]

vitamins I just assume it's not true okay so that's my starting point let me give you a analogy to make my point if you get an email from a Nigerian prince who says he can get his money back from a bank if you help him out do you need to know if that's real do you need to research it do you need to ask for identification no you don't because it's an email from a Nigerian print that whole category is very unlikely ever to produce a real one might that might i mean i can't say there will never ever be a nigerian prince who's in really got some trouble and you could help him if you just return his email I'm not saying it's impossible I'm just saying I've never seen it so if so if somebody tomorrow says hey hey I know these have mostly been not true but the

[9:22]

these have mostly been not true but the have you seen this email it's from a Nigerian prince and I know I know I know you why are you saying that all those other words were not real but I feel good about this one so analogies of course are imperfect and therefore it's one of the reasons that they never persuade anybody and I'm sure I didn't persuade you with that one the point is I'm that I'm biased the point is not that you should believe is real or not real based on that story the point is I'm biased and so when I see a remarkable claim that has this form it's very remarkable and suspiciously the medical community is ignoring this claim and or is unfamiliar with it so if it's a remarkable claim about vitamins and the other claim is that the medical community is missing this obvious thing it's sort of in the

[10:23]

obvious thing it's sort of in the category of things that are never true but again this could be the one time maybe it is so I tweeted it out dr. Shiva had some exchanges with something I tweeted it out because it had links and description of why he was talking about and asked any experts to give me an opinion whether it looked real now if some experts commend and say Scott Scott Scott he's on to something well I'm open to changing my mind I could definitely change my mind I would just have to hear somebody smart say oh yeah yeah I get it all the other Nigerian Prince's were fake but honestly this one looks pretty good if somebody says that I'll reconsider but so the question is out so now I saw in the comments somebody says you should debate dr. Shiva are you kidding are you kidding what good would that do me debating dr. Shiva

[11:26]

good would that do me debating dr. Shiva let me let me do the debate for you so that you don't have to sit through it I will now act out Mead debating dr. Shiva on this topic this first I'll do the role of dr. Shiva blahblah something I don't understand meaning Scott doesn't understand and vitamins and and stuff and science and I have multiple degrees from MIT and then it's my turn to debate and I say I know I didn't understand any of that honestly babe I know where do we go from here because I don't even know what those words mean do you have a book or something I could read to learn about this microbiology stuff and you know immunology and viral adji and statistics i if i'd do a little studying i'll get a little studying and then we can have this debate again but at the moment i don't know any of those words mean so

[12:27]

don't know any of those words mean so we're not getting anywhere you see there would be no point in debate right because I would say it's my bias that these things are usually not true and then what would he say well I can see why you would have that bias based on your experience right that's that's sort of the beginning and the end of the debate because I think dr. Shiva would say well of course you've just admitted that you have a bias I can this I can see the reason you would have a bias your experience of course you have a bias that way that's it that's that's the old debate we're done now because I don't understand his points that's why I asked for somebody else to explain it to me all right
I think what triggered me is that in dr. Shiva's tweet he made an assumption about Bill Gates's motives Bill Gates internal thoughts and if you pair something that looks sketchy just

[13:27]

pair something that looks sketchy just by its nature even if it's not it just looks sketchy because of its nature and you add that too conspicuous public mind-reading well that does not help your credibility because it seemed like that was important that it would require knowing what Bill Gates was thinking and that what he was thinking was he was trying to make money with vaccines or something so somebody sent me a link to PolitiFact where they fact checked all the wild Bill Gates rumors now my version of debunking the wild Bill Gates rumors mine goes like this and maybe you've heard this argument before blah blah blah Bill Gates wants to depopulate the world here's my argument you know all those Nigerian prince emails that's the end of my argument because it's just such such a ridiculous claim I'm not

[14:28]

such such a ridiculous claim I'm not going to spend one second googling whether Bill Gates ever said he wants to depopulate the world do you know why because if you ever thought that was true there's something wrong with your brain all right this is not something you google to find out maybe he said he wants to depopulate the world he didn't say he wants to depopulate the world and you know I checked politifact and of course that never happened what was the other one the other one was some horrible thing with vaccines in India and I actually thought that one could have been true it's just that even if had been true it just would have been an example of a drug trial that didn't go well it wouldn't mean anybody was evil or had bad intentions I know this whole point of the drug trial but it turns out it wasn't even true so so that whole India vaccine thing was just all made up just BS so I tweeted that if you want to go follow the links so you can convince yourself so if any of you thought that the Bill

[15:29]

so if any of you thought that the Bill Gates stuff was true you really should have asked me
I did some restaurant reopening ideas which I would like to share with you for those of you didn't see it so here's the starting point you know one of the one of the creative mistakes we make is to say hey let's what could we do to get our restaurants back to where you always fall for hoaxes blog not true sue so people think hey how do we get our restaurants back the way they were and I say if the restaurant model is just blown up you should not be asking this question you should you should not be asking how to get restaurants back to the way they were because you rarely get a chance to blow everything up and you

[16:30]

a chance to blow everything up and you know just rethinking from the scratch and so I think you should be asking how could we make restaurants better than they ever were because you should at least ask the question I mean it might turn out that the answer is you can't do it but if the only question you're asking is how do we get back to way the way we were that's sort of a loser mindset because when do you get to have stuff blown up like this I mean it's all bad news bought on the other hand you kind of get to start from scratch and really get creative and be flexible maybe there's some local ordinances that can be you know adjusted a little bit that normally wouldn't be possible so here are some things I want to suggest in that realm supposed or - or any of the apps that let you order food to be picked up in restaurants suppose I added an option for dining in instead of where you put in your address of your house you put in your table number so if you're ordering from a certain restaurant you put it in the table number that means you're there

[17:31]

the table number that means you're there and so there's no server talking to you to get your order you just order by app when you're in the restaurant and then it comes over and it's sat on a side table so that nobody nobody puts it in front of each of you there's nobody taking dishes away they just put a side table there and you help yourself so that you're not interacting now of course in the long run it's especially a high-end restaurant you want the full table service but at the moment I'm gonna have to get flexible I also thought that you could add a little tent card a little you know a sign that's on the table there's the phone numbers to text if you want to send a message to the to the kitchen it's not the chef who answers the phone but if you want to send a message to the kitchen or the front office or the server or something you just text it and there would be somebody whose job it is just to take the text and tell whoever it is that needs to be told so that's one way you could avoid human contact

[18:32]

one way you could avoid human contact you might also want to relax local zoning laws so you can expand sidewalks out during warm weather it just may be closed the streets you know for a while for months just close any streets that have a lot of restaurants on them because usually there's not much parking on the street anyway you don't lose that much and usually there's an easier way to get around then the street that has all the restaurants so just close it let the restaurants expand into the street so you got lots of space around tables and maybe even allow dogs in my town you can't bring your dog to a restaurant even if you're eating outside but what if you could yeah at least temporarily when do you like to bring your dog out to dinner and you have monthly SH of course a lot of people would like that at least in my town that would be a big thing and you can also imagine that using the honor system because you could never enforce this you would ask people to come in and only in the at least in

[19:33]

to come in and only in the at least in the beginning with the people that they're isolating with so if you're isolated with your family you can bring your family and send at a table at a restaurant but you know what a mix people who have been separately isolating just because they went to a restaurant you could do that and maybe maybe if it's a business meeting and you just have to have people cross pollinating you have some special places you know away from other people something like that but the larger idea is just to rethink these things from scratch and rather than say how do we get back to where we were think about how to make it better all right I promised you that I would give you the user interface for reality and I'm working on a book idea an awful writer do not but has to do with filters and I was trying to think of all the different filters that one can put on life and I've argued that if you have an

[20:33]

life and I've argued that if you have an experience in enough domains you can look through more windows or another way to say that is you bore it you have more filters by which to understand the world and I would contend this is not yet a complete list and I might end up combining some categories a little bit but let's say this is about 90% right I contend that these are the filters then if you learned enough about these and you wouldn't have to be an expert on any of these things but if you learned you know logic and religion if you mating let me explain that one as a filter what that means is to understand let me get that guy out of here bad person goes away all right that's always satisfied did Soros Irish get rid of the crazy people anymore all

[21:36]

get rid of the crazy people anymore all right so
having gotten rid of our trolls so mating is the idea that you can see the world through the lens that everything we do is to show off to get a mate even if you have a mate we're just sort of automatically designed for mating so if you see the world through that lens you can really understand a lot of a lot of the world you should know a little bit about statistics and science persuasion economics simu tation that's not a word let's call it the simulation the simulation theory that we might be a simulation the the idea that some people just see the world as winners and losers other people might see it as predator and prey there's also a strategy way to look at the world there's an abundance mindset yeah the abundance mindset is that

[22:38]

yeah the abundance mindset is that you're not taking things from other people you're finding a way that everybody gets something and then the moist robot idea which might be redundant just the idea that were were dumb machines and irrational so my my concept is this that if you knew enough about these fields you would have the user interface to reality and you would be able to actually see your reality and manipulate it almost in a god-like way I said almost I'm not saying you're omnipotent but that you could do things which would not seem possible to people who had fewer filters so the more filters you have the more clear is you know if you could see it like an analogy you more clear the screen is and more obvious than many of your choices are so this probably would require a book to really explain it well but the the

[23:43]

really explain it well but the the useful part of this is that you probably don't need more of it examples
yeah we'll be a good example let's see if I could pick one well all let's take abundance so we have a problem with their Communist China because it looks like they think that the best thing for China is for the United States to be weaker so that's the opposite of an abundance mindset president trungpa has an abundance mindset he used it with North Korea he's used it with President Xi obviously is not working in China and who knows what's happening in North Korea but they don't seem to be mad at us at the moment so that's good but the president said hey if we work together we both get richer if we stay enemies we don't now obviously it seems that China has some kind of winner loser

[24:45]

has some kind of winner loser predator-prey mentality that there are only people winning and losing and they want to be on the winning team whereas the president of course still has those filters as well but he has extra filters so he instead of you know obviously knowing that if he went to China and said hey it's a it's a win or lose situation one of us could win and what does go lose you know good luck we're gonna win you're gonna lose that wouldn't really get you very far in negotiations but if you go into it if you go into the negotiations with an abundance mindset you get that you know baby price of flexibility on the other side all right so let me give you some other examples I like to use this example all the time if you understand economics and you understand business models then you probably understand that

[25:47]

models then you probably understand that it's very unlikely you'll get a speeding ticket as 6:00 a.m. on a Sunday morning now that's something that you could see clearly if you have the economics filter and if it's not obvious to you why you're not going to get a ticket as 6:00 a.m. on the subject morning no matter how fast you speed it's because you don't have that filter yet maybe explain why the police department is like every other organization they have a budget and so they have to use the budget where it makes sense and not where it doesn't make sense otherwise they'll run out of money and not be able to do the things they need so given that almost nobody has a car accident and 6:00 a.m. on a Sunday morning it's probably the least likely time this speeding is ever an actual safety problem because there's just nobody around and if they are they're not drunk you know for the most part 6 a.m. I would say not too many drugs and so you will notice that economics would predict it would predict that there are very few

[26:50]

it would predict that there are very few speed traps at 6:00 a.m. on a Sunday morning and I would argue that if you live to be a hundred you might never see one so that's a very trivial example but I go through life with an understanding of business models and economics that does allow me to see to see around corners I can literally predict based on economics whether there's a a policeman up ahead in that a speed trap order they also often hide so in my house in my neighborhood there's a place they often stay and I can predict that accurately as it turns out all right let's take strategy a perfect example of that when I wrote my book had a failed almost everything and still win big I introduced the idea of systems versus goals and the idea of talent stacking you know I've talked about him enough that I don't need to explain him again but in the context I'm talking about

[27:51]

but in the context I'm talking about here a lot of people wrote to me a lot a lot of people and said my god when I heard those things it really you know it all came together and then I had a strategy and then I could implement it and it's already working so I would hear tremendous things about people learning that strategy and when I would hear it I would say to myself you know when I wrote that the thing I was most worried about is that people would say we already knew that but I was hoping that people did not have enough sort of background in strategy to know that it makes sense to layer your skills intelligently and it makes sense to have systems versus goals I didn't know if people didn't know that until I wrote the book because you don't really don't know what other people know I thought it would be additive and it turns out it was life-changing for a lot of people so that's a perfect example

[28:51]

of people so that's a perfect example and the the strategy is not worth much unless you have some understanding of statistics and I don't I don't mean you have to be able to do the math I mean that you have to in a common-sense way be able to look at things and say okay that's more likely than that under these conditions you wouldn't be able to tell what's true versus the margin of error I'm talking about the big you know the big big level stuff for example here's a perfect example the headline this week was that there was a study of Santa Clara residents and they found that I forget the exact number but somewhere in the range of two percent of them seemed to have the antibodies for AK rotavirus but and that would indicate maybe was a lot more of it in the general population but anybody assumed now Balaji Srinivasan who if you don't follow him on Twitter you should he has a background that would include you know

[29:52]

a background that would include you know all the credible knowledge but most importantly he understood statistics and he understood how to read the the document and he looked at and said wait a minute according to this the the the reliability of the test is that it could have false positives up to like in that same neighborhood in that same I'm rounding everything off to make it simple but that the false positives could be in that same neighborhood so in other words it was a whole study that either showed that nothing that nothing happened or that there's wildly more virus and the completely complete opposites and they're both demonstrated by the same data now did you know that when you read this study did you know that I mean I didn't even look at the details and I'm not sure I would have picked it out if I had but the point is the more you do about statistics the more you can just look look right past people's

[30:53]

just look look right past people's assertions to the truth now the logic could do that I couldn't now that doesn't mean that the study is bogus it just means that you can't be sure which is completely different than we're sure that there's tons of virus in the world that we don't know about it there's a big difference between well it could be true and oh it's totally true we just study that those are there's not that similar alright see do you want some other oh here's some other examples the I said winners and losers on here but you could send victims some victims and winners I suppose victims and oppressors so if you see the world in terms of victims there's a good chance you're gonna think you are one and when you start thinking you are one your filter just starts producing evidence of it confirmation bias and that can be a very frustrating

[31:55]

bias and that can be a very frustrating and also maybe not too close to reality view of the world so that's a that's a bad filter a better filter is that you're not a victim and that you have a lot of control over your life so that's just a better filter anyway I don't want to talk about the details of these I'm just asserting that there might be how many things aren't there here so there might be under 15 filters that can explain just about everything you see in life and I and I've said before that when I when I was very young I sought to understand the user interface for a reality and I actually have dedicated my life literally to try to figure out why things are the way they are and why it works and what can you do differently and this is this is sort of the result of it that I started layering different skills together especially a degree in

[32:57]

together especially a degree in economics so I can understand that filter all right I was asked to give you some sleeping tips for tonight and I'm gonna do that and I'm gonna do it more easily this time so those of you who don't want to get sleepy yet you might want to sign off now and I wish wish you a good night maybe I'll see you in the morning I hope so those of you who would like to relax before sleep and see if they can get an even better night's sleep than they have recently recently this will be the portion in which I calm you down and prep you for a great night's sleep it goes like this take a deep breath from the bottom of your your lungs not the top a lot of your lungs then exhale out your nose well actually actually out of your mouth would be fine inhale through your nose and exhale through your mouth and it's funny you don't

[34:01]

your mouth and it's funny you don't realize that during the day your tension will make your breath that shallower and shallower and if you simply breathe and the way you want to feel your breath will take you there so if you take large relaxed deep breaths with no no tension into your chest
it just automatically takes you to that place it does it pretty quickly now make sure that you're in a relaxed place that requires no muscles to stay in the position you are you can be sitting up you keep your leg down it doesn't matter and now again think of the muscles in your hand your hand should be down not up like mine is but squeeze your hand and make our tight fist and just hold it until you don't think you can hold it anymore and when you don't think you can hold it anymore just relax it just let it all go I just know how it feels all the tension

[35:03]

I just know how it feels all the tension is out of your hand and out do the same thing with your other hand and then to your feet you can just run through the run through the sequence on your own time and you will be amazed that just concentrating on one body part squeezing it tightening it and relaxing it moving it all the way around your body will be amazing you'll be amazed at how well that works now here's the big payoff I taught you before and many of you were on this periscope that if I counted it to 20 because I'm a trained hypnotist and if anybody didn't know that here's your warning that this is hypnosis but there's nothing sneaky to it I'm just helping you relax if you'd like to enjoy that stick around if you would not like to be hypnotized that while I would not call this hypnosis per se yeah there's no actual transit halt it would make you relaxed if you don't want that this would be the time to find something else to do but I'm going to

[36:05]

something else to do but I'm going to count to 20 and you're going to hear my voice if you're wearing headphones much more effective and when you want to relax later tonight you're going to hear my voice but you'll be controlling the counting of my voice you'll count from zero to 20 when you reach 20 you'll be really relaxed and it'll be prepping you to drift off into a nice sleep and I'm going to start right now and every time I count higher one you start getting sleepier and more relaxed - and going deeper three and now going deeper and deeper for five and now much deeper twice as deep now six seven eight and going deeper doesn't matter if I skip a number ten I could skip to numbers 12 and you would

[37:08]

I could skip to numbers 12 and you would just get deeper and deeper and more relaxed and now as I head toward 20 toward the deepest and most relaxing sleep you've experienced in a long time 15 16 and going deeper 17 and I was so relaxed feeling good 18 and now I'm going to count backwards as part of an exercise in which when you wake up a little bit but not all the way and then I count you back to or 20 you'll be deeper than if you I just go into 20 in the first place so now 14 13 12 you feel yourself getting a little bored awake a little more alert 9 8 7 you're about 1/2 more alert now 6 5 and now we'll go back to 27 feel yourself

[38:09]

now we'll go back to 27 feel yourself relaxing see how much quicker it is than the first times you tried this 8 going deeper 9 you feel your body just sinking into the into whatever you're on 10 11 going much deeper now now twice as deep 14 going deeper 15 16 much much deeper now 17 18 and going deeper 19
20 and now completely relaxed almost floating it feels good now 21 22 deeper than you thought was possible and this is why you'll remember when you try to relax later you'll remember the counting

[39:09]

relax later you'll remember the counting you remember how you felt and you'll be able to reproduce it just by remembering it and counting yourself to 20 but now I'm going to bring you back so that you can get ready for your evening and whatever is whatever's next 19 18 17 started to wake up 16 15 14 about halfway there 10 8 7 almost awake no 6 5 you're gonna feel really good when you wake up 4 oh my goodness it's gonna feel great when you wake up 3 2 1 open your eyes if they're not already open you're completely alert but more relaxed and later when you you talk to yourself back to 20 you're gonna have an amazing sleep then I'll leave you with that have a great night