Episode 928 Scott Adams: Free College, Teach Math to Pundits and Demise of the Green New Deal

Date: 2020-04-22 | Duration: 40:21

Topics

My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a Content: Lockdown Protest…bring your kids and no masks? Oxygen sensors for coronavirus Whiteboard1: Which Virus is Worse? Michael Moore documentary: green tech’s ENVIRONMENTAL HARM Whiteboard2: Free College

If you would like my channel to have a wider audience and higher production quality, please donate via my startup (Whenhub.com) at this link: https://interface.my/ScottAdamsSays

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## Transcript

[0:09]

well as the curtain begins to drop on another day in the land of coronavirus we prepare for a very special evening with Scott Adams this time with whiteboards yeah yeah whiteboards all right I said plural whiteboards what is the proper plural name for whiteboards a whiteboard I know that's not true but we'll get to that first seven quick hits there's anybody seen Joe Biden Joe Biden anybody has anybody seen Joe Biden still nothing okay I've got some some tips for you if you're a protester if you plan to protest the restrictions on opening up the economy and you see a sign posted in your local town and it mentions when the

[1:12]

your local town and it mentions when the protests will be and your sign says no masks bring the kids that's not a real sign it might be a Russian side a Russian troll it might be a democratic operative it might be somebody who just thought it was funny it might be China but you know what it isn't our real side I say that because that was floating around the internet and people were shocked because they thought to themselves are you serious are you serious that there's gonna have a protest and they're actually saying bring the kids and don't wear masks come on that can't be real it's outrageous it's outrageous you know what else it is it's a little bit too on the nose isn't it if you ever heard me say that before it's one of your best

[2:13]

it's one of your best tells for a hoax the real world is kind of messing and the real world usually things just remind you of other things and you know and sometimes there are two stories in the news that both involve Tigers or something but when you see a story that is this perfect to the narrative you know that the narrative being from at least from the left that the people going to these protests are not that bright right so that would be the narrative from the Democrats so this side is a little too perfect because it fits the narrative don't bring masks now what would a real what would a real sign say from real conservatives who were legitimately protesting for freedom what would a real sign say for people who really cared about individual freedom that's right it wouldn't tell you to bring a mask it

[3:14]

it wouldn't tell you to bring a mask it wouldn't tell you not to bring a mask it wouldn't even suggest right as so your tip-off should be that that no conservative organizer would tell people what to wear that's that's the opposite of freedom that's the opposite of what they're protesting so of course when it's so perfect to be Tia to look contradictory and stupid that's not a real sign now as I said on Twitter if the Russians are not already organizing these protests are they slippin what'swhat's up with Putin this is sort of an obvious one Putin if Putin is leaving this one alone I mean you might as well get rid of the KGB this was sort of a lamp all you gotta do is start a little Facebook page put together a little protest say don't bring your masks be sure to bring you kids boom

[4:18]

masks be sure to bring you kids boom there's social division so I wouldn't trust any of the protest to be genuine actually that literally I wouldn't trust any of them to be genuine now that doesn't mean that the people attending are not genuine because I think they are the people attending are totally genuine but she can't wonder about whose idea was to pick the time of the date and you know so I won't go so far as to say that they're all organized by other countries but you have to assume some are right don't you assume some are they have to be yeah if I ask again that whatever happened to black lives matter did black lives matter just decide that they they succeeded and now they're done it's got to be a funding thing right they must have lost funding so that here's good news and bad news is another study that's not peer-reviewed yet that says hydroxychloroquine gave worst worse

[5:19]

hydroxychloroquine gave worst worse outcomes than not using at all and even when paired with the azithromycin it gave worse outcomes but what's weird is that they didn't say they paired it with zinc which my understanding is that's sort of the magic part if you don't pair it with the zinc and the azithromycin I don't think I don't think that even the people who say it works suggests they would work without the zinc so you're going to see an end and you see stories that say I Troxel chloroquine doesn't work you go over to Fox and you find stories that say it works and none of them are credible on either side I didn't know that they were incredible so at this point I'm gonna still go with my 60/40 60% chance that it doesn't work 40% chance and it does but there's another thing that might you have a lot of potential as some of you saw this so there's a doctor who noticed that there's something weird about the lungs

[6:20]

there's something weird about the lungs of people who have coronavirus and that they they could have very low oxygen so low that you you would expect them to actually be dead and they're still walking around the textin of their phones and stuff even though their oxygen level is basically death level and it apparently this is not common to other conditions if your oxygen gets below a certain level and normally you just pass out and die I guess what however you die but so the thought is that that that might be the earliest thing you could catch at least of the symptoms that are the dangerous ones you know by the time it gets to your logs that's the danger so the thinking is that you might be able to catch a whole bunch of early cases then maybe maybe that does make a difference if you've got some therapeutics but at the very least you can pull the madam you know you can isolate them so that could be huge because the cost of a little oxygen sensor I'm sure they're

[7:21]

little oxygen sensor I'm sure they're all sold now my guess is that everyone is sold out everywhere but they're not hard to bake because he has pretty small electronic device so the I would think there's a nonzero chance I realize I'm being pretty optimistic with this there's a nonzero chance that the oxygen sensors could be a third of the solution you know with with whatever else turns out to work so I'd say that's very encouraging I want to give you a little math lesson on virality but you need to check my work okay you should not be getting so so what I'm gonna teach you next you should not be getting from me because I don't know what I'm talking about but I think I'm right if I'm not just tell me you know uh I'll get rid of this video right away so I'm gonna go out and live here I think what I'm saying makes sense you

[8:22]

think what I'm saying makes sense you you decide so here's a little quiz which which virus is worse which virus is worse would you rather have a virus with a 1% death rate with a r4 I'm not sure if I'm expressing that right but the idea is that one person might get might give it to four people on average or a point zero one percent death rate with an R to four reality all right what do you say which one is which one is worse which one is worse by the way these are not real viruses I'm just making up these numbers which one is worse right yeah the one the this is this is more like a mild flu all right so this is like a mild flu that we get every year this one destroys

[9:23]

that we get every year this one destroys is civilization the that's how different they are there's this one you lose a few days of work this one destroys a civilization now what we're seeing from the pundits is consistently confusing 1% and point zero one percent you've seen this all over the place right and the people who were telling you that that this that we should reopen the economy right away because it's just like the regular flu our saying hey the regular flow is just 1% and this one is - no they're confusing 1% with 0.01% which would be the regular flu the the best we know is that coronavirus is you know 10 times more deadly and again all of these numbers could change by an order of magnitude we're just I'm just giving you the

[10:23]

we're just I'm just giving you the concept so don't get hung up on the numbers I'm putting here and I'm speaking conceptually so the first thing they get wrong is I confuse one percent in point oh one if you've made that mistake you should just retire you know you should just leave the conversation if you can't tell the difference between those two things secondly they completely ignore the virality difference now my understanding is that the normal flu has whatever the number is I don't think it's two but whatever that number is is presumed to be and again we don't know for sure because you would have to know a lot more about the affections the asymptomatic people although that but the assumption is that it's way more viral so if you forget the the are part there's no point in even comparing them because you're you're just ignoring a big part of the equation now uh why would one hundred looking at

[11:30]

now uh why would one hundred looking at all your comments and you have many of them a hundred thousand American dies at the Hong Kong flu all right so did you get my point now watching the comments how many people are gonna struggle with this because what we're hearing from the pundits let's see if I can do this what we've heard from the pundits is that we might have a weak virus so we've heard that it might be a weaker virus and we thought only 1% but if it's still that viral it's the worst thing that ever happened now do we know that the corona virus is more viral do we know that for sure the answer is no but we've seen what it did to nursing homes and that doesn't look normal right have we heard of other nursing homes where a regular flu just takes out the nursing home what about the cruise ships there must be the regular flu on cruise ships practically

[12:32]

regular flu on cruise ships practically every cruise but have we ever heard an entire cruise ship you know where people are dying on board no so there's clearly something about corona virus that is impacting hospitals and away regular flu doesn't impacting nursing homes impacting cruise ships so that all suggests that has more virality and even if this death rate is much lower than the original estimates it would still destroy civilization if left if left to spread so let's what is 1% of 7 billion let's say we never come up with a vaccine which i think is entirely possible I'm not I would say I have low confidence that we're gonna have a a vaccine for this kind of ever I mean I'd love to think that we would but honestly I don't think we're gonna I think we'll have to reach your herding herd immunity and that's probably the end of the story now that's not bad news because you know maybe that's just the only way to get there

[13:37]

death rates relate to different locales yeah there's definitely difference in the death rates but there I heard there's thirty different versions of it all right now what did most people the pundits say when they found out that there was a study that maybe there were a lot more people infected they said oh this is good news because if there are a lot more people who have the current virus than we thought that the percentage of people dying from it is way smaller and that's where you got down to the 1% and people hailed that as good news and then they mistakenly said 1% is the same as point-o 1% and then it all went to hell so you should ignore everybody who's who's tried to do any math on this including me now I saw this argument from Larry Schweikart on Twitter who believes there's somebody named dr. Lee I think a British doctor who has determined that lockdowns making it

[14:38]

determined that lockdowns making it worse now here's another tip if you can only find one doctor to back your theory you should be a little less confident about it than tweeting it if you can find you have several doctors that would agree with you that the social isolation doesn't doesn't make any difference if there are several doctors I'd say you could maybe take a stab at that being true but if you only got that one I would say you'd hold off on your confidence there the other thing Larry Schweikart says that I would take issue with is that economists have estimated that they're you you kill 40,000 people for every 1% extra unemployment you've heard that right you've probably heard of the news every 1% in unemployment kills 40,000 people do you believe that do you believe that 1 percent extra unemployment will kill

[15:41]

1 percent extra unemployment will kill 40,000 people well there's something left now don't you think do you think there's a variable left out time time how about time because if everybody in the country were were unemployed for one week almost nobody would die right so it wouldn't matter how much unemployment it was if it only lasted a week and nobody starved to death probably nobody would die how about if it lasts two weeks two weeks probably almost nobody I mean you could argue that maybe a few extra people would commit suicide because of the lockdown you know losing businesses and stuff but I think there are a whole bunch of other people who don't die because we're not in traffic I don't know so it seems to be that when the economists say 40,000 die for every 1% of unemployment they

[16:42]

die for every 1% of unemployment they have to need long-term unemployment right I don't think they mean that unemployment has a bump over the summer and then you know fairly fairly quickly in next several months gets back to a normal rate I don't think they're talking about that you know that's not that's not the kind of unemployment that kills 40,000 people per point so that's the math lesson for for abundance now there are days when the simulation serves up the most delicious of stories today is such a day if you have not heard this yet prepare to receive a delicious story a story that tastes so good you can taste it with your ears that's how good it is and it goes like this
yes that is Christina on the piano downstairs I told her she could play

[17:44]

downstairs I told her she could play while I was on periscope so you'd have some background music so this this little tidbit comes to you courtesy of Michael Shellenberger writing in Forbes if you're not following Michael Shellenberger on Twitter you really should he has some of the best content you'll see and he's you wrote a little summary and review of a new film produced by Michael Moore you all know Michael Moore right I don't have to describe who Michael Moore is you all know him he's got a new documentary if you haven't heard what it's about prepare your ears for a delicious story I mean you're actually gonna be able to taste less in their ears it's so good it's gonna go in your ears it's gonna embrace your brain and it's just gonna massage it that's how good it is all right here it is this is Michael Moore's documentary these

[18:46]

Michael Moore's documentary these produced I don't think he's in and it's being released free to the public on YouTube today and the 50th anniversary of Earth Day good well you'd expect Michael Moore would care about you know Earth Day and the environment because we know he cares a lot about the environment so what's the name of this it's called planet of the humans plan of the humans and what's it about it's about the documentary reveals that industrial wind farms solar farms biomass and biofuels are wrecking natural environments what that's right it's it's a documentary produced by Michael Moore this suggests that the green New Deal type of technologies don't work and when I say don't work I mean that they they caused as much problems or more than they solve

[19:47]

problems or more than they solve now did you see this coming because I did not see this coming but I'm gonna say something that I've also said about Bill Maher you've heard me talk about Bill Maher and one of the things I like about him even when I disagree with specific opinions is it's obvious that he is an actual flexible thinker if you give them a better argument if you give him data he's capable of changing his mind very few people can do that especially public figures Michael Moore if you recall was one of the first Democrats who said this Trump thing is real he's reading the public right he could win do you remember he was the he was the one who could peer through the bubble everybody else was lost in the bubble and they couldn't see it they were actually blind to it but Michael Moore whatever you say about him you know hold your opinion of Michael Moore's

[20:48]

hold your opinion of Michael Moore's politics the thing he said that made you mad that time that the fact he doesn't go to the gym as much as you want but he is a flexible mind surprisingly you know maybe you don't expect it but I consider him a very flexible thinker like Bill Maher in a good way and I think what happened is he came upon this honestly I think he I think he funded this thing probably didn't know where it would end up and I think you'd ended up in a place that maybe wasn't his first choice and I think he had the intellectual integrity to go ahead and say he produced this thing so
clap-clap-clap for Michael more now I'm planning on a watch again tonight with Christina we can find it and I'm sure we can find it so I'll tell you if it's as interesting as I think it is but it

[21:50]

interesting as I think it is but it feels as if the green New Deal is so dead yeah it is cherish the fire that's what you hear what a great thing to be flying all right let me tell you a story and then I am going to amaze you by flipping around my whiteboard and completely redesigning college are you ready for this I'm going to redesign college so it's free almost it's gonna be so close to free you barely can tell the difference and it's gonna be fairly quick and it's fairly easy do you believe it before we show you the amazingness which is the other side of my whiteboard let me tell you this story it was 1979 I had just graduated at college Oneonta New York and I took my belongings from my dorm room and I moved

[22:50]

belongings from my dorm room and I moved them back to Windham New York where I grew up my family owned and their I traded my car an old dawson 510 I traded it to my sister for a one-way ticket to California because I made this calculation my calculation was there may be there may never be another time in my life what I have a completely blank slate I can actually move anywhere I want and what so the first thing I should do to improve my odds of a good life is to simply move where I have the greatest odds of a good life someplace has good weather good economics good travel you know just good everything good good everything that you need and so I sold sold that car for a one-way ticket to California I had two suitcases and $2,000 that I got for graduation plus some of my own money and I went to San Francisco and you know

[23:52]

and I went to San Francisco and you know long story short made my life here one of the best decisions I ever made because I moved from a place with no opportunity to a place with unlimited opportunity and that I took advantage of it now you might say to yourself the other way to look at my situation is I had nothing to lose because I didn't I had nothing so I had nothing to lose very rare to have a blank slate but when you get one do not let it go if you ever get a chance to start anything whatever it is from scratch something that you never get to start from scratch such as your entire life if you ever get that chance don't blow it this is like solid gold it's a one time you can really make something out of nothing you know you can you can get something done now this brings us to the corona virus the bad news about the corona virus you already know people dying in the economy the economy falling

[24:53]

dying in the economy the economy falling apart but there's one weird aspect of this and that it it destroys everything we assumed about big institutions and the way we used to do things I'm sure that working at home will be a thing and I'm sure that you know online education got a got a big boost but how could you make college almost free and way better way better and here's how so I'm gonna call it a free meaning that it's almost free you know nothing's free free but it goes like this you would first develop a Yelp like search engine for classes and the Yelp search engine would be able to search on any platform so even though even within a subscription service it would be able to search for a specific class so if let's say you wanted to take

[25:55]

class so if let's say you wanted to take a specific class you could look at the ratings and you could say oh there's one on YouTube but there's a more highly rated one on udemy so udemy how did I say that so you go there instead how hard it would it be to build a Yelp search engine for individual classes not that hard you know that's well within the range of stuff we do right we fix this by the way I'm Dyslexic as hell I don't know I don't know if I've ever mentioned that but justjust one of my many oddities but that was actually just a spelling error not dyslexia so here's my idea I would like to create a major that's useful we all know that higher education evolved over time and because it just sort of evolved and got ossified and you know

[26:55]

evolved and got ossified and you know just doesn't need to change it just didn't change it's just a mess so I would like to invent a major which is the major that would be free so you'd start with this and then if it works you can expand it to other other majors especially well I would invent a major called life strategy and life strategy would be a not to deep dive but all of the good stuff you know the 80% that matters that you can get quickly in these and maybe other other situations so every skill requires communication persuasion economics statistics I don't mean in the math sense necessarily you could do a little math but mostly I'm talking about practical statistics an example of that would be the idea of diversifying your portfolio that's that's practical statistics another example would be having a talent stack where every time you add a talent that works well together you multiply your odds of success so when I say statistics

[27:56]

odds of success so when I say statistics I mean figuring out the odds of things this looks like a better chance than this how do you compare things that sort of thing you don't want to teach people a little bit of design a little bit of history history is useful not because it repeats but because you see a whole bunch of pattern so the more patterns you see of like oh when history goes like that the thing you have to watch for is this thing so the more patterns you see the more well-rounded you are you should learn a little bit about managing how to hire and fire let's see I can do a better job of lining this up for you I had a hire and fire it's a little bit about startups if you want to start your own company banking and investing one of the biggest needs especially in the lower-income community and you hear this from black lives matter and activists in those communities that they people really need to learn how to handle money you take you for granted if you've been around a family that knows how to do it you just sort of pick it up by

[28:57]

you just sort of pick it up by association but if you've never learned how to manage credit or you know get a loan or any of that stuff how would you know if you didn't have anybody you could ask so you should teach all those basic things how to how to stack your skills a little bit about technology so you'd understand what's you know how to the basics of what's an app what's the cloud you know how things work together now the details of all this are highly variable so I'm just giving you the the concept then we imagine that it's certified could be certified by the government imagine if you will that the government in the United States said we're gonna have one just amazing class like anybody who gets through these classes you're really gonna want to hire now the exception would be you know the stem and some specialties you know that you still need lawyers and doctors and scientists and stuff so they're not taking this major this major is just for the generalists the the people might want to start a company the people who

[29:58]

want to start a company the people who are gonna you know go to work for a fortune 500 company and be trained within some special job etc so the idea was maybe the government could certify it but maybe individuals could you know what about me good I can I make one and then certified why not yes all you need is credibility so well I don't have that kind of credibility imagine if somebody who did have credibility came up with a set of class said if you do this many hours of these things and meet this checklist you've got a degree how long should it take you to get this degree I say one year I say one year and you could do it at night you can do it at home I think this degree is one year that if you're full-time you know maybe two years part-time or something so here's let me make a bold claim all right I know you like it when I make cocky unsupported bold claims but I

[31:01]

cocky unsupported bold claims but I wouldn't be me if I didn't do that right here's my bold claim you take a group a group of a hundred students chosen randomly from any community except the black community so it's any other group you take 100 of them and I'll take a hundred african-american students from the poorest to school and let's assume that they have good enough grades so that they could qualify for this you probably need some minimum standard you know probably a high school education have a high school degree I'll take a hundred african-american low-income kids and I'll give them some version of the strategy that's what they'll learn they might it might only even be one year but that's that's what though again and then you let the other of the control group the hundred everybody else they they take whatever they want now you subtract out the stem people because they're all going to get good jobs that ruins the experiment so in both sides if anybody's stem on either

[32:02]

both sides if anybody's stem on either side you toss them out so you just compare my hundred african-american students from a poor neighborhood who have learned solid gold strategy they understand how to manage money how to start businesses they've seen lots of historical patterns they learned how to network I forgot the right networking but networking would be a one of the skills that would be up here they've learned business writing they can give a speech and they have these skills and here's here's my cocking claim check with me in ten years and my group of a hundred african-american student from a poor neighborhood we'll all be on average will be earning more money than the control group because the control group took you know dumbass college courses yeah they're taking sociology and anthropology and you know French literature and and a hundred of my hypothetical african-american the students from a poor neighborhood just

[33:04]

students from a poor neighborhood just got a solid-gold life strategy that works because of math it's just math you know the the the math of if you try ten things one of them might work it's pretty strong math the math of if you diversify your portfolio you're not going to lose it all by making one dumb gamble it's just math right it's very simple math but it doesn't have and skill stacking the idea that you can cleverly stack your skills and that improves your odds again it's just math so you give me the group who runs their life based on the math of life the things we know are the best stuff the things that combine best always have the best career potential the things that let you see the farthest and and and manage things the most effectively that's my bet my bad is I'll give a one-year education to people and they will there will be a hand in income in ten years so let me see in the comments what part

[34:07]

so let me see in the comments what part of this do you think is impractical now there's there's an assumed to part of it that you know is unstated which is that the free market would allow the quality of these classes to continually improve and some of these classes might be free like on YouTube and some of them might be and some of them might be what somebody says racism I don't even know how that fits into this conversation and so some of them might be free some of them might cost you know twenty dollars because they're so good it's like the best rated class for you know organic chemistry but organic chemistry is so bad that you'd be willing to pay $20 to get the good one so you'd have a chance would corporations back it well they would if the government gave it credentials and they would if they saw what the kids were learning and they would if you had a little bit of a track record to show that those kids perform better so I

[35:09]

that those kids perform better so I think you would have to you probably have to subsidize it or something for a while just to test it somebody said Jordan Peterson had a similar idea that does not surprise me no I would not call this like a brilliant innovative new idea that nobody ever had the only the only claim I'm gonna make is is more like a prediction because this is all easy right don't you know that there will be a Yelp for college classes that are online you know in other classes you know that's coming right it's just too obvious that that would someday exist so doesn't need credentials well it helps the helps accreditation is what I should say not credentials need to add the scientific method in the may in the major I thought I actually I did have thank you for that I did have the scientific method on my

[36:10]

I did have the scientific method on my first draft and I missed it when I run down here so yeah and also networking is the other one I forgot my pins running in all right sue what do you think where did they learn how to interact socially that should also be one of the classes and I know this sounds like I'm making this up but I swear that was also on the first draft so shouldn't social
you can imagine you can imagine other things too such as learning how to travel yeah if you were a poor kid and you'd literally never been in an airplane wouldn't you like a one day class at least to teach you how do you

[37:11]

class at least to teach you how do you book of light how does anybody fly you know there are a lot of things that you just assume that people know but it's only because you've been around it if you've never been around it you'd have no way to know how to book a flight and navigate an airport you wouldn't even try add hypnosis and negotiation well that's actually under persuasion so each of these categories have subcategories you know a communication would include speeches and writing and baby social media you could start a school with it well the whole point is to not start a school that the whole point is that you don't need a physical school but you can't make government's do it too well that's true could you do it for high school I think you could you know it seems to me the homeschooling is is likely to to be good you know

[38:11]

likely to to be good you know I have of course a little bit of experience with kids in school recently and I'll tell you my personal opinion which is matched somewhat by the kids themselves school is kind of a horror you know kids today I just feel sorry for them because the school sounds from the social perspective you know because there are bullies and mean people and everybody's fighting to be liked and stuff and the pressure it actually sounds kind of terrible I mean I don't know how bad it was when I was a kid because you forget you know you don't really remember exactly what it was like but I don't remember hating it and but today it looks like it's just a pretty bad deal critical thinking did I forget that one too
too damn I had I had a logic course up there I think critical thinking is the better term for it but yeah so but anyway you

[39:13]

term for it but yeah so but anyway you see the point right you see the point that if you spent a little time you could come up with a life strategy class that would be better than anything to anybody's learning all right that's all I got for you today give you and I will talk to you in the morning we got lots of fun stuff to talk about and tonight you can have a wonderful night sleep I hope the dulcet tones of Christina on the piano have put you in the mood to drift off thinking about all the great ways that you can reinvent yourself because if you find yourself in a situation where there's nothing to lose well then you're free if you really want freedom freedom's that's just another word for nothing left to lose as Janis Joplin fables famously said before she died of an overdose but of course that takes away the motivational quality of

[40:15]

takes away the motivational quality of it all right I'll talk to you in the morning have a great night