Episode 936 Scott Adams: All the Funniest Stories and Good News Since This Morning

Date: 2020-04-26 | Duration: 1:00:22

Topics

My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a Content: Michael Caputo tweet and funny reply Bank of China, Trump debt hot story yesterday…fake Piers Morgan fell for Clorox HOAX…and follow-up fake story President Trump reviving American nuclear program UBI concept

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

[0:06]

pom pom pom pom pom pom pom pom pom pom [Music]
and as the curtain falls on another wonderful day here in the simulation we gather together to consider all the funny and entertaining things that have happened since last we spoke
Alexa turn on studio hey hey everybody it's good to see you I just got a fresh tweet from Connor freeters Dorf from Connor freighters Dorf who is a staff writer at the Atlantic and the founding editor of the best of journalism so the Atlantic as you know is a trumped arrangments intro and publication and so he was responding

[1:08]

and publication and so he was responding to my to my tweet so here's my tweet and then I'm gonna read you his tweet and I want you to see if it makes any sense to you because I've taught you to find cognitive dissonance right and the the Telfer cognitive dissonance at least the verb will tell is that the person babbles nonsense so if you see somebody who should be able to put a coherent sentence together and just can't is the words come out but it's just nonsense that's cognitive dissonance so I'm gonna read this to you and you decide what this says right so first my tweet that he responded to I said protip if you find yourself bleeding bleating like a sheep quote but he literally said that then you are demonstrating that you don't understand how words work meaning requires context and never better it never matters was

[2:09]

and never better it never matters was somewhat literally says it only matters what they meant which context can help you discern all right so my tweet says all the people who are saying but he literally said that are just demonstrating that they've never lived in this world because was somebody literally says never means anything if I say I think I want to kill that newspaper delivery boy which is probably not a thing anymore it never will be but but it doesn't mean I want to kill it right because it I don't I don't say what I literally mean you have to look at the whole context so Conner feeders Dorf looks at my perfectly reasonable statement that context must be included and you cannot just look at the literal words and here's what he says see if this makes any sense to you what Trump meant was I'm so smart than any kovat treatment that pops into my head based on whatever I just heard is

[3:10]

head based on whatever I just heard is worth airing to the nation it rises the level of the tiny subset of things that we should communicate from the White House and that he says the context is hugely damning what I don't even know what is what what what does this mean it rises to the level of the tiny subset of things that we should communicate from the oh so he's saying that it's important okay so I see his point that the president shouldn't have maybe been in this topic but does have anything to do with my tweet they're completely unrelated it's just like babble on a some other topic anyway so all day long I've been seeing people triggered into cognitive dissonance and just going to into babble mode or full insult mode and I feel like on some level this is just a replay of the the fine people hoax situation in which there's you just have

[4:13]

situation in which there's you just have to look at the transcript you just have to look at the context it's obvious but we will never be able to agree Rob O'Neill you probably know him as the guy who killed Osama bin Laden he he's fun to follow on Twitter and he tweeted today that Kim jong-un is dead now I don't know maybe he has better sources than I do he did after all killed bin Laden but when he tweeted that Kim jong-un is dead I tweeted back to him and I said did you do it because if you did that's just showing off I mean save some dictators for for the other guys I mean really Rob unless somebody else have one here's one of the funniest stories you know how every time Trump hire somebody new or or even if he doesn't even if there's just somebody's

[5:13]

doesn't even if there's just somebody's been working for him for a while that the game is to to identify people on the other team and just you know target them for destruction so it seems that they've targeted Michael Caputo who you know was targeted before in that whole Russia exclusion stuff and they basically you know made him spend all his money defending himself against nothing because it was never accused of anything but he still had to hire lawyers and stuff so he's been probably the most one of the most victimized people in politics but so he gets he gets this a great new job just recently as the new spokes spokesman of the Department of Health and Human Services and of course you know that's a pretty important job especially now during the corona virus stuff and so the K Files I guess that's a CNN investigative group or something so so they look to find all the bad

[6:14]

so so they look to find all the bad things he's ever said all the very bad things and man did they come up with some doozies well I don't know if they came up with some doozies because they only gave one real good example so this is the guy they've targeted for destruction for what they say or is racist tweets I'm going to read you his tweet and that I'm going to read you his response when they asked him about it it's like one of the best responses ever so so he had tweeted I guess back in March 12th in response to the rumor that the United States was the one who started the corona virus and took it to China so he was responding to that that crazy rumor and he retorted in his tweet that quote millions of Chinese sucked the blood end of rabbit bats as an appetizer and eat the ass end of ant eaters now I'm only reading this because it was on CNN's website right so it's news now I feel as

[7:14]

website right so it's news now I feel as though this would be more of a humorous exaggeration than racist because it's not like he made up the wet markets that Michael Caputo did not invent wet markets he simply humorously described them exactly as they exist now is it offensive sure sure yeah it's offensive was it meant to be offensive to China the country maybe who knows who cares I offend China five times a day I plan to offend China many more times is there a law against offending China I mean they did kill my stepson it was offense at all I think I've got a right to offend them so one of the tricks that CNN does and the left us is they conflate offensive with racist and they're not they're not even close to being the same offensive is what people

[8:18]

being the same offensive is what people are all the time to each other it's called Twitter I mean if you took away being offensive there would be no social media I mean wouldn't be enough left didn't be entertaining and so yeah of course it was offensive he wrote it that way that's why it's funny it's funny because it's offensive that's how humor works is how social media works the other the other trick that CNN does this they'll take something that's very provocative on Twitter but because it's Twitter everybody sort of understands what the what the game yeah of course you say stuff like that on Twitter but as soon as CNN takes that thing that was on Twitter where it was just like every other thing right every other offensive thing on Twitter humorously offensive that's partly why we got a Twitter the humorously offensive stuff is if I had to a minute sort of the main attraction at least for me speaking for myself so anyway he's he

[9:23]

me speaking for myself so anyway he's he was offensive but you'd have to really stretch to say it was more than that by anyway so he bakes so this is the worst they could find there's something about eating the ass out of an anteater and which to me is just funny and of course it made me curious aren't you a little bit curious now if the posterior part of anteaters are actually in the wet markets as a delicacy because I'm kind of curious now aren't you because it doesn't necessarily have to be true it's just sort of a random animal body part you know it's a funny animal an anteater and the Anteaters ass is even funnier than the anteater sort of double funny so maybe I mean is it is that a thing these people are saying no they don't think it's the thing but what's funny is that you that you you pause and you say well it's probably not a thing but on

[10:24]

well it's probably not a thing but on the other hand the things that are things you wouldn't have thought of those being things either so it's kind of funny that way alright so here's his response so he gets busted he's busted for this highly horrible tweet which has since been deleted I think he just did the wise thing which is he cleaned up his Twitter before he took the job and he responded to CNN's request for comment by saying quote fair game dude I don't care doesn't matter to me at all computer went on to say that he regularly deletes his tweets quote because it drives people mad and defended his past Twitter behavior by saying it was the defender of the present of course is that the best the best comment he could have possibly said is a fair game I don't care doesn't matter at all because you know what doesn't matter at all does it matter not at all yeah and here's the thing

[11:24]

not at all yeah and here's the thing there obviously the game here nobody cares there's nobody to CNN who cares about this do you think there's somebody at CNN it was like you know I made a list of all the important stories and you know my Cook Caputo's that one tweet it was like a little bit exaggerated in a way that you could take as being offensive yeah that's what I care about nobody is seeing it cares it's the least important thing of the least important thing so just blowing it off like that it's like I don't care what sort of perfect and of course you know the game is to get the Trump administration riled up and say we're gonna have to fire this guy because of this but if you fire people for being this this level of minor humorously offensive if that's what gets you fired you're gonna have to get rid of you know Don junior you know you're gonna have to get rid of you know everybody on the Fox

[12:25]

get rid of you know everybody on the Fox Network pretty much and pretty much everybody who is a conservative has to be fired if that's fireable alright we got more fun stuff coming here so Trump didn't have a press conference today and I think that was the right call I think I think maybe probably he's getting the feedback that a little bit less of that would be more so maybe that'll be a few times a week we'll see yeah it could be exactly as much you know he's unpredictable we'll see but he obviously knows that it's obvious that the entire event is just to trap him into saying something that they could take out of context and if that's the only reason you're doing it is to bait him into saying something that could be taken in a kind why do it right so the Bank of China you

[13:30]

why do it right so the Bank of China you remember that story they said the Bank of China had loaned the Trump Organization millions of dollars and therefore there was this big scoop and Politico I think it was that that yeah Trump was beholden to China because his loans were gonna come due and I said based on my experience as a banker you know I'm not even sure there is a loan because even if the Bank of China made the loan it would be typical to package up your loans and you sell them so the bank will make the loan but then they're not the ones who who you have to pay back because they sell that debt to someone else it's just part of their business because they would rather make new loans and get the processing fees and the upfront stuff and then sell it off so they have enough backing to make new loans so I had speculated that there was actually probably nothing that the Trump Organization owed to Bank of China

[14:32]

Trump Organization owed to Bank of China and that was confirmed today so that was confirmed so it turns out that the amount of money that the Trump Organization owes to the Bank of China is zero zero this big breaking story big news and you know I've told you before that having a good talent stack in which you've spent some time in different domains allows you to see around corners sometimes yeah here's a perfect example because I was a banker I knew enough about banking you know no baking expert but I knew enough about banking to say you know oh so sure he owes them any money I'll look into that and so I didn't know for sure but it based on my experience it seems likely and so that's confirmed that whole story was fake Piers Morgan what is

[15:34]

was fake Piers Morgan what is what is wrong with this guy there's something going on that I don't it's like there's more to the story so why is Piers Morgan he hates the president for some reason lately he used to be a supporter but he completely believed the story that Trump was asking the doctors or asking somebody about injecting Clorox and Lysol into bodies he actually believed that and and tweeted angrily about it but it gets worse he also believed the follow-up fake story that and there was in the New York Daily News they said there's a spike in calls to the I guess the poison hotlines or whatever asking say oh yes assembly states in the article there thirty people called the city's poison control hotline over fears that they had ingested bleach or other household cleaners do you see anything

[16:36]

household cleaners do you see anything wrong with the study the the whole corona virus has caused people to wildly buy and use more household cleaners so we're using household cleaners bleach isopropyl alcohol all those cleaners we're using them at a level that's like you know 10 to 20 times more than ever if you're using that stuff 10 to 20 times more what are the odds you would get more calls about people who think they may have accidentally ingested some of course you will because we're using it about 20 times more than normal so just more of an inner environment there are more reasons for somebody to say oh the lid is off this bottle does anybody know why the lid is off this bottle I mean it just it just creates you know a zillion opportunities for people to say oh did that spill on my sandwich or whatever yeah who knows why people think they get poisoned by household cleaners

[17:37]

they get poisoned by household cleaners I don't think it's because they take them intentionally so that's so reason the organization reason did a debunk on that and just ripped it apart but until Piers Morgan tweeted it so not only did he believe the fake news that Trump was noodling about the possibility or let's say wondering aloud about injecting people with Clorox and and what was the other thing Clorox and Lysol he believes that but then he believes that this is actually caused the spike in poisonings which was the second fake news I mean seriously all right here's some some good news Trump is reviving the US nuclear program I don't know exactly what it means to revive the nuclear program but it's you know John Solomon reported it it's a story

[18:39]

reported it it's a story apparently the focus at least initially will be on opening uranium mines I believe so that we won't have to worry about anybody else for her uranium sounds like a good idea plus you know for long-term competitive reasons we have to have a good nuclear stuff so Fox did Fox did an article about quote a disturbing new study this is just Sean Hannity show help spread the help spread the coronavirus so the idea is that people this is their claim it's pretty ridiculous but their claim is that people who watch the tucker carlson who was more alarmist if you if you use that word about the coronavirus that they had better outcomes in terms of not getting it than people who watched hannity and i i don't know this is just like the most ridiculous study and i just tweeted and asked people to you know spot all the mistakes so first of all it's not

[19:40]

mistakes so first of all it's not peer-reviewed second of all where's your control there's no control group they just compared Hannity viewers to tucker viewers how many how many of them are the same viewers i don't know do they account for that who knows is there any selection bias meaning that the people who choose to watch Hannity are they in any way if you pulled them would they be different than the people who choose to watch Tucker probably wouldn't you say
say because because Tucker and Andi are different enough that you would expect over time that there would be a self-selection of people who had a certain philosophical leaning would you know go one way versus the other so it's a it's it's the most garbage study that as no no credibility whatsoever and to even see this in the news is just laughable so I don't know if any of our news today was real did we have any real news today I don't know it's hard to

[20:41]

news today I don't know it's hard to tell so here's some more good news kind of a USA Today poll found that 71% of minorities in this country support a ban on immigration to fight the corona virus pandemic which does suggest that at least the corona viruses may be bringing us together because at least on this in this case people are on the same page here's the weirdest cool story Tom Hanks who as you know had coronavirus his blood is going to be used to develop a cove in nineteen vaccine how much would you love to have the Tom Hanks vaccine and you'd know I got a little bit of Tom Hanks I don't know whatever they take out of Tom Hanks you get his DNA in here what and so I asked is that something Tom Cruise could do no could Tom Cruise turn part of his body or what he could

[21:42]

turn part of his body or what he could not but Tom Hanks is going to turn part of his body you have the blood part he's going to turn it into maybe a cure for a devastating world problem somebody says why him I don't know maybe because he was easy to find and he was willing to volunteer maybe he was the right age I don't know but that's the story here are some other interesting stories so doctors at the University of Chicago Medicine say that instead of using the ventilators they're having quote truly remarkable results using some kind of just nasal nasal airflow things so it's just something that goes up your nostrils instead of down your throat and it's just a I guess it's a gentler airflow situation I don't know exactly why it works but they say that that plus laying people in their stomachs which apparently is a big deal they found out was taking people from

[22:45]

they found out was taking people from low oxygen to high oxygen and I think only one of them needed a ventilator so this little trick first of all makes it a less expensive device I think the notice things probably less expensive less complicated although we might have a shortage of them we may have all these ventilators that we don't need but we might have a shortage of these nasal cannula z' whenever that is their high flow nasal cannula z' so and they blow large volumes of warm humidified air into the nose and lungs it could be the the warm humidified part might be the important part and so that seems like a gigantic thing because if it turns out that there's a lower-cost way to to save the people who have already become ventilator sick and they don't need to be on ventilators because that seems to be closer to a one-way trip these days this could be huge I mean this could be one of the this could be one of the

[23:47]

one of the this could be one of the biggest things ever now here's some other funny things there's a little mystery why people who are longtime smokers are actually having better healthcare comes with the virus and it doesn't make sense now some people said okay it's because of whatever the smoke is done to the lungs over the years makes them less susceptible but then there's also a theory that it's the nicotine now don't go out and do anything about this so don't get your medical advice from cartoonists but there's speculation that the nicotine and there's you know there's a known unknown connection to the h2 inhibitors or whatever receptors so there's some reason it should work that's good maybe that's the thing let's say I think the bad news is that there's more hints that there might not be immunity that builds up but the weird the weird thing about that is if it's true that you can't build up an immunity to it then there's probably no reason to

[24:50]

to it then there's probably no reason to not go back to work am i right so is this good news or bad news it depends who dies I suppose somebody you know dies it's bad bad news but if you go back to work and that's the only thing that happens is good news so if let's say let's say we've got confirmation in the next week or two and we got a confirmation that you don't build immunity that is weird that way it's like the only virus where you don't build immunity now first of all I'm still skeptical I still completely doubt that people don't get immunity I think they do there might be some you know some detail of us that's different but if it turns out that there's no immunity and we know we can't wait for the vaccine because that would be too much of a wait don't we just go back to work because if we can't count on herd immunity and we know we can't waste those long that will you know we could wait it out to the the vaccine

[25:51]

could wait it out to the the vaccine there would be nothing left us we might as well go back to work so it'd be kind of bad news is good news right help me think that through because I'm not sure than what I'm saying makes sense I think it would make sense if there was nothing on the horizon that was just going to stop this thing if the only thing we had with some therapeutics and better testing and stuff I think we just say well it is what it is let's just open the doors now here's a thought that I don't know if everybody is completely [Music] let's say considered in their opinion of what might happen in the future are you thinking to yourself that there's a point where the public might revolt and just say ah screw these guidelines we're just going to open up our businesses because I'm here to tell you that can't happen no matter what we individuals do I think individuals will probably massively disregard the guidelines pretty soon as they already are so I

[26:53]

pretty soon as they already are so I think individuals are going to go to the beach they're going to go to the park they're gonna take walks so I think individuals will in fact massively just say okay yeah we're just not going to do this anymore we'll be smart you know we'll try to keep our distance we'll do the obvious things but we're just gonna go to the park you can't tell us not to go to the park you can't tell us not to you know not to go fishing but that doesn't work with businesses everybody who has been involved I have a small business nose it doesn't work because you can say to yourself alright I'm gonna open my donut store you could try but then the police walk in and they say we're gonna pull your permit how long do you resist if you're the donut shop and the police come in and say you know it's against guidelines can't let you do it we're gonna pull your permit to do business or we're gonna want find you

[27:54]

business or we're gonna want find you something you can't afford it would be the easiest thing in the world for the authorities anywhere to stop small businesses from opening it'd be real easy and it would be even easier to stop big businesses because you can just say to them directly hey you're a big business CEO not yet so you wouldn't guess CEOs to go rogue and the small businesses are too vulnerable they're not going to take a chance you know even even in desperation the police can still shut them down easily and you don't have to shop too many down before everybody says I this isn't working so I don't think there can be somebody says health code violations and they could always find something so I don't think they're candy and
eko we're going back to work it's just too easy to stop him but the individuals will of course here is some other stuff that might be good there's some

[28:56]

that might be good there's some indication that an existing asthma drug called singulair singulair shows promise for treating kovat 19 that would be good now that's again it's one of many things we're looking at but there's some reason to believe that this is a strong contender wouldn't that be great then Australia has introduced today there are contact tracer an app that figures out who comes in contact with who and if you get I guess it's voluntary but if you use the app and you also get tested as positive then and only then it becomes unencrypted and I guess authorities can figure out who you contact it or who you were near and then they could contact them and somebody says they're already on that now is that as good as I I'm not as informed as I should be about what Apple and Google are doing don't we basically have that you know is what

[29:58]

basically have that you know is what Apple and Google are doing together where there I guess pooling their data of location and information it's not the same or as good as or not as good as the Australian app so I don't know I don't know if we're doing something similar or better
so here's the thing how long can government go without taxes all right I didn't want to say this but I feel like somebody has to say it out loud there's there's a few things that you just don't want to say out loud but we can't really avoid it anymore there isn't any scenario in which restaurants are going to get back to full revenue you'd agree right now you could say well someday yeah like in a year or two and I don't know any restaurant that could survive if their business went

[30:59]

could survive if their business went down 20% for a year because business restaurants don't have much margin and they're kind of permanently at least a small restaurants especially I think every restaurant will be pushed below the profitability line so if they have to lose money every month just to be open how many small restaurants are going to lose money every month just to be open you know at what point do they just say well I better do something else because I can't lose more money so I don't know that there's any way restaurants can survive I don't see any path for that now of course you know if we had enough time things would change and adjust and yeah there's always a way to adjust the things in the long run but in the short run it's hard for me to see any scenario in which there are still restaurants of the year from now except for takeout yeah takeout will be bustling I hope I'm wrong and I hope that we come up with

[32:00]

wrong and I hope that we come up with some way to do that now to your question how long can the government go without taxes how long can we print money like you know we've printed more money than our GDP at this point just for this year I think now how long somebody says food trucks yeah maybe food trucks would be a bigger deal how long can the country go without tax revenue how long can we run up how long can we print money first of all nobody knows but I feel as though the only thing that's going to happen well let me make a bigger story about this the corona virus is destroying a system that was not sustainable think about that that there's there's your mind your mind effing thought for the night this is the system we had the one we were living in they was doing so well and unemployment was low and everything it was completely unsustainable wasn't

[33:03]

it was completely unsustainable wasn't even close to being sustainable and everybody knew it meaning that the the debt was out of control and there were some demographic you know time bombs that were coming for you know welfare and everything else and then the robots are going to take the jobs and of course you know we've got every other problem in the world so we before coronavirus we had a system that couldn't possibly work it was going to fail we didn't know when yeah we didn't know if we had ten years or twenty but we didn't have it anything that looked like a path to stop runaway spending which eventually would crush the system and everybody knew it there was no node no Democrat no Republican no nobody every single person knew we were pretending to be in a system that could last and we weren't we were not in a system that had any chance of lasting and now now the question has been called because the coronavirus just said hey let me remove all of your assumptions

[34:04]

let me remove all of your assumptions let me take away all your safety let me let me change all the rules and suddenly we look at and say hey our system is completely dismantled what are you going to do and the answer of course will be what we always do which is to reinvent we will reinvent we will come back stronger and the reason we will come back stronger is because of this destruction it just as you know breaking everything so you have to you have to come up with a new way for everything the biggest change I think will that will be that I think we're gonna have let me just sort of brainstorm out loud I'll be thinking aloud here so don't take this too seriously as of today this is a brand new thought I feel like the only way the society can go forward is with a universal basic income that everybody gets regardless of your income

[35:04]

everybody gets regardless of your income and it would go something like this just just for conversation there everyone in the country gets $100,000 or maybe every household gets a little more if they have kids and stuff but let's say every single individual gets just a hundred thousand dollars but there's a cat the only thing you could spend your hundred thousand dollars on is shelter and energy and the basics you couldn't buy a car with it you couldn't you couldn't buy clothes with it so I almost think that we need a second currency you know one currency that's your universal basic income and that any of you've you've got it in your let's say it's in your wallet let's say it's a digital currency and you can use it at the grocery store you can use it to pay your rent all your basics but you just can't use it from luxury and somebody says this is horrible I'm out have you heard the idea whoever said it seriously seriously uh Twitter fine who says this

[36:06]

seriously uh Twitter fine who says this is horrible and out now are you an economist are you a professional economist who is also a mind reader because not only can you see all of the ramifications of this idea which has never been tried but at the same time you can read my mind and you know how the censuses are going to end so you're out yeah how about opening your mind just a little bit it's a little bit so here's what I'm you know I'm not even claiming that I'm proposing a good idea I'm just brainstorming here so settle down there so the idea would be that you need to keep free market incentives no matter what and do it there would always be enough people like me who say well I'm not happy with a basic life I need I need a real life I need life where you know I can grow and do things and you know make an impact and stuff like that so I could still go do my thing and then I can own earnest much as I want just

[37:08]

I can own earnest much as I want just like that now somebody says is socialism but let me say this as clearly as I can if you're if you're just missing it because of socialism that means you don't understand it all right so let me say as clearly as possible you're not disagreeing with it because it's socialism you're not understanding it because as we currently have a system that has all kinds of socialism built into it this would just be a simplification of existing socialism we you know if you're saying to yourself Scott Scott Scott you know I'll never live in the system with socialism I say to you we're already here the coronavirus has just made it painfully obvious that the government is is going to be supporting most of the public probably for the long run because most of the public won't have enough skills when the you know when the robots come this is just you know Andrew Yang's thing and of course he's right in the

[38:11]

thing and of course he's right in the long run there will be people who have the right skills to make extra money and do extra stuff and there'll be a whole bunch of people who just don't have any skills they have any economic value and we're not going to want them to die you know you don't want your grandmother die because she doesn't have good economic skills so the the likelihood of a universal basic income it doesn't matter if you think it's a good idea it really doesn't there's no other alternative I think Andrew yang would agree with that you can hate it all day long it's gonna happen anyway because there isn't another alternative so so you have to lose you have to lose your fairy tale hallucination that there's some other path where that doesn't happen that doesn't exist anymore and and I think the coronavirus made plain that some number of people just have to have to have a simplified life now here are some ways you could go about it you could for

[39:11]

ways you could go about it you could for example say there are certain states or counties or locations where the people who live there or all the people who have lower cost housing they they ride their bikes everywhere it's maybe it's a designed city so that everything's close you can walk to it you know that the housing is designed from scratch to be really low cost but high efficiency and and those people just live there and they can live there as long as they want they just can't grow so so you'd still have your market incentives like crazy just like now but the people who don't really have any chance of making it in the future it would also have some way to to get by and and then they can also they can move up if they want to based on their own work alright so remember if you hear this idea and you say to yourself that's impractical it'll never work you have to finish the sentence because you can't say it's a bad idea that's not

[40:13]

you can't say it's a bad idea that's not that you haven't finished the sentence the rest of the sentence is compared to and then you say what you're comparing to now if you say no so Scott I don't like your idea because you know capitalism the way we did it before works so well to which I say no didn't it was a complete failure we just didn't get the we didn't get the bill yet the only reason that we had any economic security or economic let's say growth is because we borrowed the money from them but from from young people who don't know it yet so we didn't have actual productivity we had a sort of fake financial one that felt good for a while so if you if you want to go back to the other system that's not a panel of a plan because the other system doesn't even exist you know it's not like you can get on the path that takes you to Grandma's house there is no path to Grandma's house you can't get on something that was never there in the first place we just pretended it was there so in the long run I think that we

[41:17]

there so in the long run I think that we will figure out how to live cheaper better lives that will be more bulletproof yeah will be better in every way
way I'm pretty sure that the the Golden Age is still know somebody says ubi is death is there any thinking behind that I don't know that there is tiny houses for everyone someone says I don't know
promote a virus has shown the cities are no longer a viable concept there's something to that I traffic tells you that cities are no longer a viable concept yeah if you tried to spend time in New York City New York City is completely broken in terms of trying to get from one place to another you're you're basically trapped or it's just a horrible you know horrible experience to get anywhere I mean you go in the subways but then here yeah and you've got all those problems

[42:17]

yeah and you've got all those problems somebody says Scott Scott Scott we already have ubi it's called welfare well it's not it's not what I I just described because if you get your welfare check you can spend on anything you want and I do not recommend that that would be anti that would be a bad incentives but you would you don't want those people to die you want them to have the basics of life but if they want a little extra they're gonna have to work for it where would the money come from where did where did Bitcoin come from you know where did the money come from that we just print it so one of the weird things about money is that you can just print it you just make it you get to say yeah we got money now and of course governments can do that in a way that individuals can't and the reason that the United States can just invent money is that they can say we'll accept it in taxes so as soon as the government says yeah if you pay your taxes and this kind of money we'll take it well that

[43:19]

kind of money we'll take it well that gives the money value because you always have something you can buy with it which is paying your taxes so the government can create a currency and another and just say well we back it so here it is yeah we're gonna send you some money if you don't want it you don't have to take it but wouldn't it be nice you could use it to buy some groceries all right Nepal's opposition to ubi is very persuasive yeah you know I can see what's happening here which is this is why this is why we can't have nice things if if anything that you say about what I've been talking about here is that ubi doesn't work or the social is bad then you didn't understand what I said right because I'm not I'm not recommending you know Andrew Yang's version of ubi because his would let you spend it on anything you want and I think that's a flaw look it was flaw in it I don't know what involves here's I

[44:21]

it I don't know what involves here's I don't know what his objection is but I would assume it's because of what it does to incentives and I've described a situation where the people who get the basic income can only have a basic life if that's good enough well they don't need to do any more but most people would say you know I'd like a little extra I'm gonna I'm gonna do a little extra work all right yeah so so all the things that people say about the screwed cars inflation etc those are all true but again you have to compare it to a system that can't work doesn't work was already broken which was our current system so we don't actually have a system that works nor do we have an idea for one that would work with we don't have one to go back to and we have no idea how to build one but we do have those skills so I do believe that you know the country possesses in abundance

[45:22]

know the country possesses in abundance enough smart people who could say you know let's try this let's let's uh let's print some some money that we use for the basics and we use our other money for everything else and international trade and all that and there you go debate isn't of all about we would not see now the fact that you say that makes me think you don't understand what I'm saying because I don't think we would disagree I don't think I'll ask them about it alright navall is about voting for a more ubi is the problem that people can just vote themselves or raise is that were using well that's also fixed by mine because the only things I can buy her the basics anyway you think the stores have been

[46:23]

anyway you think the stores have been bogarted way for everything free-for-all now of course I'm not suggesting anything like that so if I see some objections that they show that you understand what I've suggested they might engage with them oh no Val I have a case for universal basic necessities that's that's just what I said so it sounds like if all that I have exactly the same plan why would he disagree so if you say that we should give people necessities that's just another way of saying you can't use this money to buy fancy clothes and and a labradoodle that's all I'm saying I'm just I'm just saying a mechanism for doing it might be a second currency I don't think he would disagree to that but I'll ask him aren't there already rules whoa whoa you can buy with food stamps yeah first times just being a limited example of that that is correct

[47:26]

you're brainstorming has crashed I don't know what that means somebody says did the simulation create the virus to address climate change well believe it or not that was actually one of my notes and I skipped it because I didn't want to sound like a jerk but now because you've asked me this question in the comments I can blame you so now I can talk about it so I'll use the lawyer trick well you brought it up I would not have said this this is just a horrible thought but hey you brought it up so it's on you know it goes like this you've heard the idea that the that the earth is sort of somehow magically self-regulating that if the if the if the earth gets out of balance in some way then it will find a way and you might not you might not see it coming then it'll find a way to get back in balance now I have no reason to believe that's true right there's I don't know what logic

[48:27]

right there's I don't know what logic you would use to say that the earth needs to go back to balance because it seems to me that every plan is changed you know every year forever so I don't know that there's any reason they would be in balance but if you take the assumption that the earth does know how to balance itself and the earth being at the sum of all the creatures and energy on it's not it's not just the dirt of the earth I'm talking about the animals and creatures and everything else and if there was one thing they could deal with the impact of humans it would be a virus that primarily killed older people and also put such a crimp on economic activity that it cooled the planet and made sure we had enough resources at the same time because as you know if you take let's take healthcare yeah there's some gigantic proportion of the total

[49:28]

some gigantic proportion of the total healthcare you spend for your whole life ends up happening in the last few years of your life because that's when things get expensive so there gonna be a lot of people who would have been very expensive and here's why I'm glad you brought this up instead of me who would be very expensive to the system who if this virus had been created magically by you know the earth trying to balance itself it would be sort of exactly the way to do it the the the thing that's hard to ignore is that if the earth were alive I'm not saying it is but if the world were sort of like conscious and it just said all right I guess it looks like it's getting a little warm in here around here I'd better do something to adjust it I can't think of anything that would be as effective as this maybe a volcano so it looks weirdly weirdly sort of on the nose for solving climate

[50:31]

of on the nose for solving climate change but I think the the Michael Moore back film planet of the humans ended green energy as a as an option and I think that the corona virus and you know everything that's changed about civilization I think it just makes the green New Deal seem I don't just not important maybe someday we'll circle back to it but the last thing we have to worry about now is polluting too much
sounds like you just validated coronavirus well I wouldn't call it validated somebody says climate models are as accurate as the virus models that is correct which means that they're both useful yeah only people who've done models for a living understand that you know it the the most the most basic misperception is that people think a model is supposed to tell you what the future will be can't they can't do that nobody can predict

[51:33]

they can't do that nobody can predict the future that's not a thing nobody's ever done that in any domain you know it just isn't the thing what a model can do and I've never explained it this way so this might be the first time you've heard a good explanation what a model can do is if you try all the different variables and and no matter what variable you put into it even though they're just estimates and assumptions no matter what you do if it shows that the highest part of the range isn't going to kill you well that's good because you can't know which variables are the right ones or what to put in but if you play with your model all day long and you've changed every variable within the range that you think is not crazy and there's just no situation where the world is destroyed well then you've got some decisions so that's a perfectly good use of a model likewise you would do the same thing on the low side you try every variable you can every different assumption even wild ones and you say alright what's the what's the best that this could be if

[52:34]

what's the best that this could be if everything went the way we wanted to what's the best it could be and that and then you look at him saying oh the best it could be under every scenario it still gets a little bit too warm we don't know how long but it's gonna get a little too warm so I think the climate models do that they do that they tell you that somewhere in this gigantic range we might have trouble but that's about all they can do they can't tell you the economics they can't tell you what we'll invent between now and then they can't tell you how many pandemics we'll have that we'll rearrange society they can't tell you if we will all be cyborgs in 40 years so models can't tell you what's gonna happen and and as soon as you buy into the illusion that that's what they're for they're not even for that they're not even built for that purpose it's only to tell you this this big range of possibility and and then you look at the

[53:34]

possibility and and then you look at the the virus models and you say hey but Scott these virus models have this giant range of possibilities and it was still outside the range to which I say well that's more evidence so you don't know how models work because if the model said we're only you know the low end would be like a hundred thousand at one point then it got lowered but it's the low low point one hundred thousand and we came in it looks like we'll blow past sixty so if we come in at seventy thousand and the low part of the model was one hundred thousand that means the model worked that's not missing because that's so close to the bottom range and with full mitigation that you'd say yeah that was pretty close it did tell us that under these assumptions with full mitigation we're gonna be somewhere in this 50 60 hundred thousand range and you would make different decisions if you're in that range than you would if it were one or two million so did the the models work completely the models completely

[54:38]

work completely the models completely worked for what models can do what models did not do is tell you what the future would be because they can't do that they just can't do that and as soon as you fool yourself into thinking that they can do that that's when your world doesn't make sense anymore because you think there was idiots are you telling me they closed the economy and they and their models were wrong now that never happened because there's no such thing as a model that's right you can't have a model that's wrong if there's no possibility of it being right and there is no possibility because nobody can see in the future all right we ruined our world economy because the models incorrect completely incorrect so everybody who thinks that the models are why we closed the economy has not listened to dr. fell Qi who said no we were watching what was happening in China and Italy and it

[55:39]

happening in China and Italy and it wouldn't matter what the model said if you're watching you know China just get decimated and then Italy get decimated and you see it's coming toward you yeah how she said this directly he said no we didn't you know we didn't need the models for that you could tell this was some bad stuff no model required the models are mostly to communicate with the public really that's that's the primary thing that they do and they mislead the they mislead the public
models showed that hospitals would be overwhelmed and again are you saying those models were wrong because they did not predict the capacity of the hospitals because if you're saying that again you don't understand what a model is the model can't tell you what it will be can't do that it's not made for that nobody wanted it doesn't do that only the range that's it and I think we were

[56:41]

the range that's it and I think we were within the range in my opinion why do you leave your corkboard blank I do that because I don't like a lot of busy stuff behind me I only wanted behind me things that I wanted to be behind me so I was like you're wheezing are you okay my my my surgery to get my nasal sinus problem fixed was postponed with everybody else's post vulnerable surgeries so I'm actually having pretty bad breathing problem but it's my oxygen is fine i test i test my oxygen every day so that's fine do you think you had the virus in January I thought about that all day today because now they have those home tests and if you can talk your doctor into there's some reason you should get tested apparently you can do it but it would have to be your doctor or during the

[57:42]

have to be your doctor or during the test and I was wondering if I have a good enough reason and I think that given the shortage of the tests the answer is no because there are people who need it more than I do at this point but if there were enough tests I would definitely take one now because there's so many people who had the same experience in January and they say I don't know what I had but I've never had anything like that before so that was my experience whatever basically took me out for almost the entire month of January I mean I was in bad shape and in January I couldn't walk upstairs I would have to like stop and pause and like and I just thought it's cold or allergies or something I didn't really know what it was it wasn't and and I also thought I was taking some meds for my sinus thing and I thought I had an allergic reaction because there was one point you know one of the one of the things that supposedly happens with the corona virus is the

[58:43]

happens with the corona virus is the shakes and I remember sitting in front of my fireplace and my body was shaking so hard that it hurt you know like like I was just going and I couldn't stop it and I was cold so I was like cold and shaking so hard that like I felt like a baby getting shaken too hard like he was gonna kill me and you know whatever it was the last week's so did I have the corona virus I don't know but I know I've never had anything like that nothing in my memory is even close to whatever the hell that was but I don't know oh my god so he says your eye surgery was delayed and you're going blind well I think the next week or two we're gonna see a lot more a lot more stuff
somebody says that's sepsis which it could be could have been sepsis

[59:44]

could be could have been sepsis I had enough I had enough things going on I did not have any kind of persistent cough more than my normal normal cough those scopes must have been brutal yeah I mean I was suffering you're now immune I doubt it I doubt it I would say the odds that I actually had it would be the same as the other people who got tested and thought they had it and the answer was something like 90% don't have it so anyway I will talk to you tomorrow you know where to find me have a good night