Episode 944 Scott Adams: FBI Flynn-Flammers, A Slew of Fake News and some Funny Stuff Before Bed
Date: 2020-04-30 | Duration: 43:26
Topics
My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a Content: FBI handwritten meeting notes about General Flynn say WHAT? Has ANYONE ever been more exonerated than General Flynn? A classic CNN unnamed sources story about President Trump Ben Shapiro considers both costs and benefits, Twitter erupts Nate Silver, herd immunity and the testing error rate
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## Transcript
[0:17]
oh this would be great ASMR if you don't know what ASMR is you've got a Google see what did I get this
yes it's Nev Reubens new book it's called don't burn this book I will be talking to Dave Tuesday and we'll we'll hear more about this but I'm gonna do my homework first hey how's it going everybody what a day do you remember maybe a week ago I told you that the next couple of weeks would be insane but it would be insane in a good way I'm not sure that's a hundred percent sure true but it's definitely true that the past week or so it's just been crazy and of course the one of the things that's
[1:17]
course the one of the things that's making it interesting is this general Flynn stuff now I hope you're all up-to-date on this because there's something so perfect about this day if if you've been following the whole Flynn saga because you know it was early on it was rumored that he was he was just sort of framed and they were just trying to take him out or get some dirt on Trump and I remember when I first heard it I said to myself well yeah you know maybe maybe but it didn't seem totally credible when I first started and partly because who does that who just decides to take out a general because he's he's part of a campaign and part of it is in the back of my mind I was thinking if there's somebody you're gonna try to take down you know if you had to pick anybody in the world let's say let's say
[2:19]
anybody in the world let's say let's say in the United States and there was somebody you wanted to take down and there was somebody that if you tried to take them down you might not have finished the job who would be the worst person to try to take down and not quite get the job done well maybe a top military trained mind of the United States possibly a general that would be that would be a really bad person to try to take out and not quite get it done so today the big story is that some of the notes have been revealed you know they had read notes from the time of the interviews and before and I think it was lawyer Baker's notes who said if you if you haven't seen this story it's just gonna make you laugh because you know everything is a Dilbert cartoon and ultimately you know maybe
[3:21]
cartoon and ultimately you know maybe it's just my filter on the world you know and why wouldn't it be but I just see the world as this giant Dilbert cartoon so where the rest of you see important people doing awesome things because they're strangers you know you always think those strangers are doing awesome things it's only the people that you know who are morons and incompetent and you say to yourself why why is it that everybody I know personally is a and incompetent well not everybody but you know I mean but yet there are people I don't know strangers and important jobs and they're so wildly awesome and competent maybe not every time I'm just saying that sometimes it's a little more like a Dilbert comic no matter where you go that's my experience there's no level anywhere no level where you can get away from it case in point
[4:26]
FBI and lawyer I think he's an FBI lawyer but anyway as part of this group they was going to talk to Flynn and he writes a note to himself no there's no he writes what is our goal truth slash admission or to get him to lie so so we can prosecute him or get him fired well now if you don't think that are approximately I think it'll be about six to eight weeks if you don't think there's gonna be a Dilbert cartoon about the guy who's taking notes at the meetings but really you shouldn't you know he really shouldn't be taking the notes because for one he might not get it right and then it'd be a record or something that might not even be accurate I mean that's a risk or or you could be in the middle of a plot to overthrow the government of the United States and one of your treasonous
[5:28]
States and one of your treasonous co-conspirators decides to write a note to himself note to self is this one of these meetings where we're just it's like yeah can you just see yeah like like if he was at the meeting I guess you okay you just see this guide to be questioned clarification I'm just a point of order and just I'm wondering if we're committing treason against the United States of America yeah this is our first domino or where we just talking to this guy to try to get him fired I I'm just trying to get on the same page are we are we just taking him out just trying to get fired or is this actually
[6:28]
to get fired or is this actually connected to our plot to take out the legally elected president of the United States by going through generals first literally and the fact that this guy is at the meeting like you it's a am i exaggerating is this not a Dilbert comic but there's always this guy give you a budget can imagine like you know Brandon and all these other guys who are thinking you know I think we got away with it I think of their thinking got clean away
yeah it was close it looks like it looked like they were they were sniff about our trail there for a while looked like they were getting close no we're good we got away we got away what they they found what I know you say what
[7:32]
they they found what I know you say what was on the note what you know it's a bad day to to be anybody associated with this except for general Flynn now there's a punch line to all of us by the way I've never seen anybody more exonerated like if there was some kind of if there was some kind of Nobel Prize or Nobel Prize for being exonerated and like it was a scale and some people were a little bit exonerated it's like well you know I he's not that guilty let's let's let's exonerate him a little bit you've got to figure that there's a scale of exoneration right well this biscuit this guy just broke the gauge for the most exonerated you could ever
[8:33]
most exonerated you could ever be but it gets better there's a punch line the punch lights coming off this it gets better I promise so general Flynn just having what's got to be one of the best days that anybody ever had in the history of days I'm just imagining he sends a tweet oh I I have I have dubbed this tweet the tweet of the century now Twitter hasn't been around for a hundred years but still I'm going to go out and limb and say that this tweet from general Flynn is the tweet of the century and I hope you can see it alright so I'll just describe it so there's no words there's no text so what you see is just you're looking at this little woods here and keep watching oh that's just best we'd
[9:38]
keep watching oh that's just best we'd ever oh I could not enjoy this day better so meanwhile ah dr. Burke is up
[Laughter] laughing about that for a while stock work is up so um here's a question that I haven't heard anybody yeah hurt anybody I haven't heard anybody ask we so it looks like there are three or four therapeutics for the corona virus that look promising and I haven't heard anybody ask if we can take them all at the same time because I have to admit so far I'm a little bit underwhelmed by the the early information we have about all of it from hydroxychloroquine to run des of error whatever yeah the good news on
[10:40]
of error whatever yeah the good news on REM des of ear is that there didn't seem to be any statistical difference in the death rate but people were getting you know getting cleared if and I guess in getting into the hospital sooner and I thought to myself yeah but if it's the same death rate like you might be forgetting one thing that your trial found while you're talking about all the good news is that it didn't make a difference in the death rate now I don't know what difference it did make I mean I'm happy that people went home earlier I'm glad that they maybe their cough went away a little bit sooner I'm glad that they could breathe a little bit easier maybe a full four days earlier than otherwise but it's kind of about keeping people alive so unless there's more to this rim does Avira story than we've heard it feels a
[11:42]
Avira story than we've heard it feels a little bit exaggerated but I would not I would not doubt that it has some effects so my question is if the hydroxychloroquine has some effect and the interferon has some effect we heard that there's some other thing they have some in fact is there is there anybody smart enough or is there even a way to know because we wouldn't have time to test it yeah I don't think we'd be able to test just pump it all that stuff into somebody and see what happens what do we I mean maybe we would I suppose we would test it at the same time we're giving it to people probably but or is this a sort of thing you can run through a supercomputer and say well these kinds of things almost never interfere with these kinds of things even if you add this other kind of thing so was the sort of thing we have ai at this point that
[12:43]
of thing we have ai at this point that we can at least narrow down the odds and say well we can't be positive but it's a very low chance that these particular things will interact so it could be and I understand that there's some trials that are winding up pretty soon so in the next few weeks I think we're going to have really good information and if it turns out we can take these as a cocktail and I would think is more likely we can then that we Kant wouldn't you think if you had to guess yeah if you put you get it given that the actual medical professionals have been wrong about just about everything so far we can guess right let's be doctors for a minute if you had to guess let's say all of these let's say there are three or four things that are all sort of pretty good but not great what what do you think of the odds that they can all work together oh oh
[13:44]
that they can all work together oh oh you know actually that's a good point because here I was assuming that these were new drugs and therefore there would not be any kind of drug interaction documentation but of course yes they're they're all existing drugs so the fact that they exist already means that the drug interaction documentation has been done but fam oh yeah the other one was that other one but those drug interaction things couldn't possibly already know what would happen with that combination the the odds that that combination is actually documented if there are three or four of them they have never been used in that combination before all right so that's my question but it could be we're right on the on the edge of having something that'll take the edge off that virus yes I will
[14:53]
fifty-nine thousand people dead and nobody thinks it's gonna let up so remember was it only a week ago that people were saying you know we told you if it's only gonna be sixty thousand dead you know that's not much worse than the regular flu but we're we're gonna be past sixty thousand tomorrow and we're not may may should have another fifty thousand would you say do you think the month of May will have 2,000 a day which is sort of what we've had let's say trails off let's say we did get on top of it and let's say it averages you know a thousand a day when we really get on top of it we'd still be pushing a hundred thousand in the best success story and that's before the summer even starts but more likely we're gonna blow through a
[15:53]
more likely we're gonna blow through a hundred thousand well before June and unless these therapeutics really stop people from dying which was my question about the run dezerter I don't know it looks like it looks like the plan if everything went according to plan I feel like the plan is for two or 200 to 300,000 people to die I feel like you know without that being actually said here's an the you've you've heard a lot of updates about testing and it's probably very confusing to you and so I did the I did the work of researching it so I've dug down I learned everything there is to know about testing all the various kinds of different Sciences the you know the kits where they're made you know the swabs the shortages I've summarized this for you as testing is
[16:55]
summarized this for you as testing is it's all everything everything you've ever been told about testings probably just as far as I can tell because there's certainly nothing happening there's any correlation to what you're hearing so as far as I can tell it's all been from the start and I don't see any reason that that will change now eventually it'll change but I think it's gonna be we're I think we're talking months everything suggests that that will be months so I don't think testing was going to be the magic bullet because it's just just not going to be fast enough
there's a new story this is like a classic CNN story as you judge whether it's true so apparently the president shout was shouting as campaign manager Brad Paris Cal you know he was on the phone and aides were in the room and I guess somebody leaked it and he was
[17:56]
guess somebody leaked it and he was shouting and he was shifting the blame to parse Calif or the you know the lower poll numbers he's getting recently and reportedly Trump berated parse Cal for a recent spate of damaging poll numbers even at one point threatening to sue parse Cal do you think that happened I don't know I mean as far as anything's possible and then they say isn't this is from CNN it's not clear how serious the president's threat of a lawsuit was well I'm gonna take a stab at it not too serious was my guess I'm just gonna because I'm no I'm no strategist I'm no strategist but if I were running for re-election this wouldn't be the optimal time to sue your campaign manager so I'm just gonna I'm just gonna say that maybe
[18:56]
just gonna I'm just gonna say that maybe the president had that same thought it's kind of an obscure thought maybe maybe didn't think of it but I think he probably did I think he probably did probably said to himself I've got this election coming up probably not the best time to get rid of my campaign manager so was there a tense phone call between the president and Brad parse Cal could be do you think that that was captured by this reporting accurately probably not probably not let me let me read to you the name of the sources Oh unnamed how interesting the sources are unnamed it's a story about the president flipping out behind closed doors how long will it be before the president says none of that happened and then Brad parce qu'elle says that's funny but none of that happened probably tomorrow sometime now I don't I
[19:58]
probably tomorrow sometime now I don't I don't doubt that the president yells at you know pretty much everybody at one one time or another so that part might be true who knows so Twitter's mad at ben shapiro because he had the audacity to consider the costs and the benefits of reopening the economy and for the sin of including all of the costs of all the benefits in this calculation because people were mad at him for other reasons i guess he is the worst person in the world and he wants to kill your grandmother that makes sense right if somebody considers all the costs and all the benefits and says they should be all weighed therefore logically he wants to kill your grandmother well i didn't even know that until today but i found that on the internet I cannot speak for Ben Shapiro
[21:02]
internet I cannot speak for Ben Shapiro but I can say this the adults in the room the adults can pick who's going to die and if nobody else can do it I guess we have to find some leaders who can because we're coming to you know decision points you know do you die from the economy killing you you know or does grandma get a few years shaved off and of course there's wrist everybody else and there's the organ damage and yeah there's there's a million a million things I would guess without personally asking Ben Shapiro that if I said to him Ben do you think we should consider only some of the costs and some of the benefits or maybe just look at them all I'm just guessing he would say well why don't we look at the mall Scott that's exactly what I would say I'm just guessing I'm not my I'm not reading his mind so I could be way off on that but I'm not so it's just weird to see
[22:07]
but I'm not so it's just weird to see somebody get pilloried for being the adult I mean you know I give them credit you don't have to agree with I in fact I don't know exactly what it is he thinks we should be doing that's different but you have to appreciate that somebody can say here's my choice it's going to be tough on a certain class of people all things considered somebody's got to make the decision that's the way I'd go now even if you don't agree with it you have to respect that right because that's ultimately somebody's gonna have to do that it'll be the president but you know have some empathy for how hard that is if you're not willing to do it yourself don't feel like you can criticize the president when he doesn't because he's gonna have to do that you know that's a that's a super tough decision so it looks like Biden has lost a CNN so Chris
[23:08]
looks like Biden has lost a CNN so Chris ELISA who I would say would be there sort of sort of their chief hit man on the political side if you want a bad story about Trump you know you call Chris ELISA so he's one of their you know stars who most often talks about what bad thing Trump has done today but he's he's after the Biden campaign so credit to Chris ELISA so this would be a fair and balanced approach and what he said was that the so the New York Times did their their look into the accusations by terror read and they said they basically they couldn't prove happened and they couldn't prove it didn't happen so basically they didn't have a conclusion so that was what the New York Times said what Biden's campaign has directed the talking points to be they've actually
[24:09]
talking points to be they've actually written talking points with a lie in it and actually directed all the by the supporters to use this lie and listen to this lie it says Biden believes that this is the talking points right Biden believes that all women have the right to be heard and to have their claims thoroughly reviewed in this case a thorough review by the New York Times has led to the truth : this incident did not happen and the New York Times of course did not conclude it did not happen they just said well we don't know that's it so the the Biden campaign is going quite cleverly by the way if I if I'm gonna be fair and judge it which I like to do on its effectiveness as a dirty trick you know separate from whether it's a you know an ethical thing to do effectiveness wise it's pretty good it's
[25:10]
effectiveness wise it's pretty good it's pretty good because you have to understand most people are low information they're not going to go to the New York Times article but by the third time that you hear somebody say that the New York Times investigated and found out it didn't happen even though all three of them will be lies by the third time an unsophisticated viewer hears that it's just a fact so they've actually come up with a way to inoculate him with their base and I think it's a good one I gotta say it's totally solid now it will be debunked you know mercilessly I mean CNN is debunking it all right Chris ELISA is directly debunking it and saying that the the campaign is just telling their people to lie and and showing you the evidence I mean you show usually the actual words I'm pretty interesting but it's totally gonna work very clever all right here's something
[26:16]
very clever all right here's something I'm seeing a lot of people saying that the real reason for the coronavirus shutdown or the real reason for this is that is that they want to control you and it's about power I don't know that anything about the coronavirus is about power I don't get that meaning I'm not detecting that it doesn't it doesn't pass any of my experience filters I don't detect any of that so I say that just because a lot of what I like to do here is detect bs when I can and then you can see you know later when we find out what's true you can find out but I'm going to call BS on anybody having a motive about coronavirus except trying to get through it right I feel like the public is pretty
[27:17]
right I feel like the public is pretty much on the same team that we all want the best way through it we just disagree maybe what's the best way you can you can ignore the politicians just you know lying at each other in public that's not really anything but a show that's for politics so you know I don't know I I doubt that at least with the corona virus and the shutdown I doubt that anybody had that conscious thought that hey this would be a way to control people all right so the Trump war room which Trump which tweets for the Trump campaign had a terrific tweet today and I will read it to you and and the the timing the comedic timing is even right because I they leave a space and I always appreciate that because when you're writing humor and a tweet sometimes you want a little little timing space so it's like bah bah bah
[28:18]
timing space so it's like bah bah bah bah bah space that ah you know and there's the the reveal so they they did this really well whoever remember tweeted this knows what they're doing and it goes like this Joe Biden is using crooked Hillary as a character reference space a space space space that's it that's the tweet
yeah isn't that great Joe Biden is using crooked Hillary as a character reference space space space that's it that's the tweet that's sort of a what I like about it is sort of everything it's got in the in my world when I write comics there are times when I'll I'll get my funniest the funniest part of the comic sometimes comes before the end and when that happens I do what I call sort of the afterglow which is sort of the just the finish or the dessert
[29:20]
finish or the dessert so maybe the joke happens the next the last panel and then the last panel is just a little extra on top of the joke and that's what this tweet did because the first part is the joke and then the second part is that's it that's the tweet and then you get a little dessert well tweeted so correct me if I'm wrong and I think that your mileage may vary on this but so last week it looked like the following three things were not looking good so last week it we weren't sure that our herd immunity was even possible hydroxychloroquine was taking a hit you know for maybe killing people or not looking good but that was questionable and then the REM des affair last week there was that leaked report that made that look maybe not so good so in a week
[30:21]
that look maybe not so good so in a week we've learned we've learned well I would say that nothing is certain because since the what we think we know changes every week so I would be foolish to say that this is the week it all got right so let's just say so let's just say that it's changed let and who knows if he'll change again but Nate Silver you know him from well you know him from politics and statistics so he's the expert on mystics and whatnot and even when I disagree with him which I sometimes do famously famously in 2016 he's always a smart and he's always a good read and he's always got a he's always going to filter on things that I wouldn't have seen because I don't have his his depth of experience in this field and he pointed out that the questions about whether people were reinfected happened to be by coincidence
[31:25]
reinfected happened to be by coincidence but probably not the the number of people who were showing up as may be reinfected which would say herd and the herd immunity might not work happened to be about the same as the error rate on the tests so in other words you could fully explain the anomalies in the herd immunity just because the tests are not that accurate so you would get you would expect actually statistically that you would get exactly the result they got but if you interpreted it to mean that people had been reinfected it's probably more appropriate to say there was a test problem because it was about the same number now you know I leave you to fact-check that I'm just passing along that even I don't know 48 hours ago I told you that the odds of herd immunity were only maybe 75 percent because I was hearing these reports of like well maybe not but after hearing nate silver's
[32:27]
not but after hearing nate silver's reframing of it i still don't know but i'm gonna bump up my odds to basically a hundred percent yeah you could make it 99 if you if you don't want it to be hundred but so I would say that herd immunity is as of today and and only today this is the first time I'm willing to say I am positive there's herd immunity as of yesterday I wasn't positive right now I'm positive because Nate pushed me over the line there so and you saw what happened to the stock market right this talk market just went nuts so the stock market thinks good things would happen but I don't think any of the things are going to be about testing I think testing will just be the disappointment in all this there is a video which some of you may have seen if you if you get all the conspiracy theory stuff
[33:27]
stuff you know some of you are always looking in the right places for the conspiracies Theory stuff I saw today a video which I'm pretty sure is fake so I'm going to tell you that in my opinion it looks I'd say certainly fake so if you see it I will inoculate you from believing and okay so the video purports to be somebody with that I don't look like their phone surreptitiously recording some kind of a lecture and you know it's not a good picture and you can't quite see the slides too well and you know the guy talking you know he's a little far away because he's up up on the you know front of the class and the audio suggests and I'm only gonna give you the the high level because I don't actually want to spread the rumor right so there's something horrible in there I don't want to say it because it just makes it worse right so I'll give you a hint so that if you see it you'll you'll
[34:28]
hint so that if you see it you'll you'll know oh that's the one so it hints that the the military was considering creating a very bad very bad virus weapon so that's the only thing I'll tell you right so if you see a grainy video of some somebody allegedly showing other military people hey we've developed this awful thing and that's all I'm going to tell you about it as far as I can tell it's fake it looks very fake to me okay all right did you know that Chinese companies are snapping up oil fields because they're cheap so there's some big Chinese developer I saw this um Jack Pacific's tweet that some Chinese rich guy who's buying up oil fields in Texas
[35:31]
guy who's buying up oil fields in Texas and I'm thinking to myself okay that sounds bad but let me ask you another question why do we let them buy anything can somebody answer why we let them buy anything in this country I mean other than products they can take with them because we can't buy stuff in China right if we could I would say oh that's fair they buy some stuff here we buy some stuff there but given given the you know the relative sizes of the economies and the populations don't we all expect that if we wait long enough China's economy will dwarf the United States just because of math and demographics right we all expect that that's sort of a given you know unless something strange happens well what happens when China is so big that the amount of money that they can spend on stuff is even
[36:32]
that they can spend on stuff is even more gigantic compared to what it is now which is already massive how much of the United States could they buy and just and just own it you know I mean they could buy all the good stuff all right they could buy all the good real estate they could buy all the good companies what couldn't they buy if they had enough money so the question I ask you is if we can't buy stuff in their country and I think that's the case right I mean I'm not going out on a limb to say you can't buy a nice little piece of real estate in Shanghai so if we can't why in the world do we let them buy here no I get that rich people like it because I can sell stuff to them and but really they're they're literally buying the country right see if they own a piece of the country they sort of you know they've got a lot of control just by
[37:32]
they've got a lot of control just by being rich and here and landowners yeah seems like a bad idea says me all right let me make sure that I've talked about all the delightful things that I was going to take talk about I don't want to I don't want to leave a thing out because how you would he would feel so so used all right oh yes I wanted to remind you that so I'm moving some bonus content over to locals LOC als column and I've got a subscription site therefore I'll be moving all of my video content I'll still be doing here every day so you still can watch it the same ways but if you wanted to find it there if you want to watch it at higher speeds so you could hear me talk faster you could do that there you could message me you could see some stuff that you won't see
[38:34]
could see some stuff that you won't see anywhere else but best of all those people who were nice enough to contribute to me on patreon need not do that so if you're on patreon feel free to cancel that and I know some people had some problems with patreon anyway and if you like subscribe to locals and cancel patreon either way I would say so that's all for now if you need to find that link go to my Twitter it's in the profile you didn't see that tell us what happened to last night's periscope oh it was just a technical glitch it just ended and if I get that far into one and it gets a tactical glitch and it ends I don't restart because I think well you know 20 minutes that's good enough
[39:35]
research chlorine dioxide I don't know why but okay
the china book unrestricted warfare yeah I'm familiar with that
zoom Hollywood media must be stopped yeah zoom apparently has made some changes but we don't know if they're the good kind yeah somebody's pointing out that we're always afraid the United States is always afraid of some other country you know eating our lunch and it used to be Japan and then Japan just stopped being such a threat and then it became China you know and is it possible that China will be like the coronavirus ironically and just sort of trail off on its own because everything has a season well we'll find out meat supply yeah I guess the president ordered the the unions and the workers to go back to
[40:35]
unions and the workers to go back to work even if it's not safe I I don't love that situation but I don't disagree that the government should use its powers to keep the food supply solid so this is one of the you know this is a war situation you know when when the president referred to this as a war it really is a war and these are commander-in-chief decisions and the commander-in-chief basically just told the meat workers that congratulations you on the front line and they didn't sign up for that but none of us signed up for it you know I didn't sign up to be in a in a higher risk group right yeah a certain age nobody signed up for any of this so it's not fair yeah certainly not fair that the meat workers are it would take a bigger burden than a number of other people not as big as you know the frontline health
[41:37]
as big as you know the frontline health care workers but pretty big and it's not fair and I think the only thing that we can say is thank you you know thank you for your service this is like the one of those weird times when saying thank you for your service makes sense of a non-military context because we are at war and the commander in chief just ordered the meat workers to the frontlines and we should just respect it thank them I don't think we should stop it because I think even just the psychology of keeping the the food chain solid I mean I think the public wants to know that the government is going to do whatever it takes to keep the food chain working so I think the public wants to see a little strength when it comes to food maybe not you know
[42:37]
when it comes to food maybe not you know overshooting the mark with privacy and stuff like that public can get a little antsy about that and should but when you talk about the food supply and it's a war somebody's going to be a victim you know I think we just have to respect them that's it we just have to respect them and thank them and on that thought I would like to wish you a great night and I hope tomorrow has as much good news as today because today was pretty cool and I think we're going to be heading in a good situation remember I told you these two weeks gonna be some good stuff there's more coming I'll see you in the morning