Episode 983 Scott Adams: Talking About Hydroxychloroquine and Then I Teach You How to Get Lucky

Date: 2020-05-19 | Duration: 35:39

Topics

My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a Content: President Tenacity is taking Hydroxychloroquine + Zinc White House doctor agreed benefits outweigh risk CNN slyly counters with study that did NOT include zinc Whiteboard1: Coronavirus Decision Types Micro Lesson: How to Get Lucky Whiteboard2: Managing Luck

If you would like to enjoy this same content plus bonus content from Scott Adams, including micro-lessons on lots of useful topics to build your talent stack, please see scottadams.locals.com for full access to that secret treasure.

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## Transcript

[0:10]

hey everybody come on in it's time for the evening edition called no coffee with Scott Adams because it's much too late for that but it's not too late to have fun with the news thank you for this gift president Trump for making a Monday that could have been boring not boring at all have I told you before that there's something about the Trump of family I think they all have it it's sort of like some gene that they inherited that they can't be uninteresting have you noticed that it doesn't matter who it is it doesn't matter if it's Ivanka or your Don jr. or the president they don't know how to leave a room without making you remember something that makes your head shakes like well I'm gonna remember that for a while yeah and of course the president gave us quite the gift today by casually mentioning that he's been using

[1:10]

mentioning that he's been using hydroxychloroquine and I think is a through bison and zinc as well now how do you think the media dealt with this new information now you have to know he was laughing about it you have to know trumpet thought it was funny because it was here's what's funny about it would you would you not agree with the following statement that the president has been just viciously criticized for having brought up these pills in the first place and that since then there's been evidence of them not working or maybe being dangerous and so it's just all worse and worse and worse so just when you think it's just what do you think Trump has decided to you know sort of surrender the point and I really thought he'd surrendered it I thought he was just gonna say well you know it seemed like a good idea at the time maybe we know more now

[2:12]

maybe we know more now hasn't really stood out as being a winning strategy yet you know so I kind of thought he was gonna let it go but this isn't really the president of less things go is it you know the one of the reasons that one of the reasons whose supporters I think appreciate him is that he doesn't let anything go you know he's gonna be still trying to build that wall you know when he's a hundred and ten and out of office and I'm still gonna build that wall I'm gonna go look at that wall built so there's something about his tenacity that you just have to like even if you don't like what he's trying to do and this is just the perfect example it's like he's just not gonna let this go so here's what's so freakin funny about it it's funny because don't you assume that the White House doctors you know I don't know if it's the staff you know there's one White House doctor physician but as a rule staff probably and don't you

[3:14]

a rule staff probably and don't you think that it's assumed that whoever is treating the President of the United States medically would be the cream of the crop would she just assume would be sort of the standard for a good care sort of the person you'd you might even look to as a role model of how to do it right and the president gets the the White House position to give him the okay I mean yeah I think he said he wanted it but he gave him the okay to take this drug which automatically makes him right now I'm not saying that people will admit he's right but I'm sorry if you get the White House doctor to agree with you you're right yeah they're that they're never gonna give it to him though they'll never give him the wind but I'm here to tell you he won't you'll

[4:17]

but I'm here to tell you he won't you'll never get the trophy yeah the scoreboard will not reflect that buddy what now let me explain what I mean by that because the news is never going to give it to him and this is how they're going to do it this question of the Aqsa chloroquine is really four different types of decisions there's a scientific decision a medical patient and then a leadership decision and they've got different you know different variables and you would look at them in different ways for different reasons so let me go through these the scientific view which is what CNN and the critics will focus on is going to say do we have controlled studies this show that it's safe enough and that it works and the answer is no now we don't so if the only thing that mattered was the scientific study you'd say no we don't have those studies that's it if if that's the only question if it's the only dimension you're looking at no it does not have the

[5:18]

looking at no it does not have the required scientific backing period that's like end of the statement there is not absolutely not scientific backing of the type that you would walk you know the gold standard controlled experiments doesn't exist fair enough true statement but the medical decision could be a little different a doctor is allowed to say yeah we don't have a controlled study for this way I'm thinking of using it but I'm going to use my medical judgment and I could say I've got a hunch that this could work I don't know what else could work I don't have a better idea it feels like the logic makes sense and I think that the risk is very small I'll give it a I'll give it a chance it's called off-label use that's not the same as this the scientific view is you don't know anything the medical view sometimes depends on the situation it

[6:20]

sometimes depends on the situation it might be it's worth a try which is also different from the patient's choice because the patient has yet another bunch of information and that information is what works for you what are your biases what are you afraid of what are your priorities let me give an example when I famously had my voice problems where I couldn't speak for several years the medical community the scientists the doctors said here's what you need to do Scott take a big needle and stick it through the front of your neck and giving yourself nothing yourself but let the doctor give you a shot that goes into the back of your neck basically goes through the middle of the throat into you or if they can find it because they're kind of guessing a little bit but if they can find it they'll jab that needle into your vocal cords and they'll they'll put a little Botox in there and they'll they'll freeze that thing and you might be able to make some sounds that sound like talking now we'll have

[7:20]

that sound like talking now we'll have to do it probably every several weeks and you'll have to once again have a needle through the front of your throat while you're awake and it will be manipulating it in there and we're not sure we'll get it every time sometimes we'll mess so there'll be several months where it won't work and it'll be painful excruciating traumatic experience every time but that's our advice that's our advice what did I do I said no thank you and I searched for a year for another excuse or another another excuse well Freudian big the slip was that now I searched for a year for another solution ended up being a surgical solution and you can hear me speak so as a patient I overruled the science and the medical community and that worked out I'm not suggesting that always works out I'm just saying that sometimes the

[8:20]

out I'm just saying that sometimes the patient has extra variables there's a risk they're willing to take there is a way that risks that are not willing to take and sometimes it's personal you know if you're the one in the chair with the needle going through your neck you get to decide right it's not all about the the math if you got a needle in your neck so I'm just saying that these are different decisions and different things now the leadership decision is the risk management decision that's the one where you say you know we really don't know we just no we don't know quite how dangerous it would be for coronavirus patients we don't know quite if it works but a leader still has to make a decision I remember doing nothing is a decision the leader doesn't get to say I'll take a bye on this life let me just take a pass you don't get to do that in an emergency a decision not to do something is an active decision so the leader kept say

[9:22]

active decision so the leader kept say well show me the controlled studies they don't exist the leader can ask the doctors hey what would you do 25% of that would say according to a study I just saw 25% of them would say yeah I'd try it I'd try it well how about a individual well if you're the President of the United States and maybe you're you know having you not incapacitated means more could be even more important well maybe depending on your situation you talk to your doctor yeah it just depends all right for some people make sense let's say if you're let's say you were 25 years old and you're not you're not around anybody who's likely to give it to you anyway and if you got it it probably wouldn't kill you would you take it well depends but probably not you know maybe if you were on the front lines you might but probably not but how

[10:25]

lines you might but probably not but how about if you're if you're a leader and you're just trying to help make risk management decisions with your experts on behalf of the country if you're making your risk management decision the only way you can do it that make sense is to say all right what are the odds if I go this way what are the odds if I go this way so let's say the it would be a decision tree now if no one has shown you the decision tree they cannot they cannot tell you in any rational way that the president made a bad decision by simply talking about it and and talking about it as a risk management decision unless somebody's done the math where they've said alright if you take the hydroxychloroquine there we don't know if it would work but let's say there's a 10% chance it might help you you know is that 10% worth the I don't know is it one out of a hundred

[11:25]

don't know is it one out of a hundred thousand who might die from it but those people are only taking a long term the number of people are going to die from it from two weeks we don't know because we don't have the studies but doctors and common sense tells you is probably close to zero so would you take a 10% slight advantage now again that would be an assumption not a fact a 10% slight advantage that if you got it you'd already have the hydroxy and the zinc that's the active part you'd already have it in your body so you get a sort of a jump on it and maybe you recover faster would that potentially 10% chance and only a 10% chance if you get it because otherwise it doesn't matter at all and there was a 99% chance you were just gonna get better anyway now if you're Trump you're a certain age so he doesn't have a 99% chance of getting

[12:25]

doesn't have a 99% chance of getting better but maybe a 97% chance so let's say Trump had a 3% chance of dying if he got it let's say a 50% chance of getting it that would be on the high end but you know he's around a lot of people I think 50 percents pretty reasonable actually in his case so 50% chance you get it anyway I don't have to do the math my point is if no one else has done the math either no one can tell you this is the wrong decision if they do the math and they plug in their numbers and they show it to you you can you can multiply it yourself and say okay oh yeah they multiplied this correctly that's a rational decision right there now you could say oh but they made a assumption I wouldn't make so let's say you assumed there's at least a 10% chance hydroxychloroquine but let's say somebody else assumed it was a 1% chance you're both just guessing those are just guesses so you

[13:28]

guessing those are just guesses so you know you could run it under all those scenarios and see if there's any scenario in which it isn't still better to take a chance there might be I don't know now Trump has said he's gotten anecdotal observational reports and letters from people who said they think it works I'm very skeptical skeptical of those because you know 99% of people get better anyway so I just don't know that we really have anything but have you noticed what CNN is doing - do you try to make the president look dumb but but of course what they're really doing is making their own their own audience looked up so here's what they're doing they've decided to highlight a study on their page cnn.com in which hydroxychloroquine without zinc was studied and it didn't help and I think maybe it was a little dangerous or something now given that the entire

[14:31]

something now given that the entire hypothesis is at the point of the hydroxyl chloroquine is simply to help deliver the zinc the zinc being they actually the part that matters if you test it without the part that matters and then you run it on CNN as proof that the president is making a bad decision you're just live you just lie because they're saying essentially the president is making a bad decision because an entirely different drug because you take the zinc out that's the active part of the combo an entirely different drug was tested and it didn't work that's what CNN is telling their audience a different drug was tested and it didn't work therefore the president's wrong about this other drug they're selling that to their audience if I'll bet if you could look all day on the CNN comments I don't know if they have comments you wouldn't find anybody who reached the event who noticed that sleight of hand to take the zinc you

[15:32]

zinc you now the other the other trick they do and you you know this one right they there's some study where they gave it only to critically ill people again nobody ever suggested that was the smart best use of it it was always assumed it wasn't you know early symptom drug so if it was tested on people who are likely gonna die anyway I mean they were there in that the end stage I'm not sure you've tested anything so those are the two tricks that the the Trump critics are using they they look at the wrong studies and act like it's the right studies and hope you don't be you can't tell the difference now maybe they believe that those are studies I don't know you know these days you can't tell are they just being stupid or do they actually believe what they're saying it's hard to know so and they'll also talk about how the poor lupus patients will lose their supply if everybody starts hoarding them they'll talk about how you shouldn't take these drugs you know unless you're under a doctor's care

[16:33]

know unless you're under a doctor's care now how many of you were gonna take a prescription drug without a doctor's advice and if you did and it didn't go well well maybe that's sort of on you if you're taking a prescription drug without a doctor's advice you know I can see where that'd be a problem but I don't feel it would be a problem for me because I don't think I'd do it I also saw you know people piling on you know on social media to you know support the criticism of the president and one doctor or alleged doctor on Twitter said that she knows a lot of doctors and she's never met one who takes hydroxychloroquine prophylactically so she knows a lot of doctors if not one of them are doing that to which I say I don't know a lot of doctors but even I know doctors were taking hydroxychloroquine I know them you know

[17:36]

hydroxychloroquine I know them you know they've they've told me personally so yeah I don't know is this even a real doctor who's making the comment resistance a troll I can't tell
so that's the and then of course the CNN will never mention that a quarter of doctors think it's a good idea can you can you imagine having an article of not mentioning that a quarter of doctors think it's a good idea that doesn't mean it's a good idea but imagine if you were doing a survey of doctors and you knew that it was you know hasn't passed clinical trials for this use could be dangerous and in the extreme meaning that you could have some bad outcomes for some number of people if you're a doctor and somebody asks you under these conditions would you prescribe it prophylactically before somebody has it don't you think the doctors are gonna be a little biased on that question meaning

[18:38]

a little biased on that question meaning that if they're answering a poll I think they're gonna more likely say no it's not proven because that's the right answer right sometimes you know what answer the teacher is looking for okay is this a trick question would I would I give somebody an unproven drug no I wouldn't because that just feels like the right answer right whether you're a doctor or not unproven drug don't need to hear any more wouldn't give that to anybody but if they were actually going to serve on the front line themselves would they make the same decision about treating themselves as they would answer a poll because I feel like the poll answer is sort of telling the pollster what they want to hear a little bit I just worry that that there's some bias built in there alright so I will I'll say again that the every day that goes by that we don't hear somebody say oh my god we've

[19:38]

don't hear somebody say oh my god we've proven it the hydroxychloroquine with the zinc makes a big difference every day that goes by there's less chance it does because if it made a big difference I think we'd noticed by now right there must be enough people using it around that we'd have a pretty good idea so the fact that it's still a little murky like you feel like some people are saying it's working but they're there studies are not quite studies and then the people who say it's not working they're not really even looking at the right thing so it's just all this big gray area but the longer it goes you know I started it around 60% chance that the hydroxyl chloroquine would make some kind of important difference you know back in the earliest days based entirely on some early studies that look positive but they weren't really dependable kinds of studies right as time went by using my rule that the longer you go you know

[20:39]

my rule that the longer you go you know the more likely you would have noticed if it worked you know there's surely there have been studies by now and so I would say you know my last number was 40% chance that makes a difference I might lower that a little bit you know because as time goes by you have to lower that estimate I'd be down to maybe 30% but a 30% chance that makes some difference is still a good risk management decision if you think it's not show me the math easy enough you could you could change my mind just by showing me the decision tree and multiply the the odds of the various things happening would you show it to me it's a very it's a simple calculation you could change my mind in a minute just one page these are the odds which one is bigger I'll take the one that's the better odds thank you all right I'm going to teach you now a microt lesson

[21:39]

going to teach you now a microt lesson something you didn't know you needed but man do you need it it's a lesson on how to get lucky no not that way get your mind out of the gutter I mean how to have more luck in your life just in general do you think that you can cause luck to happen in your life the answer is no not not lock lock but you can you can manipulate manipulate your experience of luck in a ways I'm going to tell you and let me let me give you a specific specific example there was a dr. Richard Weitzman who once studied luck and I think I've told you in Prior times he found out that nobody is actually lucky if you actually control the experiment nobody can guess coin flips or anything like that but he did find that people who had a positive attitude and expected luck had a wider field of vision in

[22:39]

luck had a wider field of vision in other words they simply noticed opportunities that other people didn't notice so there is something about expecting luck to happen that can tune your brain to notice things that give you the experience of being locked now there wasn't any any actual luck in the story you just notice things that you weren't noticing before so it's more like skill but the way it will feel to you is like luck because you'll think oh I just noticed this thing and that's exactly what I needed exactly when I when I wanted it so the experience will feel like luck if you tune your brain to just notice more opportunities the other thing that you could do for lock is go where the energy is when I graduated from college in my small upstate New York town so I went to college just a short drive from where I grew up and it was a very small town there were maybe two thousand people in the town not much

[23:40]

two thousand people in the town not much there to keep me there and so as soon as I graduated I traded my car for a one-way ticket to California and my thinking was this there aren't many times when you could just start from scratch and getting out of college was one of those times I didn't have any special ties to anything so I said where can I be the luckiest and so I went where there was most energy it's the most action so I went to the Bay Area because it was sort of a happening growing active place but then I went the second filter I said within the Bay Area what is the most happening energetic forward-looking business that somebody like me could get a job at now I had a degree in economics so I was looking for the most forward-looking Bank which which I found so I found the highest energy industry that I could get into in the highest energy place but I didn't

[24:42]

the highest energy place but I didn't say to myself I have this specific thing that's going to happen I said I'm just going to go where there's lots of stuff happening and then I'll have lots of choices I've had indeed lots and lots of opportunities to go in different directions yeah it was Crocker national bank before Wells Fargo swallowed it up and and that's worked out great so let me show you the tips for luck in general follow the energy so you might have to change jobs you might have to move but you can't really fight that alright if you're somewhere where nothing's happening getting lucky where there's no energy is very unlikely it can happen that's how luck works but you want to go where there's just more stuff happening so that there's more chance for things to collide you want to network you want to meet as many people if you are rigorous about meeting people and

[25:42]

rigorous about meeting people and keeping in touch then the opportunity for luck to find you happens again because what if an opportunity comes to someone in your network so you've got this big network and it's like it's like a dish that's picking up signals so now instead of being look so lucky that somebody would have to know you personally if they had a job opportunity you don't have to be that lucky anymore now you can just be lucky enough that anybody you've met hears about this opportunity and says oh I know the perfect person for that so networking expands your your filter your your envelope of luck likewise skill stacking which I talk about all the time if you put more more things together more skills and you keep layering on top of each other the
the things that you could potentially do just becomes geometrically larger so imagine that your skill stacked so that

[26:43]

imagine that your skill stacked so that you personally can do lots of different things you can go in any direction boom boom boom there's a thousand things I can do then you take that and you move and you plop it right in the middle of the most energetic place and then you start networking there's no way this doesn't work alright this will work every time this is just math if you give yourself this many opportunities for luck to find you Luck's gonna find you alright you know it might not be today you know I might take a week might take a year but if you're if you're making enough variables moving around your world some of them are gonna stick alright experience helps too because the more experience you have the more opportunities you can notice the more ways you can go it really that's just part of this skill stack then there's the math of success I can tell you that in my life I actually kept track of how

[27:43]

in my life I actually kept track of how many things I tried just in the economic realm and how many I worked and I did this a number of years ago I failed at a number of things since then but my calculation was that about thirty or so things I'd tried you know business-wise including my corporate jobs you know different inventions I tried to make startups I tried to start etc there were about thirty of them and this is prior to and also after Dilbert about thirty of them about three of them worked out well but those three of course paid for all that all the failures no Dilbert was one of them you know I had best-selling books some licensing I did a lot of public speaking at high rates etc so there were a number of things that worked out amazingly well but they were about one in ten so could I know in

[28:45]

about one in ten so could I know in advance which one of the one in 10 was gonna work out now nobody's s marked everybody would like to be that smart nobody is so the only thing you can do if you're trying to get put yourself in the position for luck to find you is you need to keep trying stuff but try things that won't kill you and and can leave you ahead so this is the idea of failing forward so every time you try something make sure that it builds your talent stack or it increases your network or gives you experience which sort of the same no matter what because then even as you're failing you know it's like three failures four failures five failures you get the five failures and learn something from every one of those failures the odds of the sixth one failing start dropping dramatically because now you know what you're talking about a little bit now

[29:46]

you're talking about a little bit now you got some skills now you've seen a little bit of the world now you're a little tougher now you've made some friends alright so failing is how you succeed this is just part of the process try some long shots I always tried some things which you could pay the rent you know so I had of course if there was a promotion at work I try to get it you know so if I'd be doing all the normal stuff but I always had some long shots brewing and I still do that I've told you that part of it is for my general mental health I like knowing that there's something in my world that even though it's a long shot man if this works if this works this would be amazing it could change the world so it makes you feel good but every now and then one comes through it might be that pattern you got the invention you made the software you wrote something like

[30:47]

the software you wrote something like that my cat boo is coming in to visit and then affirmations I've talked about that I did a whole periscope on that you can search for that if you want to find out more but the part that's meaningful is tuning your mind that's what I was talking about when you're when you're just more open to the positivity of your own potential and it doesn't seem to matter if you do affirmations this is the the research or dr. Wiseman found it didn't matter what you did to try to increase your your optimism so the affirmations would work or you can pray where you could just feel good or you could yeah you could talk to yourself it didn't matter you just had to convince yourself that you were a lucky person who decided to join the to join the periscope don't rip off my

[31:50]

alright and now she can go on her way all right that's a Oh could you hear the purr now tell me if I'm wrong since the the coronavirus happened and everybody is doing their their home video from home don't you like it when the animals and the kids come in is it just me because if I'm watching you know some famous Network person and their their kid photobombs them or or the the dog comes in or the cat or something I like it better it just feels I don't know just feels more less stiff you know a regular TV is going have you noticed that everything got really casual or really quickly so you watching these people would normally would have suits on and perfect lighting and makeup and they're just there as their normal self wearing their t-shirts you know in their basements with the camera on I like it better I honestly

[32:51]

camera on I like it better I honestly like it better so I don't think we lost much anyway can you give me some feedback was the lesson on luck useful to you I'll wait for a second for the comments to catch up and just just so you know
yeah like certain which does a a good job of incorporating his environment in in everything everything from from kids to just his life and I think it I just think makes it better yeah Dana Perino was ahead all along right all right so good I'm just leave your comments appreciate it I could sit in a room with a dozen cats I had an idea to start what I call the the cat patria it was place where people who couldn't have

[33:53]

was place where people who couldn't have their own cats but like cats would go and it would just be crawling with the happy cats and the customers would just come in and they would just rent time I don't even know if there could be food there because it might be unhygenic but there were just rent time to go hang out in an atmosphere where they're just cats all over the place and you can just bring in your book you know maybe you're bringing your own thermos or something you know because I think it would be problematic with food service animals and food service but if it's your own thermos hey so you just come in you just rent a chair and they're just cats all over the place cats like crazy yeah so you would go I believe that was a Japan or some place they actually made a place like that and when did they start selling Trump pills on Fox News can I do multiple affirmations you can do anything you want but I think though since the point is focus ask yourself

[34:54]

since the point is focus ask yourself how many things you can focus on but I think I think two is fine three might be pushing it and it's not because affirmations are magic it's because if focus is the active part of it and I imagine it is then you don't want to spread that out too much all right that's all I got for today I will see you wait before I go if you haven't checked out locals where I have a new comic strip called robots free news you should check it out I can finally say all the things that I wish I could have said in newspapers and couldn't I can't tell you how much fun that is all right I'll see you tomorrow