Episode 1001 Scott Adams: Twitter Fact-Checking, Ballot Harvesting Malarkey, The Future of Space

Date: 2020-05-28 | Duration: 38:04

Topics

Find my “extra” content on Locals: https://ScottAdams.Locals.com

Rough Transcript

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Transcript

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• Human organs 3D printed in outer space

• Mail in ballot fraud and Twitter fact-checking

• Unintended potential consequence of Twitter fact-checking

• George Floyd’s death is a unifying event

• 100,000 US deaths from coronavirus

• eBikes are great!

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[0:11]

hey everybody come on in it’s time for the evening edition that I like to call no coffee with Scott Adams because it’s much too late yeah and today we have one of the best evenings ever of all time things are starting to look great everywhere in the world let me tell you about it all the good news and stuff yeah well we had the sort of launch interruptus today I were you all watching the with excitement as we were gonna watch the the Elon Musk rocket take off of course NASA is involved but they’re not they’re not celebrities so we’ll call it the Elon Musk rocket I was so excited for that weren’t you I was worried I gotta say not totally you know feeling safe but I was really excited about it now apparently it’s postponed

[1:12]

about it now apparently it’s postponed until til Saturday but here’s the thing I don’t think I ever realized this before because now it seems much more real I mean the fact that they’re actually people in the capsule and they’ve got a time to send them up there now it seems more real and I don’t know if you realize this but Elon Musk is going to be the richest person in the universe because I don’t know what SpaceX is worth now you know Elon share of it but there’s a few things that I didn’t know about space and one of them is it could be really profitable like really really really profitable like nothing on earth has ever been profitable apparently all you have to do is land on one asteroid and start mining the rare materials and you’ve got like a trillion dollars per asteroids so there’s a lot of money just floating around out there if you can get to it then the other thing I heard today I don’t know the details but it’s

[2:13]

don’t know the details but it’s sounds really exciting I think it was might have been Dana Perino show but I saw somewhere there was an expert might have been another show saying that one of the benefits of being able to get into space is that apparently 3d printers work really well in space so well that you can you can 3d print human organs as long as you’re in space did you know that like that came out of nowhere it was like what are you telling me that all you needed was to be away from gravity and you solved the problems of printing human organs now I kind of think there’s more to it but it was at least somebody willing to say that on television I thought wow there’s a lot of money up there in space so it kind of makes sense that Bezos is trying to do something and the Elan musk is trying to do something because whoever gets the space first with an actual business

[3:14]

space first with an actual business model and you know ability to do multiple trips and stuff we’re talking multi trillions of dollars of net worth I mean kind of money that you would never ever see on earth so that’s fun and I have to tell you that I tweeted before before I knew it was going to be scrubbed I tweeted that the stock market will probably follow the direction of the rocket in other words if the rocket is successfully launched and everything goes well I think the stock market is just going to feel the animal spirits if you will you know that that’s a phrase used for economies because the economy is operate on how you feel about stuff you know literally the the animal will not literally figuratively the animal spirits and I don’t think there could be anything better for the you know the the psyche of the American public than to launch some people into space and get it right that would be really really

[4:17]

right that would be really really exciting so if we get this right over the weekend I would want to own stock on Monday I don’t give financial advice that was not financial advice more like a prediction I don’t know can i good enough to stay out of trouble because I think you can predict where the stock market’s going as long as you don’t advise people to do anything about it if I don’t advise you to do anything about it because nobody’s good at predicting the stock market and soon as you think somebody is that’s when you lose all your money I continue to be impressed at what I see as a creative explosion you’re seeing a two right there the the amount of creativity that people are generating because they had time to rethink everything from scratch is really amazing most of you know I started a community on the locals platform where I’m putting a lot of my stuff that you don’t see here so everything that I I do

[5:19]

don’t see here so everything that I I do that’s non Dilbert and maybe some Dilbert stuff will be over there but I wouldn’t have done that I just I was thinking about it I probably just wouldn’t have executed if life had just going on but once I could rethink everything that I and I was faced with the the end of my career as well and I got to say it’s very motivating in a creative way even though you would not choose the path it just it just opens up all your creative energy I’ve probably had more more creative output in the last two months than any time in my life so it’s been tremendous for me I think other people are having the same experience I don’t know so you can find by other stuff at locals locals calm and you can find the link to that in my at the top of my Twitter profile so there are a number of businesses that are doing great I just read their RV sales are doing great what so art people are

[6:22]

are doing great what so art people are buying RVs presumably people are thinking less about flying I’m guessing so bicycles are doing great everybody in the delivery business is doing great you know zoom and the online forcing that’s doing great there’s a whole bunch of telehealth businesses that are doing great a lot of people doing great so I have a really good feeling about the recovery let’s talk about the Twitter effect checking the big story of the day you’re all following that right the Twitter of fact-checking so the president the president we tweeted to the effect of that mail in voting would would invite a lot of fraud Twitter’s fact checkers in a new program decided to label that as something that needed to be fact checked and then the effect checked it as not true now there

[7:22]

effect checked it as not true now there are a few problems with that you might see them right away one of them is that it is true so if your very first fact checked on the president you didn’t even get a right because it is true it’s obviously true now you could argue the extent of it you could say it’s not enough to make a difference that would be an argue you could say it’s no worse than the current system which has its own problems that would be an argument you could say it’s not perfect but we have ways to fix it and I think we’ll be alright that would be a good argument but you know it’s not a good argument that mail-in Bell then mail in ballots are now subject to fraud really really because I’m no evil super genius criminal but even I can think of a few ways that I could game that system if you can’t think of six ways to game that system or you’re not even trying so I

[8:23]

system or you’re not even trying so I asked this provocative and perhaps a philosophical question and it goes like this if you give your mail-in ballot to someone else let’s say you give it to your friend to mail it for you and you don’t watch the mail it did you vote now your first impression is well yeah because my friend would obviously mail it so yeah I voted you know stop being so clever angels dancing on the head of a pin you’re just you’re just trying to find something out of nothing Am I Am I because here’s the way I see it your friend has both his own ballot and your ballot and he’s walking to the mailbox your friend knows who you voted for it’s your friend your friend knows who you voted for sure there’s some people who don’t know who their friend voted for but mostly your friend knows who you voted for even if it’s not were they wondered for they know who you voted for certainly for president so your friend

[9:26]

certainly for president so your friend has his own ballot and your ballot in his hand and nobody’s watching and there’s the mailbox to mail them your friend gets the vote twice once when your friend puts his own vote into the mail and the second time when he decides yes or no to put your vote in the mail because your friend gets a second vote you think you voted but you didn’t unless your friend decides that your vote is the way your friend wants it to go for whatever reason maybe they just like fairness and they don’t want to ruin the system but the point is in a very real practical way you didn’t vote your friend voted twice I’m not wrong it’s just one of those things you have to think about for a little while alright so as you might imagine Twitter is getting quite a bit of pushback the

[10:27]

is getting quite a bit of pushback the president is saying that he’s going to sign some kind of an executive order about the social media companies I can’t imagine what that would be Facebook already said that they don’t want to be in the business of fact-checking anything so I don’t know I don’t know what the executive order is there will be much jabbering about what is legal and what is not the president will be called the dictator dictator because he’s ignoring the Constitution that’s what his critics already saying and then other people say exactly how are you gonna monitor or regulate them don’t you need Congress can you can you just make the FCC do something apparently that’s not set up so that’s an easy thing to do so we don’t know what the CEO will be unless it’s already come out while I’m talking but here’s what I think could be and unde into unintended consequence of the Twitter of

[11:28]

unintended consequence of the Twitter of fact-checking are you ready for this here’s some unintended potential consequences number one I doubt the system will stay the same so so the first part of this prediction is that Twitter’s you know the first attempt add effect sort of a fact-checking banner I’m sure it’s not going to stay the same in other words it’s sort of an a/b testing situation they tried something they got a lot of pushback surely they will try something else and probably pretty quickly here’s what I would assume will be the way they’ll shake out I think they’re going to have to somehow in the interface make it possible to see the other side so I think they can get away with doing a fact jack that says this fact is not true if they’re also prominently and prominently is the part that’s important right it’s got to be equally prominent to say it here’s the

[12:30]

equally prominent to say it here’s the counter-argument if they show both arguments are you happier or are you less happy oh I know you gonna say you gonna say no that doesn’t work because that’s a lot like when the fake news will run a story for a week and it’s the biggest headline a million people see it and then they when they recant it later and they say oh we got it wrong nobody sees the correction so you say oh that’s gonna be one of those situations where yeah on paper they showed both sides but really it’s the the fact-check banner that people are gonna notice and that’s the part they’ll remember not some other little thing that says you could look at the other argument but here here’s the unintended consequence let me ask you this conservatives do they usually see both sides of the argument yeah they do conservatives and Republicans usually

[13:30]

conservatives and Republicans usually see what the mainstream media is saying because they’re ubiquitous you can’t miss it but then they also see what Fox News and Breitbart and anybody that they think is on the rightest thing so conservatives are not going to be seeing new information and I’m generalizing it right every person is different but I’m going to make a generalization that conservatives won’t see anything new because they already saw both sides but do you know what might be happening somewhat accidentally somewhat accidentally we’re gonna end up in a place where the left is going to be exposed to the entire argument for the first time now it that hasn’t happened yet yet and in fact you’re saying the opposite which is just one side the fact-checking but I don’t think that that situation can last so I think you’re gonna have to see something that ultimately gives some

[14:31]

see something that ultimately gives some appreciation that there’s another argument even if even if it’s not the one that Twitter thinks is correct and once those both arguments are in the same place it’ll be the first time now there is an app that doesn’t I think it’s ground news there’s an app that shows both sides and it evens you know tells you where where everybody is on the spectrum so you can tell if it’s a left source or right sorcerer in between so it exists but it doesn’t exist on the scale of Twitter so if Twitter started showing both sides of arguments what would that do to the entire half of the country who I call the poorly educated you know regardless of whether they went to college or what college they went to or anything else they’re poorly educated because they only see half the news they don’t see the conservative half which explains what they’re missing so one of the

[15:31]

what they’re missing so one of the unintended completely unpredictable outcomes of this Twitter thing is that after the you know the tension and the fighting and the back-and-forth is done you might have way better information for the people on the left which would be very good for the people on the right because it’s the first time that their arguments would be seen so don’t assume don’t assume this is heading for a bad place it could it could easily head for a bad place right there are a hundred ways you could think of that it would all go off the trail you know go off the tracks and we wouldn’t have anything like free speech and you know it just gets worse and worse you could imagine that but I think far more likely that there’ll be a natural inclination just to correct and I think you give this you get to see something good come out of it well wait we’ll see of course the country is all worked up as they should

[16:32]

country is all worked up as they should be about this horrible video of the police killing the African American gentleman by putting the knee on his neck and he was complaining you all know the story but here’s the thing can anybody tell me that the statistics of how many police killed white people and in traffic stops because I kind of need to know that to have an opinion that is worth anything because if you don’t know that fact do you know anything because to me that is the difference between do you have a a police training problem or do you have a racist problem that’s kind of the big dividing line right there there has to be a statistic that says the police killed X number of white people and this many stops because you’d probably want to know the number but also the percentage who got killed when

[17:33]

also the percentage who got killed when they got stopped for some other reason now if that number is zero well I got some real questions about the police don’t you I mean I got a lot of questions if they don’t kill anybody else don’t you have a lot of questions about the police you oughta that would be worst case scenario but suppose and I don’t know what the statistics are and that’s my point somebody says a 61 year old white man shot dead by state troopers four miles from my house yesterday yeah you have to be careful with all the anecdotal stuff because you know was he armed was he coming out the police you just don’t know but the point is the point is if you don’t know that I don’t think you should have an opinion do you do you think you should have obviously you could have an opinion on this specific situation you could certainly have an opinion on that you know there’s nobody who’s thinks that that’s our now

[18:34]

nobody who’s thinks that that’s our now well but can you have an opinion about the police being racist or not whether that’s the problem or it’s more just a police problem can you have an opinion on that that means anything without knowing how many of the other ethnicities are having the same problem and is it as bad is it the same just don’t know just don’t know I’d like to know that but I would note that while we’re looking for all the bad news because that’s what we do you know we’re always looking for the bad news the bad news and so we’re watching this tragedy and we were we think that we’re divided and there’s this gigantic illusion happening in which there’s no division whatsoever there’s no division whatsoever I don’t think the country has ever been more unified on one story then

[19:35]

ever been more unified on one story then I’m pretty sure every white person Brown person black person who sees that video has exactly the same frickin opinion I’ll bet every police officer who looks at that has a pretty similar opinion although actually they may they may shade it a little bit because they they would know more about processes and stuff so I’ll take that back maybe the police would have their own different opinion but I don’t think there’s a white or black difference on this do you see it because you know what let me speak as a representative very white person meaning meaning I look at as why did you could possibly look no white person has come to me privately publicly or it anyway and said anything other than what I just said which is this is horrible those police need to pay you know they need to answer this I have not seen anybody on the other side so why are we not treating this like a unifying event

[20:35]

unifying event it’s a tragedy we all get that but it is a unifying event it’s a unifying event there’s nobody on the other side how do we not see that how is that invisible to us all it’s the most unifying thing that’s happened in a long time that wasn’t called the corona virus so we can find bad news everywhere I mean obviously the tragedy itself is horrible news but the way we’re responding to it as a society I think you should be proud of I think you should be proud of it it’s my opinion all right so a hundred thousand people are dead from the corona virus of the United States alone fifteen hundred and thirty five of them died today on average since since it started getting bad last few months nine hundred a day had been dying let’s round that

[21:37]

a day had been dying let’s round that off to a thousand per day if we’ve got a hundred thousand now what will it look like in ninety days we’ll say at the end of August if it stays at a thousand a day well that would be a hundred and ninety thousand dead and that’s just August you know we’re not even talking about the potential second wave that may not happen dr. Faye cheese you know says it’s not guaranteed but something to worry about aren’t we easily gonna cross 200,000 or or does it yeah obviously 90,000 if it’s 90 days at a thousand a day somebody says and you believe flu death statistics know if you’re new I do not believe flu death statistics meaning I don’t believe the regular flu statistics because I’ve never met anybody died to the regular flu I just don’t believe I

[22:38]

the regular flu I just don’t believe I don’t believe 50,000 people a year are dying of the regular flu and you know there was a doctor who looked into it I talked about this in a different periscope and apparently they don’t count those deaths they’re not counted so we actually don’t know how many people have died of the regular flu they do they do like a statistical thing and say uh it looks like there were extra people dying this during the flu season so those must have been flu deaths well we don’t know somebody says check the curve Scott you’re misinformed check the curve on what I don’t know what topic you’re talking about are you saying that it won’t be a thousand a day because my understanding is that we’re managing the curve to flatness because it’s unlikely that opening up everything is also going to make the curve go down much but we’re just trying to make it not go up right so if we’re managing it to stay flat at

[23:40]

so if we’re managing it to stay flat at about a thousand a day how do we not get to 200,000 deaths sometime into September nursing home crisis somebody says yeah it could be that the nursing homes are not part of the the daily death toll anymore are they because don’t we have the nursing homes kind of under control now somebody says three million dead in the US by November I don’t think so all right I just looked and we still haven’t seen the net have we now this would be a good time for everybody who made predictions about the corona virus to kind of check their work so so let’s do that the the thing I think I got the most wrong on the corona virus situation is early on when we did the initial

[24:41]

early on when we did the initial shutdown to the economy and I told you it’s gonna be no big deal because you could easily shut down the economy for a month and we get right back to work and then I thought well maybe it’s gonna be six weeks but still get right back to work but I didn’t see how long it would be so I didn’t I did not anticipate that they would they would keep extending him so I would say that my predictions on a quick recovery from a quick shutdown were completely wrong because they extended that extent at the time so I was wrong about that my my estimate of the death toll was based on the fact that we would human ingenuity would come up with some solutions fairly quickly and that the net the people who didn’t die in car accidents and other things would end up somewhat compensating for the people who died of the corona virus and that we wouldn’t lose that many people net and I

[25:42]

wouldn’t lose that many people net and I had actually said 5,000 net now we don’t know if the net is but if it’s a hundred thousand coronavirus it’s probably [Music] 50,000 net at least so my number would be way off by a factor of 10 and I might still be the closest estimate weirdly enough even even that far off and I’d also predicted that the suicide rate would actually drop under the assumption that we’re locked down for only a month or so but of course the longer we go that would reverse so my prediction was based on a shorter lockdown all right oh there’s somebody saying that these Central Park dogs story is a Covington kids 2.0 so is there something completely different about that we don’t

[26:42]

completely different about that we don’t know I wouldn’t be surprised yeah Minnesota has got the fires and looting huh so that’s not going well so the the 5,000 net deaths was based on the assumption that there were a whole bunch of other deaths that we would be avoiding so that the gross I said would be 50,000 so but but even as bad as my estimate was it’s going to be closer than most experts you know I think when it comes out all right your book behind you fell did it did that happen on camera did it happen while you were looking tell you some Biden jokes I don’t have any good Biden jokes but I’m gonna tell you about the future would you like to hear about the future so two things

[27:44]

hear about the future so two things there’s a place called the Faroe Islands I never heard of them fa r OE I guess it’s a tourist destination I have no idea where but I just so website where they’re giving remote tours with a local so they’ll I don’t know exactly how they do it I think they put a camera on some local person’s head and then you can control where he goes so you can actually send the local out walking on the island and looking around and looking at the sights and you just sort of control where the local goes it’s like a human robot or something I don’t know the details but I thought was funny creative so my prediction has always been that you’ll be able to take a vacation by operating a drone in a place you want to see so in other words if you say I’d like to see the Great Wall of China someday you’ll be able to go onto a website and just log onto a drone and you’ll just be able to control your own drone and you just take it up and look

[28:45]

drone and you just take it up and look around on your screen and take a look at the Great Wall of China I know maybe maybe China’s the last place that would allow that but the point is I think people will be taking remote virtual vacations or really just sightseeing not a vacation by a drone that they operate from where they’re I think there’s a latency problem so maybe that doesn’t work here’s the other part of the future that I guarantee you is coming so during the lockdown I went to buy myself a new bicycle and I thought hey I’m gonna look at those new electronic bicycles they’ve got a battery that’s built-in to the bike and you still have to pedal but the battery gives you a little boost on hills and I’d read a little bit about them and they sounded interesting and I thought huh I will look into this electronic bicycle situation so I ended up getting

[29:46]

bicycle situation so I ended up getting one here’s how long it took me to make the decision the bicycle shop guy and of course it was all coronavirus rules and there’s a couple weeks ago it’s all coronavirus rules so I’m the only one in the shop and you know I pick out pick out one and he he lets me take it for a test drive in the parking lot so I take this II bike into the parking lot I do a circle and I come back and I say I got to ask you one question has anybody ever taken a test drive on an e bike and not purchased it and he laughed he laughed and he said there’s something called the ebike smile which he said he couldn’t see with me because I had my math kind of a thing you guys the people who do the test drive on the ebike when they come back their smile is wrapped around their head now I got to tell you you

[30:46]

their head now I got to tell you you don’t quite understand how fun this is if you’ve never read one if you’ve never ridden one hold your judgment can I ask you that can I ask you that if you haven’t ridden one just assume as I did that you don’t understand it please assume that because there’s something really cool coming there’s something really cool coming so here’s here’s the deal so I’ve been riding this around for you know like I said a couple weeks and the one thing that happens every single time is that my attitude just completely transforms my attitude just goes into positivity and I feel great I feel free just everything it’s amazing the feeling you get is not the feeling of a motorcycle it’s not the feeling of a bicycle those are both good right people like bicycles they’re great

[31:48]

people like bicycles they’re great people like motorcycles they’re terrific this is better this is better I’ve had a motorcycle I know what a motorcycle feels like here’s why it’s better a motorcycle is a little bit boring and scary at the same time if you’re going down the freeway on your motorcycle you should be unless you’re not normal pretty afraid of something that if you’re controlled killing you at any moment and that never really goes away when you’re on a motorcycle unless I don’t maybe it does for some people but never did for me at the same time it’s also fun but there’s not much you can do you don’t have a lot of freedom or where you can view you’ve got a obey the laws etc and you have this big helmet on that’s you know covering your whole head so you’re not really even outdoors basically and then a bicycle of course is wonderful but if you have a lot of hills and I live where there are a lot of hills it’s you know it limits what you can and cannot

[32:49]

you can and cannot with the with the electric bike I’ve only charged it I charge it maybe once a week once a week and you can go up any Hill easily you still have to pedal so you always have a feeling of control but here’s the fun part the sensation you have is that you’re super strong and yes the price was just about what you’re guessing and the and the comment said so it’s pretty expensive now the the battery is here’s the other here’s the part that tells you what the future looks like you can go forever on these you actually will just sort of never get tired you just ride it forever up hills down hills so distance just goes away the other thing is that the quality of the batteries is improving all the time so the price is going down the power is going up it I guarantee you that the future is small personal vehicles now I

[33:53]

future is small personal vehicles now I don’t know that this Segway is quite the form that people are going to want because it’s sort of bulky and you can’t write it on the sidewalk you can’t write it on the street too easily it just doesn’t belong anywhere but bicycles belong everywhere I can take my bicycle everywhere I can take it in my house if I don’t want it to be stolen there’s no place I can’t go with my bicycle so that’s my my prediction to you is that these electronic assist vehicles will be they bikes or trikes or who knows what they will be they’re really gonna be big because they’re great they’re just great and also as I was saying before it makes you question the subjective nature of reality because because if every time I’m on I’m happy it kind of tells me that it’s not my life that made me unhappy in the first place somebody asks how heavy it is

[34:56]

place somebody asks how heavy it is first of all that the battery is easy to remove just comes right off but you one person can lift it and put it in the back of a SUV it’s it’s heavier than a regular bike you wouldn’t want to do a lot of biking without the electronic assist turned on it’s a trek TR ek yeah does it feel unreal yeah it does it does it feels like you’re in a dream and it’s a good one because you’re super strong and not everybody knows that it’s an e bike because it doesn’t if you look at it you wouldn’t know it just has a little bit of fat or bar you know one of the main support boards a little fatter because of the battery that’s it so there are tons of bikes people walked around where I live so I like to pedal fast up really steep hills and make people think I’m

[35:58]

steep hills and make people think I’m strong it never gets old good brakes yeah the brakes are fine it’s a it’s actually a really well-made piece of machinery can you ride it in the rain yes apparently you could ride it in the pouring rain without any risk whatsoever according to the salesperson and the battery is enclosed and doesn’t get wet do I go biking with Christina not yet a lot to try to talk her into it biking is one of those things that it’s a little bit better alone don’t you think because part of what makes a bicycle so much fun is the freedom of it that literally when I’m riding around my neighborhood I just say to myself I think I’ll go this way and just go left and look at a new neighborhood if you’re riding with somebody you’re you’re sort of trying to communicate with them at least a little bit and ride and it’s sort of doesn’t

[36:59]

bit and ride and it’s sort of doesn’t doesn’t mix as well yeah biking improves your mood every time somebody says Scott should go Oprah on us tonight you mean like there’s a electric bike under your your under your seat what model is it I forget the model number all right that’s all for now so here’s the good news your social media is going to get better your economy is getting better electronic bikes are gonna be everywhere and you’re gonna love them that’s the good news it’s all good news from here on out it’s gonna be a great summer a great summer and yes we did set a new wedding date but we’re not telling you what it is but I’ll be getting married pretty soon pretty soon very small we will not be violating any any any regulations and I

[38:00]

violating any any any regulations and I will talk to you in the morning