Episode 1151 Scott Adams - Trump Slaughtermeter Pinned 100%. Swiss Coronavirus Mystery. Who Reversal

okay everybody come on in it's time it's time for coffee with scott adams best part of the day every single time and what do you need to enjoy coffee with scott adams well as the name implies coffee or a beverage of your choice but you've got to put it in something you don't want to drink it with your hands that's bad form instead you need a cup or a mug or a glass of tank or chalice or stein a canteen flask a vessel of any kind see them on my back shelf there that's your visual cue and join me now for the dopamine hit of the day the the thing that makes everything better it's called the simultaneous sip and it's gonna happen right now go i dare say that was septastic yeah it was oh we got a lot of fun stuff to talk about today i'd like to start by telling you about my dream oh no don't turn it off yet i know there's nothing more boring than hearing about somebody's dream but watch how cleverly i fold this into my story hold on when i was a kid i had a recurring dream in which i could fly i could actually just float and levitate and fly and uh i would have this dream maybe once a year it was my favorite dream but there was one catch even though the dream itself was spectacular because as i said i could fly imagine a vivid dream where you can just float around the house and you could be up at the ceiling and you could go outside and you could float over the town it was great there was only one problem with it and it was this for whatever reason my dream always included the following element other people were not impressed it was always in the dream i'd be floating literally at the ceiling and i'd say to the people below me say hey do you see this i'm literally flying and people would look up and then they just continue their conversations and i say no i don't think you understand i am above the ground defying gravity literally the first human being who has ever flown and i'm doing it right in front of you and nobody cared and they would just go about their business and i would keep saying are you serious i'm flying i'm flying look at me why can't you see me every year once a year and so i was reminded of that dream when i was reading a piece by andrew mccarthy in which he says this that this is just one part of what he said that is that clinton clinton meaning hillary actually did what she accused trump of doing she colluded with russians through through yet another foreigner she recruited to meddle in the 2016 presidential campaign the ludicrous former british by christopher steele in order to damage trump's campaign and since the election for herself now i believe that that is so well documented by the handwritten notes etc coming out of the uh and the disclosures that this is just a fact right and i feel like andrew mccarthy is having my flying dream right now he he's he's saying okay people it's the biggest story of all time the whole russia collusion thing was literally opposite it was actually an example of hillary clinton colluding with russians to overthrow the legally elected government of the united states so how about that and all the people on earth say yeah checking my stocks how's the weather today and then andrew mccarthy says um okay i i don't think you heard me because your reaction is not really matching what i just said so let me let me say it again more clearly we have now proof no doubt about it proof that hillary clinton colluded with russians to overthrow the legally elected government of the united states anything does anybody care seriously you're just going to ignore this i don't know what to say about it it is so mind-bogglingly it's exactly like my flying dream why can't people pay attention to this why does this seem like it's happening and not happening at the same time why is it the biggest story of all time that's not being reported on at least the mainstream media it's mind-boggling anyway moving on um i've told you about something i call the adam's law of slow-moving disasters and it goes like this when the humanity can see a huge problem coming from a long ways away we have a 100 track record of handling it for example we could see far in advance that it would be hard to feed all the people if the population kept growing but we figured out how to make more food and yeah we we did a pretty good job of it we thought we would run out of oil but we figured out how to frack and how to find more oil and build solar panels etc so looks like we'll get through it likewise with climate change looks like it's the end of the world if the scientists the consensus of them are right but i'm pretty confident that we'll figure out workarounds and we'll be fine but as the time that you have to fix a problem gets compressed the shorter and shorter you have well then it gets a little more uncertain the more time you have the more likely you'll figure it out but what about voting this year the question is whether the voting mechanisms will be secure will it be will the mail-in voting give us a credible result or a non-credible result will there be so many problems and we can't fix it well we're seeing already a whole bunch of misprinted ballots that we're scrambling to to fix you see states moving their deadlines for when you could have a postmark on your mailing ballot so you're seeing people scrambling to adjust and they you could argue that they might have started a few months ago and they've got a few more weeks and they're working they're probably working you know around the clock trying to fix problems and monitor for problems and everything it's going to be close it's going to be close on one hand i always bet on humans if there's enough time on the other hand if there's not enough time i bet against humans every time because humans are not good at doing complicated things correctly the first try it's almost not a thing in fact when it happens it becomes the stuff of legends for example the first time we actually launched a rocket with the attempt of putting somebody on the moon it worked that's one of the reasons it's such a big deal because it was a really big chance but it worked so that's the one we talk about more than anything else so if i had to guess let me put this positive filter on it i think the voting will be better than it should have been in other words i think that humanity is really going to try to rise to this challenge because the stakes are so high and we do have some time it's not like a hurricane you know where you have maybe a few days we had weeks there should have been enough time to print things reprint things check things scrub databases as much as possible so we might be in a little better shape than we thought so that's my positivity on there so yesterday i shared with you my conspiracy theory that you shouldn't take too seriously the kim jong-un shows up on video not talking and then separately you hear the audio of him talking but you don't see him talking on video which at least opens up the possibility that you're looking at a body double on video and somebody who can do a good impression on audio so cnn read another piece on kim jong-un's big celebration thing in which he showed up in public and it teased that it was going to show kim jong-un being emotional during his speech so i said to myself ah i guess that conspiracy theory fell apart because cnn is going to show me a clip of kim jong-un giving a speech it does look like it's something current and he'll be emotional while he's talking and then i will see him physically the video and i'll hear him talking at the same time and then there's no doubt about it right if you see the emotion and you see him talking he's he's alive he's well and then they show the clip and they show kim jong-un in front of the microphone and he's he's got some tears he's emotional and then i'm waiting for him to talk and they cut away they don't show him talking i don't know if that video exists probably exists because i don't believe my own conspiracy theory but it's getting increasingly interesting that the thing you'd most expect a video of him talking currently the only thing that i would find completely credible doesn't yet exist so that's why it's a conspiracy theory don't take it too seriously um andres uh back house who keeps me honest on all things data uh when you when you're on twitter all day um when you depend on uh when you're on twitter all day you see a lot of bad data and andres often comes into the comments and clears up my misconceptions so uh he did that a couple of times today one of the times was he pointed out there's a paper that estimates the trade war costs for china were far greater than for the united states so they do the math they figured out that china probably cost them 35 billion which would be about 0.3 of their gdp whereas the us probably cost us a little under 16 billion half as much but we also have a bigger economy so it was only 0.08 of our gdp and apparently vietnam was a big beneficiary their gdp went up so um it's starting to look like trump's instinct on the trade war was correct in the sense that it would cost to china more than it would cost us so if somebody was going to blink it would probably be them uh you know all things being equal now of course they would put pressure on our farmers so it's not exactly apples to apples you know because they could put a little political pressure on us in a way that we can't put political pressure on them because of the differences in the systems but it still suggests that trump's instincts were in the right direction that china would have more to lose and if you go into a debate or let's say into a trade war with somebody who definitely has more to lose than you do it's a strong position doesn't mean you'll command a head doesn't mean you win doesn't mean it comes out good in the end but it certainly makes it look smart makes it look like a good play um all right so let's get to the meat of this i have placed the trump slaughter meter at a hundred percent it has been as low as 50 percent even last week when trump was was still sick with coronavirus and was doing some things that were getting a lot of negative attention uh like driving around you know and putting a risk his drivers the critics say and he did put them at risk i just think it was such a small risk it wasn't terribly important but it's at 100 now i remind you for those who are not familiar with the slaughter meter the slaughter meter is not a prediction all right it's not the slaughter meter just tells you how the day is going or how the week is going it's a snapshot in time this says artificially and remember this is very artificial that if everything kept going the way things went this week you would expect you know this outcome so if everything went the way things are going today trump would win easily and let me give you an idea of what's happening today because the new cycle is just crazy isn't it how quickly you can be whiplash from from oh he's definitely going to lose too well he's definitely going to win oh he's definitely going to lose it's like whiplash so the the slaughter meter could change again you know 20 times before election but as of today it's pinned at 100 and here's why number one uh well let me give you some context trump doesn't need to convince you that he did a great job in all elements of the coronavirus he doesn't need to make that case now you think he would because that's the biggest complaint against him it's the one that seems to stick so all of the experts seem to agree democrats and republicans that where trump is most vulnerable to criticism is the coronavirus because the u.s numbers don't look good compared to other countries so that's gigantic gigantic weakness because it's the thing in our minds it's the thing that most scares us it affects the economy it affects everything he's got to get the coronavirus right or rlc can't get reelected right wouldn't you say that would just be obvious he's got to get it right it's the most important thing or does he this is what i would like to add to the thinking on this not true he does not need to convince you that the most important thing happening right now he got right there's another way to do it he has to convince you that it isn't that scary because if you're convinced that the coronavirus went from a 10 and a 10 in scariness let's say in march and he's reduced it to uh five maybe if trump can get your fear level from a ten and a ten down to a five it's not going to matter that much how it was handled because its importance will be less in your mind so here's what happened this week that will have the the irrational effect of making you less scared number one trump is 73 or 4 got the coronavirus he's got a comorbidity went into the hospital and as of today just what a week later or whatever he looks great he looks great now should anybody take from one anecdote about one person who had the best medical care in the world and was discovered early with the testing and had a good outcome should you extend that one single person and of seven billion would be be logical or rational to say oh well i guess it's safe because it will happen with that one person that one time no that would be completely irrational and you're going to do it anyway you can't help it we are story driven creatures you can give me all the data in the world big mountain of data over here and then one story about trump gets the coronavirus and he's he's 100 a week later those are not equal that one story about trump recovering is bigger than your whole mountain of data because it's visual we see it we feel it we talk about it it comes it becomes number one in our heads it just gives us it just takes us in an irrational place which helps trump so that's number one trump fully recovered becomes its own little story with power and he knows that by the way he's playing it because he knows how powerful that is here's the other thing that's coming it's not quite here yet but i would say it's right on the border of being here and it's this there were 34 people who were allegedly infected who had some white house connection 34 people that's terrible right that's really bad for trump right because it would show that he mismanaged the protection element of it and got 34 people infected so that's day one story but what's the story next week chris christie is already out of the hospital looks like he'll be fine weren't you worried about him i mean honestly if you're being honest you know you heard that chris christie got coronavirus and you said to yourself oh that's not good because comorbidity city right he's got i think two co-morbidities he's got asthma he's got a weight issue he's not as young as he could be i don't know how old he is but he's not quite into the danger zone but he's not a spring chicken so he's out of the hospital looks like he'll be fine what happens what happens if and i think this is the most likely scenario what happens if all 34 people are fine in a week doesn't look as dangerous does it now would that tell you anything could you look at 34 people who again were tested early founder found their symptoms early got the best treatment in the world probably can you make any you know logical inference from 34 people no you can't they're all special cases but that's not how your brain works your brain is going to say okay now i see this pattern feels like everybody who gets it including chris christie including president trump with his comorbidities it feels like everybody's getting better maybe this trump cure this regeneron and maybe with the rendezvous depending on where you are in the infection arc huh it's sounding a little bit more like a cure isn't it now is that logical nope nope there's no logic to what i just said because the the uh the death rate of the virus is known to be less than one percent and if you took 34 people with great health care who got you know detected early there's a really really high chance they'll all be fine and it wouldn't mean anything beyond what you already knew it would just be more of the same but because we're going to look at it because we're focused on it because there'll be famous people senators uh you know the the white house spocks all of these people are people you know they're familiar faces the weight of those 34 people getting better and let's hope they do right you know nobody's out of the woods completely yet but it's going to start looking like that really soon starting to look like they're all out of the woods because if any of them had turned bad if anybody else had been hospitalized well you'd know it by now you'd know it by now but there's i'm saving the best one for last all right so before i get to the best one last the economy is improving right so your economy is getting better and we have these anecdotal stories of people who seem to go through the coronavirus fine and there's a story for why it's better now than it used to be and president trump has provided the story the story is that these new therapeutics are the bomb they're just really good so you've got a reason and you've got a story way more powerful than data way more powerful not even in the same universe data very very unimportant if you haven't noticed you should be the most important but it's not story very important and the story is all trump right now you didn't see that coming did you so the economy is improving which you would expect because it's coming off a low base right it shouldn't be any big surprise that an economy coming off a low point would have big percentage gains so i i think somebody said that on october october 29th just a few days before election we're going to see gdp results that show that the gdp had a record increase in other words a world record for the united states increased quarter over a quarter i think i think it's going to look like that they might not but it will be a good increase either way now why should you make from that oh my god trump is a genius because we made a record for recovery no no it would not be logical in any way to attribute that to leadership per se because we're coming off a low base and anybody who had been president would have experienced probably a record gain because what's weird about this this disaster it's not like a war where you have to rebuild a factory before you can get your gdp up you just have to turn on the lights and say all right back to work turn on the lights everybody who used to be working here you're all you're all trained just come back and do what you were doing last last you know spring so the economy will of course look good it won't mean what people think it means but they will process it as though it's a trump success right so irrationally it all works in his favor still saves the best part for last are you ready this will make this whole periscope worthwhile so as of today the world health organization who announced that it does not favor lockdowns as a as a way of combating coronavirus did you know that yet yeah the world health organization experts if you will indeed probably the experts in this very thing have come out publicly said they do not favor lockdowns of the economy and the reason given reason given it's bad for poor people bad for black people bad for brown people bad for anybody who's in the bad economic situation and here's what's fun about this you might say to yourself well scott but the world health organization has some credibility problems that's why we pulled out they were you know first said masks are bad then they said they're good they said that the not to worry too much about the virus but then it turns out we should worry so it does seem as though the world health organization is not that credible but wait it gets better it gets better let's say you're a democrat and you hear this news the world health organization says that well they don't use these words but they say in effect that trump was right when he contradicted the experts and said let's open up the economy that's right one of the biggest expert groups and according to democrats very credible the world health organization has just sided with trump who had opposed most of the experts or a lot of the experts on the there were there was a very growing sizable minority of experts who were saying the same thing the world health organization said which is ah you might be hurting people more than helping with these lockdowns so if you're a democrat and your big thing about trump is that he doesn't follow the science what do you do now what do you do now those of us who like president trump one of the things you like about him the best is that he doesn't follow the science because the science is often right you knew that you knew that you knew that the science is often not always and certainly we should pay attention to science certainly we should give it the the greatest of weight but it's often that's just a fact and you need a leader who is willing to say um okay i hear what you're saying but i still think it's and here's why that's what trump did from the very beginning when everybody else was saying ah hey idiot orange man lock down it's the only way we can defeat this thing you gotta lock down why are you being such a why don't you listen to the experts why don't you listen to science uh-oh science just agreed with them maybe not all of science but the world health organization not exactly president trump's friend right is there anybody who dislikes president trump more than the world health organization probably not this month they might they might be the winners so somebody says i'm i'm glad you're finally in about the experts i don't think you know my history if you're saying that comment i have never been the one who backed the experts uncritically i i would be closer to the opposite i'm very much closer to the person who said there's a reason the experts are wrong here are all the reasons i'm the dilbert guy you don't write the dilbert cartoon and believe experts are right you're just automatically i think that they i think experts are moving fast in the direction of being right that's what science does science starts out not knowing the answer takes a lot of guesses that sometimes don't work out but it's moving toward truth it's eliminating things that they used to think are true and you know narrowing it down getting toward truth the problem with the experts in science in general is that you can't tell where you are on the path you don't know if you're 25 of the way to truth 50 or 100 because it looks the same you just don't know when you're done because you think you think you're done and then oh there's a new new discovery i'm not done so if you add these things together trump recovering himself anecdotal but is still is powerful 34 people recovering probably we hope good you know fingers crossed again just anecdotal doesn't mean anything scientifically but it will matter it'll matter to how afraid you are and then the world health organization completely eviscerating the argument that trump doesn't follow science it's the biggest argument coming out of the biden campaign that's not the crazy racism one and it just got eviscerated because now the democrats have two choices they can either oppose science by opposing the world health organization do you see where how awesome this is the democrats will have to oppose experts and oppose science to maintain their current view that trump is wrong they can't have it both ways anymore they can't say trump is wrong and science is good and and accurate and you should follow it it's gone it's their biggest argument it just evaporated now does that mean that the world health organization is right i don't know how the hell would i know right i i have a preference you know if you make me the leader i'll i'll give you a choice i'll give you a confidence sounding choice of what i think we should do but i don't know you know that's part of being a leader you just got to take your best shot sometimes so uh this is one of the strongest days that the president has had by far i don't know if the rest of the media will recognize this because it's the sort of thing that's just happening in people's impressions so going back to my original point the president does not need to convince you that he got everything right in managing the coronavirus he needs to make you less afraid of it so it just goes down in your priorities the world health organization just did that for him they just completed it he couldn't have gotten there i don't think he couldn't have gotten there without their help because people were still going to say how about the experts but what about the experts uh yeah i hear what you're saying but what about the experts not anymore now the experts are clearly on different sides and what do you do when the experts disagree what is the right thing for a leader to do when experts disagree the leader makes a choice and the leader if it's a good leader will make a choice based on the most basic concepts in other words he won't make the we won't make a choice or she the leader will not make a choice based on um the science as in well i back this scientist and i believe this data and i don't believe that data that would be bad leadership because if the scientists can't agree it would be absurd for the leader to say ah i'm going to look into the science myself and now i've read all the science and i picked this one bad leadership a good leader says we can't know that's what we know what we know is we don't know so what do you do if you don't know how do you manage your risk if you don't know and i think that the president has found exactly the right sweet spot here he's the the thing that you can default to is freedom because the one thing we know is that if we were to lose our freedom to anything screw it we're out of here right we'd all just close the planet and starve to death if we lose our freedom we don't even want to be here if you say to me i can give you your freedom back but there's a one percent chance that you'll die i'm in i'll take my freedom i'll give you your freedom back but there's a one percent chance your grandmother might die a few years early i'm in sorry grandma i'm going to talk to grandma first but you know what she agrees grandma doesn't disagree grandma wants me to be free grandma wants to be free will she take the higher risk that she'll die yes she will if she doesn't i'll do everything i can to keep grandma safe but if you don't know what's the right thing to do you have to default to the primary primary human needs and we have a primary human need for freedom and that affects of course the economy which keeps poor people alive which keeps us happy which keeps us from killing ourselves all of these benefits so trump has done what trump always does he he peered through this this impenetrable you know data science crap that wasn't quite as solid as it ever needed to be we wanted it to be good but it never was he peered through it all and he found the essential human part and the human part is this day one coronavirus scares us day two the coronavirus attacks us attacks the united states day three coronavirus seems to be winning even though our president said it wouldn't day four coronavirus is kicking our asses day five day six week two week three week four coronavirus is ripping our civilization apart month three coronavirus has us by the neck week five or month five coronavirus is just kicking our asses month six you coronavirus we're done we got us some tools they're not complete tools they're not they're not enough to completely destroy the coronavirus yet but we're going on offense we're not going to lose anymore we're not going to lose to the virus we're not going to lose to china we're not going to lose any more and your president has made it clear that the losing part is behind us will people die yes yes they will will americans die in large numbers that should and will alarm us yes are we going to back down because it's risky nope are we going to go forward yes are we going to beat the coronavirus one way or another one way or another because we're done we are just done losing can't lose forever we're not losing and the president has called the term and the world health organization gave him an assist and i think i think it could be over over in terms of the election so biden coughed twice in public yesterday and he coughed the other day while he was giving a talk now in all likelihood the coughing is nothing he might be on a medication for example there's one um blood pressure medication that gives you a dry cough maybe he's on that who knows you know at that age everybody is so probably his coughing is not coronavirus but it is 20 20.

and in 2020 um in 2020 nothing nothing is off the table as uh schumer has said everything's on the table so will 2020 deliver the most 2020 thing that could ever happen which is biden getting the coronavirus now keep in mind that if biden gets the coronavirus and either one of these two things happens either he recovers fine which would be the best news which would also make the virus look less scary again not in a data way but it would just make us feel that way um or he has a bad outcome and then of course um trump has a better victory but we don't want that outcome that would be the worst of all cases but he's coughing and if you see the guy that you want to you know elect president one of them has recovered completely the other one's older and you're not so sure that biden could could recover and he's coughing there's no way that doesn't affect you now i've said i've said that president trump should ask to debate kamala harris and i think that would be a good play even though she'd say no it would it would tell you to think past by them which i think would be good for the for trump all right um here is a really interesting fact set of facts coming out of switzerland you know i've been telling you that there's something deeply unexplained about the coronavirus numbers in terms of why is the united states have such big numbers compared to other places it doesn't seem to be completely explained by leadership it doesn't seem to be completely explained by you know we have higher obesity we have a higher black population and they get hit harder if you put all of that in the mix it doesn't seem to explain the extraordinary difference but then i heard this about switzerland this came from yasha malk on twitter and if you look at switzerland what's interesting about it is that it has three sections as a german speaking section french speaking and belgian i guess flemish speaking so you've got three distinct cultures in switzerland and here's what's interesting the three cultures had tremendously different experiences in the same country and it's not even a big country geography wise switzerland is not not terribly large and in that little country switzerland the germans did great germans had a pretty good outcome it was comparable to germany itself the french didn't do so well they did bad just like france now how do you explain that the french people in switzerland had the same results as the french people in france and the german people in switzerland had the same experience as the german people in germany but in switzerland itself in the same country with the same with the same leadership wildly different results and same with the belgian group so they they matched each of those three uh ethnicities matched very well to what the country that they are associated with different country how they did how do you explain that well one hypothesis is that it's a cultural difference it could be that germans don't touch as much it could be that they don't have the same closeness handshaking just cheek kissing i don't know maybe something like that um so that's one one possibility and that was what was suggested by yasha's tweet but of course andre's back house came into the comments and and ruined all my happiness because i thought i last i understand what's going on there's a very big difference in terms of cultural behavior that might be important and andres points out that there's also another big variable that cannot be overlooked which is commuting so in other words the french speaking part probably commutes to other french places the german-speaking part probably commute to work to other german-speaking places i assume some of this is over the border and that it really might have to do with where the infection gets a hold first and then where do they travel in other words do the french-speaking people in switzerland spend as much time traveling to the german and belgian parts of switzerland or do they stick within their own french-speaking part probably a lot of sticking within your own neighborhood so it could be that travel and transportation patterns end up explaining the whole thing that if you have a certain kind of transportation pattern you are relatively safe let's say new zealand what is the international travel pattern or even the domestic travel pattern within new zealand and if you saw that visually compared to say the united states would they look similar just you know one is bigger is that the only difference i don't think so i think our travel patterns in the united states might have a lot to do with our experience if not the culture all right um so that's still an open question but the fact that switzerland had such different experiences with one leadership does that not tell you that leadership is not the overarching um variable because switzerland should have had a fairly uniform experience if the only thing that matters is how well you manage the manage the outbreak but in fact they were so different that you could almost rule out leadership as even being a variable because if if it were you'd get more similar results and when you got something that was you know an outsized effect like an outbreak it would be like new york city where you could look at and say well it's new york city we had more travel there was a problem with the the old folks who were put in nursing homes etc so you would identify it if it wasn't you know if it was an exception you could track it down pretty easily all right more and more people talking about the similarities between the polling this year and the polling in 2016.

and if you look at the swing states especially and you look at the differences you can see that the amount that hillary was leading trump in 2016 only to lose those same states is very similar in fact and in fact biden you know doesn't even lead as much as hillary was so are we going to run into the same situation because it looks exactly like 2016 well a lot of people are saying yes this looks exactly like 2016 so we're going to get the same result but here's the counter argument the counter argument from uh nate nae silver who i hold now as one of the best follows on uh twitter so if you're not following him you really shouldn't he's tremendous at sticking to the numbers now does that mean he's always right of course not it doesn't work like that he's not he's not the kind of job where being right all the time is even a thing but he's really right a lot so even though he you know slightly got the 2016 race wrong it was only slightly you know he was pretty close so i would consider him a very credible source and he says that the 2016 experience won't tell us about 2020 because the pollsters figured out what they did wrong in 2016 and they've made adjustments so you can't compare them because one is before they knew they had a problem and one is after they corrected the problem so now 2020 is good right accurate now okay that's a smart argument but there's a counter to the counter which i'll offer now some people say that there were a few if any shy trump supporters in 2016 after all there's some difference of opinion on that but there is i think there's some uh unity on the fact that it wasn't gigantic you know it may it might have been small might have made the difference but it wasn't gigantic the the hidden shy trump supporters who don't show up in polls but 2020 is not 2016.

we have four years of being vilified for being trump supporters if you if you tell me that there aren't more people hiding their trump support in 2020 even from pollsters if you tell me that's not a thing i you've lost all credibility because let me tell you i don't have data you know i don't have a way to show you data to prove it but a hundred percent of experience and observation is compatible with the fact that they're hiding you know not least at all i asked in a twitter poll which is unscientific of course but i still got hundreds of people within a minute who said that they've lied to pollsters this year this year they've lied to pollsters so if if hundreds of people who follow me on twitter can in in a minute will confess that they did that i think there's a lot of that out there there's a lot of that out there all right um i'm starting to think that the oh and then if you look at some of the other indicators like there's one indicator that says that if the uh the candidate who gets over 75 percent in the primaries always gets reelected so there are a bunch of other little weirdo kinds of uh trends and correlations that favor the president so all of the ones that can't be rigged favor trump all of the ones that can be rigged and we're pretty sure they were in 2016.

all of those seem to be against trump so if it's something that can be rigged it's against trump if it can't be rigged such as looking at how much anybody got in the primaries in the past if it can't be rigged it favors trump coincidence a coincidence that the only things that don't favor him are the things that are easily rigged and were in 2016.

as far as i can tell all right here's a an annoying provocative thought i feel as though the election could come down to you know it'll always be close it could come down to how successfully the harris biden campaign that's what i'm going to call them for now from now on the harris biden campaign and their corporate lackeys it might come down to how how well they can keep black voters uninformed isn't that awful that the election of this in this country will almost certainly come down to how well democrats can bamboozle and dupe black voters into thinking you know trump is something he's not and the key to that the most important thing is the fine people hoax the reason that i keep hammering on that one hoax when you know politics is full of things that are not true but i keep hammering on that one thing relentlessly is because that's the key i tend i tend to think of the world uh in a physical analogy quite often when i used to do computer programming years ago i would i would imagine my program as a pinball machine where the you know the control of the program was the ball and i was putting bumpers and levers and things to control you know where the ball ends up so i would translate my my programs into physical things so i could manipulate them physically when i was not sitting in front of my computer so i could do my programming in physical ways like okay i need to build a structure down here there's going to be a you know building over here that does this and i tend to do the same thing with politics i translate it into these physical models so i can manipulate them in my head and one of the physical models is that black voters are literally in a misinformation jail all right i suppose is that a racist visualization probably is so uh just assume that i don't mean it that way um but i imagine that because they are uninformed and they're they're new sources and specifically in this this one area not in general but in this one area they're underinformed which is they believe the fine people hoax was real because their new source tells it is real and they don't see anything else so if you believed that the president really called neo-nazis and white supremacist fine people and that he said it in public and that he said it with no remorse if you believe that was true you would believe everything else bad said about him and race because if that thing's true anything could be true so the find people hoax is not like the other things it's the key to the jail and if black people ever get that key in other words if if the black voters learn how badly they've been duped intentionally completely intentionally how badly they've been conned on that one hoax that makes all the other hoaxes look real if they ever get that key they're just going to shove it in the lock and they're never going to vote democrat again now what are the odds that that'll happen low i think the odds the odds of the black population getting their hands on that key and finding out how badly they've been duped by democrats is low because they have control of the new sources but it could happen it's not impossible it's just unlikely um here's the best funniest thing that i've heard in a while let's say all day uh there's a sports commentator maybe you've seen him appears on fox news every every now and then jason whitlock he's uh he's black which is important to this story and i say this every time can we ever get to the place where you can tell a freaking story without mentioning the race or the gender of the person involved can we get to that point like oh i just crave the time when i don't have to add that and he's black because it does matter to the story and what he said was that lebron james is the black trump and the first time i heard it i thought no he's not how does that make sense how is lebron james the the black trump and then he goes on to explain it and i go oh yeah he is the black trump it goes like this um lebron he's this is uh jason waylock quote lebron fashions himself as a dignified statesman uh role model political activist and champion of racial equality he is every bit as crude undignified and articulate as our sitting president james writes james meaning lebron writes and speaks at a third grade level the athletic privilege he's enjoyed that's right you were not born with lebron james physical abilities i wasn't i wasn't born with his physical capabilities he was born privileged and he that he's enjoyed since about age 10 has spoiled and pampered him the same way wealth and privilege spoiled and hampered president trump jason whitlock argument made you are correct now i would argue at some of his uh characterizations of our president but because specifically the part about his vocabulary because i think the president's vocabulary is ideally suited for the way he communicates with the public but the correlation and the analogy analogy accepted analogy accepted and so i think i'll be calling lebron james black trump from now on because it's wonderfully delicious all right that is my program for today and i hope you enjoyed it um so the the uh slaughter meter said it at 100 you should you should expect that this coming week will be really newsy a lot of news going to come out and it could change everything so the slaughter meter could be anything by tomorrow but as of today it's 100 and that is my show for the day all right periscope people have been signed off and i'm still here with you youtubers i like to spend a little time looking at your comments um thank you it is the best part of the day i agree totally the best part of the day all right that's all for me today and i will talk to you tomorrow

okay everybody

come on in it's time it's time for

coffee with scott adams best part of the

day

every single time and what do you need

to enjoy

coffee with scott adams well as the name

implies

coffee or a beverage of your choice but

you've got to put it in something

you don't want to drink it with your

hands that's bad form

instead you need a cup or a mug or a

glass of tank or chalice or stein a

canteen flask a vessel of any

kind

see them on my back shelf there that's

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and join me now for the dopamine hit of

the day the

the thing that makes everything better

it's called the simultaneous sip

and it's gonna happen right now

go

i dare say that was septastic

yeah it was oh we got a lot of fun stuff

to talk about today

i'd like to start by telling you about

my dream

oh no don't turn it off yet i know

there's nothing more boring than hearing

about somebody's dream

but watch how cleverly i fold this into

my story

hold on when i was a kid i had a

recurring dream

in which i could fly i could actually

just float and levitate and fly

and uh i would have this dream maybe

once a year

it was my favorite dream but there was

one

catch even though the dream itself was

spectacular because

as i said i could fly

imagine a vivid dream where you can just

float around the house and

you could be up at the ceiling and you

could go outside and you could float

over the town

it was great there was only

one problem with it and it was this

for whatever reason my dream always

included the following element

other people were not impressed

it was always in the dream i'd be

floating literally at the ceiling and

i'd say to the people below me

say hey do you see this i'm literally

flying

and people would look up and then they

just continue their conversations

and i say no i don't think you

understand i

am above the ground defying gravity

literally the first human being who has

ever flown

and i'm doing it right in front of you

and nobody cared

and they would just go about their

business and i would keep saying are you

serious

i'm flying i'm flying

look at me why can't you see me

every year once a year and so i was

reminded of that dream

when i was reading a piece by andrew

mccarthy

in which he says this that this is just

one part of what he said that is that

clinton clinton meaning hillary actually

did what she accused

trump of doing she colluded with

russians

through through yet another foreigner

she recruited to meddle in the 2016

presidential campaign

the ludicrous former british by

christopher steele

in order to damage trump's campaign and

since the election for herself

now i believe that that is so well

documented

by the handwritten notes etc coming out

of the uh

and the disclosures that this is just a

fact

right and i feel like andrew mccarthy is

having my flying dream right now

he he's he's saying okay people

it's the biggest story of all time the

whole russia collusion thing

was literally opposite it was actually

an example

of hillary clinton colluding with

russians

to overthrow the legally elected

government of the united states

so how about that and all the people

on earth say yeah checking my stocks

how's the weather today and then andrew

mccarthy says

um okay i i don't think you heard me

because your reaction is not really

matching what i just said so let me let

me say it again more clearly

we have now proof no doubt about it

proof that hillary clinton colluded with

russians to overthrow the legally

elected government of the united states

anything does anybody care

seriously you're just going to ignore

this

i don't know what to say about it it is

so

mind-bogglingly it's exactly like my

flying dream

why can't people pay attention to this

why does this seem like it's happening

and not happening at the same time

why is it the biggest story of all time

that's not being reported on

at least the mainstream media it's

mind-boggling

anyway moving on um

i've told you about something i call the

adam's law of slow-moving disasters

and it goes like this when the humanity

can see a huge

problem coming from a long ways away

we have a 100 track record of handling

it

for example we could see far in advance

that it would be hard to feed all the

people if the population kept growing

but we figured out how to make more food

and yeah we

we did a pretty good job of it we

thought we would run out of oil

but we figured out how to frack and how

to find more oil

and build solar panels etc so looks like

we'll get through it

likewise with climate change looks like

it's the end of the world if the

scientists

the consensus of them are right but

i'm pretty confident that we'll figure

out workarounds

and we'll be fine but as the

time that you have to fix a problem gets

compressed

the shorter and shorter you have well

then it gets a little more uncertain

the more time you have the more likely

you'll figure it out

but what about voting

this year the question is whether the

voting mechanisms will be secure

will it be will the mail-in voting

give us a credible result or a

non-credible result will there be so

many

problems and we can't fix it well we're

seeing already

a whole bunch of misprinted ballots that

we're scrambling to

to fix you see states moving their

deadlines for

when you could have a postmark on your

mailing ballot

so you're seeing people scrambling to

adjust and they

you could argue that they might have

started a few months ago

and they've got a few more weeks and

they're working

they're probably working you know around

the clock trying to fix problems and

monitor for problems and everything

it's going to be close it's going to be

close

on one hand i always bet on humans

if there's enough time on the other hand

if there's not enough time

i bet against humans every time

because humans are not good at doing

complicated things

correctly the first try it's almost not

a thing

in fact when it happens it becomes the

stuff of legends

for example the first time we actually

launched a rocket

with the attempt of putting somebody on

the moon

it worked that's one of the reasons it's

such a big deal because it was a really

big chance

but it worked so that's the one we talk

about more than anything else

so if i had to guess

let me put this positive filter on it i

think the voting

will be better than it should have been

in other words i think that humanity is

really going to try to

rise to this challenge because the

stakes are so high

and we do have some time it's not like a

hurricane

you know where you have maybe a few days

we had weeks

there should have been enough time to

print things reprint things check things

scrub databases as much as possible so

we might be in a little better shape

than we thought so that's my positivity

on there

so yesterday i shared with you my

conspiracy theory that you shouldn't

take too seriously

the kim jong-un shows up on video

not talking and then separately you hear

the audio of him talking

but you don't see him talking on video

which at least opens up the possibility

that you're looking at a body double on

video and somebody who can do a good

impression

on audio so cnn read another piece

on kim jong-un's big celebration thing

in which he showed up in public

and it teased that it was going to show

kim jong-un

being emotional during his speech so i

said to myself

ah i guess that conspiracy theory fell

apart

because cnn is going to show me a clip

of kim jong-un giving a speech

it does look like it's something current

and

he'll be emotional while he's talking

and then i will see

him physically the video and i'll hear

him talking at the same time

and then there's no doubt about it right

if you see

the emotion and you see him talking he's

he's alive he's well

and then they show the clip and they

show kim jong-un in front of the

microphone and he's

he's got some tears he's emotional

and then i'm waiting for him to talk and

they cut away

they don't show him talking i don't know

if that video exists

probably exists because i don't believe

my own conspiracy theory

but it's getting increasingly

interesting

that the thing you'd most expect a video

of him

talking currently the only thing that i

would find completely credible

doesn't yet exist so that's why it's a

conspiracy theory

don't take it too seriously um

andres uh back house who keeps me honest

on all things

data uh when you when you're on twitter

all day

um when you depend on uh

when you're on twitter all day you see a

lot of bad data and andres

often comes into the comments and clears

up my misconceptions

so uh he did that a couple of times

today one of the times

was he pointed out there's a paper that

estimates the trade war costs for china

were far greater than for the united

states so they do the math

they figured out that china probably

cost them 35 billion

which would be about 0.3 of their gdp

whereas the us probably cost us a little

under

16 billion half as much but we also have

a bigger economy

so it was only 0.08

of our gdp and apparently vietnam was a

big beneficiary their gdp went up

so um it's starting to look

like trump's instinct on the trade war

was correct in the sense that it would

cost to china more than it would cost

us so if somebody was going to blink

it would probably be them uh you know

all things

being equal now of course they would put

pressure on our farmers

so it's not exactly apples to apples you

know because they could put a little

political pressure on us in a way that

we can't put political pressure on them

because of the differences in the

systems but it still suggests

that trump's instincts were in the right

direction

that china would have more to lose and

if you go into

a debate or let's say into a trade war

with somebody who definitely has more to

lose than you do

it's a strong position doesn't mean

you'll command a head

doesn't mean you win doesn't mean it

comes out good in the end

but it certainly makes it look smart

makes it look like a good play

um all right so let's get to the meat of

this

i have placed the trump slaughter meter

at a hundred percent

it has been as low as 50 percent even

last week

when trump was was still sick with

coronavirus

and was doing some things that were

getting a lot of

negative attention uh like driving

around

you know and putting a risk his

drivers the critics say and he did put

them at risk

i just think it was such a small risk it

wasn't terribly important

but it's at 100

now i remind you for those who are not

familiar with the

slaughter meter the slaughter meter is

not

a prediction all right it's not

the slaughter meter just tells you how

the day is going

or how the week is going it's a snapshot

in time

this says artificially and remember this

is very artificial

that if everything kept going the way

things went this week

you would expect you know this outcome

so if everything went the way things are

going

today trump would win easily

and let me give you an idea of what's

happening today

because the new cycle is just crazy

isn't it

how quickly you can be whiplash from

from oh he's definitely going to lose

too well he's definitely going to win

oh he's definitely going to lose it's

like whiplash so the the slaughter meter

could change again

you know 20 times before election but as

of today

it's pinned at 100 and here's why number

one

uh well let me give you some context

trump

doesn't need to convince you that he did

a great job

in all elements of the coronavirus

he doesn't need to make that case now

you think he would

because that's the biggest complaint

against him

it's the one that seems to stick so all

of the experts

seem to agree democrats and republicans

that where trump is most

vulnerable to criticism is the

coronavirus

because the u.s numbers don't look good

compared to other countries

so that's gigantic gigantic weakness

because it's the thing in our minds

it's the thing that most scares us it

affects the economy it affects

everything

he's got to get the coronavirus right or

rlc can't get reelected right

wouldn't you say that would just be

obvious he's got to get it right

it's the most important thing or

does he this is what i would like to add

to the

thinking on this not true he does not

need to convince you that the most

important thing

happening right now he got right

there's another way to do it he has to

convince you

that it isn't that scary because if

you're convinced

that the coronavirus went from a 10 and

a 10 in scariness

let's say in march and he's reduced it

to uh

five maybe if trump can get your fear

level from a ten

and a ten down to a five it's not going

to matter that much

how it was handled because its

importance will be

less in your mind so here's what

happened this week

that will have the the irrational effect

of making you less scared number one

trump is 73 or 4 got the coronavirus

he's got a comorbidity

went into the hospital and as of today

just what a week later or whatever

he looks great he looks great now

should anybody take from one anecdote

about one

person who had the best medical care in

the world and was discovered early

with the testing and had a good outcome

should you

extend that one single person and of

seven billion

would be be logical or rational to say

oh well

i guess it's safe because it will happen

with that one person that one time

no that would be completely irrational

and you're going to do it anyway

you can't help it we are story driven

creatures

you can give me all the data in the

world big mountain of data over here

and then one story about trump gets the

coronavirus and he's

he's 100 a week later those are not

equal

that one story about trump recovering

is bigger than your whole mountain of

data

because it's visual we see it we feel it

we talk about it it comes it becomes

number one in our heads

it just gives us it just takes us in an

irrational place

which helps trump so that's number one

trump fully recovered

becomes its own little story with power

and he knows that by the way

he's playing it because he knows how

powerful that is

here's the other thing that's coming

it's not quite here yet

but i would say it's right on the border

of being here

and it's this there were 34 people who

were allegedly

infected who had some white house

connection

34 people that's terrible right

that's really bad for trump right

because

it would show that he mismanaged the

protection element of it

and got 34 people infected so that's

day one story but what's the story next

week

chris christie is already out of the

hospital looks like he'll be fine

weren't you worried about him i mean

honestly

if you're being honest you know you

heard that chris christie got

coronavirus and you said to yourself oh

that's not good

because comorbidity city right he's got

i think two

co-morbidities he's got asthma he's got

a weight issue

he's not as young as he could be i don't

know how old he is but he's not

quite into the danger zone but he's not

a spring chicken

so he's out of the hospital looks like

he'll be fine

what happens what happens if

and i think this is the most likely

scenario what happens if

all 34 people are fine

in a week doesn't look as dangerous does

it

now would that tell you anything could

you look at 34 people

who again were tested early founder

found their symptoms early got the best

treatment in the world

probably can you make any you know

logical inference

from 34 people no you can't they're all

special cases

but that's not how your brain works your

brain is going to say

okay now i see this pattern feels like

everybody who gets it including chris

christie

including president trump with his

comorbidities

it feels like everybody's getting better

maybe this trump cure

this regeneron and maybe with the

rendezvous depending on where you are in

the infection

arc huh it's sounding a little bit more

like a cure isn't it

now is that logical nope nope

there's no logic to what i just said

because the

the uh the death rate of the virus

is known to be less than one percent

and if you took 34 people with great

health care who got

you know detected early there's a really

really high chance

they'll all be fine and it wouldn't mean

anything

beyond what you already knew it would

just be more of the same

but because we're going to look at it

because we're focused on it

because there'll be famous people

senators uh

you know the the white house spocks

all of these people are people you know

they're familiar faces

the weight of those 34 people getting

better and

let's hope they do right you know

nobody's out of the woods completely yet

but it's going to start looking like

that really soon

starting to look like they're all out of

the woods because if any of them had

turned

bad if anybody else had been

hospitalized

well you'd know it by now you'd know it

by now

but there's i'm saving the best one for

last

all right so before i get to the best

one last the economy is improving

right so your economy is getting better

and we have these anecdotal stories of

people who seem to go through the

coronavirus fine

and there's a story for why it's better

now

than it used to be and president trump

has provided the story

the story is that these new therapeutics

are the bomb

they're just really good so you've got a

reason

and you've got a story way more powerful

than data

way more powerful not even in the same

universe data very very unimportant

if you haven't noticed you should be the

most important

but it's not story

very important and the story is all

trump right now

you didn't see that coming did you so

the economy is improving

which you would expect because it's

coming off a low base

right it shouldn't be any big surprise

that an economy coming off a low point

would have big percentage gains

so i i think somebody said that on

october october 29th

just a few days before election we're

going to see gdp

results that show that the gdp had a

record increase

in other words a world record for the

united states increased

quarter over a quarter i think i think

it's going to look like that they might

not but it will be a good increase

either way

now why should you make from that oh my

god trump is a genius

because we made a record for recovery

no no it would not be logical

in any way to attribute that to

leadership

per se because we're coming off a low

base

and anybody who had been president would

have experienced

probably a record gain because what's

weird about this

this disaster it's not like a war where

you have to rebuild a factory before you

can get your gdp up

you just have to turn on the lights and

say all right back to work

turn on the lights everybody who used to

be working here you're all

you're all trained just come back and do

what you were doing last

last you know spring so

the economy will of course look good it

won't mean what people think it means

but they will process it

as though it's a trump success

right so irrationally it all works in

his favor

still saves the best part for last are

you ready

this will make this whole periscope

worthwhile

so as of today the world health

organization

who announced that it does not favor

lockdowns

as a as a way of combating coronavirus

did you know that yet yeah the world

health organization

experts if you will indeed probably

the experts in this very thing

have come out publicly said they do not

favor

lockdowns of the economy and the reason

given

reason given it's bad for poor people

bad for black people bad for brown

people

bad for anybody who's in the bad

economic situation

and here's what's fun about this

you might say to yourself well scott but

the world health organization has some

credibility problems that's why we

pulled out

they were you know first said masks are

bad then they said they're good

they said that the not to worry too much

about the virus but then it turns out

we should worry so it does seem as

though the world health

organization is not that credible but

wait

it gets better it gets better

let's say you're a democrat

and you hear this news the world health

organization says that

well they don't use these words but they

say

in effect that trump was right

when he contradicted the experts and

said let's open up the economy

that's right one of the biggest expert

groups and according to democrats

very credible the world health

organization

has just sided with trump who had

opposed

most of the experts or a lot of the

experts on

the there were there was a very growing

sizable minority of experts

who were saying the same thing the world

health organization said

which is ah you might be hurting people

more than helping with

these lockdowns so if you're a democrat

and your big thing about trump is that

he doesn't follow the science

what do you do now what do you do now

those of us who like president trump

one of the things you like about him the

best is that he doesn't follow the

science

because the science is often

right you knew that you knew that

you knew that the science is often not

always and certainly we should

pay attention to science certainly we

should give it

the the greatest of weight but it's

often

that's just a fact and you need a leader

who is willing

to say um okay i hear what you're saying

but i still think it's and

here's why

that's what trump did from the very

beginning

when everybody else was saying ah hey

idiot orange man

lock down it's the only way we can

defeat this thing

you gotta lock down why are you being

such a

why don't you listen to the experts why

don't you listen to

science uh-oh

science just agreed with them maybe not

all of science

but the world health organization not

exactly president trump's friend right

is there anybody who dislikes president

trump more than the world health

organization

probably not this month they might

they might be the winners

so somebody says i'm i'm glad you're

finally in

about the experts i don't think you know

my

history if you're saying that comment i

have never been the one who backed the

experts

uncritically i i would be closer to the

opposite

i'm very much closer to the person who

said

there's a reason the experts are wrong

here are all the reasons

i'm the dilbert guy you don't write the

dilbert cartoon and believe experts are

right

you're just automatically i think that

they i think

experts are moving fast in the direction

of being right

that's what science does science starts

out not knowing the answer

takes a lot of guesses that sometimes

don't work out

but it's moving toward truth it's

eliminating things that

they used to think are true and you know

narrowing it down getting toward truth

the problem with the experts in science

in general is that

you can't tell where you are on the path

you don't know if you're 25

of the way to truth 50 or 100

because it looks the same you just don't

know when you're done

because you think you think you're done

and then oh there's a new

new discovery i'm not done so if you add

these things together trump recovering

himself

anecdotal but is still is powerful 34

people

recovering probably we hope good you

know fingers crossed

again just anecdotal doesn't mean

anything

scientifically but it will matter it'll

matter to how afraid you are

and then the world health organization

completely eviscerating the argument

that trump doesn't follow science it's

the biggest argument coming out of the

biden campaign that's not the crazy

racism one

and it just got eviscerated because now

the

democrats have two choices they can

either

oppose science by opposing the world

health organization

do you see where how awesome this is the

democrats will have to

oppose experts and oppose science

to maintain their current view that

trump is wrong

they can't have it both ways anymore

they can't say trump is wrong and

science is good

and and accurate and you should follow

it it's gone

it's their biggest argument it just

evaporated

now does that mean that the world health

organization is right

i don't know how the hell would i know

right i i have a preference you know if

you make me the leader i'll i'll give

you a choice

i'll give you a confidence sounding

choice of what i think we should do

but i don't know you know that's part of

being a leader you just got to take your

best shot sometimes

so uh this is one of the strongest days

that the president has had by far i

don't know if the rest of the media will

recognize this

because it's the sort of thing that's

just happening in people's impressions

so going back to my original point the

president does not need to convince you

that he got everything right in managing

the coronavirus

he needs to make you less afraid of it

so it just goes down in your priorities

the world health organization just did

that for him

they just completed it he couldn't have

gotten there

i don't think he couldn't have gotten

there without their help

because people were still going to say

how about the experts

but what about the experts uh yeah i

hear what you're saying

but what about the experts not anymore

now the experts are clearly on different

sides and what do you do when the

experts

disagree what is the right thing for a

leader to do

when experts disagree

the leader makes a choice and the leader

if it's a good leader

will make a choice based on the most

basic concepts in other words he won't

make the

we won't make a choice or she the leader

will not make a choice based on

um the science as in well

i back this scientist and i believe this

data and i don't believe that data that

would be bad

leadership because if the scientists

can't agree

it would be absurd for the leader to say

ah i'm going to look into the science

myself

and now i've read all the science and i

picked this one

bad leadership a good leader says

we can't know that's what we know

what we know is we don't know so what do

you do

if you don't know how do you manage your

risk

if you don't know and i think that the

president

has found exactly the right sweet spot

here

he's the the thing that you can default

to

is freedom because the one thing we know

is that if we were to lose our freedom

to anything

screw it we're out of here right

we'd all just close the planet and

starve to death

if we lose our freedom we don't even

want to be here

if you say to me i can give you your

freedom back but there's a one percent

chance

that you'll die i'm in i'll take my

freedom

i'll give you your freedom back but

there's a one percent chance

your grandmother might die a few years

early

i'm in sorry grandma i'm going to talk

to grandma first

but you know what she agrees grandma

doesn't disagree

grandma wants me to be free grandma

wants to be free

will she take the higher risk that

she'll die

yes she will if she doesn't i'll do

everything i can to keep grandma safe

but if you don't know what's the right

thing to do

you have to default to the primary

primary human

needs and we have a primary human need

for

freedom and that affects of course the

economy

which keeps poor people alive which

keeps us happy which keeps us from

killing

ourselves all of these benefits

so trump has done what trump

always does he he peered through

this this impenetrable

you know data science crap

that wasn't quite as solid as it ever

needed to be we wanted it to be good but

it never was

he peered through it all and he found

the essential

human part and the human part

is this

day one coronavirus scares us

day two the coronavirus attacks us

attacks the united states day three

coronavirus seems to be winning even

though our president said it wouldn't

day four coronavirus is kicking our

asses day five day six

week two week three week four

coronavirus is

ripping our civilization apart

month three coronavirus has us by the

neck

week five or month five

coronavirus is just kicking

our asses

month six you

coronavirus we're done we got us some

tools

they're not complete tools they're not

they're not enough to completely destroy

the coronavirus yet

but we're going on offense we're not

going to lose

anymore we're not going to lose to the

virus

we're not going to lose to china we're

not going to lose

any more and your president has made it

clear

that the losing part is behind us will

people die

yes yes they will will americans die

in large numbers that should and will

alarm us

yes are we going to back down

because it's risky nope

are we going to go forward yes

are we going to beat the coronavirus one

way or another

one way or another because we're done

we are just done losing

can't lose forever we're not losing

and the president has called the term

and the world health organization gave

him an assist

and i think i think it could be over

over in terms of the election so biden

coughed twice in public

yesterday and he coughed the other day

while he was giving a talk

now in all likelihood the coughing is

nothing he might be on a medication

for example there's one um blood

pressure medication that gives you a dry

cough

maybe he's on that who knows you know at

that age everybody is

so probably his coughing is not

coronavirus

but it is 20 20. and in 2020

um in 2020 nothing

nothing is off the table as uh schumer

has said everything's on the table

so will 2020 deliver the most

2020 thing that could ever happen

which is biden getting the coronavirus

now keep in mind

that if biden gets the coronavirus and

either one of these two things happens

either he recovers fine which would be

the best news

which would also make the virus look

less scary

again not in a data way but it would

just make us feel that way

um or he has a bad outcome and then of

course

um trump has a better victory but we

don't want that

outcome that would be the worst of all

cases but

he's coughing and if you see

the guy that you want to you know elect

president

one of them has recovered completely the

other one's older and you're not so

sure that biden could could recover

and he's coughing there's no way that

doesn't affect you

now i've said i've said that president

trump should

ask to debate kamala harris and i think

that would be a good play even though

she'd say no

it would it would tell you to think past

by them which i think would be good for

the for trump

all right um here is a really

interesting fact

set of facts coming out of switzerland

you know i've been telling you that

there's something deeply unexplained

about the coronavirus numbers in terms

of why is the united states have such

big numbers compared to other places

it doesn't seem to be completely

explained

by leadership it doesn't seem to be

completely explained by

you know we have higher obesity we have

a higher

black population and they get hit harder

if you put all of that in the mix it

doesn't seem to

explain the extraordinary difference

but then i heard this about switzerland

this came from

yasha malk

on twitter and if you look at

switzerland what's interesting about it

is that it has

three sections as a german speaking

section

french speaking and belgian i guess

flemish speaking

so you've got three distinct cultures in

switzerland

and here's what's interesting the three

cultures

had tremendously different experiences

in the same country and it's not even a

big country

geography wise switzerland is not not

terribly large

and in that little country switzerland

the germans did great germans had a

pretty good outcome

it was comparable to germany itself

the french didn't do so well they did

bad just like france now how do you

explain

that the french people in switzerland

had the same results as the french

people in france

and the german people in switzerland had

the same experience

as the german people in germany but in

switzerland itself in the same country

with the same with the same leadership

wildly different results

and same with the belgian group so they

they matched

each of those three uh ethnicities

matched very well to what the country

that they are associated with

different country how they did how do

you

explain that well one hypothesis

is that it's a cultural difference it

could be that germans don't touch as

much

it could be that they don't have the

same

closeness handshaking just cheek

kissing i don't know maybe something

like that

um so that's one one possibility and

that was what was suggested by

yasha's tweet but of course andre's back

house

came into the comments and and ruined

all my happiness because i thought i

last i understand what's going on

there's a very big difference in terms

of

cultural behavior that might be

important

and andres points out that there's also

another big variable

that cannot be overlooked which is

commuting

so in other words the french speaking

part probably

commutes to other french places the

german-speaking part

probably commute to work to other

german-speaking places

i assume some of this is over the border

and that

it really might have to do with where

the infection gets a hold

first and then where do they travel in

other words

do the french-speaking people in

switzerland

spend as much time traveling to the

german and belgian parts of switzerland

or do they stick within their own

french-speaking part probably

a lot of sticking within your own

neighborhood so

it could be that travel and

transportation

patterns end up explaining the whole

thing

that if you have a certain kind of

transportation pattern

you are relatively safe let's say new

zealand

what is the international travel pattern

or even the domestic travel pattern

within new zealand and if you saw that

visually

compared to say the united states would

they look similar

just you know one is bigger is that the

only difference

i don't think so i think our travel

patterns in the united states

might have a lot to do with our

experience if not the culture

all right um so that's still an open

question

but the fact that switzerland had such

different experiences

with one leadership does that not tell

you

that leadership is not the overarching

um variable because switzerland

should have had a fairly uniform

experience if the only thing that

matters

is how well you manage the manage the

outbreak

but in fact they were so different that

you could almost rule out

leadership as even being a variable

because if if it were you'd get more

similar results

and when you got something that was you

know an outsized

effect like an outbreak it would be like

new york city where you could look at

and say

well it's new york city we had more

travel

there was a problem with the the old

folks

who were put in nursing homes etc so you

would identify it

if it wasn't you know if it was an

exception you could track it down pretty

easily

all right more and more people talking

about the similarities between the

polling this year

and the polling in 2016. and if you look

at the swing states especially and you

look at the differences

you can see that the amount that hillary

was leading trump in 2016

only to lose those same states

is very similar in fact and in fact

biden

you know doesn't even lead as much as

hillary was

so are we going to run into the same

situation

because it looks exactly like 2016

well a lot of people are saying yes this

looks exactly like 2016

so we're going to get the same result

but here's the counter argument

the counter argument from uh nate

nae silver who i hold now as one of the

best follows on uh twitter

so if you're not following him you

really shouldn't

he's tremendous at sticking to the

numbers now does that mean he's always

right

of course not it doesn't work like that

he's not

he's not the kind of job where being

right all the time is even a thing

but he's really right a lot so even

though he

you know slightly got the 2016 race

wrong it was only slightly you know he

was pretty close

so i would consider him a very credible

source and he says that the 2016

experience won't tell us about

2020 because the pollsters

figured out what they did wrong in 2016

and they've made adjustments

so you can't compare them because one is

before they knew they had a problem

and one is after they corrected the

problem so now 2020 is

good right accurate now okay

that's a smart argument but there's a

counter to the counter

which i'll offer now some people say

that there were a few if any

shy trump supporters in 2016

after all there's some difference of

opinion on that

but there is i think there's some uh

unity

on the fact that it wasn't gigantic you

know it may it might have been small

might have made the difference but it

wasn't gigantic the the hidden shy trump

supporters who don't show up in polls

but 2020 is not 2016.

we have four years of being vilified for

being trump supporters

if you if you tell me that there aren't

more people hiding

their trump support in 2020 even from

pollsters

if you tell me that's not a thing i

you've lost all credibility because let

me tell you

i don't have data you know i don't have

a

way to show you data to prove it but a

hundred percent of experience

and observation is compatible with the

fact that they're hiding

you know not least at all i asked in a

twitter poll

which is unscientific of course but i

still got hundreds of people within

a minute who said that they've lied to

pollsters this year

this year they've lied to pollsters so

if if hundreds of people who follow me

on twitter

can in in a minute will confess that

they did that

i think there's a lot of that out there

there's a lot of that out there

all right um i'm starting to think that

the

oh and then if you look at some of the

other indicators like

there's one indicator that says that if

the uh

the candidate who gets over 75 percent

in the primaries always gets reelected

so there are a bunch of other little

weirdo kinds of

uh trends and correlations that

favor the president so all of the ones

that can't be rigged favor trump

all of the ones that can be rigged and

we're pretty sure they were

in 2016. all of those seem to be against

trump so if it's something that can be

rigged

it's against trump if it can't be rigged

such as looking at how much anybody got

in the primaries in the past

if it can't be rigged it favors trump

coincidence a coincidence that the only

things that don't favor him

are the things that are easily rigged

and were in 2016.

as far as i can tell all right here's a

an annoying provocative thought

i feel as though the election could come

down to

you know it'll always be close it could

come down to how successfully the

harris biden campaign that's what i'm

going to call them for now

from now on the harris biden campaign

and their corporate lackeys

it might come down to how how well they

can keep black voters

uninformed isn't that awful

that the election of this in this

country

will almost certainly come down to how

well

democrats can bamboozle and dupe

black voters into thinking you know

trump is something he's not

and the key to that the most important

thing

is the fine people hoax

the reason that i keep hammering on that

one hoax when you know

politics is full of things that are not

true but i keep hammering on that one

thing relentlessly

is because that's the key i tend i tend

to think of the world

uh in a physical analogy quite often

when i used to do computer programming

years ago

i would i would imagine my program as a

pinball machine

where the you know the control of the

program was the ball

and i was putting bumpers and levers and

things to control

you know where the ball ends up so i

would translate my

my programs into physical things so i

could manipulate them physically

when i was not sitting in front of my

computer

so i could do my programming in physical

ways like okay i need to build a

structure down here

there's going to be a you know building

over here that does this

and i tend to do the same thing with

politics

i translate it into these physical

models so i can manipulate them in my

head

and one of the physical models is that

black voters are literally in a

misinformation

jail all right

i suppose is that a racist visualization

probably is so uh just assume that i

don't mean it that way

um but i imagine that because they are

uninformed

and they're they're new sources and

specifically in this this one

area not in general but in this one area

they're underinformed

which is they believe the fine people

hoax

was real because their new source tells

it

is real and they don't see anything else

so if you believed that the president

really called

neo-nazis and white supremacist fine

people

and that he said it in public and that

he said it

with no remorse if you believe that was

true

you would believe everything else bad

said about him and race

because if that thing's true anything

could be true

so the find people hoax is not like the

other things

it's the key to the jail and if

black people ever get that key in other

words if

if the black voters learn how badly

they've been

duped intentionally completely

intentionally

how badly they've been conned on that

one

hoax that makes all the other hoaxes

look real

if they ever get that key they're just

going to shove it in the lock

and they're never going to vote democrat

again now what are the odds that that'll

happen

low i think the odds the odds of the

black population

getting their hands on that key and

finding out how badly they've been duped

by democrats

is low because they have control of the

new sources

but it could happen it's not impossible

it's just unlikely

um here's the best

funniest thing that i've heard in a

while let's say all day

uh there's a sports commentator maybe

you've seen him appears on fox news

every every now and then jason whitlock

he's uh he's black which is important to

this story

and i say this every time can we

ever get to the place where you can tell

a freaking story

without mentioning the race or the

gender of the person involved

can we get to that point like oh i

just crave the time when i don't have to

add that

and he's black because it does matter to

the story

and what he said was that

lebron james is the black trump

and the first time i heard it i thought

no he's not

how does that make sense how is lebron

james the

the black trump and then he goes on to

explain it and i go

oh yeah he is the black trump it goes

like this

um lebron he's this is uh jason waylock

quote lebron fashions himself as a

dignified statesman

uh role model political activist and

champion of racial equality

he is every bit as crude undignified and

articulate as our sitting president

james writes james meaning lebron

writes and speaks at a third grade level

the athletic privilege he's enjoyed

that's right

you were not born with lebron james

physical abilities i wasn't

i wasn't born with his physical

capabilities he was born

privileged and he that he's enjoyed

since about

age 10 has spoiled and pampered him the

same way wealth and privilege spoiled

and hampered

president trump jason whitlock

argument made you are correct

now i would argue at some of his uh

characterizations of our president but

because specifically the part about his

vocabulary

because i think the president's

vocabulary is ideally suited

for the way he communicates with the

public but

the correlation and the analogy analogy

accepted

analogy accepted and so i think i'll be

calling lebron james black trump from

now on

because it's wonderfully delicious

all right that

is my program for today and i hope you

enjoyed

it um so the

the uh slaughter meter said it at 100

you should

you should expect that this coming week

will be really newsy

a lot of news going to come out and it

could change everything

so the slaughter meter could be anything

by tomorrow

but as of today it's 100

and that is my show for the day

all right periscope people have been

signed off and i'm still here with you

youtubers i like to spend a little time

looking at your comments

um

thank you it is the best part of the day

i agree

totally the best part of the day

all right that's all for me today and i

will talk to you

tomorrow