Episode 1525 Scott Adams - Can AI Spot Fake News For You? And What if it Could? Lots More.
Find my "extra" content on Locals: https://ScottAdams.Locals.com Content: ----------- - Anti-Productivity leaf blowers - Sexy senior citizen Madonna - AI model to spot fake news? - Will Mike Pompeo primary President Trump? - Jim Acosta's opinion thing on CNN - Decreasing antibody defense over time ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ If you would like to enjoy this same content plus bonus content from Scott Adams, including micro-lessons on lots of useful topics to build your talent stack, please see scottadams.locals.com for full access to that secret treasure.
Well, good morning ladies and gentlemen and everything in between. It's time for Coffee with Scott Adams, and I think you know by now it's the best part of the living experience. In fact, a lot of zombies, a lot of dead people, ghosts — they also enjoy this program. So it's not just for the living.…
View segment →. You are special, but so are the dead. And if you'd like to take this to the next level — and I know you're that kind of people, that's who is attracted to Coffee with Scott Adams — edgy people, people who are willing to take it to the limit, and it's time. All you need is a coffee mug or a glass,…
View segment →ady? Are you? Are you ready? Go. Sublime. Well, I'm wearing the swaddling blanket of comfort today. Why? I'll tell you why in a moment at the proper time. Don't rush me. We're gonna do that at the proper time. Issue number one, most important issue possibly in the entire world: leaf blowers. Now…
View segment →e by your house. But what happens when everybody's working at home? If everybody's working at home, the leaf blower is going to take 20 percent of your productivity. It basically kills a day, especially if you have a neighbor. So you get yours and then the neighbor starts in the afternoon. You got a…
View segment →d all that are really what made her special, what made her succeed. But you also have to know when to quit, right? You have to know when to hold them and know when to fold them. And I feel like Madonna has — she probably has lots of room left on her career, but I'm not sure that playing the sexy se…
View segment →maybe play this a little differently." And I think what bothers me about it is I'm such a big fan. I'm a huge fan of Madonna, always have been, and I think that she does have a second act, if you'd call it that. Cher maybe. Cher went the same way. I think Cher did it better. But I feel like she cou…
View segment →here might actually be like an organized movement at some point of people who are using the technology that they've learned — technique I guess I'd say, maybe technique is better — for finding places that they have bias on their own and figuring out how it got there and figuring out how to get rid o…
View segment →ame years that Democrats were getting a far greater trust in the media than they ever had before? What was happening? Well, the fake Russia collusion hoax was mostly the news, fake news. The fine people hoax happened then. The drinking bleach hoax and lots of other hoaxes. All that, everything else.…
View segment →a drug that does help or something that helps. So huge development. I mean, wow, what a step forward in our ability to give people the right medicine. So there, an AI model that can predict whether an expensive drug will work. That's big stuff. This should have been like a world headline. I mean it'…
View segment →ecause the stuff that is fact, like a hurricane really hit, it's the same on every news. The ones that you know are true are the same on every news. It's only the ones that aren't true where one news item will report it differently. All right, so wait for that AI. It could spot fake news I believe.…
View segment →d here's the thing that you have to be bothered by. When you watch Fox News the person reading the news is obviously a news person and the people doing the opinion stuff are obviously opinion people and you really don't get them confused, right? Nobody thinks Hannity is a hard news guy. He's an opin…
View segment →o. Okay well that's what I learned today. I don't know if I got that right but look how much smarter you are. And let's talk teachers unions, how we can break them and solve systemic racism. Well I'll tell you if somebody wanted to run against Trump, a Republican, and they ran on trying to bring in…
View segment →hink that's a true statement? Well one that you can confirm is true. Yeah unknown is the correct answer but just look at the comments. Yeah no we don't know which of the many things that Joe Rogan did made a difference. We don't know if any of it made a difference on one person. I mean look at Joe R…
View segment →only an idiot would average together. Like what's the average age of a frog plus an elephant and then we'll come up with the average age of creatures. It's not a thing. It's not useful. You know, average things like that and think you learn something. So don't give me the average of people go to the…
View segment →lion extra people getting hospitalized. Four million people. All right that's all for now and I will talk to you tomorrow.
View segment →Well, good morning ladies and gentlemen and everything in between. It's time for Coffee with Scott Adams, and I think you know by now it's the best part of the living experience. In fact, a lot of zombies, a lot of dead people, ghosts — they also enjoy this program. So it's not just for the living. Don't get all, you know, like you're special or something. You are special, but so are the dead.
And if you'd like to take this to the next level — and I know you're that kind of people, that's who is attracted to Coffee with Scott Adams — edgy people, people who are willing to take it to the limit, and it's time. All you need is a coffee mug or a glass, a tumbler, a Yeti, a canteen, jug or flask — a vessel of any kind. Fill it with your favorite liquid. I like coffee. And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure, the dopamine hit of the day, the thing that makes everything better. It's called the simultaneous sip.
Yeah, have you heard of it? It's great, and it's going to happen now. If you're ready — are you ready? Are you? Are you ready? Go.
Sublime.
Well, I'm wearing the swaddling blanket of comfort today. Why? I'll tell you why in a moment at the proper time. Don't rush me. We're gonna do that at the proper time.
Issue number one, most important issue possibly in the entire world: leaf blowers. Now here's the thing about leaf blowers. You don't really think that's a big problem, right? It's a minor annoyance. Nobody likes to hear a leaf blower. But I'm just going to tell you from my own experience I lose an entire work day every week to leaf blowers. One entire day of creativity and productivity every week for my whole adult life to leaf blowers. Am I the only one? Anybody else find you actually can't work when a leaf blower is outside? I actually can't work. I just have to get up and do something else, take a shower or something.
Yeah, and the funny thing is I guess they're being banned in some places, but probably not banned because of productivity. Here's what's different. Nobody's ever liked leaf blowers, but usually it's because you're sleeping or you want to take a nap or you wanted to just not have any noise by your house. But what happens when everybody's working at home? If everybody's working at home, the leaf blower is going to take 20 percent of your productivity. It basically kills a day, especially if you have a neighbor. So you get yours and then the neighbor starts in the afternoon. You got a full day of leaf blower.
I think it's actually a gigantic problem that looks like a small one, because each individual who's bothered by it just feels like it's an annoyance and maybe you don't complain to anybody. So you've got millions and millions of people losing a day of work. Nobody knows that it's happening to other people. I have a feeling leaf blowers are taking something like, I don't know, two to five percent off the GDP. I mean, it could be that big because you've got a lot of people working at home now.
Anyway, Madonna is promoting some kind of documentary or something, and if you see her, you know that she's bringing sexy back. Madonna is bringing sexy back to senior citizens mostly. And I asked myself, does there need to be an intervention? Because you know the very thing that made Madonna amazing is that she didn't care what you thought and she was going to do it anyway. You know, her single-minded drive and ambition and all that are really what made her special, what made her succeed. But you also have to know when to quit, right? You have to know when to hold them and know when to fold them.
And I feel like Madonna has — she probably has lots of room left on her career, but I'm not sure that playing the sexy senior citizen was exactly the right way to play this. I don't know who's advising Madonna, but I feel that the advice goes like this these days: "You know, Madonna, if you're not too busy, I've been watching your latest promotions and my just little productive positive read — really not a criticism at all — I'm just saying that some people, not me, not me, but some people feel as though maybe because of your age and the weird way you look — I don't mean weird, I mean non-standard, I mean better than most people but different, different. Some people say weird. I don't say it's weird, not me. But some people are saying that and they're cruel and awful. But I'm just wondering, just putting the idea out there that maybe you should rethink a little bit your image." And see, I don't feel as though Madonna has good advice. You know what I mean? I don't feel like she has good advice. Clearly there's nobody giving her an honest opinion about what's going on here. Like there's nobody in her circle at all who can just say, you know, like, "I'm the one person you'll listen to and maybe play this a little differently."
And I think what bothers me about it is I'm such a big fan. I'm a huge fan of Madonna, always have been, and I think that she does have a second act, if you'd call it that. Cher maybe. Cher went the same way. I think Cher did it better. But I feel like she could be as substantial as ever, just play it differently. You know, maybe play a little more to her substance, if you know what I mean.
Well, you know we've all been making fun of TikTok and how it's destroying the world, but I feel like there's a positive to it. It turns out that one of the things that TikTok does — and you could substitute Instagram and Snapchat for the same conversation — one of the things that TikTok does is it keeps all the narcissists busy.
Now you think I'm gonna make a joke, but watch this. I'm not joking at all. If you've studied narcissism — and by the way I have a history of saying first of all it doesn't exist and then becoming a complete convert. It wasn't exactly a change of opinion but there was a change of understanding that there's more than one thing called narcissism. So the ones I was saying don't exist still don't exist. So I was never wrong about what I was talking about. What I didn't know, and this is an error on my part, is that the word narcissist is used in different senses. And there's a grandiose narcissist and there's a vulnerable narcissist and there's some other kinds I guess.
But one of the characteristics of narcissists is that they damage other people. They damage other people. The more time you spend with a narcissist, the more chance you're going to get damaged because they do that. That's sort of built into the vulnerable narcissist, not the grandiose. And to the degree that TikTok absorbs all of their time so that the narcissist who would be out destroying other people ends up glued to a screen interacting with other narcissists to a large extent, I'm wondering if it actually is helping in some way because it takes them out of the conversation. Every moment that a vulnerable narcissist is on a device is a moment that they're not bothering you in person.
There's a big sick-out at the FAA, I'm not sure where that is. So I'm not so sure that this is a bad thing. Maybe we've identified and isolated all the most dangerous people and we'll have them just talking to each other. And the other great thing is that if you understand narcissists — somebody paid fifty dollars to criticize me, so I'm going to read the criticism in full. You paid $49.99 just to have this comment be prominent. It says, "Simulation theory could only ever occur to a white upper class boomer living in a McMansion. But please tell us all about the vax and tell us again about that one time you didn't get the promotion because a Black existed."
Does that sound like anything? So let me do some fact checking. I don't live in a McMansion. I live in an actual mansion, so at least get that part right anyway. I guess that's a definitional thing. Please tell us all about the vax. Have I ever done that? Have I ever told you to get a vaccination? No, this person is hallucinating. It's an actual hallucination. They imagine me telling them to get a vaccination I guess.
And tell us again about that one time you didn't get the promotion because a Black existed. It was two careers, not one time. It was two careers in which I invested a tremendous number of years and time, and really it was more of three. It wasn't two because I lost two corporate jobs for being white and male. And just for your information, my bosses told me that directly. So I'm not reading between the lines. They told me. They called me into their offices with an actual meeting, a specific meeting, just to tell me that I would never be promoted as far as I could predict because I was white and male and they needed to get some more diversity.
So do you think I'm imagining it? Do you think I'm making up that conversation? Seriously, whoever asked the question for $49, do you think I just made that up? I've been saying it for years and I worked with hundreds of people, hundreds and hundreds of people knew me. If you take the years I worked at both corporations, hundreds. You don't think any one of those hundreds of people by now would have come forth and said that never happened, there was nothing like that happening in these companies during those days? Do you know why nobody has come forward to say that that didn't happen? Because they all experienced it. It was universal. It wasn't even rare. It was the very texture of life in those days in San Francisco anyway where I was.
Now I also lost a TV career for being a white guy on UPN. The Dilbert comic was running, had a successful first season and was renewed, but it was renewed in the season that UPN decided to primarily cater to a Black audience, which was a pretty good marketing idea I thought because it seemed like it was an underserved population and they weren't doing so well in general. So I thought, well, target a specific audience and that'll be good.
Hey, wow, okay. That was the weirdest text message I ever got while I'm live streaming. So you paid $49 for the answer. There's your answer. It's a percent real that white people of my generation were discriminated against and directly we were told to our faces we couldn't be promoted. Did you know that?
And by the way, that's why I identify as Black. Number one, because I can identify as Black because those are the rules, right? You can identify with whatever you feel the most connection to. And because I've been massively racially discriminated in my life. Massively. I mean those are really big examples: two careers and a TV show. That's a lot of discrimination, right? And it's not in my mind. These are very direct, obvious discriminations.
And so when I talk about maybe there is a way we can think of reparations, when I talk about improving education for the Black community, when I talk about all the things Trump did for enterprise zones and other things that were good for the Black community, I actually mean it because I do have legitimately a connection to that community now. A million differences obviously, but in the most critical part — I want to swear really badly but I'm not going to do it — the most critical part of life, can you get a job? We had the same experience. We, meaning anybody who was discriminated against, especially the Black population, same experience: couldn't get a job or keep a career or get promoted in my case for your race in America. So yeah, that's a real connection and I'm really mad about it because nobody should have to experience that.
Now at the same time I also think society had to do something about diversity, probably had to do something. It was just bad for me. Happened to be bad for me personally. All right, enough about that. Thanks for the question anyway.
And by the way, if you're imagining that I'm promoting that you should get vaccinated, that's never happened. So just check your assumptions. This never happened.
I'm wondering if there will ever be a free minds movement, you know, the way there are body hackers. You know there are a lot of people, let's say health hackers or whatever, who are sort of organized, semi-organized, and they're testing all different things for their physical health. You know, trying to fast, trying to take this supplement and that. And I'm wondering if there will be a similar thing for people trying to avoid brainwashing and persuasion. Will there ever be a movement of free minds people just trying to figure out techniques, little hacks to keep them from being brainwashed? I think maybe so. There might actually be like an organized movement at some point of people who are using the technology that they've learned — technique I guess I'd say, maybe technique is better — for finding places that they have bias on their own and figuring out how it got there and figuring out how to get rid of it. Maybe. Yeah, we might have free brains.
Speaking of that, there was a Gallup poll talking about trusting the news. And it turns out that the Democrats during the Trump years, their trust in the major media went way up, substantially higher, more trust in the media during the Trump administration. Meanwhile the independents and Republicans had less trust. Republicans had 11 percent, dropped to a new low trusting the media, and independents were in between, you know, 31.
Now just think about this. What was happening at the exact same years that Democrats were getting a far greater trust in the media than they ever had before? What was happening? Well, the fake Russia collusion hoax was mostly the news, fake news. The fine people hoax happened then. The drinking bleach hoax and lots of other hoaxes. All that, everything else. So during a period of unambiguously massive fake news, the kind maybe we've never seen so much in one time, during the most obvious, grotesque, overwhelming fake news period, Democrats substantially improved their trust in the media. That would rate almost hard to believe the rate at which they were being lied to and their trust increased substantially. At the same time the Republicans decreased.
What happened? What happened is it just they were hearing what they wanted to hear. Ah, that's probably a lot of it, right? A lot of the fake news went their way. As long as the fake news went their way, they're good with it. Love this fake news. This is agreeing with me like crazy. Hey, I thought Trump was crazy and now the news says Trump is crazy. Feeling pretty good about myself being all right like that and everything.
But here's another factor. What is it that makes people believe the news and what is it that makes something viral and makes it the news? What is the quality of a story that makes it really, really big news, the one you really pay attention to? What one quality of that story makes it the thing you can't look away from? It's not true. That's the primary quality that makes you watch the news, that it is not true. If it were true it wouldn't be interesting. Sorry, reality just doesn't serve up an interesting story every day. It fits into this little box, but lies do. You know you can always fill the space with a lie.
So there is a real thing, an observed effect, that the less likely it is to be true, the more attention it's going to get because it's more provocative that way. So Democrats were just basically gassing themselves with their own fake news and loving every minute of it apparently.
Do you want to hear the most disturbing story of the day? One that you won't even know what to say. This will be so disturbing that you'll be at a loss for words. So that's my challenge.
Eric, I will take that advice.
Most disturbing story: Dr. Eli David on Twitter. He tweets this. I'll just read you his tweet so that I don't get anything wrong. He says this week — so he works in AI I guess and writes about it — he said, "This week I interviewed a bright AI researcher working for one of the biggest pharmaceutical companies." And man, do I wish I knew the name of the company and you will too in a moment, right? So it's an AI researcher who worked for a big pharma company. "I asked him why he wants to leave his current position." So he told me the story. His team had developed an accurate AI model predicting whether one of their expensive drugs would be effective for a patient or not. You know, as you know, not every drug works with every patient the same way. It could have a genetic component, maybe some other components. I'm not sure what the AI took into effect, but apparently they got really accurate results and they could tell you in advance whether you should take this drug.
Now this is great, right? How great is this? If you knew in advance a drug wouldn't work for you, you wouldn't waste months taking a drug that wasn't helping and then you would have maybe a greater chance of getting onto a drug that does help or something that helps. So huge development. I mean, wow, what a step forward in our ability to give people the right medicine. So there, an AI model that can predict whether an expensive drug will work. That's big stuff. This should have been like a world headline. I mean it's so important.
So how'd it go? Well, not the way you hope. Not the way you hope. So he developed this model and then the implications are dramatic. Instead of wasting a whole year taking the pill to find out it doesn't work, AI predicts in advance the efficacy for each patient. So how did the company react? This is still in the tweet from Dr. Eli David. They asked him to delete the project and never mention it to anyone. The AI model would strip them of huge profits generated by millions who take the drug and find out it's not effective for them. Better let them suffer and pay the company instead.
What do you even say about this? Well the first question you should ask is, is it true? Right, I just told you that fake news is a big problem. You already knew that. Is it even true? Is it? Well there is one problem with the story, right? A little bit too on the nose, isn't it? Because isn't it exactly what you expect, right? So it's a little too on the nose.
What's the second part of the story that should raise a red flag? Second part of the story that raises a red flag. Let's see if anybody gets it. What would raise a red flag in this story that he wouldn't tell anyone? Well he did tell someone but he quit to do it allegedly. AI model that works. Here, that is a wonderfully cynical but accurate comment. Somebody said that the strangest part of the story that should tip you off is fake is that somebody made an AI model that works. That's not a bad comment, right there. Yeah, I'm going to endorse that one. Yeah, somebody made an AI model that works. Really? I mean I'm sure it's happened but you know right there you're gonna — I don't know, it's kind of hard.
Are you missing — there you go, you're almost there. Somebody said rogue doctor. You know whenever there's the rogue doctor you know you have to — you should put the odds of them being right at very low. But it's not a rogue doctor, it's an AI person so a little bit different. Didn't name the pharma company. Well probably did name the pharma company to the writer. Anonymous. Okay, okay. We don't know if he's anonymous by the way. Yeah, we don't know that. The tweet doesn't name him but I don't know if he will always be anonymous. But that is exactly the right thing you should be looking at. Thank you. Thank you. We got the right answer here from Bear Wires.
Disgruntled employee. Do you believe disgruntled employees ever? Do you know how often you should take what a disgruntled employee says as just fact? You know, there's no context left out. Boom, that's a fact. How about never? Never would be a good time to take a disgruntled employee's opinion. How about never? About not one time ever. Now it doesn't mean they're always wrong. I'm just saying that in terms of credibility it's kind of zero, right? Again, doesn't mean they're wrong. It's a right or wrong is a separate question from whether it's the kind of thing you should believe when you hear it. I'm saying it's the kind of thing you shouldn't believe when you hear it. It has that nature: disgruntled employee, not named company, an AI model that works. A little too on the nose right now.
If it's real — and by the way I don't want to cast any aspersions on Dr. Eli David. I have no reason to think that he would have the story wrong or anything like that. So I'm sure that the person he talked to is a real person that he really talked to who really worked for a big pharma. I'm sure he did the basic work. So I think the basic facts are probably true. He doesn't work for a big media company that maybe is bought off in some way as far as I know. I mean I guess you could never know, huh?
But suppose that's true. And how about this: let's take this and extend it. Do you think it would ever be possible to write an AI, create an AI that could spot fake news for you? What do you think? Could you ever write an AI program that would help you spot fake news fairly accurately? Maybe not every time. Yes, the answer is absolutely. It just wouldn't work every time. How do I know that an AI could do that? Because we just did it. We just did it right here. We just came up with several objective standards that an AI could just remind you of. It's an anonymous source. It's a disgruntled employee. It's an unusual claim that AI works. Yeah, I'm exaggerating a little bit there but you know if this AI worked as well as reported it would be quite a surprise to me that somebody got that done.
And then there's the question of whether it's too on the nose. Could an AI identify a story that was too on the nose? Not directly but it could do it by a poll of humans. It could ask humans, "Hey, does this story match pretty much your suspicions or does it not match the suspicions you already had?" And if the AI finds out that a whole bunch of people go, "Oh yeah, that's exactly what I expected," then the AI can say, "Oh, I have now demonstrated it's a little bit too on the nose. It's a little bit too exactly what you thought was going to happen, isn't it?"
It could also look at the sources. The AI could say, "Okay, Fox News says it's true or false and CNN says it's true or false." And unless both of them agree on the facts, it's probably fake news. Just an objective standard. If the left and the right don't agree on the basic facts, don't assume it's true because the stuff that is fact, like a hurricane really hit, it's the same on every news. The ones that you know are true are the same on every news. It's only the ones that aren't true where one news item will report it differently.
All right, so wait for that AI. It could spot fake news I believe. It could also spot new fake news by the wording of the stories and also the outlets that carry it because they could identify which outlets have had the most fake news. Might be some subjectivity about seeding that information but you could watch it over time. It could also determine fake news from the wording of the people who talk about it, don't you think? Because the way people write about stuff is almost a fingerprint, right? When people are writing fake news stories I'll bet you there's a signature in there somewhere, a pattern, a way they talk about things that's different. I'll bet. And I'll bet AI could find it.
Well the monster is back under the bed. You thought there was no monster under the bed. Oh there's a monster under the bed but only if you're an anti-Trumper because the monster is Trump is back. Well he's been back for a while but it's increasing. He did a rally in Iowa. He's not announcing but he's sort of walking us up to the line of announcing.
We need frame checkers. Oh that's a good way to say it. More than fact-checkers, we need to see that the story is framed correctly. Somebody says Tim Pool is doing something like that. I don't know about that effort but I've been hearing about it in the comments.
So Trump's back and the news is happy and horrified because I got something to talk about but they're horrified. I tell you they're horrified. And I guess Trump is doing this trick again where he's putting the Blacks for Trump who are wearing the T-shirts that say Blacks for Trump behind him on the stage. I feel like it's time to get rid of that now. When he was running the first time and he did that I said, well at least it's visual and people could see some diversity back there and that probably works in his favor. But obviously it looked a little artificial, right? Nobody thought that they just spontaneously showed up and got good seats, right? Even though you knew it was artificial, because it was visual it probably still worked. That was my take. It was obviously political and fake but a lot of things that politicians do when they run is political and fake. So I mean that's baked in. So it was political and it was fake but maybe it worked just because it was visual. Whether they were paid or not it probably still was a good look. But not anymore. I mean I feel like it's just so obviously — I don't know, it just doesn't look genuine slightly and I feel like it's just maybe working against him right now. Pandering, man. Or I don't know, a little too on the nose. I don't know, it just — it's a little cringy now.
There was a trending hashtag that said civil war is coming. I think this was probably a Trump supporter or something. It was one person that started trending on social media. Let me give you a prediction: civil war is not coming. The civil war is not coming. We're not even close. There's nothing like that coming. Yeah, lots of protesting and complaining and you know we might be even more divided but no, there's no civil war coming. Do you know why? You don't want it but you don't need another reason. The reason that there's no civil war coming is that not enough people want it. If we were anywhere near a lot of people wanting it, well then maybe. But no, we're nowhere near it. Don't worry about it.
Mike Pompeo is making noise as if he's going to primary Trump, run against him. What do you think about that? I have two thoughts. Thought number one: I feel like the Republicans should run a primary. What do you think? I think given just the age of Trump alone and the controversy which he's created, I think he needs to be primaried for the good of Trump as well as the nation. Because I think Trump needs to beat the field again to really have that legitimacy that he had the first time. Now I think he can do it. I think he would beat the field again but I don't know. I think maybe the system requires it this time. You know if he were a less controversial character and younger — because age I think has to be factored in — then I'd say no, he's earned his place at the top and I think he's earned his place at the top. But just for the benefit of the voters I'd like to have him stress test a little bit. You know, make sure he can still deliver. If he can, he can, right? If he can, he can. And the indication is it looks like he can. So I would suspect he'd win a primary but I feel like the system requires a little push. You know, you need a little competition in the system.
Pompeo, I don't have a strong opinion about him one way or another. I think Afghanistan will hang over him. I don't know. He's smart. He can communicate well. I just don't think he brings the sizzle. You need a little more sizzle.
So Jim Acosta is doing this opiniony thing on CNN now. And here's the thing that you have to be bothered by. When you watch Fox News the person reading the news is obviously a news person and the people doing the opinion stuff are obviously opinion people and you really don't get them confused, right? Nobody thinks Hannity is a hard news guy. He's an opinion guy. Tucker Carlson, same thing. But CNN likes to have that a little bit more gray. So here's Jim Acosta, famous for covering the White House under Trump, so you think of him as the news guy. But now he's gone full opinion at least on this show. That feels dangerous to me. I don't think you should — just as a production note, if you're in the news business I think your news people need to be walled off from your opinion people a little bit. Having your news guy do opinion, I feel like people are going to take that as news a little bit more than they would if it were someone else. So just something to watch for. Not a big problem but something to keep an eye on.
And he says things like this. He's talking to his guest. He goes — I guess it was Yang — and he said Tucker Carlson, I mean let's just say he's a bad person. And he goes on claiming that he spouts off white nationalist talking points, which I don't think he does by the way. I think that's an unfair statement. He does say things that are compatible with what other people that are controversial and you know you think should be condemned and I think should be condemned. But just the fact that we humans have a lot in common with each other. Yeah, everybody's going to have something that's in common with a group they don't like. Don't you think that would apply to everybody? Do you think that Biden doesn't say some things that some bad people agree with? I'm sure he says things that bad people agree with. Does that make Biden a bad person? It doesn't really work that way. Just the fact that bad people agree with you on some part of what you say, that doesn't accrue to you. It is not your fault that people you think are bad agree with some small part of what you say. It doesn't work that way.
All right. The American Medical Association has a note about ivermectin and it's informing doctors how to respond if their patients ask them for ivermectin. And it goes on to say that ivermectin is not proven and that as an unproven drug maybe don't recommend it but instead recommend this. Here's the weird part. So the AMA says we don't have evidence that ivermectin works so therefore they're not recommending that it be prescribed. But they are saying that if your patient wants it you should refer them to one of the ongoing ivermectin trials.
Why am I confused now? Weren't we told that ivermectin definitely doesn't work by the medical community? I thought we knew that, right? Am I wrong? Isn't the established medical community — I know you might have different opinions and there are rogue doctors etc. but isn't the established view that ivermectin has been proven to not work as opposed to yeah we don't know? Isn't that the view? And the AMA is saying well if your patient wants to do it refer them to an ivermectin trial. What one doctor who believes that we know it doesn't work should tell his patient to take it anyway for the trial if he knows it doesn't work? Remember it's not wondering if it works. Don't they know it doesn't work? Isn't that the official belief?
If the official belief is that we know it doesn't work why are there even trials? Who's running these trials? Don't you think the people who are funding the trials should have said by now, "Oh darn, we already found out it doesn't work. Let's cut the expense of the trial right now and wind this up." There's no reason to go to a result because there's no reason to get a result in the trial because all the other trials have shown it doesn't work. There's no reason to finish. Is another example where we're clearly being lied to. We're clearly — we the public are clearly being lied to because if these trials are happening it does mean that people with real money and a lot of it because it's expensive and people who are real professionals in this field because who else is going to do the study? It's going to be professionals, right? If they're not sure, why do you have to be sure, right? If medical science itself isn't sure why do you have to be sure? That's a little bit inconsistent.
All right. Now to be clear, as far as I know the benefit of ivermectin has not been demonstrated. As far as I know. I'm not the expert but I do follow the news. As far as I know it has not been demonstrated. Definitely some indications. You know there's plenty of things that tell you maybe. I suppose that's why they're doing the trials. And of course given that the risk of it is low it appears that we have been more brainwashed than informed on this topic.
Hey, here's something that I didn't know until today. I'm here to inform you. We all know that the vaccinations could wear off, correct? We all know that the vaccinations could wear off and that antibodies can diminish over time, right? So I think whether you got infected or you got vaccinated I think your antibodies decrease over time. But is that the problem that you think it is? If you hear that your antibodies are decreasing over time what does that tell you about your risk? Tells you you have a higher risk, right? But it's not quite as clean as that.
Turns out there are two kinds of resistance. Let me call — I'm going to use non-medical terms here so that it's just simpler. There are two ways that having some kind of prior antibodies help you. Number one is keeping it from getting into your body in the first place and taking hold. So there's sort of an initial defense that keeps you from getting it in the first place and that will decrease over time which means that your initial defense will let it in. You will more likely after the immunity goes down, you will more likely catch it. But here's the part I didn't know. There is a second type of immunity which doesn't decrease the same way. So the first kind which is you're going to get it could decrease to the point where you get it but the other kind has much more lasting permanence. And the other kind is the kind that keeps you from dying.
So the good kind we got because it's keeping you from dying. The other kind where it's keeping you from getting it in the first place isn't working. Which is good news or bad news? Is that good news or bad news? Suppose you took a vaccination and your ability to catch it went down but your ability to prevent serious illness was still solid. Is that good or bad? I think it's good. Good-ish. Because the end point is we all get vaccinated and we also get the infection. We just get to the end point faster. Now you don't want it to rage out of control and crash your hospitals and stuff like that so you want your good news to be moderate good news. You don't want great good news because things would happen too quickly. So there's a rate of change that's important.
But did we luck into this? Imagine if you could have designed this on paper. Would you have said let's vaccinate and people are just good, they're just vaccinated, they won't get it? Or would you have chosen to vaccinate people in a way that they would still get infected so that they could get the natural immunity but it won't kill them? I'm not so sure this wasn't perfect. Are you? Can you tell me that you know this is worse? Because I can't tell.
Somebody says it's a bad analysis. Do better. Do better. Raise your game. I'm not saying I'm right. I'm asking the question but your criticism needs to be better than that. Just give me a reason, some kind of any kind of indication.
It's all good until they're forced. Yeah that's a separate question. Yeah we can't tell if it's good news or bad news. Isn't that weird? It's one of the most gigantic factors in our environment right now and we don't even know if it's good news or bad news.
The vaccine is a scam bro. Okay well that's what I learned today. I don't know if I got that right but look how much smarter you are.
And let's talk teachers unions, how we can break them and solve systemic racism. Well I'll tell you if somebody wanted to run against Trump, a Republican, and they ran on trying to bring in Black voters to solve systemic racism via the school system, they could win I think. I think a Republican could beat Trump in the primaries by saying I'm going to intentionally try to find where Republicans and the Black population have the same interest. Mandates is one. Mandates and the same interest in reducing systemic racism via the school system. Same. Just run on that. Just run on the stuff you agree on and you would beat Trump in the primaries.
You should read Brave New World. It's dystopia created by trying to make everyone safe and happy. Yeah I mean if his writing was better I'd read it or if it wasn't so sad I'd read it I guess. Yeah I don't read depressing books. That is correct.
How did I get the black nail? This was a tragic — this was a little black dude — a tragic accident involving a window. No I didn't close my fingers in a window. It was more indirect than that but let's just say window is involved and keep it there.
Well I think Trump is running against mandates but he's not full-throated on it all right. Yes let's go Brandon.
I tried to read 1984 but it was too sad and terrible and I bailed out. Jill says that she's sure ivermectin does work. Jill you know you don't know that right? Because it can't be known. We don't have data that says it works. If you know some anecdotes, if somebody got better in two days that's most of the people who get COVID. Most people just get better right away. So there should be lots of stories of people who ate a cookie and within 24 hours their COVID had subsided. How many people let's say stubbed their toe and within 24 hours their COVID was totally under control? A lot. How many people took hydroxychloroquine and within 24 hours their COVID was all fine? Lots, millions probably. How many people ate a peanut and within 24 hours their COVID was all better? Millions. How many people had a bowl of rice and within 24 hours their COVID was all cleared up? A billion, I don't know, 100 million maybe.
So I don't care how many people you know who took a drug and it cleared up within 24 hours. It means exactly zero. The exception would be the monoclonals I think. The monoclonal antibodies. I've heard people just feel it. You can actually feel yourself getting better while you're taking it so I think that's a different case. Yeah. How many people took ivermectin and their problems did not clear up in 24 hours? We don't know. Yeah and none of those in vitro studies means anything at all.
It was somebody says it worked for Joe Rogan. Can I see in the comments how many people think this is a true statement: ivermectin worked for Joe Rogan. How many think that's a true statement? Well one that you can confirm is true. Yeah unknown is the correct answer but just look at the comments. Yeah no we don't know which of the many things that Joe Rogan did made a difference. We don't know if any of it made a difference on one person. I mean look at Joe Rogan. Doesn't he look healthy? He looks like he could beat COVID without drugs now. It would be silly to try under a current condition but if you could pick anybody in the world who could beat COVID without drugs I mean he'd be on the top of my list. I mean I suppose he could be younger but I mean he's about as healthy as you can possibly get. Yeah so anybody who thinks that ivermectin cured Joe Rogan or anybody else I can't rule it out but it would be the worst take of all time because there's no evidence that it worked and there's lots of evidence that the other stuff does work like the monoclonals for example.
Somebody says I have some ivermectin and we'll definitely take it if infected. Personal choice. Personal choice. I would neither talk you into that or out of that. I would just say I don't have any evidence that it would help you but I don't have any evidence it'll hurt you. Personal choice.
Less than one percent of those that catch COVID will be hospitalized. That is a shitty data point. Here's why you should — here's the data you should never give anybody if you want to be credible. Only one percent of people are getting hospitalized now or less than one percent. The number is probably right but there's a pretty big difference between a 12 year old and an 80 year old. And if you average the 80 year old's risk of hospitalization with a 12 year old's risk of hospitalization and you get a number that's under 1 percent you have misled people. So don't do that. That under one percent is a propaganda number. It's not a useful number. Anybody who tells you the odds of hospitalization are under one percent, they're part of the propaganda process not part of the information process. It's true but you've averaged things together that only an idiot would average together. Like what's the average age of a frog plus an elephant and then we'll come up with the average age of creatures. It's not a thing. It's not useful. You know, average things like that and think you learn something. So don't give me the average of people go to the hospital. That's a misleading propaganda number. If you want to tell me the kids have almost no chance, true. And if you want to tell me that people over 80 better watch out, true. But if you average those two together you're not part of the real conversation. You're just propaganda.
Kids with obesity maybe but I'm not even sure kids with obesity. Well yeah I guess anecdotally there's enough to worry about there. Yeah one percent is about four million extra people getting hospitalized. Four million people.
All right that's all for now and I will talk to you tomorrow.
well good morning ladies and gentlemen and everything in between it's time for coffee with scott adams and i think you know by now it's the best part of the living experience uh in fact a lot of a lot of zombies a lot of dead people ghosts they also enjoy this program so it's not just for the living don't don't get all you know like you're special or something you are special but so are the dead and if you'd like to take this to the next level and i know you're that kind of people that's who is attracted to coffee with scott adams edgy people people who are willing to take it to the limit and it's time and all you need is a cover bugger a glass up tanker jealous dino canteen jug or flask a vessel of any kind fill it with your favorite liquid i like coffee and join me now for the unparalleled pleasure the dopamine here of the day the thing that makes everything better it's called the simultaneous sip yeah have you heard of it it's great and it's going to happen now if you're ready are you ready are you are you ready go sublime well i'm wearing the the swaddling uh blanket of comfort today why i'll tell you why in a moment at the proper time don't rush me we're gonna do that at the proper time issue number one most important issue possibly in the entire world leaf blowers now here's the thing about leaf blowers you don't really think that's a big problem right it's minor annoyance nobody likes to hear a leaf blower but i'm just going to tell you from my own experience i lose an entire work day every week to leaf blowers one entire day of creativity and productivity every week for my whole adult life to leaf blowers am i the only one anybody else find you actually can't work when a leaf blower is outside i actually can't work i i just have to get up and do something else take a shower or something yeah and the funny thing is i guess they're being banned in some places but probably not banned because of productivity here's what's different nobody's ever liked leaf blowers but usually it's because you're sleeping or you want to take a nap or you wanted to just not have any noise by your house but what happens when everybody's working at home if everybody's working at home the leaf blower is going to take 20 percent of your productivity it basically kills a day especially if you have a neighbor so you get yours and then then the the neighbor starts in the afternoon you got a full day of leaf blower i think it's actually a gigantic problem that looks like a small one because each individual who's bothered by it just feels like an annoyance and you don't you maybe you don't complain to anybody so you've got you know millions and millions of people are losing a day of work nobody knows that it's happening to other people i have a feeling leaf blowers are taking something like i don't know two to five percent off the gdp i mean it could be that big because you got a lot of people working at home now especially well madonna is uh promoting some kind of documentary or something and if you see her you know that she's bringing sexy back madonna is bringing sexy back to senior citizens mostly and i asked myself does there need to be an intervention because you know the very thing that made madonna amazing is that she didn't care what you thought and she was going to do it anyway you know her uh her single-minded um i don't know drive and ambition and all that are really what made her special what made her succeed but you also have to know when to quit right you have to no one to hold them and know when to fold them and i feel like madonna has you know she probably has lots of uh room left on her career but i'm not sure that playing the sexy senior citizen was exactly the right way to play this you know i don't know who's advising madonna but i feel that the advice goes like this these days um you know madonna if you're not not too busy i i've been watching your latest promotions and my just little productive uh positive read really not a criticism at all um i'm just saying that some people not me not me but some people um feel as though maybe because your age and and the weird way you look i don't mean weird i mean non-standard i mean better than most people but different different some people say weird i don't say it's weird not me but some people are saying that and they're cruel and awful but i'm just wondering just putting the idea out there that baby you should um i'm saying just just maybe rethink a little bit you're i'm fired and see i don't feel as though madonna has good advice you know what i mean i don't feel like she has good advice clearly there's nobody giving her honest opinion about what's going on here like there's nobody in her circle at all who can just say you know like i'm the one person you'll listen to and maybe maybe play this a little differently and i i think what bothers me about it is i'm such a big fan i'm a huge fan of madonna always have been and i think that she does have a second act if you'd call it that in the second act yeah well yeah cher maybe cher went the same way i think cher did it better but i feel like she could be as substantial as ever just play it differently you know maybe play a little more to her substance if you know what i mean well you know we've all been making fun of tick tock and how uh how it's destroying the world but i feel like there's a positive to it it turns out that one of the things that tick duck does and you could substitute instagram and snapchat for the same conversation one of the things that tick-tock does is it keeps all the narcissists busy now you think i'm gonna make a joke but watch this i'm not joking at all if you've studied narcissism and by the way i have a history of saying first of all it doesn't exist and then becoming a complete convert it wasn't exactly a change of opinion but there was a change of understanding that there's more than one thing called narcissism so the ones i was saying don't exist still don't exist so i was never wrong about what i was talking about what i didn't know and this is you know an error on my part is that the word narcissist is used in different senses and there's there's a there's a grandiose narcissist and there's a vulnerable narcissist and there's you know some other kinds i guess but um one of the characteristics of narcissists is that they damage other people they damage other people the more time you spend with a narcissist the more chance you're going to get damaged because they do that that's sort of built into that this is the vulnerable narcissist not the grandiose and to the degree that tick tock absorbs all of their time so that the narcissist who would be out destroying other people ends up glued to a screen interacting with other narcissists to a large extent and i'm wondering if it actually is helping in some way because it takes them out of the it takes them out of the conversation you know every moment that a a vulnerable narcissist is on a device is a moment that they're not bothering you in person there's a big sick out at the where is it the faa i'm not sure where that is um so i'm not so sure that this is a bad thing maybe we've identified and isolated all the most dangerous people and we'll have them just talking to each other and the other great thing is that if you understand narcissists uh somebody paid fifty dollars to criticize me so i'm going to read i'm going to read the criticism in full you paid 49.99 just to have this comment be prominent it says simulation theory could only ever occur to a white upper class boomer living in a mcmansion but please tell us all about the vax and tell us again about that one time you didn't get the promotion because a black existed does that sound like anything so let me do some fact checking i don't live in the mcmansion i live in an actual mansion so at least get that part anyway i guess that's a definitional thing uh please tell us all about the facts have i ever done that have i ever told you to get a vaccination no this person is hallucinating it's an actual hallucination they imagine them you know telling them to get a vaccination i guess and tell us again about that one time you didn't get the promotion because a black existed it was two careers not one time it was two careers in which i invested a tremendous number of years in time and really it was more of three it wasn't two because i lost two corporate jobs for being white and male and and just for your information my bosses told me that directly so i'm not reading between the lines they told me they called me into their offices with an actual meeting a specific meeting just to tell me that i would never be promoted as as far as i could predict because i was white and male and they needed to get some more diversity so do you think i'm imagining it do you think i'm making up that conversation seriously whoever asked the question for 49 do you think i just made that up i've been saying it for years and i worked with um hundreds of people hundreds and hundreds of people knew me if you take the the years i worked at both corporations hundreds you don't think any one of those hundreds of people by now would have come forth and said that never happened there was nothing like that happening in these companies during those days do you know why nobody has come forward to say that that didn't happen because they all experienced it it was universal it wasn't even rare it was the very texture of life in those days in san francisco anyway where i was now i also lost a tv career for being a a white guy on upn the dilbert comic was running had a successful first season and was renewed but it was renewed in the season that the upn decided to have uh to primarily cater to a black audience which was a pretty good marketing idea i thought because it seemed like it was an underserved population and they weren't doing so well in general so i thought well target a specific audience and that'll be good hey wow okay that was the weirdest text message i ever got while i'm live streaming um so you paid 49 for the answer there's your answer it's a percent real that white people of my generation were discriminated against and directly we were told to our faces we couldn't be promoted did you know that and by the way that's why i identify as black number one because i can i can identify as black because those are the rules right you can identify with whatever you feel the most connection to and because i've been massively racially discriminated in my life massively i mean those are really big examples two careers and a tv show that's a lot of discrimination right and it's not my mind these are very direct obvious discriminations and so when i when i talk about uh you know maybe there is a way we can think of reparations when i talk about improving education for the black community when i talk about all the things trump did for you know enterprise zones and and other things that were good for the black community i actually mean it because i do have legitimately a connection to that community now a million differences obviously but in the most critical part i want to swear really badly but i'm not going to do it the most critical part of life can you get a job we had the same experience we meaning anybody who was discriminated against especially the black population same experience couldn't get a job or keep a career or get promoted in my case for your race in america so yeah that's a real connection and i'm really mad about it because nobody should have to experience that now at the same time i also think society had to do something about diversity probably had to do something it was just bad for me happened to be bad for me personally all right enough about that thanks for the question anyway and by the way if you're imagining that i'm promoting that you should get vaccinated that's never happened so just just check your assumptions this never happened i'm wondering if there will ever be a a free minds movement you know the way the way there are body hackers you know there are a lot of people let's say health hackers or whatever who are sort of organized semi-organized and they're they're testing all different things for their physical health you know trying to i know fast try to try to take this supplement and that and i'm wondering if there will be a similar thing for people trying to avoid brainwashing and persuasion will there ever be a movement of free minds people just trying to figure out techniques little hacks to keep them from being brainwashed i think maybe so there might actually be like an organized movement at some point of people who are using the technology that they've learned technology technique i guess i'd say maybe technique is better for finding places that they have bias on their own and figuring out how it got there and figuring out how to get rid of it maybe yeah we might have free brains um speaking of that there was a gallup poll uh talking about uh trusting the news and it turns out that the democrats during the trump years their trust in the major media went way up substantially higher more trust in the media during the trump administration meanwhile the independents and republicans had less trust republicans had 11 percent dropped to a new low trusting the media and independence were in between you know 31 now just think about this what was happening at the exact same years that democrats were getting a far greater trust in the media than they ever had before what was happening well the fake russia collusion hoax was mostly the news fake news the fine people hoax happened then the drinking bleach hoax and lots of other hoaxes all that everything else so during a period of unambiguously massive fake news the kind maybe we've never seen so much in one time during the most obvious grotesque overwhelming fake news period democrats substantially improved their trust in the media that would rate almost hard to believe the rate at which they were being lied to and their trust increased substantially at the same time the republicans decreased what happened what happened is it just they were hearing what they wanted to hear ah that's probably a lot of it right a lot of the fake news went their way as long as the fake news went their way they're good with it love this fake news this is agreeing with me like crazy hey i thought trump was crazy and now the news says trump is crazy feeling pretty good about myself being all right like that and everything but here's another uh factor what is it that makes people believe the news and what is it that makes something viral and makes it the news what is what is the quality of a story that makes it really really big news the one you really pay attention to what one quality of that story makes it the thing you can't look away from it's not true that's the primary quality that makes you watch the news that is not true if it were true it wouldn't be interesting sorry reality just doesn't serve up an interesting story every day it fits into this little box but lies do you know you can always fill the space with a lie so there is a real thing um an observed effect that the less likely it is to be true the more attention it's going to get because it's more provocative that way so democrats were were just uh basically gassing themselves with their own face fake news and loving every minute of it apparently um here's do you want to hear the most disturbing story of the day one one that you will you won't even know what to say this will be so disturbing that you're you'll be at a loss for words so that's my challenge um uh eric i will take that advice um most disturbing story dr eli david on twitter he tweets this i'll just read you his tweet so that i don't get anything wrong right he says this week so he works in a.i i guess and writes about it he said this week i interviewed a bright ai researcher working for one of the biggest pharmaceutical companies and man do i wish i knew the name of the company and you will too in a moment right so it's an ai researcher who worked for a big pharma company i asked him why he wants to leave his current position so he told me the story his team had developed an accurate ai model predicting whether one of their expensive drugs would be effective for a patient or not you know as you know not every drug works with every patient the same way it could have a genetic component maybe some other components i'm not sure what the ai took into effect but apparently they got really accurate results and they could tell you in advance whether you should take this drug now this is great right how great is this if you knew in advance a drug wouldn't work for you you wouldn't waste months taking a drug that wasn't helping and then you would have maybe you had a greater chance of getting onto a drug that does help or something that helps so huge development i mean wow what a step forward in our ability to give people the right medicine so there an ai model that can predict whether an expensive drug will work that's big stuff this should have been a like a world headline right i mean it's so important so how'd it go well not the way you hope not the way you hope so he developed this model and then the implications are dramatic instead of wasting a whole year taking the pill to find out it doesn't work ai predicts in advance the efficacy for each patient so how did the company react this is still in the tweet from dr eli david they asked them to delete the project and never mention it to anyone the ai model would strip them of huge profits generated by millions who take the drug and find out it's not effective for them better let them suffer and uh pay the company instead what do you even say about this well the first question you should ask is is it true right i just told you that fake news is a big problem you already knew that is it even true is it what there is one problem with the story right a little bit too on the nose isn't it because isn't it exactly what you expect right so it's a little a little too on the news what's the second part of the story that should raise a red flag second part of the story that raises a red flag let's see if anybody gets it uh what would raise a red flag in this story that he wouldn't tell anyone well he did tell someone but he quit to do it allegedly um ai model that works here that is a wonderfully cynical but accurate comment somebody said that the strangest part of the story that should tip you off is fake is that somebody made an ai model that works that's not a bad comment right there yeah i'm going to endorse that one yeah somebody made an ai model that works really i mean i'm sure it's happened but you know right there you're gonna i don't know it's kind of hard um are you missing there you go you're almost there somebody said rogue doctor you know whenever there's the rogue doctor you know you have to you should put the odds of them being right at very low but it's not a rogue doctor it's an ai person so a little bit different didn't name the farm well probably did name the farmer to the pharma company to the uh the writer anonymous okay okay we don't know if he's anonymous by the way uh yeah we don't know that the the tweet doesn't name him but i don't know if he will always be anonymous but that's that is exactly the right thing you should be looking at thank you thank you we got the right answer here from bear wires disgruntled employee do you believe disgruntled employees ever do you know how often you should take what a disgruntled employee says as just just fact you know there's no context left out boom that's a fact how about never never would be a good time to take a disgruntled employee's opinion how about never about not one time ever now it doesn't mean they're always wrong i'm just saying that in terms of credibility it's kind of zero right again doesn't mean they're wrong that's it's a right or wrong is a separate question from whether it's the na it's the kind of thing you should believe when you hear it i'm saying it's the kind of thing you shouldn't believe when you hear it it has that nature disgruntled employee not named company isn't aimed an ai model that works a little too on the news right now if it's real and by the way i don't want to cast any aspersions on dr eli david i have no reason to think that uh you know he would have the story wrong or anything like that so i'm sure that the person he talked to is a real person that he really talked to who really worked for a big pharma i'm sure he did you know the basic work so i think the basic questions are probably true any you know he doesn't work for a big media company that maybe is bought off in some way as far as i know i mean i guess you could never know huh but uh suppose that's true and how about this let's take this and extend it do you think it would ever be possible to write an ai you know create an ai that could spot fake news for you what do you think could you ever write an ai program that would help you spot fake news fairly accurately maybe not every time yes the answer is absolutely just wouldn't do work every time how do i know that an ai could do that because we just did it we just did it right here we just came up with several objective standards that an ai could just remind you of it's an anonymous source it's a disgruntled employee it's a um unusual claim that ai works yeah i'm exaggerating a little bit there but you know if this ai worked as well as reported it would be quite a surprise to me that somebody got that done um and then there's the question of whether it's too on the nose could an ai identify a story that was too on the nose not directly but it could do it by a pole of humans it could ask humans hey does this story match pretty much your suspicions or does it not match the suspicions you already had and if the ai finds out that a whole bunch of people go oh yeah that's exactly what i expected then the ai can say oh i have now demonstrated it's a little bit too on the nose it's a little bit too exactly what you thought was going to happen isn't it it could also look at the sources the ai could say okay fox news says it's true or false and cnn says it's true or false and if unless both of them agree on the facts it's probably fake news just an objective standard if the left and the right don't agree on the basic facts don't assume it's true because the stuff that is fact like a hurricane really hit it's the same on every every news the ones that you know are true are the same on every news it's only the ones that aren't true where one news item will report it differently all right so wait for that ai could uh spot fake news i believe it could also spot new fake news by the wording of the stories and also the outlets that carry it because they could identify which outlets have had the most fake news might be some subjectivity about seeding that information but you could watch it over time alberta could also determine fake news from the wording of the people who talk about it don't you think because the way people write about stuff is almost a fingerprint right when people are writing fake news stories i'll bet you there's a signature in there somewhere a pattern a way they talk about things that's different i'll bet and i'll bet ai could find it well the monster is back under the bed you you thought there was no monster under the bed oh there's a monster under the bed but only if you're an anti-trumper because the monster is trump's back well he's been back for a while but it's increasing he did did a rally in iowa he's not announcing but uh he's sort of walking us up to the line of announcing um we need frame checkers oh that's that's a good way to say it more than fact-checkers we need to see that the story is framed correctly somebody says tim poole is doing something like that i don't know about that effort but i've i've been hearing about it in the comments so trump's back and the news is uh happy and horrified because i got something to talk about but they're horrified i tell you they're horrified and i guess trump is doing this trick again where he's putting the blacks for trump who are wearing the t-shirts to say blacks for trump behind him on the stage i feel like it's time to get rid of that now when he was running the first time and he and he did that i said well at least it's visual and you know people could see some diversity back there and that probably works in his favor but obviously it looked a little artificial right no nobody thought that they just spontaneously showed up and got good seats right even though you knew it was artificial because it was visual it probably still worked that was my my take it was obviously political and fake but a lot of things that politicians do when they run is political and fake so i mean that's baked in so it was political and it was fake but maybe it worked just because it was visual yeah whether they were paid or not it probably still was a good look but not anymore i mean i feel like it's just so obviously i don't know it just doesn't look genuine slightly and i feel like it's just maybe working against him right now pandering man or i don't know a little too on the nose uh i don't know it just it's a little cringy now um there was a trending hashtag that said uh civil war is coming i think this was probably a trump supporter or something it was one person that started trending on on social media let me give you a prediction civil war is now coming the civil war is not coming we're not even close there's nothing like that coming yeah lots of protesting and complaining and you know we might be even more divided but no there's no civil war coming do you know why you don't want it but you don't need another reason the reason that there's no civil war coming is that not enough people want it if we were anywhere near a lot of people wanting it well then maybe but no we're nowhere near it don't worry about it um mike pompeo is making noise as if he's going to primary trump run against them what do you think about that i have two thoughts thought number one i feel like that i feel like the republicans should run a primary what do you think i think given just the age of trump alone and you know the controversy which he's created i think he needs to be primaried for the good of trump as well as the nation because i think trump needs to beat the field again to really have that legitimacy that he had the first time now i think he can do it i think he would i think he would beat the field again but i don't know i think maybe the system requires it this time you know if he were a less controversial character and younger because age i think has to be factored in um then i'd say no he's you know he's earned he's placed at the top and i think he's earned his place at the top but just for the benefit of the voters i'd like i'd like to have him stress test a little bit you know make sure he can still deliver if he can he can right if he can he can and the indication is it looks like he can so i would suspect he'd win a primary but i feel like the system requires a little little push you know you need a little competition in the system uh pompeo i don't have a strong opinion about him one way or another um i think afghanistan will hang over him um i don't know he's smart he can communicate well i just don't think he brings brings the sizzle you need a little more sizzle um so jim acosta is doing this uh opiniony thing on cnn now and here's the thing that you have to be bothered by when you watch fox news the person reading the news is obviously a newest person and the people doing the opinion stuff are obviously opinion people and you really don't get them confused right nobody thinks hannity is a hard news guy he's an opinion guy tucker tucker carlson same thing but cnn likes to likes to have that a little bit more gray so here's jim acosta famous for you know covering the white house under trump so you think of him as the news guy but now he's gone full opinion at least on this show that feels dangerous to me i don't think you should just as a production note if you're in the news business i think your news people need to be walled off from your opinion people a little bit having your news guy do opinion i feel like people are going to take that as news a little bit more than they would if it were someone else so just something to watch for not a big problem but something to keep an eye on and he says things like this he's talking to his guest he goes uh i guess it was yang and he said tucker carlson i mean let's just say he's a bad person and he goes on claiming that he spouts off white nationalist talking points which i don't think he does by the way i think that's a unfair statement he does say things that are compatible with what other people that are controversial and you know you think should be condemned and i think should be condemned but just the fact that you know we humans have a lot in common with each other yeah everybody's going to have something that's in common with a group they don't like don't you think that would apply to everybody do you do you think that biden doesn't say some things that some bad people agree with i'm sure i'm sure he says things that bad people agree with does that make biden a bad person it doesn't really work that way just the fact that bad people agree with you on some part of what you say that doesn't accrue to you it is not your fault that people you think are bad agree with some small part of what you say it doesn't work that way all right uh the american medical association um has a note about ivermectin and it's it's uh informing doctors how to respond if their clients their patients ask them for ivermectin and it goes on to say that ivermectin is not proven and that as an unproven drug um you know maybe don't recommend it but instead recommend this here's the weird part so the ama says we don't have evidence that ivermectin works so therefore they're not recommending that it be prescribed but they are saying that if you're if your patient wants it you should refer them to one of the ongoing ivermectin trials um um why am i confused now weren't we told that ivermectin definitely doesn't work by the medical community i i thought we knew that right am i wrong isn't the established medical community i know you might have different opinions and there are rogue doctors etc but isn't the established view that ivermectin has been proven to not work as opposed to yeah we don't know isn't that the view and the ama is saying well if your patient wants to do it refer them to an ivermectin trial what one doctor who believes that we know it doesn't work should tell his patient to take it anyway for the trial if he knows it doesn't work remember it's not wondering if it works don't they know it doesn't work isn't that the official belief if the if the official belief is that we know it doesn't work why are there even trials who's running these trials don't you think the people who are funding the trials should have said by now oh darn we already found down it doesn't work let's cut the expense of the trial right now and wind this up there's no reason to go to a result because there's no reason to get a result in the trial because all the other trials have shown it doesn't work there's no reason to finish is another example where we're clearly being lied to we're clearly we the public are clearly being lied to because if these trials are happening it does mean that people with real money and a lot of it because it's expensive and people who are real professionals in this field because who else is going to do the study it's going to be professionals right if they're not sure why do you have to be sure right if medical science itself isn't sure why do you have to be sure that's a little bit inconsistent all right now to be clear as far as i know the the benefit of ivermectin has not been demonstrated as far as i know i'm not the expert but i do you know follow the news as far as i know it has not been demonstrated definitely some uh there are indications you know there there's plenty of things that tell you maybe i suppose that's why they're doing the trials and and of course given that the risk of it is low it appears that we have been more brainwashed than informed on this topic hey here's something that i didn't know until today i'm here to inform you uh we all know that the the vaccinations um uh could wear off correct um we all know that the vaccinations could wear off and that antibodies can can diminish over time right so i think whether you got the you were infected or you got vaccinated i think your antibodies decrease over time but is that the problem that you think it is if you hear that your antibodies are decreasing over time what does that tell you about your risk tells you have a higher risk right but it's not quite as clean as that turns out there are two kinds of resistance let me call i'm going to use non-medical terms here so that it's just simpler there are two ways that um having some kind of uh prior antibodies help you number one is keeping it from getting into your body in the first place and taking hold so there's sort of a initial defense that keeps you from getting in the first place and that will decrease over time which means that your initial defense will let it in you you will more likely after the immunity goes down you will more likely catch it but here's the part i didn't know there is a second type of immunity which doesn't decrease the same way so the first kind which is you're going to get it could decrease to the point where you get it but the other kind has much more lasting um you know permanence and the other kind is the kind that keeps you from dying so the good kind we got because it's keeping you from dying the other kind where it's keeping you from getting it in the first place isn't working which is good news or bad news is that good news or bad news suppose you took a vaccination and your ability to catch it went down but your ability to prevent serious illness was still solid is that good or bad i think it's good good ish because the end point is we all get vaccinated and we also get the infection we just get to the end point faster now you don't want it to rage you know out of control and crash your hospitals and stuff like that so you want your good news to you know be moderate good news you don't want great good news because things would happen too quickly so there's a rate of change that's important but did we lock into this imagine if you could have uh designed this on paper would you have said let's vaccinate and people are just good they're just vaccinated they won't get it or would you have chosen to vaccinate people in a way that they would still get infected so that they could get the natural immunity but it won't kill them i'm not so sure this wasn't perfect are you can you tell me that you know this is worse because i can't tell somebody says it's a bad analysis do better do better raise your game i'm not saying i'm right i'm asking the question but your criticism needs to be better than that just give me a reason some kind of a any any kind of indication um it's all good until they're forced yeah that's a separate question yeah we can't tell if it's good news or bad news isn't that weird it's one of the most gigantic factors in our environment right now and we don't even know if it's good news or bad news the vaccine is a scam bro um okay well that's what i learned today i don't know if i got that right but look how much smart you are and let's talk teachers unions how we can break them and solve systemic racism well i'll tell you if if somebody wanted to run against trump a republican and they ran on trying to bring in black voters to solve systemic racism via the school system they could win i think i think a republican could beat trump in the primaries by saying i'm going to intentionally try to find where republicans and the black population have the same interest mandates is one mandates and the same interest in reducing systemic racism via the school system same just run on that just run on the stuff you agree on and uh you would be trump in the primaries you should read brave new world it's dystopia created by trying to make everyone safe and happy uh yeah i mean if his writing was better i'd read it or if it wasn't so sad i'd read it i guess um yeah i don't read depressing books that is correct uh how did i get the black nail this was a tragic this was a little black dude a tragic accident involving a window no i didn't close my fingers in a window it was more it was more indirect than that but let's just say window is involved and keep it there um well i think i think trump is running against mandates but he's he's not full-throated on it all right yes let's go brandon um i tried to read 1984 but it was too sad and terrible and i bailed out jill says that she's sure ivor mechtin does work jill you know you don't know that right because it can't be known we don't have data that says it works if you know some anecdotes if somebody got better in two days that's that's most of the people who get coveted most people just get better right away so there should be lots of stories of people who ate a cookie and within 24 hours their coven had subsided how many people let's say stubbed their toe and within 24 hours their covent was totally under control a lot how many people took hydroxychloroquine and within 24 hours their coated was all fine lots millions probably how many people ate a peanut and within 24 hours their cohort was all better millions how many people had a bowl of rice and within 24 hours their cohort was all cleared up a billion i don't know 100 million maybe so i don't care how many people you know who took a drug and it cleared up within 24 hours it means exactly zero the exception would be the monoclonals i think the monoclonal antibodies um i've heard people just feel it you can actually feel yourself getting better while you're taking it so i think that's a different case yeah how many people took ivermectin and their problems did not clear up in 24 hours we don't know yeah and none of those in vitro studies means anything at all it was somebody says it worked for joe rogan can i see in the comments how many people think this is a true statement ivor mechtin worked for joe rogan how many think that's a true statement well one that you can confirm is true yeah unknown is the correct answer but just look at the comments yeah no we don't know which of the many things that joe rogan did made a difference we don't know if any of it made a difference on one person i mean look at joe rogan doesn't he look healthy he looks like he could beat covent without drugs now it would be silly to try under a current condition but if you could pick anybody in the world who could beat coba be covent without drugs i mean he'd be on the top of my list i mean i suppose he could be younger but i mean he's about as healthy as you can possibly get yeah so anybody who thinks that ivor mechtin cured joe rogan or anybody else i can't rule it out but it would be the worst take of all time because there's no evidence that worked and there's lots of evidence that the other stuff does work like the monoclonals for example somebody says i have some ivermectin and we'll definitely take it if infected personal choice personal choice i would neither talk you into that or out of that i would just say i don't have any evidence that it would help you but i don't have any evidence it'll hurt you personal choice less than one percent of those that catch code will be hospitalized that is a shitty data point here's why you should here's the data you should never give anybody if you want to be credible only one percent of people are getting hospitalized now or less than one percent um the number is probably right but there's a pretty big difference between a 12 year old and an 80 year old and if you average the 80 year old's risk of hospitalization with a 12 year old's risk of hospitalization and you get a number that's under 1 percent you have misled people so don't do that that under one percent is a propaganda number it's not a useful number anybody who tells you the odds of hospitalization are under one percent they're part of the propaganda process not part of the information process it's true but you've averaged things together that only an idiot would average together like what's the average age of a frog plus an elephant and then we'll come up with the average age of creatures it's not a thing it's not useful you know average things like that and think you learn something so don't give me the average of people go to the hospital that's a misleading propaganda number if you want to tell me the kids have almost no chance true and if you want to tell me that people over 80 better better watch out true but if you average those two together you're not part of the the real conversation you're you're just propaganda um all right um kids with obesity maybe but i'm not even sure kids with obesity well yeah i guess anecdotally there's enough to worry about there yeah one percent is about four million extra people getting hospitalized four million people all right that's all for now and i will talk to you tomorrow
well good morning ladies and gentlemen
and everything in between it's time for
coffee with scott adams and i think you
know by now it's the best part of the
living experience
uh in fact a lot of a lot of zombies a
lot of dead people ghosts they also
enjoy this program so it's not just for
the living
don't
don't get all you know like you're
special or something you are special but
so are the dead
and if you'd like to take this to the
next level
and i know you're that kind of people
that's who is attracted to coffee with
scott adams edgy people people who are
willing to take it to the limit
and it's time and all you need is a
cover bugger a glass up tanker jealous
dino canteen jug or flask a vessel of
any kind
fill it with your favorite liquid i like
coffee
and join me now for the unparalleled
pleasure
the dopamine here of the day the thing
that makes everything better
it's called the simultaneous sip yeah
have you heard of it it's great and it's
going to happen now if you're ready are
you ready are you are you ready
go
sublime
well i'm wearing the
the swaddling uh blanket of comfort
today
why i'll tell you why in a moment
at the proper time
don't rush me
we're gonna do that at the proper time
issue number one most important issue
possibly in the entire world
leaf blowers
now here's the thing about leaf blowers
you don't really think that's a big
problem right it's minor annoyance
nobody likes to hear a leaf blower
but i'm just going to tell you from my
own experience
i lose an entire work day
every week to leaf blowers
one entire day of creativity and
productivity every week
for my whole adult life
to leaf blowers
am i the only one
anybody else find you actually can't
work when a leaf blower is outside i
actually can't work i i just have to get
up and do something else take a shower
or something
yeah
and the funny thing is i guess they're
being
banned in some places but probably not
banned because of productivity
here's what's different
nobody's ever liked leaf blowers but
usually it's because you're sleeping or
you want to take a nap or you wanted to
just not have any noise by your house
but what happens when everybody's
working at home
if everybody's working at home
the leaf blower is going to take
20 percent of your productivity
it basically kills a day
especially if you have a neighbor
so you get yours
and then then the the neighbor starts in
the afternoon you got a full day of leaf
blower
i think it's actually a gigantic problem
that looks like a small one
because each individual who's bothered
by it just feels like an annoyance and
you don't you maybe you don't complain
to anybody so you've got you know
millions and millions of people are
losing a day of work
nobody knows that it's happening to
other people
i have a feeling
leaf blowers are taking something like i
don't know
two to five percent off the gdp
i mean it could be that big because you
got a lot of people working at home now
especially
well madonna is uh promoting some kind
of documentary or something and if you
see her you know that she's bringing
sexy back
madonna is bringing sexy back
to senior citizens
mostly
and
i asked myself
does there need to be an intervention
because you know the very thing that
made
madonna
amazing
is that she didn't care what you thought
and she was going to do it anyway you
know her uh
her single-minded um i don't know drive
and ambition and all that are really
what made her special what made her
succeed
but
you also have to know when to quit right
you have to no one to hold them and know
when to fold them and i feel like
madonna
has you know she probably has lots
of uh room left on her career but i'm
not sure that playing
the sexy senior citizen was exactly the
right way to play this
you know
i don't know who's advising madonna
but i feel that the advice goes like
this these days
um
you know madonna if you're not not too
busy
i
i've been watching your latest
promotions and
my
just little productive uh
positive read
really not a criticism at all
um i'm just saying that some people not
me not me but some people
um feel as though maybe because your age
and and the weird way you look i don't
mean weird i mean non-standard i mean
better than most people but different
different some people say weird i don't
say it's weird not me but some people
are saying that and they're cruel and
awful but i'm just wondering just
putting the idea out there that baby you
should um i'm saying just just maybe
rethink a little bit
you're
i'm fired
and see
i don't feel as though madonna has good
advice
you know what i mean
i don't feel like she has good advice
clearly there's nobody giving her honest
opinion about what's going on here
like there's nobody in her circle at all
who can just say you know
like i'm the one person you'll listen to
and
maybe
maybe play this a little differently
and i i think what bothers me about it
is i'm such a big fan i'm a huge fan of
madonna always have been and i think
that
she does have a second act if you'd call
it that in the second act yeah well yeah
cher maybe cher went the same way i
think cher did it better
but
i feel like she could be as substantial
as ever
just play it differently you know maybe
play a little more to her substance if
you know what i mean
well you know we've all been making fun
of tick tock and
how uh how it's destroying the world
but i feel like there's a positive
to it
it turns out that one of the things that
tick duck does and you could substitute
instagram and snapchat for the same
conversation one of the things that
tick-tock does is it
keeps all the narcissists busy
now you think i'm gonna make a joke
but watch this
i'm not joking at all
if you've studied narcissism and by the
way i have a history of saying first of
all it doesn't exist
and then becoming a complete convert
it wasn't exactly a change of opinion
but there was a change of understanding
that there's more than one thing called
narcissism so the ones i was saying
don't exist still don't exist
so i was never wrong about what i was
talking about what i didn't know
and this is you know an error on my part
is that the word narcissist is used in
different senses and there's
there's a there's a grandiose narcissist
and there's a vulnerable narcissist and
there's you know some other kinds i
guess
but um
one of the characteristics of
narcissists is that they damage other
people
they damage other people the more time
you spend with a narcissist the more
chance you're going to get damaged
because they do that that's sort of
built into that this is the vulnerable
narcissist not the grandiose
and
to the degree that tick tock
absorbs all of their time
so that the narcissist who would be out
destroying other people
ends up glued to a screen
interacting with other narcissists
to a large extent and i'm wondering if
it actually is helping in some way
because it takes them out of the
it takes them out of the conversation
you know every moment that a
a vulnerable narcissist is on a device
is a moment that they're not bothering
you in person
there's a big sick out
at the where is it the faa i'm not sure
where that is
um so i'm not so sure that this is a bad
thing maybe we've identified and
isolated all the most dangerous people
and we'll have them just talking to each
other
and the other great thing is that
if you understand
narcissists
uh
somebody paid fifty dollars to criticize
me so i'm going to read i'm going to
read the criticism
in full you paid
49.99 just to have this comment be
prominent
it says simulation theory could only
ever occur to a white upper class boomer
living in a mcmansion
but please tell us all about the vax and
tell us again about that one time you
didn't get the promotion because a black
existed
does that sound like
anything so let me do some fact checking
i don't live in the mcmansion
i live in an actual mansion
[Laughter]
so at least get that part
anyway i guess that's a definitional
thing
uh please tell us all about the facts
have i ever done that
have i ever told you to get a
vaccination no this person is
hallucinating it's an actual
hallucination
they imagine them you know telling them
to get a vaccination i guess
and tell us again about that one time
you didn't get the promotion because a
black existed
it was two careers
not one time
it was two careers
in which i invested
a tremendous number of years in time
and really it was more of three it
wasn't two
because i lost two corporate jobs for
being white and male
and and just for your information
my bosses told me that directly
so i'm not reading between the lines
they told me they called me into their
offices with an actual meeting
a specific meeting just to tell me
that i would never be promoted as as far
as i could predict
because i was white and male and they
needed to get some more diversity
so do you think i'm imagining it do you
think i'm making up that conversation
seriously
whoever asked the question for 49
do you think i just made that up
i've been saying it for years and i
worked with um hundreds of people
hundreds and hundreds of people knew me
if you take the
the years i worked at both corporations
hundreds
you don't think any one of those
hundreds of people
by now would have come forth and said
that never happened
there was nothing like that happening in
these companies during those days do you
know why nobody has come forward to say
that that didn't happen
because they all experienced it
it was universal
it wasn't even rare
it was the
very texture of life in those days in
san francisco anyway where i was
now i also lost a tv career
for being a a white guy
on upn
the dilbert comic was running had a
successful first season
and was renewed
but it was renewed in the season that
the upn decided to have uh
to primarily cater to a black audience
which was a pretty good marketing idea i
thought
because it seemed like it was an
underserved population
and they weren't doing so well in
general so i thought well
target a specific audience and that'll
be good
hey wow
okay that was the weirdest text message
i ever got while i'm live streaming
um
so
you paid 49 for the answer there's your
answer
it's a percent real
that white people of my generation were
discriminated against and directly we
were told to our faces we couldn't be
promoted
did you know that
and by the way that's why i identify as
black
number one because i can
i can identify as black because those
are the rules right you can identify
with whatever you feel
the most connection to
and because i've been massively racially
discriminated in my life
massively i mean those are really big
examples
two careers and a tv show
that's a lot of discrimination
right and it's not my mind these are
very direct obvious discriminations
and so
when i
when i talk about uh you know maybe
there is a way we can think of
reparations when i talk about improving
education for the black community when i
talk about all the things trump did for
you know enterprise zones and
and other things that were good for the
black community i actually mean it
because i do have legitimately
a connection to that community now a
million differences obviously
but in the most
critical part
i want to swear really badly but i'm not
going to do it the most critical part of
life
can you get a job
we had the same experience
we meaning
anybody who was discriminated against
especially the black population same
experience
couldn't get a job or keep a career or
get promoted in my case for your race
in america
so yeah that's a real connection
and i'm really mad about it
because nobody should have to experience
that
now at the same time i also think
society had to do something about
diversity probably had to do something
it was just bad for me
happened to be bad for me personally all
right enough about that
thanks for the question anyway
and by the way if you're imagining that
i'm promoting that you should get
vaccinated that's never happened
so just just check your assumptions this
never happened
i'm wondering if there will ever be a
a free minds movement
you know the way the way there are body
hackers
you know there are a lot of people let's
say health hackers or whatever
who
are sort of organized semi-organized and
they're they're testing all different
things for their physical health you
know trying to i know fast
try to try to take this supplement and
that
and i'm wondering if there will be a
similar thing for
people trying to avoid brainwashing
and persuasion
will there ever be a movement of free
minds
people just trying to figure out
techniques little hacks
to keep them from being brainwashed
i think maybe so
there might actually be like an
organized movement at some point
of people who are using the technology
that they've learned
technology technique i guess i'd say
maybe technique is better
for
finding places that they have bias on
their own
and figuring out how it got there and
figuring out how to get rid of it
maybe
yeah we might have free brains
um speaking of that there was a gallup
poll
uh talking about uh
trusting the news and it turns out that
the democrats during the trump years
their trust in the major media went way
up
substantially higher
more trust in the media during the trump
administration
meanwhile the
independents and republicans had less
trust republicans had 11 percent
dropped to a new low
trusting the media and independence were
in between you know 31
now just think about this
what was happening at the exact same
years
that democrats were getting a far
greater trust in the media than they
ever had before
what was happening
well
the fake russia collusion hoax was
mostly the news
fake news
the fine people hoax happened then the
drinking bleach hoax and lots of other
hoaxes all that everything else
so during a period of unambiguously
massive fake news the kind maybe we've
never seen so much in one time
during the most obvious
grotesque overwhelming fake news period
democrats substantially improved their
trust in the media that
would rate
almost
hard to believe the rate at which they
were being lied to and their trust
increased substantially
at the same time the republicans
decreased
what happened
what happened
is it just they were hearing what they
wanted to hear
ah that's probably a lot of it right
a lot of the fake news went their way
as long as the fake news went their way
they're good with it
love this fake news this is agreeing
with me like crazy hey i thought trump
was crazy and now the news says trump is
crazy
feeling pretty good about myself
being all right like that and everything
but here's another uh factor
what is it that makes people believe the
news
and what is it that makes something
viral and makes it the news
what is what is the quality of a story
that makes it really really big news the
one you really pay attention to what one
quality of that story
makes it the thing you can't look away
from
it's not true
that's the primary quality that makes
you watch the news
that is not true
if it were true it wouldn't be
interesting
sorry
reality just doesn't serve up an
interesting story every day it fits into
this little box
but lies do you know you can always fill
the space with a lie
so there is a real thing um an observed
effect
that the less likely it is to be true
the more attention it's going to get
because it's more provocative that way
so democrats were
were just uh
basically gassing themselves with their
own face fake news and loving every
minute of it apparently
um here's
do you want to hear the most disturbing
story of the day
one one that you will you won't even
know what to say
this will be so disturbing
that
you're you'll be at a loss for words
so that's my challenge
um
uh eric i will take that advice
um
most disturbing story dr eli david on
he tweets this i'll just read you his
tweet so that i don't get anything wrong
right he says this week so he works in
a.i i guess
and
writes about it he said this week i
interviewed a bright ai researcher
working for one of the biggest
pharmaceutical companies
and man do i wish i knew the name of the
company
and you will too in a moment right so
it's an ai researcher who worked for a
big
pharma company i asked him why he wants
to leave his current position so he told
me the story
his team had developed an accurate ai
model predicting whether one of their
expensive drugs would be effective for a
patient or not
you know as you know not every drug
works with every patient the same way it
could have a genetic
component maybe some other components
i'm not sure what the ai took into
effect but apparently they got really
accurate results and they could tell you
in advance whether you should take this
drug now this is great right
how great is this if you knew in advance
a drug wouldn't work for you you
wouldn't waste months taking a drug that
wasn't helping
and then you would have maybe
you had a greater chance of getting onto
a drug that does help or something that
helps
so
huge development i mean wow
what a step forward in our ability to
give people the right
medicine so there an ai model that can
predict whether an expensive drug will
work that's big stuff
this should have been a like a world
headline right i mean it's so important
so how'd it go
well not the way you hope
not the way you hope
so he developed this model and then the
implications are dramatic instead of
wasting a whole year taking the pill to
find out it doesn't work
ai predicts in advance
the efficacy for each patient
so how did the company react this is
still in the tweet from dr eli david
they asked them to delete the project
and never mention it
to anyone
the ai model would strip them of huge
profits
generated by millions who take the drug
and find out it's not effective for them
better let them suffer and uh
pay the company instead
what do you even say about this
well the first question you should ask
is is it true
right i just told you that
fake news is a big problem you already
knew that
is it even true
is it
what
there is one problem with the story
right
a little bit too
on the nose
isn't it
because isn't it exactly what you expect
right
so it's a little a little too on the
news
what's the second part of the story
that should raise a red flag
second part of the story that raises a
red flag let's see if anybody gets it
uh what would raise a red flag in this
story
that he wouldn't tell anyone well he did
tell someone but he quit to do it
allegedly
um
ai model that works here
that is a wonderfully cynical but
accurate
comment somebody said that the strangest
part of the story that should tip you
off is fake is that somebody made an ai
model that works
that's not a bad comment right there
yeah i'm going to endorse that one
yeah somebody made an ai model that
works
really
i mean i'm sure it's happened
but you know right there you're gonna i
don't know it's kind of hard
um
are you missing
there you go
you're almost there
somebody said rogue doctor you know
whenever there's the rogue doctor you
know you have to
you should put the odds of them being
right at very low but it's not a rogue
doctor it's an ai person so a little bit
different
didn't name the farm well
probably did name the farmer to the
pharma company to the
uh the writer
anonymous
okay okay we don't know if he's
anonymous by the way
uh
yeah we don't know that the the tweet
doesn't name him but i don't know if he
will always be anonymous but that's that
is exactly the right thing you should be
looking at
thank you thank you we got the right
answer here from bear wires
disgruntled employee
do you believe disgruntled employees
ever
do you know how often
you should take what a disgruntled
employee says as just just fact
you know there's no context left out
boom
that's a fact
how about never
never would be a good time to take a
disgruntled employee's opinion how about
never
about not one time ever
now it doesn't mean they're always wrong
i'm just saying that in terms of
credibility
it's kind of zero
right again doesn't mean they're wrong
that's it's a right or wrong is a
separate question
from whether it's the na it's the kind
of thing you should believe when you
hear it
i'm saying it's the kind of thing you
shouldn't believe when you hear it
it has that nature
disgruntled employee
not named company isn't aimed
an ai model that works
a little too on the news
right now if it's real
and by the way
i don't want to cast any aspersions on
dr eli david i have no reason to think
that uh you know he would have the story
wrong or anything like that so i'm sure
that the person he talked to is a real
person that he really talked to who
really worked for a big pharma i'm sure
he did you know the basic work
so i think the basic questions are
probably true any you know he doesn't
work for a
big media company that maybe is bought
off in some way as far as i know i mean
i guess you could never know huh
but uh suppose that's true
and
how about this let's take this and
extend it
do you think it would ever be possible
to write an ai
you know create an ai that could spot
fake news for you
what do you think
could you ever write an ai program
that would help you spot fake news
fairly accurately maybe not every time
yes
the answer is absolutely just wouldn't
do work every time
how do i know that an ai could do that
because we just did it
we just did it right here
we just came up with several
objective standards that an ai could
just remind you of
it's an anonymous source
it's a disgruntled employee
it's a um unusual claim that ai works
yeah i'm exaggerating a little bit there
but
you know if this ai worked as well as
reported it would be quite a surprise to
me
that somebody got that done
um and then there's the question of
whether it's too on the nose
could an ai
identify a story that was too on the
nose
not directly
but it could do it by a pole of humans
it could ask humans hey does this story
match pretty much your suspicions
or does it not match
the suspicions you already had
and if the ai finds out that a whole
bunch of people go oh yeah that's
exactly what i expected
then the ai can say oh i have now
demonstrated it's a little bit too on
the nose
it's a little bit too exactly what you
thought was going to happen isn't it
it could also look at the sources
the ai could say okay
fox news says it's true or false and cnn
says it's true or false
and if unless both of them agree on the
facts
it's probably fake news
just an objective standard if the left
and the right don't agree on the basic
facts
don't assume it's true
because the stuff that is fact like a
hurricane really hit
it's the same on every every news
the ones that you know are true are the
same on every news it's only the ones
that aren't true where one news item
will report it differently
all right so wait for that ai could uh
spot fake news i believe it could also
spot new fake news by the wording of the
stories
and also the outlets that carry it
because they could identify which
outlets have had the most fake news
might be some subjectivity about
seeding that information but you could
watch it over time alberta could also
determine fake news from the wording of
the people who talk about it
don't you think
because the way people write about stuff
is almost a fingerprint right
when people are writing fake news
stories i'll bet you there's a signature
in there somewhere a pattern
a way they talk about things that's
different
i'll bet and i'll bet ai could find it
well the monster is back under the bed
you you thought there was no monster
under the bed oh there's a monster under
the bed
but only if you're an anti-trumper
because the monster is
trump's back
well he's been back for a while but it's
increasing he did did a rally in iowa
he's not announcing but uh he's sort of
walking us up to the line of announcing
um we need frame checkers oh that's
that's a good way to say it more than
fact-checkers we need to see that the
story is framed correctly somebody says
tim poole is doing something like that
i don't know about that effort but i've
i've been hearing about it in the
comments
so trump's back and the news is uh happy
and horrified
because i got something to talk about
but they're horrified i tell you they're
horrified
and i guess trump is doing this trick
again where he's putting the blacks for
trump who are wearing the t-shirts to
say blacks for trump behind him on the
stage
i feel like it's time to get rid of that
now
when he was running the first time and
he and he did that
i said well at least it's visual and you
know people could see some diversity
back there and that probably works in
his favor
but obviously it looked a little
artificial
right no nobody thought that they just
spontaneously showed up and got good
seats right
even though you knew it was artificial
because it was visual
it probably still worked
that was my my take it was obviously
political and fake
but a lot of things that politicians do
when they run is political and fake
so i mean that's baked in so it was
political and it was fake but maybe it
worked just because it was visual
yeah whether they were paid or not it
probably
still was a good look
but not anymore i mean i feel like it's
just so obviously
i don't know it just doesn't look
genuine slightly
and
i feel like it's just maybe working
against him right now
pandering man or
i don't know
a little too on the nose
uh
i don't know it just it's a little
cringy now
um there was a trending hashtag that
said uh
civil war is coming
i think this was probably a trump
supporter or something
it was one person that started trending
on
on social media let me give you a
prediction civil war is now coming
the civil war is not coming we're not
even close
there's nothing like that coming
yeah lots of protesting and complaining
and you know we might be even more
divided but no there's no civil war
coming
do you know why
you don't want it
but you don't need another reason
the reason that there's no civil war
coming is that not enough people want it
if we were anywhere near a lot of people
wanting it well then maybe
but no we're nowhere near it don't worry
about it
um
mike pompeo is making noise as if he's
going to primary trump run against them
what do you think about that
i have two thoughts
thought number one
i feel like that i feel like the
republicans should run a primary
what do you
think i think given just the age of
trump alone and you know the
controversy which he's created
i think he needs to be primaried
for the good of trump
as well as the nation
because i think trump needs to beat the
field again
to really
have that legitimacy that he had the
first time
now i think he can do it i think he
would i think he would beat the field
again but
i don't know i think maybe the system
requires it this time
you know if he were a less controversial
character and younger because age i
think has to be factored in um then i'd
say no he's you know he's earned he's
placed at the top
and i think he's earned his place at the
top but just for the benefit of the
voters
i'd like i'd like to have him stress
test a little bit you know make sure he
can still deliver if he can he can
right if he can he can
and the indication is it looks like he
can
so i would suspect he'd win a primary
but i feel like the system requires a
little little push
you know you need a little competition
in the system
uh pompeo i don't have a
strong opinion about him one way or
another
um i think afghanistan will hang over
him
um
i don't know
he's smart
he can communicate well
i just don't think he brings brings the
sizzle you need a little more sizzle
um
so jim acosta is doing this uh
opiniony
thing on cnn now
and here's the thing that
you have to be bothered by
when you watch fox news
the person reading the news is obviously
a newest person
and the people doing the opinion stuff
are obviously opinion people
and you really don't get them confused
right nobody thinks hannity is a hard
news guy he's an opinion guy tucker
tucker carlson same thing
but cnn likes to
likes to have that a little bit more
gray so here's jim acosta famous for you
know covering the white house under
trump so you think of him as the news
guy
but now he's gone full opinion at least
on this show
that feels dangerous to me
i don't think you should
just as a production note
if you're in the news business i think
your news people need to be walled off
from your opinion people a little bit
having your news guy do opinion
i feel like people are going to take
that as news a little bit more than they
would if it were someone else so just
something to watch for
not a big problem but something to keep
an eye on
and he says things like this he's
talking to his guest he goes
uh i guess it was yang
and he said
tucker carlson i mean let's just say
he's a bad person
and he goes on claiming that he spouts
off white nationalist talking points
which i don't think he does by the way i
think that's a unfair statement he does
say things
that are compatible
with what other people that
are controversial and
you know you think should be condemned
and i think should be condemned
but
just the fact that you know we humans
have a lot in common with each other
yeah everybody's going to have something
that's in common with a group they don't
like
don't you think that would apply to
everybody
do you do you think that biden doesn't
say some things that some bad people
agree with
i'm sure i'm sure he says things that
bad people agree with
does that make biden a bad person
it doesn't really work that way just the
fact that bad people agree with you on
some part of what you say that doesn't
accrue to you
it is not your fault
that people you think are bad agree with
some small part of what you say
it doesn't work that way
all right
uh the american medical association
um has a note about ivermectin and it's
it's uh
informing doctors how to respond if
their
clients their patients ask them for
ivermectin
and it goes on to say that ivermectin is
not proven
and that
as an unproven drug
um you know
maybe don't recommend it but instead
recommend this
here's the weird part
so the ama says we don't have evidence
that ivermectin works
so therefore they're not recommending
that it be prescribed but they are
saying that if you're if your patient
wants it
you should refer them to one of the
ongoing ivermectin trials
um
um
why am i confused now
weren't we told that
ivermectin definitely doesn't work
by the medical community
i i thought we knew that right
am i wrong
isn't the established medical community
i know you might have different opinions
and there are rogue doctors etc but
isn't the established view
that ivermectin has been proven to not
work
as opposed to
yeah we don't know
isn't that the view and the ama is
saying
well if your patient wants to do it
refer them to an ivermectin trial
what
one doctor who believes that we know it
doesn't work
should tell his patient to take it
anyway for the trial
if he knows it doesn't work
remember it's not wondering if it works
don't they know it doesn't work isn't
that the official belief
if the
if the official belief is that we know
it doesn't work
why are there even trials who's running
these trials
don't you think the people who are
funding the trials should have said by
now
oh darn we already found down it doesn't
work
let's cut the expense of the trial right
now and wind this up there's no reason
to go to a result
because
there's no reason to get a result in the
trial because all the other trials have
shown it doesn't work there's no reason
to finish
is another example where we're clearly
being lied to
we're clearly we the public are clearly
being lied to
because if these trials are happening
it does mean that people with real money
and a lot of it because it's expensive
and people who are real professionals in
this field because who else is going to
do the study
it's going to be professionals
right
if they're not sure
why do you have to be sure
right
if medical science itself isn't sure
why do you have to be sure
that's a little bit
inconsistent all right
now to be clear
as far as i know
the
the benefit of ivermectin has not been
demonstrated
as far as i know
i'm not the expert but i do you know
follow the news as far as i know it has
not been demonstrated
definitely some uh
there are indications
you know there there's plenty of things
that
tell you maybe
i suppose that's why they're doing the
trials
and
and of course given that the risk of it
is low
it appears that we have been more
brainwashed than informed on this topic
hey here's something that i didn't know
until today i'm here to inform you
uh we all know that the the vaccinations
um
uh could wear off
correct
um
we all know that the vaccinations could
wear off
and that antibodies can
can
diminish over time
right
so i think whether you got the
you were infected or you got vaccinated
i think your antibodies
decrease over time
but
is that the problem that you think it is
if you hear that your antibodies are
decreasing over time
what does that tell you about your risk
tells you have a higher risk right
but it's not quite as clean as that
turns out there are two kinds of
resistance let me call i'm going to use
non-medical terms here so that it's just
simpler there are two ways that um
having some kind of uh prior antibodies
help you
number one is keeping it from getting
into your body in the first place and
taking hold
so there's sort of a initial defense
that keeps you from getting in the first
place and that will decrease over time
which means that your initial defense
will let it in
you you will more likely
after the immunity goes down you will
more likely catch it
but here's the part i didn't know there
is a second type of immunity
which doesn't decrease the same way
so the first kind which is you're going
to get it could decrease to the point
where you get it
but the other kind has much more lasting
um you know permanence and the other
kind is the kind that keeps you from
dying
so the good kind
we got because it's keeping you from
dying
the other kind where it's keeping you
from getting it in the first place isn't
working
which is
good news or bad news
is that good news or bad news
suppose you took a vaccination
and your ability to catch it went down
but your ability to
prevent serious illness was still solid
is that good or bad
i think it's good
good ish
because the end point is we all get
vaccinated and we also get the infection
we just get to the end point faster
now you don't want it to rage you know
out of control and crash your hospitals
and stuff like that
so you want your good news to you know
be moderate good news you don't want
great good news because things would
happen too quickly so there's a rate of
change that's important
but
did we lock into this
imagine if you could have uh designed
this on paper
would you have said let's vaccinate and
people are just good they're just
vaccinated they won't get it
or would you have chosen
to vaccinate people in a way that they
would still get infected so that they
could get the natural immunity but it
won't kill them
i'm not so sure
this wasn't perfect
are you
can you tell me that you know this is
worse
because i can't tell
somebody says it's a bad analysis do
better do better raise your game
i'm not saying i'm right i'm asking the
question
but your criticism needs to be better
than that just give me a reason some
kind of a
any any kind of indication
um
it's all good until they're forced yeah
that's a separate question
yeah we can't tell if it's good news or
bad news isn't that weird
it's one of the most gigantic factors in
our
environment right now
and we don't even know if it's good news
or bad news
the vaccine is a scam bro
um okay
well that's what i learned today i don't
know if i got that right
but look how much smart you are
and
let's talk teachers unions
how we can break them and solve systemic
racism
well i'll tell you if if somebody wanted
to run against trump
a republican
and they ran on trying to bring in black
voters to
solve systemic racism via the school
system
they could win i think
i think a republican could beat trump in
the primaries
by saying i'm going to intentionally
try to find where republicans and the
black population have the same interest
mandates is one
mandates and the same interest in
reducing systemic racism via the school
system
same
just run on that just run on the stuff
you agree on and uh you would be trump
in the primaries
you should read brave new world it's
dystopia created by trying to make
everyone safe and happy
uh yeah i mean if his writing was better
i'd read it
or if it wasn't so sad i'd read it i
guess
um
yeah i don't read depressing books that
is correct
uh how did i get the black nail
this was a tragic this was a little
black dude a tragic accident involving a
window
no i didn't close my
fingers in a window
it was more
it was more indirect than that but let's
just say window is involved and keep it
there
um well i think i think trump is running
against mandates but he's he's not
full-throated on it
all right
yes let's go brandon um
i tried to read 1984 but it was too sad
and terrible and i bailed out
jill says that she's sure ivor mechtin
does work
jill you know you don't know that right
because it can't be known
we don't have data that says it works
if you know some anecdotes if somebody
got better in two days that's that's
most of the people who get coveted
most people just get better right away
so there should be lots of stories of
people who ate a cookie and within 24
hours their coven had subsided
how many people
let's say stubbed their toe
and within 24 hours their covent was
totally
under control
a lot
how many people took
hydroxychloroquine and within 24 hours
their coated was all fine
lots millions probably
how many people ate a peanut and within
24 hours their cohort was all better
millions
how many people had a bowl of rice and
within 24 hours their cohort was all
cleared up
a billion
i don't know 100 million maybe
so i don't care how many people you know
who took a drug and it cleared up within
24 hours it means exactly
zero
the exception would be
the monoclonals
i think the monoclonal antibodies um
i've heard people just feel it
you can actually feel yourself getting
better
while you're taking it so i think that's
a different case
yeah how many people took ivermectin and
their problems did not clear up
in 24 hours
we don't know
yeah and none of those in vitro studies
means anything at all
it was
somebody says it worked for joe rogan
can i see in the comments
how many people think this is a true
statement ivor mechtin worked for joe
rogan how many think that's a true
statement
well one that you can confirm is true
yeah unknown is the correct answer but
just look at the comments
yeah no
we don't know
which of the many things that joe rogan
did
made a difference
we don't know if any of it made a
difference on one person
i mean look at joe rogan doesn't he look
healthy
he looks like he could beat covent
without drugs
now it would be silly to try under a
current
condition
but if you could pick anybody in the
world
who could beat coba be covent without
drugs i mean he'd be on the top of my
list
i mean i suppose he could be younger
but i mean he's about as healthy as you
can possibly get
yeah so anybody who thinks that ivor
mechtin cured joe rogan or anybody else
i can't rule it out
but it would be the worst take of all
time because there's no evidence that
worked and there's lots of evidence that
the other stuff does work like the
monoclonals for example
somebody says i have some ivermectin and
we'll definitely take it if infected
personal choice
personal choice i would neither talk you
into that or out of that
i would just say i don't have any
evidence that it would help you but i
don't have any evidence it'll hurt you
personal choice
less than one percent of those that
catch code will be hospitalized
that is a shitty
data point
here's why you should here's the data
you should never give anybody if you
want to be credible
only one percent of people
are getting hospitalized now or less
than one percent
um the number is probably right
but
there's a pretty big difference between
a 12 year old and an 80 year old
and if you average the 80 year old's
risk of hospitalization with a 12 year
old's risk of hospitalization and you
get a number that's under 1 percent you
have misled people
so don't do that that under one percent
is a propaganda number it's not a useful
number
anybody who tells you the odds of
hospitalization are under one percent
they're part of the propaganda process
not part of the information process it's
true
but you've averaged things together that
only an idiot would average together
like what's the average age of a frog
plus an elephant and then we'll come up
with the average age of creatures
it's not a thing
it's not useful
you know average things like that and
think you learn something
so don't give me the average of people
go to the hospital that's a misleading
propaganda number
if you want to tell me the kids have
almost no chance
true
and if you want to tell me that people
over 80 better better watch out
true
but if you average those two together
you're not part of the
the real conversation
you're you're just propaganda
um all right
um
kids with obesity maybe but i'm not even
sure kids with obesity well yeah i guess
anecdotally there's enough to worry
about there
yeah one percent is about four million
extra people getting hospitalized
four million people
all right
that's all for now and i will talk to
you
tomorrow
