Episode 884 Scott Adams - Taking Questions and Solving Pandemics Like it's Nothing

bum-bum-bum hey everybody come on in here it's time for swaddling in a warm blanket with Scott he came to the right place if that's why you wanted to do it's all okay that happened here I've been taking questions on Twitter meaning I tweeted to tell people to ask me questions and I will be answering these questions but first let me give you an idea what's what's new and exciting number one people are starting to wise up to the fad to the fact that masks might be a good idea after all who saw that coming all of us so it's sort of a crazy bizarre thing watching watching our experts slowly start to agree with the public it's supposed to work the other way around right aren't the experts supposed to have a position and then the ignorant public eventually learns what the experts teach them well that would be great except we just did it the opposite way where all the all the non experts when they heard that masks don't help you but they do help professionals but they don't help you you know half of the world who's not an expert said well I'm no expert I'm no expert but I'm pretty sure masks help a little and of course the non experts all right but that doesn't mean you should always listen to non experts just because in this obvious example they are right for example one of the most promising treatments apparently is a Hydrox chloroquine and if you would listen to the experts they would have told you don't get so excited about this but if you'd listened to the non experts let's say Trump himself or or me or many people in Twitter they they had been saying hydroxychloroquine is great so we might find out again whether or not the experts were right downplaying a little bit or other people who don't know anything about anything we're right but that would just be two things I mean you can't make some kind of a big general statement just because it might be that ignorant people were right about two things and experts were wrong about but that's just two things let's talk about those projections because if there's one thing you can count on its that experts are good at projections they're making models if you've been watching me for a while you know I can't stop talking about how accurate complicated projection models are I mean is there anything they can do yes people we don't know do things we don't understand and then they produce graphs these graphs are made by experts and we should trust them but when we saw the graphs there was one Wow just a small quibble that I have but again I'm no expert I'm no expert I it's not like I'm some epidemiologist because I'm not but when I listen to the experts talk about their own graphs one of the little tidbits the dr.

Burks threw in there was that when they were calculating what the curve could be without any abatement you know that the Steep would wear you know two million people might die and then they compared it to the the lower the lower curve or if you do everything right you know you really work hard and do everything right you might be able to get it down to a hundred two hundred thousand people dead and then the good doctor threw in this little tidbit that at first I thought I heard it wrong and she said but of course these numbers read New York in the average so New York which is completely different than anything that's happening anywhere in the country you know there are few other hotspots they have their problems but New York is what half of all the problem and New York is a especially steep curve what kind of an average do you get when you take a whole big country that mostly doesn't have too many problems with a few few little warm spots and then you throw in this one data point that's as big as all of the other data points it's just one city and then you take the average then that's the most worthless number you could ever have and I don't think I'm interpreting this I believe she said that directly criticizing their own graph she wanted us to know quite reasonably wanted us to know that New York was in the average now if you don't you know if you not let's say conversing with modeling and math and spreadsheets and stuff maybe you didn't even catch that maybe you didn't catch that but what would have been the farm or let's say clear would be one model that's just for New York and then another model that maybe is everything else because everything else is so different from New York and then that everything else I think would look a lot lower than their lowest curve and then New York if we try hard and put you know super resources into it well maybe we can get that down as well somebody says she seems credible you know I she's very qualified of course I was listening to it today while I was walking instead of watching it and somebody I'd heard somebody say this just a valley girl up talk and I never noticed it before and I think that when you watch her live you don't hear it the same way but if you hear if you just listen to her she has a voice that does not suggest scientific excellence and you know somebody's gonna say how a big sexist has nothing to do with that you know you could put a man into the same situation it'd be exactly the same comment it's just there's a certain style of talking this sounds authoritative male or female has nothing to do with gender and she she has the other kind but I'm sure she's very very capable everybody knows good things better so but her voice her voice maybe could be a little bit a little bit more professional sounding very small equivalent but anyway that was to whoever said she sounds credible yes she does in terms she sounds credible in terms of expertise of course so here's the thing I'm still going to bet that the number of deaths are lower than their lowest estimate in that if you net out the people who didn't die because we shut everything down which which is gonna be in the tens of thousands probably tens of thousands of people won't die in car accidents won't drowned in pool well I don't know about pools but but a whole a whole range of things they won't be getting killed at so I'm still gonna say 5,000 net gross deaths might be exceed that but net I'll say 5,000 now you should not take my estimate to be likely because what do I know I'm just the guy who's been right about okay everything so far but that doesn't mean it's gonna continue all right so is it my imagination or are people definitely being nicer President Trump seems to be modeling a little bit of nicer behavior he was he that had extended interactions with Jim Acosta which was not ideal but you could easily imagine that would have been worse so just watching the president calling Jim Acosta Jim you know he just used his first name a few times and and he did allow him to ask his questions he pushed back but it was all way more polite than you're used to likewise when when we found out that unfortunately Chris Chris Cuomo tested positive for the virus I didn't see anybody acting political or like a jerk I'm sure there I'm sure there were some because it's the Internet but mostly people were just saying you know get well soon and that's exactly what I want to say no time for partisanship all right somebody says only 5,000 were already a 4,000 no listen to me carefully because when you come back and tell me I'm wrong this is the key point we're not at 4,000 net net we're actually negative so at this moment of course this will change but at this moment more people have been saved that have died meaning that people would have died in car accidents if we'd been driving to work etc so we're actually ahead in lives I'm not saying that will last but that's where we are we're actually in negative deaths net 60 hours ago you said 4,000 god I knew this was going to happen everybody's gonna miss remember what I said and then come back to to tell me I'm wrong isn't it bad enough that I'm probably gonna be wrong by a hundred thousand according to the experts ken can you live with that that in theory I should be wrong but like a hundred thousand at least if you're coming back this just a bother the heck out of me if somebody comes back is that you said and it wasn't what I said I know that's gonna happen why am i cranky I just took a nap I just woke up from a nap all right I got some questions here which I will answer Jen Tech sir says do you think drunk now needs a behavioral psychologist on his panel to get us through the anxiety and stress well that's my job that's what I'm here for I'm to get you through your stress is it working I I have to admit I'm losing a little bit of confidence in the experts but you know I think we're in the right path actually Erica says I just need calm I cannot take the press and the hatred and snark anymore will it ever stop well honestly it looks like there's less than ever compared to our normal and B normally they're trying to impeach the president and today they're just you know wondering if he did the right thing as soon as he could have let me think about it it wasn't long ago they were saying he should be kicked out of office and impeached and he was a tool of Russia that's bad what they're criticizing him today for is well you know he maybe eats up a little too much camera time communicating with the public okay that's it you know if you look at the nature of the complaints this week they're very small they're kind of numerous because they need to fill up you know fill up the page and stuff but they're so small he did the right thing and nobody did the right thing faster than any other country by hypothetically had he known what he didn't know he could have done it sooner those are the kinds of the kinds of complaints that people are making there they're not very deep david angel says what makes the virus models any better than the climate change models well I'll tell you David the further out you go in time and the more variables you have the worse your model as a general rule the virus models are really short term they're actually like weeks compared to the climate bottles that are you know decades in 80 years hundred years and I would think that the virus model has far fewer variables I think right I mean I haven't looked at it in that level but you think virus model they're just gonna say I don't know six variables how many could there be whereas the climate seems more like infinite variables so I'm not saying the virus models are correct but I do think you know the the experts and Trump and foul Qi they had the worst time tried to explain to the public this simple concept and it was making me crazy because they kept repeating it over and over and you're probably already sick of it which is that the models don't tell you what's going to happen they tried to explain this a million times now because I've done lots of financial modeling you know I'm awesome at eclis on that page the the model the prediction doesn't tell you what's going to happen it's going to it's going to tell you sort of directionally where things will go is it real bad is it a little bad in you know if you make this kind of change you'll sort of generally go that way they're very very approximate so the models are doing doing their job as scaring people to you know to comply but I wouldn't look for accuracy even even the short term they are have her useful so who is it who said no prediction somebody said something like there's a famous quote like no predictions are accurate but all predictions are useful all right there's something like that I mean no law Jody says I'm in New Orleans too drove around to different hospitals they all appear dead ghost towns why I don't know I I would think that all the activity is going to be concentrated in a few hospitals so maybe it was a different Hospital I know what ratio of doctors to beds are needed that's good question what would you think with knowing anything you know if we just had the gas how many beds let's let's say that means patients how many patients can one doctor handle that's a good question isn't it I have no idea because he obviously depends but if let's say you were taking the average of these Cove in 19 patients you know and you averaged an accident number need ventilation and X number don't nobody could one doctor handle let's say you know in any given day during an emergency 50 because remember they're working long hours and they're really hitting it you know they're not dawdling so maybe one doctor could do 50 is that way too high or way too low I have no idea pancakes or waffles neither my opinion on today's briefing I thought I thought the beginning of the briefing was very strong and you Trump's part in particular he did very well I thought it went too long and maybe he took too many questions and that it seemed to look at all the estimates for how many patients the doctor can handle 30 to 110 you know all kinds investments all right so I think the president probably should have kept that a shorter but it was generally good let me tell you what they are still failing at completely so the the members of the press they're so weak compared to the government now I don't know if that's just because of the era of Trump or whatever but they're asking all these questions of the administration and the administration is just not answering them and it goes like this this form of the question how many ventilators do you think we'll need and how many do we have you know including the ones that are coming that's like the whole question right you could ask that same question again forum asks how many do we need how many do we have coming you know I mean you could add a little detail but that's basically I write and for each of the different components the hydroxychloroquine and the reporters keep trying to ask that question in all kinds of forums and even one of them was smart enough to say shouldn't there be somebody whose job it is just to be measuring that stuff so that everybody knows what we have and what we need and report it out which is of course exactly what I've been saying for a while that Mike Pence's answer is that we have that person and he named the person works for FEMA yes you know we have exactly that person you do you do because it doesn't look like you have that person if you have that person when they ask that question you would have an answer and even if the answer was approximate for example you might say some people think we'll need as many as 60,000 ventilators others think it might only be 40,000 that's fine that's fine that's telling you something and then you go on to say we've you know we know that we have let's say 20,000 ventilators if you added up all the the people who are trying to make them and promising we don't know if they'll meet their commitments but if you just added what they were promising we should be up to 45,000 within three weeks how hard would it be again you could be way off but it's more than we know now I mean it would at least let's say the numbers were something like that we need 60,000 but it might be only 40,000 we've got 20,000 into warehouses and commitments for another 25,000 wouldn't that do you don't think anybody could have pulled those numbers together and just told us there could be that they're lying to us the way they lied to us about the masks the way they lied to us about the hydroxychloroquine it could be a shortage situation I don't know so maybe they're still just intentionally not telling us but I would say this is just a gigantic glaring flaw that the press is totally letting them get away with and I don't know if the press just doesn't know that it should be reasonably easy to do I don't know it's a big mystery where they're not pushing on that but you know I've been giving it a little time because pence did say that they are querying the hospitals to get exactly this kind of information it could be it just takes a few days if it's like everything else in the world you can't do it overnight but it's been a few days and I'd like to see at least I don't know one number like well we got the masks number we're still working on the other I don't have confidence if I'm not seeing those numbers produced pretty quickly well everything Ian says well anything ever be done about the obvious corruption of the World Health Organization well I don't know but I'd certainly be amazed if we continued to fund them wouldn't you I mean I maybe they do some things that are so important that we have to anyway but after this situation where the world's North health organization seems to have been completely a bad actor they weren't even just worthless they were actually a bad actor and may have caused a lot of deaths so I don't know how we would continue to fund them but we'll see what percent are you so this is what percent certainty I guess Mastiff auxins rest that will see some sort of attacked by a foreign country while we deal with the cove in 19 here at home I would say none the odds that a foreign country would attack us under these circumstances or none because first of all who attacks the United States right you know who would intentionally ever attack the United States nobody what was the last time somebody somebody who had a standing army let's say don't let's not terrorists but somebody you could find like with a real government attack the United States I mean really when was the last time so no that's not gonna happen best investments for a 1 2 3 .

well I don't give investment advice but I will tell you this generic thing which is diversification is good and I personally have my money in you know the bulk of it in fortune 500 fund you know just an unmanaged fund of American companies so that way I don't have to pick winners and losers I'm basically betting on America and I would think that in our current situation as whatever you think will happen to America we're probably going to get through this better than anybody else I think so if you had to put your money in a country it's still kind of America we're still America even as big as the budget deficit is and everything else it's still better than the alternatives what the hell is up with the CDC good question say Jenny Smith says will you comply as Bill Gates suggests with an electronic certificate identifying antibodies in order to travel I would yeah I would there's lots of things that I would do in an emergency situation that I wouldn't do in an ordinary situation but yeah if I had to basically be tagged as somebody who had recovered so I could travel yeah why not I mean it would just be for my own benefit that I would have this extra power that I could travel Dave says tell us about the pranks you alluded to in your book can't tell ya I can't tell ya I'll tell you one prank though was it's not one of the ones I alluded to but in my first long-term relationship many years ago I was living with a woman and every every night she would I think she used them to I know take off makeup or something these little cotton balls so she'd have a a bag that she would buy with a big ol bunch of cotton balls now the thing about cotton balls is that when you take one end of the bag it still looks like the bag is full you can actually take quite a few balls out before you could convince yourself that any have even left the bag I don't know they're expanding or whatever it is so one day Pam was her name she mentioned so yeah oh geez it seems like you know this it's like an infinite bag of cotton balls every time I take one now it seems like you can't even tell the difference and from that day on I went to the store and I bought my own bag of cotton balls and every day I was very dedicated every day I was walking and I would take I think she would use two a day or something it would take two cotton balls and in my bag and put it in her bag so for months and months and months she's taking two bags at two cotton balls out of her bag and it never goes down I think I think I read this praying for like a year I got like a full year and she never knew that her cotton balls were always replenished anyway I'm very dedicated to my pranks how to fight through frustration with learning new stuff I've been stuck in the same project for two days well I I don't know I'm not maybe not the best one to ask because I very much dislike that period where you're confused and you can't figure out how to do something I'll tell you the tricks I use I mean one trick is to make sure you get get a lot of sleep there are simply things you can solve after you a good night's sleep that you just can't when you're tired so that's one thing another thing is ask some other people what they do you know check the You.

Tube videos and then just keep keep chipping away at it yeah there are a lot of things that it seems like it's impossible to learn until you do so just keep chipping away film Ladd says if you were governor of New York I'm not gonna read the rest of this you know David David says should Twitter personalities who are you talking about David should Twitter personalities without mathematics the science or engineering degrees be allowed to criticize probabilistic ependymal and ependymal law epidemiological models they obviously don't understand I think that's directed at me David well let me put it this way when the epidemiologist says we through New York in the numbers I don't really have to be an epidemiologist to know that they should have been separated all right so the answer is apparently yes I should as a Twitter personality I should criticize that for what it's worth I did that kind of work for a living all right um what portion of the people dying are from assisted living facilities that got infected before the shutdown you know the general question is we don't know who's dying and why and I've asked this question which is how many doctors who took the hydroxychloroquine before getting anything how many of them have been hospitalized and ventilated I'll bet it's zero that's the dog that doesn't bark in there that I believe the doctors taking that drug to protect themselves may or may not be getting the the virus because I think you could still get it but that it would be trivial if you did so I'm predicting that nobody who's been taking it for a while and then then got exposed will be ventilated we'll see what talents tack do you recommend learning to prepare for a post corona world well I wouldn't be a restaurant server so restaurants are going to be tough for a while I would say podcasting would be good and anything that you can do at home might make a difference so I think the real answer that was you should add to your talent stack whatever makes sense with what you're good at and you're what you already have so you should build it based on your specific situation okay then the number the number Canadia the numbers we see for confirmed cases be taken seriously I don't know what seriously means but you've got to take all of the numbers you're saying every estimate every ratio every raw number you just really have to be skeptical of it all and I don't see that changing there's been a steady drumbeat of outrage of the rest of the minister in Florida I don't know that story was that somebody who refused to do social distancing was that the the guy who was driving round and driving people to his church or something I don't remember the story all right do you think this pandemic spirits will sway any was view on the role of the government in health care yes I do I do I think that the odds of some kind of major healthcare restructuring that somehow is informed by this or influenced by it is very high because this is such a big health care event that it should it should start you know influencing all of the ways we think about health care in general now predicting exactly how that comes out what would be the hard part but what it influenced it probably asks not guaranteed but probably yes does the kovat virus attack testicles as Alex Jones suggests well when it comes to testicle related science I do go to Alex Jones for my my testicle news and I believe that in this case Alex Jones is compatible with the science now again everything you read about anything in this situation is such his suspect but I can tell you I did read an article that looked credible that said some number of people had testicle damage from it apparently it's been harder than women in general and then it could affect your testosterone production which does make you it does make you think that would be like the perfect weapon imagine a virus that just made the other side not as aggressive what about that that'd be quite a weapon do you think Trump was pacing the American public at the outset Nemec it looked to me like he knew a lot of people would reject the ideas in other words the idea of closing everything down and I think in socially isolated so he paced us meaning he he acted the way we acted until he needed to tell us to act differently and then we followed him I don't think he did that intentionally but that's what happened I do thank you I do think that the president's credibility went up because we saw the journey yeah we the journey was public you know in public he was like well let's get back to work you know let's push it maybe go back a little earlier than the experts say but let's do that and then we watched the we heard the story of the experts coming into the Oval Office showing him the numbers and then he changed his mind and so because we saw the whole journey it makes you actually feel confident it's like oh that's kind of maybe what I would have done in that situation so I think he handled at least the decision-making and yeah I think you could make this distinction I would say the decision-making is very good Trump's decision-making but you know there's always something to quibble about the communications and little stuff well the next two weeks be as bad as Trump suggests well again doesn't it really depend if this hydroxychloroquine works because if they if they start giving to people I guess three days ago and I don't know what percentage of people are getting it and then what at what phase of their symptoms but if we started going a little bit more aggressively on that the next two weeks could be worse than we're seeing but maybe not a catastrophe maybe not so there's I would say there's a solid 50% chance that there's well there's no chance that the next two weeks will be good you can rule that out so there's no chance that you know just nobody dies but the odds of it being a you know the nightmare scenario I think no more than 50/50 and you know I told you I'm betting on the low side why did you block Larry des liberal he loves you in this good fun in the worst of times larry was DMing me multiple times per day his tweets you know so that I would see them and retweet them and I don't mind retweeting stuff but I don't like people sending me multiple teams a day asking me to retweet stuff so it was only because I'm it was causing me work so it was nothing personal he's very funny all right do you see home values following due to job loss yes of course yeah home values will fall that's there's no doubt about that how should have virus prediction modeling been presented well I think I talked about that should we send billions to Israel every year when we have thousands of homeless here you know the whole Israel question that's not a it's not a fair question you know the the money you spend on one thing isn't the money that you would have spent on another thing it just sort of doesn't work that way so the first part is the question is not fair you should say should we should we spend any money on Israel yes or no just by itself you don't say and we could have used that money too keep somebody live that it doesn't work that way because you could have borrowed money to keep that other person alive if that was a priority but to ask you a question my understanding is we give them foreign aid which we force them to use to buy our military stuff so really it's like we're giving it to our own military-industrial complex it only seems like we're giving it to Israel pros Emma says do you love trans women yes I do I love I love all people Dave said should we boycott 18t for supporting their fake news companies CNN I'm not the boy cat guy I just you know I get why people get mad they want to buy a boycott but I just don't think that's there just yeah it's not not the way I'd go for anything flower child 99 says what do you think of dr.

Shiva's taken the virus he thinks ouchies in bed with big pharma so to speak pushing vaccines over boosting our national immune health and testing of vitamin A which should be done regularly but isn't well I don't know how I could weigh in on a medical question but I will say that if if it's a question of things which have passed scientific muster we should look at them and if it's something that hasn't then doctor foul she's on strong ground and I don't know if I don't know that's vitamin A been looked at so I can't ask I can't give you a good answer on it talk about the infrastructure bill you think it will really happen you know if we were a rational species and a rational time it would happen because I don't think there's anybody on the left or the right who doesn't recognize that it's just sort of a good idea if ever you were gonna do an infrastructure bill do it now couldn't couldn't be a better time because of the economic stimulus and the fact that we need it and the fact that the moment people are willing to work together basically every single condition you would want we have so if you can't get it done now you know when can you get it done so but I I am skeptical that you know we could create a lot of jobs that way but it might feel people feel like things are going to the right direction yeah that whole shovel shovel-ready thing that never seems real to me simulation question do other people exist in your simulation or are they just a simulated person to entertain you well of course there's no way to know the answer but let me speculate if we are a simulation we either just live independently as you know you you're a simulation and I'm a software simulation too but we could also be avatars that some other creatures are using to experience our game-like world now if it's that one where there are avatars who are inhabiting us it could be this some of us have an avatar or some of us have a creature inhabiting us and some of us don't so that's one possibility the other possibility is that only one of us is real even in the simulation there's only one sort of main character and then everything else is scenery so that's possible or that some of us are real and others are backgrounds and NPCs as they say so I think any of those are possible at least at least you can't prove they're not true mike says can you give us an update on interface by one hub and well here's the thing it's sort of a perfect tool to be using in this situation one my startup has an app called interface where any expert can sign up to take a phone call and charge for it or not charge for it so it's the not charge for it if you want to part that's important you so it's a video call with somebody that you can easily find the app who has expertise and is available for a certain thing now it's exactly what you need for tella telehealth experts of all kinds in this situation but I've just not felt commercial these last several weeks the thought of selling something even if it's something that people want and just my I don't know I don't have the fire for anything that's just commercial at the moment my my focus is more on the on the emergency but that said it is also a perfect tool so if there are any individual doctors they can just sign up and just you know if they could tweet it out and say I'm on this app and they could charge zero if they want or if they're if they're already socially isolating and you know maybe they tested positive themselves they could just keep being a doctor from whom and you wouldn't need any approvals or anything just sign up for the app is called interface by win hub all right um why haven't you talked about career millionaire politicians who have sold this out to China I guess the implication being that they're on the payroll or something you know I don't know too much about that situation except that it's obvious that China is buying influence everywhere so I don't know what you do about that because whoever has the most money is going to be buying influence and don't you think the United States buys a lot of influence maybe not as aggressively as China let's see the bureau says I bought a special blanket for a swaddle time but wife is making me repaint the whole house and I'm dead tired at 8:00 p.m.

Eastern Time already questioned should I listen to my my body my wife or you well you should listen to me tell your wife be raised missus be raised this is this is message for you you should let your husband swaddle and his new newly purchased swaddle blanket because this is important that house will still need painting later all right should we answer that will you do a live street with me so I can ask you about your childhood well will you ask me about my childhood and why would that matter happy to answer those questions but I don't know I don't know why you'd care where is hunter there's a good question - where's Joe Biden where is Joe Biden Oh calming lessons would you like some lessons on relaxing well I've told you how to relax and I took my long walk today and feeling good do you predict a spike in divorces well it's going to work both ways because some number of people probably we're going to get divorced and this changed the mind and some will think well it's the last straw it's probably a little both good and a doubt - nothing can now find interface by it's it's when hub whe n HUP so it's interface by when hub it's in all the app stores what do you think of the Canadian diagnosis kits I don't know that story well will happen to the travel industry it will be dead for a while but I think that you know people like to travel I don't think that's going to change as soon as they get money again I think I think it'll come back it'll just it's going to be a while will the NFL play I'll bet not if I had to predict I'd say no NFL season that's my guess do you think the new normal looks like I think May first will just be extending whatever we were doing before that I don't think Bay first will be a real change your life day will we fight for gasoline like Mad Max well the good news is I think we got plenty of gasoline it could be super cheap the bad news is that the you know the oil industry might be going into business as simulations very useful to self self hypnotized via narrative fallacy I don't really know what that means when is the John Mc.

Afee interview you know I I was gonna interview John Mc.

Afee and he agreed which would be an amazing interview but he needs to use secure communications so he can't just call in here and he can't call in on Face.

Time him he's got to use Skype and I didn't know how they used I didn't know how to do a split screen with Skype and I just couldn't get the technology to work podcasts do you follow you know I don't listen to a lot of podcasts I end up listening to whatever people recommend people said be podcast all the time to say yeah I gotta listen to this one so sometimes I do why aren't we hearing of Trump properties going to possible bankruptcy it's a good question it's a private company and who knows what they are doing or need to do now a lot of their business is licensing so they don't own the building they've just license their name for it so there's still a problem which is they won't get paid for the licenses if the if the company and the license it goes on to business but it's not like they have a loan so in those cases it's just a stream of income that stops versus having something they owe a lot of money on so but they have some of those too I'm sure do I like Victor David Davis Hanson yeah he's always a good interview and a good great writer do I play chess I play chess with Christina before any of this business started for the first time I hadn't played chess in a million years and it I'm not sure I have the patience for it get Gordon Chang yeah I should what is the secret to the universe well what if the secrets of the universe is that you can program it and that if you learn that then you get everything you want because sometimes it feels like that that that some people have learned how to program the simulation and there are people I know I won't name any examples but there are people I know who can so consistently make things happen that you don't think they should be able to do that that you just wonder about the nature of reality let me tell you a story about the first time I realized how influential I was or persuasive so this is a real story so back in college there was a organization in college called the coffee house and the coffee house was a group that was run by students so the students volunteered to run it and there was a bar on campus so we'd have live music and served I think only beer at the time and some snacks and I volunteered to work there to get some experience managing a thing and that was the Minister of Finance so I was an economic major so I redid the you know the the accounting system and you know became one of these several managers working in this bar environment and it was the coolest job because it was a bar and you know you're 18 and you're in those days you could drink it at 18 in New York so here is the situation we would hire bartenders and then we as a group the the so-called managers would have to fire them if they didn't perform and one of the people that we hired was a close friend of mine so I had talked the managers into hiring a friend and he was the worst employee he would show up an hour late he would he'd be stoned he'd you know do things wrong just the worst employee so so the the other managers put up with him for several weeks and they decided that they were gonna have a meeting and we're gonna fire him so I'm in the meeting in which the managers are talking about firing my friend who I had recommended for the job of being a bartender I decided that I was going to see if I could get them to wait for it instead of firing him that they would agree to make him their boss to make him actually the head of the managers I forget what the title was though but that was open and I didn't want to be the head I wanted to be the one who sort of controlled the head so to speak I didn't want I didn't want that name the title by the one I wanted to have the influence and so I actually said you know what you're saying about him being fired it's all true he really was late and he's really not much of a bartender at all and I don't think he has any of the natural talents that would make a good bartender but you know what he does have and I argued with them they he had a unique talent stack and in use those terms back then but he had a unique set of skills that would make him the perfect head of the organization that was talking about firing him right then so we were literally talking about firing him as a bartender and within 45 minutes I had convinced everybody in the room that we should not fire him and instead promote him to be our own boss and and yeah they said well you know you're still gonna have to I don't know go through a vote or something and I sort of argued in my case and the next thing you know you as fired as a bartender and promoted to all of our bosses that actually happened you know and I tell that story I think has anybody ever been almost fired but instead got promoted to be the boss of the person who was almost gonna fire him I don't think that's ever happened in the history of in the history of the business so you should not be surprised that when I later studied hypnosis and the tools of persuasion that I had a reason to think maybe I had some national talent in that area so it's it's just getting better was it any good at a new job yeah actually I guess that's the punch line the punch line he was actually pretty good as a chairman I think was a chairman it was the title he was actually pretty good we with my help we completely turned the place around and lost money the business had lost money every year every year I had been on campus for you know decades and you know I turned it all around and changed the pricing and fired some vendors and basically it was just a turnaround there and it was making money for the first time so so that happened anyway here's another true story also from college the same friend that I was telling this story about and another one the three of us we would sit in our dorm room and enjoy the things that college students enjoy when they're sitting in dorm rooms okay know what I mean and we would have wild ideas and plans for the future and I came up with this plan I said why don't the three of us be in charge of the whole dormitory yes bombs were were involved that is true and I said we should be in charge of the dormitory instead of having these professional managers so there was like a professional adult who lived there and was sort of in charge and there were these Resident Assistants students who were sort of like that his little army of things they said you know we should just take over we should like be in charge of the dorm the three of us and we hatched this scheme to try to sell to the administration the plan where they would fire the adult and they would pay us actually give us money the three of us to be in charge of the dormitory instead now how high do you have to be to come up with that idea well a year later as I was in my private private room which was available only to student managers the name of the title which we gave it and then we took it and we sold it to the administration and sold it to these students who are coming into the dormitory the next year and we completely redid the the the form of management in the dormitory and I squared it I swear to God I got a private room and I got paid and I also you know we had the students doing the jobs of security and cleaning the longer room and and other stuff and and I took some of those jobs too because yeah anybody could volunteer for him so there were days when I would be working working security at night letting people in and out of the building getting paid for that I'd be doing my homework in between and then when there was nobody there and I was tired of homework I walked across the hall and cleaned the laundry room which I also paid for so I got paid to be a student manager paid to work security and paid to clean the laundry room and I did them all at the same time so I was working three jobs and doing my homework while I was just sort of staying up late so the the three of us we took over years later there were that dormitory still had that that same structure I think they ended up losing it but I was kind of persuasive back in college and those are just the stories I can tell you it was pretty it was it was pretty fun times all right so that's enough of my college stories the only person who who had a better scam in college was one of the other students who worked security for the whole campus so it was a student who a part-time job working security and mostly that meant he had a big walkie-talkie and he would just go around and let people in if it was after the hurricane at the time that the buildings were locked so he would get a call go to a dormitory and let somebody in and he'd walk over and do it but he didn't like doing that so instead he would come to our dormitory and and just party so instead of working and letting people in he would just put his walkie-talkie down and get really high and have a good time with us and then a call would come in it's like Rare you got that got something needs to be let in if they're XY dormitory and you'd be like okay I'm on my way and then you just keep partying there you get another call it's like oh they're still waiting yeah are you on your way it's like oh yeah I'm almost there I'm on my way and they just put it down and you keep partying and then you get a third call it's like I cancel that somebody was leaving the building and let him and he's like oh I was almost there it puts a town and he would just stay there partying with us and everybody was trying to get in a building if they waited long enough somebody was leaving and they would just just go in when somebody left so he would just get paid for lying in his lying to his walkie-talkie it was pretty funny at the time I have to admit all right with that in mind that did I beat Christina in chess I did I believe I did yes and I will talk to you you had the morning

bum-bum-bum hey everybody come on in

here it's time for swaddling in a warm

blanket with Scott he came to the right

place if that's why you wanted to do

it's all okay that happened here I've

been taking questions on Twitter meaning

I tweeted to tell people to ask me

questions and I will be answering these

questions but first let me give you an

idea what's what's new and exciting

number one people are starting to wise

up to the fad to the fact that masks

might be a good idea after all

who saw that coming all of us so it's

sort of a crazy bizarre thing watching

watching our experts slowly start to

agree with the public it's supposed to

work the other way around right aren't

the experts supposed to have a position

and then the ignorant public eventually

learns what the experts teach them well

that would be great except we just did

it the opposite way where all the all

the non experts when they heard that

masks don't help you but they do help

professionals but they don't help you

you know half of the world who's not an

expert said well I'm no expert I'm no

expert but I'm pretty sure masks help a

little and of course the non experts all

right but that doesn't mean you should

always listen to non experts just

because in this obvious example they are

right for example one of the most

promising treatments apparently is a

Hydrox chloroquine and if you would

listen to the experts they would have

told you don't get so excited about this

but if you'd listened to the non experts

let's say Trump himself or or me or many

people in Twitter they they had been

saying hydroxychloroquine is great so we

might find out again whether or not the

experts were right downplaying a little

bit or other people who don't know

anything about anything we're right but

that would just be two things I mean you

can't make some kind of a big general

statement just because it might be that

ignorant people were right about two

things and experts were wrong about but

that's just two things let's talk about

those projections because if there's one

thing you can count on its that experts

are good at projections they're making

models if you've been watching me for a

while you know I can't stop talking

about how accurate complicated

projection models are I mean is there

anything they can do yes people we don't

know do things we don't understand and

then they produce graphs these graphs

are made by experts and we should trust

them but when we saw the graphs there

was one Wow

just a small quibble that I have but

again I'm no expert I'm no expert I it's

not like I'm some epidemiologist because

I'm not but when I listen to the experts

talk about their own graphs one of the

little tidbits the dr. Burks threw in

there was that when they were

calculating what the curve could be

without any abatement you know that the

Steep would wear you know two million

people might die and then they compared

it to the the lower the lower curve or

if you do everything right you know you

really work hard and do everything right

you might be able to get it down to a

hundred two hundred thousand people dead

and then the good doctor threw in this

little tidbit

that at first I thought I heard it wrong

and she said but of course these numbers

read New York in the average so New York

which is completely different than

anything that's happening anywhere in

the country you know there are few other

hotspots they have their problems but

New York is what half of all the problem

and New York is a especially steep curve

what kind of an average do you get when

you take a whole big country that mostly

doesn't have too many problems with a

few few little warm spots and then you

throw in this one data point that's as

big as all of the other data points it's

just one city and then you take the

average then that's the most worthless

number you could ever have and I don't

think I'm interpreting this I believe

she said that directly criticizing their

own graph she wanted us to know quite

reasonably wanted us to know that New

York was in the average now if you don't

you know if you not let's say conversing

with modeling and math and spreadsheets

and stuff maybe you didn't even catch

that maybe you didn't catch that but

what would have been the farm or let's

say clear would be one model that's just

for New York and then another model that

maybe is everything else because

everything else is so different from New

York and then that everything else I

think would look a lot lower than their

lowest curve and then New York if we try

hard and put you know super resources

into it

well maybe we can get that down as well

somebody says she seems credible you

know I she's very qualified of course I

was listening to it

today while I was walking instead of

watching it and somebody I'd heard

somebody say this just a valley girl up

talk and I never noticed it before and I

think that when you watch her live you

don't hear it the same way but if you

hear if you just listen to her

she has a voice that does not suggest

scientific excellence and you know

somebody's gonna say how a big sexist

has nothing to do with that you know you

could put a man into the same situation

it'd be exactly the same comment it's

just there's a certain style of talking

this sounds authoritative male or female

has nothing to do with gender and she

she has the other kind but I'm sure

she's very very capable everybody knows

good things better so but her voice her

voice maybe could be a little bit a

little bit more professional sounding

very small equivalent but anyway that

was to whoever said she sounds credible

yes she does in terms

she sounds credible in terms of

expertise of course so here's the thing

I'm still going to bet that the number

of deaths are lower than their lowest

estimate in that if you net out the

people who didn't die because we shut

everything down which which is gonna be

in the tens of thousands probably tens

of thousands of people won't die in car

accidents won't drowned in pool well I

don't know about pools but but a whole a

whole range of things they won't be

getting killed at so I'm still gonna say

5,000 net gross deaths might be exceed

that but net I'll say 5,000 now you

should not take my estimate to be likely

because what do I know I'm just the guy

who's been right about okay everything

so far but that doesn't mean it's gonna

continue all right so is it my

imagination or are people definitely

being nicer President Trump seems to be

modeling a little bit of nicer behavior

he was he that had extended interactions

with Jim Acosta which was not ideal but

you could easily

imagine that would have been worse so

just watching the president calling Jim

Acosta Jim you know he just used his

first name a few times and and he did

allow him to ask his questions he pushed

back but it was all way more polite than

you're used to

likewise when when we found out that

unfortunately Chris Chris Cuomo tested

positive for the virus I didn't see

anybody acting political or like a jerk

I'm sure there I'm sure there were some

because it's the Internet but mostly

people were just saying you know get

well soon and that's exactly what I want

to say no time for partisanship all

right somebody says only 5,000 were

already a 4,000 no listen to me

carefully because when you come back and

tell me I'm wrong this is the key point

we're not at 4,000 net net we're

actually negative so at this moment of

course this will change but at this

moment more people have been saved that

have died meaning that people would have

died in car accidents if we'd been

driving to work etc so we're actually

ahead in lives I'm not saying that will

last but that's where we are we're

actually in negative deaths net 60 hours

ago you said 4,000 god I knew this was

going to happen

everybody's gonna miss remember what I

said and then come back to to tell me

I'm wrong isn't it bad enough that I'm

probably gonna be wrong by a hundred

thousand according to the experts ken

can you live with that that in theory I

should be wrong but like a hundred

thousand at least if you're coming back

this just a bother the heck out of me if

somebody comes back is that you said and

it wasn't what I said I know that's

gonna happen why am i cranky I just took

a nap I just woke up from a nap all

right I got some questions here

which I will answer

Jen Tech sir says do you think drunk now

needs a behavioral psychologist on his

panel to get us through the anxiety and

stress well that's my job that's what

I'm here for

I'm to get you through your stress is it

working I I have to admit I'm losing a

little bit of confidence in the experts

but you know I think we're in the right

path actually Erica says I just need

calm I cannot take the press and the

hatred and snark anymore will it ever

stop well honestly it looks like there's

less than ever

compared to our normal and B normally

they're trying to impeach the president

and today they're just you know

wondering if he did the right thing as

soon as he could have let me think about

it

it wasn't long ago they were saying he

should be kicked out of office and

impeached and he was a tool of Russia

that's bad what they're criticizing him

today for is well you know he maybe eats

up a little too much camera time

communicating with the public okay

that's it you know if you look at the

nature of the complaints this week

they're very small they're kind of

numerous because they need to fill up

you know fill up the page and stuff but

they're so small he did the right thing

and nobody did the right thing faster

than any other country by hypothetically

had he known what he didn't know he

could have done it sooner those are the

kinds of the kinds of complaints that

people are making there they're not very

deep david angel says what makes the

virus models any better than the climate

change models well I'll tell you David

the further out you go in time and the

more variables you have the worse your

model as a general rule the virus models

are really short term they're actually

like weeks

compared to the climate bottles that are

you know decades in 80 years hundred

years and I would think that the virus

model has far fewer variables I think

right I mean I haven't looked at it in

that level but you think virus model

they're just gonna say I don't know six

variables how many could there be

whereas the climate seems more like

infinite variables so I'm not saying the

virus models are correct but I do think

you know the the experts and Trump and

foul Qi they had the worst time tried to

explain to the public this simple

concept and it was making me crazy

because they kept repeating it over and

over and you're probably already sick of

it which is that the models don't tell

you what's going to happen they tried to

explain this a million times now because

I've done lots of financial modeling you

know I'm awesome at eclis on that page

the the model the prediction doesn't

tell you what's going to happen it's

going to it's going to tell you sort of

directionally where things will go is it

real bad is it a little bad in you know

if you make this kind of change you'll

sort of generally go that way

they're very very approximate so the

models are doing doing their job as

scaring people to you know to comply but

I wouldn't look for accuracy even even

the short term they are have her useful

so who is it who said no prediction

somebody said something like there's a

famous quote like no predictions are

accurate but all predictions are useful

all right there's something like that I

mean no law Jody says I'm in New Orleans

too drove around to different hospitals

they all appear dead ghost towns why I

don't know I I would think that all the

activity is going to be concentrated in

a few hospitals so maybe it was a

different Hospital I know what ratio of

doctors to beds are needed

that's good question what would you

think with

knowing anything you know if we just had

the gas how many beds let's let's say

that means patients

how many patients can one doctor handle

that's a good question isn't it I have

no idea because he obviously depends but

if let's say you were taking the average

of these Cove in 19 patients you know

and you averaged an accident number need

ventilation and X number don't nobody

could one doctor handle let's say you

know in any given day during an

emergency 50 because remember they're

working long hours and they're really

hitting it you know they're not dawdling

so maybe one doctor could do 50 is that

way too high or way too low I have no

idea

pancakes or waffles

neither my opinion on today's briefing I

thought I thought the beginning of the

briefing was very strong and you Trump's

part in particular he did very well I

thought it went too long and maybe he

took too many questions and that it

seemed to look at all the estimates for

how many patients the doctor can handle

30 to 110 you know all kinds investments

all right so I think the president

probably should have kept that a shorter

but it was generally good let me tell

you what they are still failing at

completely so the the members of the

press they're so weak compared to the

government now I don't know if that's

just because of the era of Trump or

whatever but they're asking all these

questions of the administration and the

administration is just not answering

them and it goes like this this form of

the question how many ventilators do you

think we'll need and how many do we have

you know including the ones that are

coming that's like the whole question

right you could ask that same question

again forum asks how many do we need how

many do we have coming you know I mean

you could add a little detail but that's

basically I write and for each of the

different components the

hydroxychloroquine and the reporters

keep trying to ask that question in all

kinds of forums and even one of them was

smart enough to say shouldn't there be

somebody whose job it is just to be

measuring that stuff so that everybody

knows what we have and what we need and

report it out which is of course exactly

what I've been saying for a while that

Mike Pence's answer is that we have that

person and he named the person works for

FEMA yes you know we have exactly that

person you do you do because it doesn't

look like you have that person if you

have that person when they ask that

question you would have an answer and

even if the answer was approximate for

example you might say some people think

we'll need as many as 60,000 ventilators

others think it might only be 40,000

that's fine

that's fine that's telling you something

and then you go on to say we've you know

we know that we have let's say 20,000

ventilators if you added up all the the

people who are trying to make them and

promising we don't know if they'll meet

their commitments but if you just added

what they were promising we should be up

to 45,000 within three weeks how hard

would it be again you could be way off

but it's more than we know now I mean it

would at least let's say the numbers

were something like that we need 60,000

but it might be only 40,000 we've got

20,000 into warehouses and commitments

for another 25,000 wouldn't that do you

don't think anybody could have pulled

those numbers together and just told us

there could be that they're lying to us

the way they lied to us about the masks

the way they lied to us about the

hydroxychloroquine it could be a

shortage situation I don't know

so maybe they're still just

intentionally not telling us

but I would say this is just a gigantic

glaring flaw that the press is totally

letting them get away with and I don't

know if the press just doesn't know that

it should be reasonably easy to do I

don't know it's a big mystery where

they're not pushing on that but you know

I've been giving it a little time

because pence did say that they are

querying the hospitals to get exactly

this kind of information it could be it

just takes a few days if it's like

everything else in the world you can't

do it overnight but it's been a few days

and I'd like to see at least I don't

know one number like well we got the

masks number we're still working on the

other I don't have confidence if I'm not

seeing those numbers produced pretty

quickly well everything Ian says well

anything ever be done about the obvious

corruption of the World Health

Organization well I don't know but I'd

certainly be amazed if we continued to

fund them wouldn't you I mean I maybe

they do some things that are so

important that we have to anyway but

after this situation where the world's

North health organization seems to have

been completely a bad actor they weren't

even just worthless they were actually a

bad actor and may have caused a lot of

deaths so I don't know how we would

continue to fund them but we'll see what

percent are you so this is what percent

certainty I guess Mastiff auxins rest

that will see some sort of attacked by a

foreign country while we deal with the

cove in 19 here at home I would say none

the odds that a foreign country would

attack us under these circumstances or

none because first of all who attacks

the United States right you know who

would intentionally ever attack the

United States nobody what was the last

time somebody somebody who had a

standing army let's say don't let's not

terrorists but somebody you could find

like with a real

government attack the United States I

mean really when was the last time so no

that's not gonna happen

best investments for a 1 2 3 . well I

don't give investment advice but I will

tell you this generic thing which is

diversification is good and I personally

have my money in you know the bulk of it

in fortune 500 fund you know just an

unmanaged fund of American companies so

that way I don't have to pick winners

and losers I'm basically betting on

America and I would think that in our

current situation as whatever you think

will happen to America we're probably

going to get through this better than

anybody else I think so if you had to

put your money in a country it's still

kind of America we're still America even

as big as the budget deficit is and

everything else it's still better than

the alternatives what the hell is up

with the CDC good question say Jenny

Smith says will you comply as Bill Gates

suggests with an electronic certificate

identifying antibodies in order to

travel I would yeah I would there's lots

of things that I would do in an

emergency situation that I wouldn't do

in an ordinary situation but yeah if I

had to basically be tagged as somebody

who had recovered so I could travel yeah

why not

I mean it would just be for my own

benefit that I would have this extra

power that I could travel Dave says tell

us about the pranks you alluded to in

your book can't tell ya I can't tell ya

I'll tell you one prank though was it's

not one of the ones I alluded to but in

my first long-term relationship many

years ago I was living with a woman and

every every night she would I think she

used them to I know take off makeup or

something these little cotton balls so

she'd have a

a bag that she would buy with a big ol

bunch of cotton balls now the thing

about cotton balls is that when you take

one end of the bag it still looks like

the bag is full you can actually take

quite a few balls out before you

could convince yourself that any have

even left the bag I don't know they're

expanding or whatever it is so one day

Pam was her name she mentioned so yeah

oh geez it seems like you know this it's

like an infinite bag of cotton balls

every time I take one now it seems like

you can't even tell the difference and

from that day on I went to the store and

I bought my own bag of cotton balls and

every day I was very dedicated every day

I was walking and I would take I think

she would use two a day or something it

would take two cotton balls and in my

bag and put it in her bag so for months

and months and months she's taking two

bags at two cotton balls out of her bag

and it never goes down I think I think I

read this praying for like a year I got

like a full year and she never knew that

her cotton balls were always replenished

anyway I'm very dedicated to my pranks

how to fight through frustration with

learning new stuff I've been stuck in

the same project for two days well I I

don't know I'm not maybe not the best

one to ask because I very much dislike

that period where you're confused and

you can't figure out how to do something

I'll tell you the tricks I use I mean

one trick is to make sure you get get a

lot of sleep there are simply things you

can solve after you a good night's sleep

that you just can't when you're tired so

that's one thing another thing is ask

some other people what they do you know

check the YouTube videos and then just

keep keep chipping away at it yeah there

are a lot of things that it seems like

it's impossible to learn until you do so

just keep chipping away film Ladd says

if you were governor of New York

I'm not gonna read the rest of this you

know David David says should Twitter

personalities who are you talking about

David should Twitter personalities

without mathematics the science or

engineering degrees be allowed to

criticize probabilistic ependymal and

ependymal law epidemiological models

they obviously don't understand

I think that's directed at me David well

let me put it this way when the

epidemiologist says we through New York

in the numbers I don't really have to be

an epidemiologist to know that they

should have been separated all right so

the answer is apparently yes I should as

a Twitter personality

I should criticize that for what it's

worth I did that kind of work for a

living all right um what portion of the

people dying are from assisted living

facilities that got infected before the

shutdown you know the general question

is we don't know who's dying and why and

I've asked this question which is how

many doctors who took the

hydroxychloroquine before getting

anything how many of them have been

hospitalized and ventilated I'll bet

it's zero that's the dog that doesn't

bark in there that I believe the doctors

taking that drug to protect themselves

may or may not be getting the the virus

because I think you could still get it

but that it would be trivial if you did

so I'm predicting that nobody who's been

taking it for a while and then then got

exposed will be ventilated we'll see

what talents tack do you recommend

learning to prepare for a post corona

world well I wouldn't be a restaurant

server so restaurants are going to be

tough for a while

I would say podcasting would be good and

anything that you can do at home might

make a difference so I think the real

answer that was you should add to your

talent stack whatever makes sense with

what you're good at and you're what you

already have so you should build it

based on your specific situation

okay then the number the number

Canadia the numbers we see for confirmed

cases be taken seriously I don't know

what seriously means but you've got to

take all of the numbers you're saying

every estimate every ratio every raw

number you just really have to be

skeptical of it all and I don't see that

changing there's been a steady drumbeat

of outrage of the rest of the minister

in Florida I don't know that story was

that somebody who refused to do social

distancing was that the the guy who was

driving round and driving people to his

church or something I don't remember the

story all right do you think this

pandemic spirits will sway any was view

on the role of the government in health

care yes I do I do I think that the odds

of some kind of major healthcare

restructuring that somehow is informed

by this or influenced by it is very high

because this is such a big health care

event that it should it should start you

know influencing all of the ways we

think about health care in general now

predicting exactly how that comes out

what would be the hard part but what it

influenced it probably asks not

guaranteed but probably yes does the

kovat virus attack testicles as Alex

Jones suggests well when it comes to

testicle related science I do go to Alex

Jones for my my testicle news and I

believe that in this case Alex Jones is

compatible with the science now again

everything you read about anything in

this situation is such

his suspect but I can tell you I did

read an article that looked credible

that said some number of people had

testicle damage from it apparently it's

been harder than women in general and

then it could affect your testosterone

production which does make you it does

make you think that would be like the

perfect weapon imagine a virus that just

made the other side not as aggressive

what about that that'd be quite a weapon

do you think Trump was pacing the

American public at the outset Nemec it

looked to me like he knew a lot of

people would reject the ideas in other

words the idea of closing everything

down and I think in socially isolated so

he paced us meaning he he acted the way

we acted until he needed to tell us to

act differently and then we followed him

I don't think he did that intentionally

but that's what happened I do thank you

I do think that the president's

credibility went up because we saw the

journey yeah we the journey was public

you know in public he was like well

let's get back to work

you know let's push it maybe go back a

little earlier than the experts say but

let's do that and then we watched the we

heard the story of the experts coming

into the Oval Office showing him the

numbers and then he changed his mind

and so because we saw the whole journey

it makes you actually feel confident

it's like oh that's kind of maybe what I

would have done in that situation so I

think he handled at least the

decision-making and yeah I think you

could make this distinction I would say

the decision-making is very good

Trump's decision-making but you know

there's always something to quibble

about the communications and little

stuff well the next two weeks be as bad

as Trump suggests well again doesn't it

really depend if this hydroxychloroquine

works because if they if they start

giving

to people I guess three days ago and I

don't know what percentage of people are

getting it and then what at what phase

of their symptoms but if we started

going a little bit more aggressively on

that the next two weeks could be worse

than we're seeing but maybe not a

catastrophe maybe not so there's I would

say there's a solid 50% chance that

there's well there's no chance that the

next two weeks will be good you can rule

that out so there's no chance that you

know just nobody dies but the odds of it

being a you know the nightmare scenario

I think no more than 50/50 and you know

I told you I'm betting on the low side

why did you block Larry des liberal he

loves you in this good fun in the worst

of times

larry was DMing me multiple times per

day his tweets you know so that I would

see them and retweet them and I don't

mind retweeting stuff but I don't like

people sending me multiple teams a day

asking me to retweet stuff so it was

only because I'm it was causing me work

so it was nothing personal

he's very funny all right

do you see home values following due to

job loss yes of course yeah home values

will fall that's there's no doubt about

that

how should have virus prediction

modeling been presented well I think I

talked about that should we send

billions to Israel every year when we

have thousands of homeless here you know

the whole Israel question that's not a

it's not a fair question you know the

the money you spend on one thing isn't

the money that you would have spent on

another thing it just sort of doesn't

work that way so the first part is the

question is not fair you should say

should we should we spend any money on

Israel yes or no just by itself you

don't say and we could have used that

money too

keep somebody live that it doesn't work

that way because you could have borrowed

money to keep that other person alive if

that was a priority but to ask you a

question my understanding is we give

them foreign aid which we force them to

use to buy our military stuff so really

it's like we're giving it to our own

military-industrial complex

it only seems like we're giving it to

Israel pros Emma says do you love trans

women yes I do I love I love all people

Dave said should we boycott 18t for

supporting their fake news companies CNN

I'm not the boy cat guy I just you know

I get why people get mad they want to

buy a boycott but I just don't think

that's there just yeah it's not not the

way I'd go for anything flower child 99

says what do you think of dr. Shiva's

taken the virus he thinks ouchies in bed

with big pharma so to speak

pushing vaccines over boosting our

national immune health and testing of

vitamin A which should be done regularly

but isn't well I don't know how I could

weigh in on a medical question but I

will say that if if it's a question of

things which have passed scientific

muster we should look at them and if

it's something that hasn't then doctor

foul she's on strong ground and I don't

know if I don't know

that's vitamin A been looked at so I

can't ask I can't give you a good answer

on it talk about the infrastructure bill

you think it will really happen you know

if we were a rational species and a

rational time it would happen because I

don't think there's anybody on the left

or the right who doesn't recognize that

it's just sort of a good idea if ever

you were gonna do an infrastructure bill

do it now couldn't couldn't be a better

time because of the economic stimulus

and the fact that we need it and the

fact that

the moment people are willing to work

together basically every single

condition you would want we have so if

you can't get it done now you know when

can you get it done

so but I I am skeptical that you know we

could create a lot of jobs that way but

it might feel people feel like things

are going to the right direction yeah

that whole shovel shovel-ready thing

that never seems real to me

simulation question do other people

exist in your simulation or are they

just a simulated person to entertain you

well of course there's no way to know

the answer but let me speculate if we

are a simulation we either just live

independently as you know you you're a

simulation and I'm a software simulation

too but we could also be avatars that

some other creatures are using to

experience our game-like world now if

it's that one where there are avatars

who are inhabiting us it could be this

some of us have an avatar or some of us

have a creature inhabiting us and some

of us don't so that's one possibility

the other possibility is that only one

of us is real even in the simulation

there's only one sort of main character

and then everything else is scenery so

that's possible or that some of us are

real and others are backgrounds and NPCs

as they say so I think any of those are

possible at least at least you can't

prove they're not true mike says can you

give us an update on interface by one

hub and well here's the thing it's sort

of a perfect tool to be using in this

situation one my startup has an app

called interface where any expert can

sign up to take a phone call and charge

for it or not charge for it so it's the

not charge for it if you want to part

that's important you so it's a video

call with somebody that you can easily

find

the app who has expertise and is

available for a certain thing now it's

exactly what you need for tella

telehealth experts of all kinds in this

situation but I've just not felt

commercial these last several weeks the

thought of selling something even if

it's something that people want and just

my I don't know I don't have the fire

for anything that's just commercial at

the moment my my focus is more on the on

the emergency but that said it is also a

perfect tool so if there are any

individual doctors they can just sign up

and just you know if they could tweet it

out and say I'm on this app and they

could charge zero if they want or if

they're if they're already socially

isolating and you know maybe they tested

positive themselves they could just keep

being a doctor from whom and you

wouldn't need any approvals or anything

just sign up for the app is called

interface by win hub all right um why

haven't you talked about career

millionaire politicians who have sold

this out to China

I guess the implication being that

they're on the payroll or something you

know I don't know too much about that

situation except that it's obvious that

China is buying influence everywhere so

I don't know what you do about that

because whoever has the most money is

going to be buying influence and don't

you think the United States buys a lot

of influence maybe not as aggressively

as China let's see the bureau says I

bought a special blanket for a swaddle

time but wife is making me repaint the

whole house and I'm dead tired at 8:00

p.m. Eastern Time already questioned

should I listen to my my body my wife or

you well you should listen to me tell

your wife be raised missus be raised

this is this is message for you

you should let your husband swaddle and

his new newly purchased swaddle blanket

because this is important that house

will still need painting later all right

should we answer that will you do a live

street with me so I can ask you about

your childhood

well will you ask me about my childhood

and why would that matter happy to

answer those questions but I don't know

I don't know why you'd care where is

hunter there's a good question - where's

Joe Biden where is Joe Biden Oh calming

lessons would you like some lessons on

relaxing well I've told you how to relax

and I took my long walk today and

feeling good do you predict a spike in

divorces well it's going to work both

ways because some number of people

probably we're going to get divorced and

this changed the mind and some will

think well it's the last straw it's

probably a little both good and a doubt

- nothing can now find interface by it's

it's when hub whe n HUP so it's

interface by when hub it's in all the

app stores what do you think of the

Canadian diagnosis kits I don't know

that story well will happen to the

travel industry it will be dead for a

while but I think that you know people

like to travel I don't think that's

going to change as soon as they get

money again I think I think it'll come

back it'll just it's going to be a while

will the NFL play I'll bet not if I had

to predict I'd say no NFL season that's

my guess

do you think the new normal looks like I

think May first will just be extending

whatever we were doing before that I

don't think Bay first will be a real

change your life day will we fight for

gasoline like Mad Max well the good news

is I think we got plenty of gasoline it

could be super cheap the bad news is

that the you know the oil industry might

be going into business as simulations

very useful to self self hypnotized via

narrative fallacy I don't really know

what that means

when is the John McAfee interview you

know I I was gonna interview John McAfee

and he agreed which would be an amazing

interview but he needs to use secure

communications so he can't just call in

here and he can't call in on FaceTime

him he's got to use Skype and I didn't

know how they used I didn't know how to

do a split screen with Skype and I just

couldn't get the technology to work

podcasts do you follow you know I don't

listen to a lot of podcasts I end up

listening to whatever people recommend

people said be podcast all the time to

say yeah I gotta listen to this one so

sometimes I do why aren't we hearing of

Trump properties going to possible

bankruptcy it's a good question it's a

private company and who knows what they

are doing or need to do now a lot of

their business is licensing so they

don't own the building they've just

license their name for it

so there's still a problem which is they

won't get paid for the licenses if the

if the company and the license it goes

on to business but it's not like they

have a loan so in those cases it's just

a stream of income that stops versus

having something they owe a lot of money

on so but they have some of those too

I'm sure

do I like Victor David Davis Hanson yeah

he's always a good interview and a good

great writer do I play chess I play

chess with Christina before any of this

business started for the first time I

hadn't played chess in a million years

and it I'm not sure I have the patience

for it get Gordon Chang yeah I should

what is the secret to the universe well

what if the secrets of the universe is

that you can program it and that if you

learn that then you get everything you

want because sometimes it feels like

that that that some people have learned

how to program the simulation and there

are people I know I won't name any

examples but there are people I know who

can so consistently make things happen

that you don't think they should be able

to do that that you just wonder about

the nature of reality let me tell you a

story about the first time I realized

how influential I was or persuasive so

this is a real story

so back in college there was a

organization in college called the

coffee house and the coffee house was a

group that was run by students so the

students volunteered to run it and there

was a bar on campus

so we'd have live music and served

I think only beer at the time and some

snacks and I volunteered to work there

to get some experience managing a thing

and that was the Minister of Finance so

I was an economic major so I redid the

you know the the accounting system and

you know became one of these several

managers working in this bar environment

and it was the coolest job because it

was a bar and you know you're 18 and

you're in those days you could drink it

at 18 in New York so here is the

situation we would hire bartenders

and then we as a group the the so-called

managers would have to fire them if they

didn't perform and one of the people

that we hired was a close friend of mine

so I had talked the managers into hiring

a friend and he was the worst employee

he would show up an hour late he would

he'd be stoned he'd you know do things

wrong just the worst employee so so the

the other managers put up with him for

several weeks and they decided that they

were gonna have a meeting and we're

gonna fire him so I'm in the meeting in

which the managers are talking about

firing my friend who I had recommended

for the job of being a bartender I

decided that I was going to see if I

could get them to wait for it instead of

firing him that they would agree to make

him their boss to make him actually the

head of the managers I forget what the

title was though but that was open and I

didn't want to be the head I wanted to

be the one who sort of controlled the

head so to speak I didn't want I didn't

want that name the title by the one I

wanted to have the influence and so I

actually said you know what you're

saying about him being fired it's all

true

he really was late and he's really not

much of a bartender at all and I don't

think he has any of the natural talents

that would make a good bartender but you

know what he does have and I argued with

them they he had a unique talent stack

and in use those terms back then but he

had a unique set of skills that would

make him the perfect head of the

organization that was talking about

firing him right then so we were

literally talking about firing him as a

bartender and within 45 minutes I had

convinced everybody in the room that we

should not fire him and instead promote

him to be our own boss and and yeah they

said well you know you're still gonna

have to I don't know go through a vote

or something

and I sort of argued in my case and the

next thing you know you as fired as a

bartender and promoted to all of our

bosses that actually happened you know

and I tell that story I think has

anybody ever been almost fired but

instead got promoted to be the boss of

the person who was almost gonna fire him

I don't think that's ever happened in

the history of in the history of the

business so you should not be surprised

that when I later studied hypnosis and

the tools of persuasion that I had a

reason to think maybe I had some

national talent in that area so it's

it's just getting better was it any good

at a new job yeah actually I guess

that's the punch line the punch line he

was actually pretty good as a chairman I

think was a chairman it was the title he

was actually pretty good we with my help

we completely turned the place around

and lost money the business had lost

money every year every year I had been

on campus for you know decades and you

know I turned it all around and changed

the pricing and fired some vendors and

basically it was just a turnaround there

and it was making money for the first

time so so that happened anyway here's

another true story also from college the

same friend that I was telling this

story about and another one the three of

us we would sit in our dorm room and

enjoy the things that college students

enjoy when they're sitting in dorm rooms

okay know what I mean and we would have

wild ideas and plans for the future and

I came up with this plan I said why

don't the three of us be in charge of

the whole dormitory yes bombs were were

involved that is true and I said we

should be in charge of the dormitory

instead of having these professional

managers so there was like a

professional adult who lived there and

was sort of in charge and there were

these Resident Assistants students who

were sort of like that

his little army of things they said you

know we should just take over we should

like be in charge of the dorm the three

of us and we hatched this scheme to try

to sell to the administration the plan

where they would fire the adult and they

would pay us actually give us money the

three of us to be in charge of the

dormitory instead now how high do you

have to be to come up with that idea

well a year later as I was in my private

private room which was available only to

student managers the name of the title

which we gave it and then we took it and

we sold it to the administration and

sold it to these students who are coming

into the dormitory the next year and we

completely redid the the the form of

management in the dormitory and I

squared it I swear to God I got a

private room and I got paid and I also

you know we had the students doing the

jobs of security and cleaning the longer

room and and other stuff and and I took

some of those jobs too because yeah

anybody could volunteer for him so there

were days when I would be working

working security at night letting people

in and out of the building getting paid

for that I'd be doing my homework in

between and then when there was nobody

there and I was tired of homework I

walked across the hall and cleaned the

laundry room which I also paid for so I

got paid to be a student manager paid to

work security and paid to clean the

laundry room and I did them all at the

same time so I was working three jobs

and doing my homework while I was just

sort of staying up late so the the three

of us we took over years later there

were that dormitory still had that that

same structure I think they ended up

losing it but I was kind of persuasive

back in college and those are just the

stories I can tell you it was pretty it

was it was pretty fun times all right so

that's enough of my college stories

the only person who who had a better

scam in college was one of the other

students who worked security for the

whole campus so it was a student who a

part-time job working security and

mostly that meant he had a big

walkie-talkie and he would just go

around and let people in if it was after

the hurricane at the time that the

buildings were locked so he would get a

call go to a dormitory and let somebody

in and he'd walk over and do it but he

didn't like doing that so instead he

would come to our dormitory and and just

party so instead of working and letting

people in he would just put his

walkie-talkie down and get really high

and have a good time with us and then a

call would come in it's like Rare you

got that got something needs to be let

in if they're XY dormitory and you'd be

like okay I'm on my way and then you

just keep partying there you get another

call it's like oh they're still waiting

yeah are you on your way it's like oh

yeah I'm almost there I'm on my way and

they just put it down and you keep

partying and then you get a third call

it's like I cancel that somebody was

leaving the building and let him and

he's like oh I was almost there it puts

a town and he would just stay there

partying with us and everybody was

trying to get in a building if they

waited long enough somebody was leaving

and they would just just go in when

somebody left so he would just get paid

for lying in his lying to his

walkie-talkie it was pretty funny at the

time I have to admit all right with that

in mind that did I beat Christina in

chess I did

I believe I did yes and I will talk to

you

you had the morning