Episode 901 Scott Adams - I Feel a Sensational Simultaneous Swaddle Coming on. Don't Resist!

bum bum bum bum bum bum bum but your phones on silent you know what time it is yeah yeah you do it's time for the evening simultaneous Waddle that's where you get your blanket on oh yeah feels comfortable calms you down from these stressful times it's a way to get off the news I'm trying to wean you off the news so you can slip into a comfortable great night's sleep and you know you're addicted you're addicted to it because your days are better all right now I'd like to thank all the people who made news today they had nothing to do with the corona virus because I don't know about you but I wouldn't mind talking about something else for a while first of the news Linda Tripp has passed away just hours ago I guess and she was called the Clinton sex scandal a whistleblower she died at the age of 70 and I would like to read this sentence to you from the Daily Mail this is a British publication and I want you to fill in the last part of the sentence now I swear I'm not making this up everything I tell you from you know about this totally legitimate and I just want you to guess how this sentence ends I'll just read you the first part this is from the Daily Mail today quote Linda Tripp secret conversations with Monica Lewinsky led to the impeachment of Bill Clinton in 1998 after she blew the finish the sentence Linda Tripp conversations with monica lewinsky led to the impeachment of Bill Clinton in 1998 after she blew thee after she blew the rest of the sentences after she blew the whistle on their affair she was a whistleblower oh oh the sentence was talking about Linda Tripp okay okay I got it now got it all right you probably know by now that Bernie Sanders has dropped out he's he has dropped out of the race but he's keeping his delegates that's not exactly a good loser is it I'm gonna drop out of the race if I keep my delegates I'm not gonna give me my delegates so it's not a clean win for Biden and of course by now you've all seen the the president Trump quote and I say this a lot but it always bears repeating President Trump doesn't even know how to be uninteresting you know love him or hate him you know he annoys you you know you love him whatever no matter what you think of him I just don't think it's in his character that he can be uninteresting like in any context anywhere in any room under any situation he's everything he says is just like wait what and this is another one so his reaction when he heard the news he was talking about it he said quote I don't know why President Obama hasn't supported Joe Biden a long time ago Trump says he feels something is wrong it does he feels something is wrong it does amaze me that President Obama hasn't supported sleepy Joe he knows something that you don't know that I think I know then you don't know now you have to admit if you had said okay we're gonna have this you're a moment when you're going to say something in public and I want you to you know get the best writers in the world and bring them together and try to come up with a sentence or two that's so provocative and so and so it's so screws with your hand that the people can't stop talking about it for 24 hours you have the best writers in the world and be like well suppose he says this now that won't work and I don't know if you could I don't know if the best writers in the world could have come up with something this that's more provocative than the way I think he just sort of came up with it on the spot I mean that really is a gift you have to admit love it or hate it you just can't turn away it's just so interesting the way he does it now of course one of the many things he does right in holding your attention I talked about before it's an author's trick in a writer's trick which is you create curiosity and you see the president do that all the time he says well you know you'll find out later he always has he likes to have little surprises he likes to tease you that there might be a surprise coming so he knows how to keep you interested by not giving you the answer because anybody anybody standard like a normal politician who didn't know how to do this stuff so well a normal politician would have just made an accusation right a normal politician would say well Joe Biden's socialist too or he voted against that thing or he was for this war or something but that's that's how any normal politician would have approached it you just say a fact but the fact gives you no curiosity there's no curiosity it's just like yeah of course you say that because you're on the other side I'm gonna hear this a million more times it doesn't stake it all trumpets it in the form of a like a puzzle a riddle it's a quiz it's sort of a quiz and a rental and sort of a story with a cliffhanger you don't know quite what the answer to the story is but you feel you have you have a notion and there might be the same notion he has now I've told you before that two of these strongest forms of persuasion are pacing and leaving and so in this case the president is sort of pacing the public because the public feels almost exactly the way he's framing it which is I think I know why Obama is not endorsing I'm not going to say it out loud but I think I know so that's so he knows how to completely connect with his supporters of the way nobody's ever really done before I don't think from the presidency and then the other trick which I've talked about less but it might be the most powerful one is when he tells you what you're thinking as you're thinking it if I ever I don't know if you've heard me say that before but a powerful way to instantly connect with somebody in a way that allows you to be influential with them because that connection just like locks in and you can do it very quickly and the technique is you tell somebody what they're thinking accurately I mean if you do it wrong then doesn't work at all but if you can accurately guess because you've just been around a while and you know how brains work if you can guess somebody's unique thought and the trick is has to be a unique thought not not an obvious one you know guessing that somebody's hungry before lunch is not not going to get it done so you want it you want to like reach in and guess somebody's really specific thought and if you can do that you just gonna click and you and the two of you lock in and then you know there's an opportunity or a channel open for persuasion and you see the president doing this in this way because he says directly he knows something that you don't know that I think I know that you don't know so he's basically talking about what's in our heads and and everybody else right the what's in the public's heads and he kind of nails it without actually saying it which is we all think we know we're not sure if you know what I know or if I know what you're thinking but I feel like we all know we're thinking the same thing so anyway he hit every dough you can hit in persuasion and it was funny as well here's some good news I'm full of good news today one of my neighbors who couldn't finish college because of the coronavirus stuff his home of the family is doing some shopping because she's in that young healthy relatively healthy category and so she was nice enough to give me some groceries a few times so far and today she was at a store for other purposes and saw toilet paper for sale on the shelf let me say that again my town had toilet paper on the shelf and I'm not talking about industrial toilet paper I'm not talking about stuff you wouldn't want to get near the the tender bottom of your self I'm talking about the good stuff 12-pack Charmin yeah that's right solid gold and so she said would you like me to you you know get some for you and I was texting it's like I couldn't type it fast enough and she said you want one or two that's like one or two one or two I didn't even know that was an option and I started weeping while typing to to I think there might have been a limit which by the way it will be the secret to getting everybody enough is if the the big box stores when they do get new supply and and it looks like it's happening if they limit you know to per customer or something like that so I think that's what's gonna happen now let's talk about predictions how many of you remember when I predicted when the toilet paper supply would start to replenish I said it would be about a month from the the first day that your stores got empty shelves and I did like back in an envelope calculation to you know guesstimate the average of how much people hoarded and but then you have to calculate in that people are home more so they're using more stuff home and then calculate him that the the businesses probably were working double-time to produce more so calculating all that and I think I said about a month from the time that your shelves first emptied how close did I get in my town I think I nailed it right I think well you don't know but about a month from the last moment that you could buy these products in my town it's today I think it's just about just about a month so that was just a back-of-the-envelope calculation but looks like that's going to come through we have to wait and see if let me know let me know if any of you have experienced that yet all right let's say this you know one thing that this coronavirus situation has done and I think after it's over there's gonna be all these unintended benefits that are really gonna rack up and one of the interesting things about it is it be created this little test lab where there were lots of ambiguous situations that people in public were competing in a sense people were competing to have the best take on it and the most accurate interpretations the best predictions and so there are lots of like elements and you know parts of the story of the corona virus pandemic but in each of those little sub stories and each of those little subplots there are people like me you know people in public pundits and famous people and politicians and celebrities making all kinds of predictions and statements about them and so in a very condensed period like we've never seen before we got to see people's minds at work in public and then we fairly quickly got to see who is more right than other people so he says you Apollo up sound bad you know you're right I can last few days I can feel that there's some difference so you're right anyway so I think one of the good things that comes out of this is you're gonna find out who's good at this stuff and I'm gonna tell you a little bit more about my predictions so you can see how I stack up with the public predictions all right so there's a prediction from the experts that say the US will reach its peak use of resources and the most will need on around Saturday which is pretty close right this is the weekend and I don't see the task force being panicked it looks like they figured it out like we found enough we moved in around we flattened a curve enough yeah you know they were pushing other from every direction from finding new ones to figuring out you know I had a retrofit things do quickly building new ways to build them and and everything but it looks it's beginning to look like we're going to get past the peak of it without the the grotesque shortages that would kill people from their lack now I just saw a message just before I got on from somebody said in a particular hospital that they were reusing stuff and may have caused infections and maybe somebody and maybe somebody actually it could have died from that it's hard to know exactly what caused what in these situations but if you were looking at it overall you know there's no doubt there were individual bad situations but if you were to look at it overall it kind of looks like we got it done maybe it's still too early but it started to look like the team humans and Team America specifically it's kind of starting to look like we got it done which would be spectacular now of course the skeptics will say it was all the big hoax that there was nothing to do so the reason that he did so well is that there was no problem in the first place and we'll never be able to solve that those two different movies of the little play forever but yours here's the way I'd put it can it be said let's say things go the way the optimist would like them to go we get through Saturday and we don't run out and then even though the problem is going to continue for weeks we get on top of the supply problem and we basically give or take a few special cases basically we just don't run out of stuff from this point on could it be said if you think about yourself in the future and you're looking back at it you're a historian could it be said that we were unprepared now your first thought is hell yes we were unprepared because we had to scramble so hard to get all these things but let me let me just put this thought in your head that would make sense if you had only one big problem if you had one big risk you should be really prepared specifically and and then the most maximal way for that one risk but what if you live in a world in which you have untold potential risks everything from pandemics to asteroids to you know unexpected Wars to you know EMF bombs to who knows what revolutions you know mass psychosis global warming you know you pick your pick your emergency I would contend that what it means to be prepared in a world of tremendous uncertainty and a variety of dangers to which you could not possibly prepare for all of them that what it means to be prepared is to have systems in place that are very flexible and adaptable and when a new threat comes in which is always going to be different from the last one you know you're your next threat is never quite like the last one you know this virus isn't like the other ones exactly so being prepared in the future might not be a case of being prepared like a goal like my goal is to be prepared for this thing because what if there are so many things and some of them you can't even imagine you can't even think up the trouble that's coming toward you it's just something you never saw before in that case and I think that does describe the future in that case isn't your best form of preparation a tremendous ability to communicate incredible colleges and education system to produce the kinds of scientists and your researchers and doctors they need for a variety of situation we have these systems for governing that apparently were up to the task in terms of the fact that you know we knew who was in charge okay mr.

president he immediately you know used his powers to create a team that team used the powers of emergency and and you know the influence of the president's office and all that the military everything all of these systems it's like systems on top of systems on top of systems and how'd they do well our biggest problem is we're sort of ossified with all these regulations and red tape if our system could not immediately self-correct and cut through the red tape when an emergency required then I would say you're not prepared but what if your system is so flexible at the moment there's a need we got to get rid of all these regulations they made they made sense before you know in a luxury time they made sense but right now we just gotta get rid of them if you could just slice through them which i think is what the administration did it looked to me like the administration just sliced through regulations everywhere they saw him like a you know like a samurai so were we prepared to get rid of regulations yes yes we had a system in place there quite efficiently identified and then removed obstacles we also have the Internet I would say that the the contribution of just individuals as they communicated and on the internet and and even the leadership that was shown on the Internet I'm talking about the you know the Mark Cuban's and cetera the people who just stepped up and added something useful and there are a lot of ideas and connections and you know buyers and sellers finding each other and ideas that needed to be fleshed out with more people so the internet the Internet is this amazing system and in in my opinion specifically Twitter I I'm a little biased but I think Twitter's whereas the brain of civilization and because it exists all the best ideas could sort of find the right place and get filtered in a way that we could have never done before you know prior to Twitter so if you look at everything from our political systems even our financial systems the fact that we have such a which you were you know banking system and you know and that minuchin could go in there and they had a full toolbox minuchin had a full toolbox what tool did venusian want to use that was not available to him not right well you know maybe you can think of one but i can't because the the economy of the United States was robust minuchin goes in there and says all right it's an emergency I'm gonna push the buttons for emergencies and all the buttons are there they're all there because we weren't already in the depression because we had good systems so I would say that we're probably you know it's human nature that we you beat yourself up for your mistakes and you don't give yourself enough credit for the things you do well but I think where we're heading with this if we do get past the peak without running out of stuff and I'm optimistic now I think we really have to pat ourselves on the back and I'm talking about humanity in general because there are a whole bunch of systems that really delivered that they adapted that the systems themselves were almost like living creatures because none of the systems were on day one adapted to the task but you know let's just take one example you know Twitter is not adapted to the task on day one but it takes 10 seconds for a hashtag to appear and suddenly Twitter is morphing into exactly the tool for this disease it's almost like you could think of creating a hashtag Twitter is almost like an antibody you're a white white blood cell look because let's say the the body human is attacked so something about humanity is attacked whether it's a pandemic or some walls what's the first thing we do when when humanity is attacked the first thing we do is somebody makes a hashtag write the hashtag then attracts all the the attention and the trends and then people know where to go and then it connects everybody and then all of the resources of the world all the different systems start spinning up because of this little hashtag so this hashtag is like the antibodies that that get formed on Twitter and they start spreading on Twitter which connects all the systems and and pushes them into operation and then people can find each other and make connections they know it's important what's not imagine if you had to depend on just the news yeah imagine this pandemic came and there was no social media and you just had to depend on the news that's scary isn't it that's really scary so the thing that's sort of invisible to you is the stuff that happens gradually and what's happening gradually is we've you know most of us have sort of grown up with this evolving internet world so you see you lose track of how different it is from you know anytime before that and one of the differences it's almost alive you as soon as that this was a problem was identified it turned into a hashtag you're reformed Twitter in real time and and created like this little brain of society that was focused on this one problem then all the systems were activated and each of them morphed into a new system every system think about it every system in the world probably every system in the world just morphed into a new system and just days while we watched because we needed it a most most incredible thing you've ever seen in your life I hope I hope that we all remember it in the way that you know we should let me give you some some of my most unlikely predictions you've heard these before but if there's anybody new it's always a good context so I've been saying for years that you should make predictions in public and then you can see if you're good at it because people will remind you if you missed it and if if you do you should tell people you got it right so you're my most unlikely predictions well of course you know I famously predicted that Trump would win in 2015 so that would that sort of put me on the map for predicting stuff but here are some of the really weird ones I predicted when we didn't know who the Vegas shooter was and people were saying it was probably Isis I said it was not but that's not the that's not the fun part the fun part is that when Isis took credit for it I still publicly said nope and then people reminded me you know Isis doesn't take credit for things that they didn't do that's I think there was one example where they might have but basically once they take credit for it it's Isis but I held tight and of course it was not Isis so so that was a one for me when the Cuban embassy allegedly had a secretive sonic weapon and all the experts and all the news was reporting it was a secret weapon and I said never going to find that secret sonic weapon that doesn't exist have we found the secret sonic weapon that doesn't exist we have not and I think that at this point the experts probably agree that it's not any kind of a weapon whatever it was and of course you you know I was one of the first to say stop the flights from China I was one of the first public people to say of course masks work how could mask not work it doesn't make any sense now a lot of people realized it but you know there was sort of a funny thing happening when when it first came out that the experts you know Surgeon General and the World Health Organization CDC to everybody when they were all telling us that masks wouldn't help I feel like there was this phenomena that happened all over the place which is that a whole bunch of smart people sent in themselves but B'nai allowed as soon as they heard this they thought to themselves this is that right is that right because because that doesn't feel right like how could not how can it not help at least a little bit and they would make their silly arguments about touching your face and you'd be like yeah but that doesn't that doesn't feel right but I don't think anybody wanted to say it out loud because literally every expert just just said no don't do it they don't help so what are you gonna do are you gonna go in public and say out loud in public I disagree with every scientist and expert who's weighed in based on my skill as a cartoonist is anybody dumb enough to do that well yeah I did that that's exactly what I did i bucked every expert and scientist in the world who all of them know far more than I do because it was obvious that they were just wrong so you don't count that on my on my list I think by the way I made it easier for other people to say it in public because you know when the first the first City it goes and doesn't get killed you got oh the first idiot didn't get killed maybe I can go too and so here's where I'm heading honest oh and I also predicted that splitting ventilators would be a thing and as of today the Surgeon General just put out some guidance that said it's it's a last resort but it's an approved last resort which makes sense right if you have any other way to do it you wouldn't do it that way and then here's another one so my public estimate for the final death toll will probably be you know well off of the action number but maybe the closest one in the country so I might have the closest estimate while still being off a bit so mine was under five thousand net meaning after you saved saved people who didn't get in car accidents for two months count them and etc counting everything in there would be closer to five thousand and we would do such a good job it looks like the official estimates are sixty thousand as of today but that's gross so if you just netted out the ones that were saved it's probably gonna be half of that so somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty thousand would be the effectively the predicted net my guess was five thousand I think the thirty thousand is probably gonna come down a little bit so if the experts were saying a hundred or two hundred thousand and maybe a million and I said five thousand and it comes down to you know net fifteen thousand or something I'm gonna say I had the best prediction we'll see but here's the weirdest one let me let me do a little fact checking with you because you know how it's easy to have selective memory it's really easy to have selective memory and like imagine do you predict the things you didn't predict so I need your help on this who in the public who talks about politics what public person said before I did that Biden was mentally incapable kid do you remember anybody saying it in public like actually saying oh I'm watching this and it looks like his brain is not functioning did anybody say that that you heard that you heard before I did somebody says everyone well everyone everyone is said is since yeah everyone said his since but I might have been the first one to say it publicly maybe Mike Serna yeah I mean so I'm not gonna claim that I said that first but I was among the first and wouldn't you say that a year ago it wasn't as obvious but now everybody can see it so I would say that everybody who is on record as having said you know a year ago I was kind of calling this out already all those people are right right yeah doctor who was on it early example but my weirdest prediction is and I I tweeted it today and I know you're never supposed to reveal a conversation a private conversation you have with the president but this is a special case and I'm only revealing this one little nugget because it's fun and because the president wouldn't mind and it was that when I when he he invited me to the Oval Office to chat in 2018 so this is August 2018 so justjust think about how long ago this was it's August 2018 and he asked me my prediction for who would get the nomination and I said Kamala Harris and he said Joe Biden so in August of 2018 President Trump called the and I think we can assume that by don't get the nomination unless he falls apart but Trump called it he called it correctly confidently he was pretty confident about it and he called it in August of 2018 that's pretty good right I have to say now my prediction seemed to be going poorly when Carla Harris suspended her campaign so you might say to yourself well Scott after Isis has taken credit that's when you can say you're wrong oh no that's not how I roll I don't care if Isis no credit I'm still gonna say it wasn't Isis as with the Vegas shooter and just because Carla Harris stopped running for president that didn't mean she wasn't going to get the nomination no if you recall I was quite assistance that might that my prediction would stand now as of today the news is reporting that he's hinting so strongly that he's going to pick her as vice president that at this point you might be surprising if he didn't because he's just sort of talking about her in a way that makes you think he is he's not doing a good job of hiding his intentions now let me say as clearly as possible it's not a done deal because first of all I'm not even sure that Biden gets to pick his own vice president at this point I feel like the deep state is just going to assign him a vice president so that the usual people are in charge once once he gets into office or or let's say even he has to drop out before he gets an office the vice president would be the obvious one to take over the top of the ticket so if Camille Harris is the one who is picked I would say we're no more than 60% likely at this point if I had to put the odds on it but it's still my prediction she would become the vice presidential pick for a candidate that even the Democrats realized is not capable to hold the job and even Biden has suggested that he knows it too because he's talked about getting somebody younger for the obvious reason and it feels as though unless something changes it feels like the obvious path of this is there for all practical purposes Komal Harris will be will be the will be the nominee whether officially or not in a practical matter I think people will be inviting voting for the vice president so would you say my prediction of Comley Harris as the nominee would be wrong under these circumstances issue were the vice presidential pick well my critics will say yes is wrong and I will of course say yeah it's technically wrong it's technically wrong and somebody says you are out of touch guess what happens to people who say you were out of touch they become an of touched now you're at a touched know you're at a touched again the rule is you can disagree with anything you say you just can't say something about me don't say I'm out of touch just tell me what I don't know that works too alright somebody's saying yes still wrong now if I didn't know what you meant by that I'd probably block you for that but I know what you mean so I see a lot of you who are rejecting the prediction so so just remember this when you come back to mock me should I be should I be wrong should I be wrong I will look you in the camera and I will admit I was wrong you don't have to remind me right you don't have to remind me I'll admit it and I promise you I will admit it if she does not get the vice presidential nod all right let's see here say yeah well I kind of said this before but I feel like when this is over whenever that happens I feel I feel like we're gonna be proud I feel like humanity is gonna feel like it did well the others of course you know the the tragedies that come out of this and the you know the discomfort and pain are all terrible and cannot be minimized but I think we're going to be proud to recommend this I think it'll work that well alright see what else is going on here I also think that the unintentional benefit from this pandemic we'll be we don't like your message what message the accidental benefit will be decoupling from China because I think public opinion was sort of beginning to lean in that direction yeah baby China is not our friend but I think the pandemic changed people's emotional feeling about China and the whole relationship and so I would say at this point we came out way ahead yeah the the pandemic is gonna cost us how many trillion two or three two or three trillion but I think we still come in ahead in the long run if we cut the cord with China and bring our stuff home I think we could make up three trillion because remember the what is the what's the full economy does anybody know the full it isn't a five trillion dollar economy somebody help me out with that but I think you know if you take that three trillion and spread it down over X years as one does I think just the benefit of getting China and of our supply chain and bringing that work home we may end up making back the whole three trillion in the long run all right so I've predicted that there will be an oxytocin delivery service if we have to keep up this social isolation because you know humans go a little squirrely if they don't have physical touch and physical touch releases a chemical in you called oxytocin it's the thing that makes you bogged with people it's the thing that gives you a feeling of well-being it's the thing that comes all your stress and makes all your problems go away you've probably noticed that you could have all the problems in the world but if you're with your loved one and you have a good time together suddenly all the problems in the world don't seem so bad so that's the oxytocin and you know since we all have this social isolation what are you gonna do what are you gonna do if somebody in the comments is saying our economy is five to six trillion I'm seeing six trillion so the the point stands a six trillion dollar economy could probably get back three trillion over 25 years you know just by the benefit of not dealing with China anymore potentially so oxytocin so what's gonna happen if we keep getting starved of oxytocin besides the fact it will be unhappy and and crazy I think you might see people who already have been tested to have recovered and have antibodies they may do that business that you've heard of I think it still exists where people actually get paid to hug people and they just go and they cuddle with you for a while if you don't have anybody in your life it's usually a woman I don't think has to be but I'll bet you you see that business bring up because think of you know once we have a bifurcated population where some people have recovered and they have the antibodies but other people are so vulnerable they could die the people who have the antibodies that are confirmed to have recovered will be like super beings who can you know who can you know deal in both worlds while the people who haven't yet caught anything and don't have a vaccination will be you know cowering in our caves so I think some of them will actually it will be like you know ordering door - I think people will order hogs like actual literally you'll you'll go on your app and you'll say I just need 15 minutes of spooning and somebody will come to your house and spoon you for 15 minutes and you pay them by the app could happen so I would like to rate for you for tonight an artificial oxytocin high so that chemical that normally is only produced by close physical contact can also be to a slightly lesser extent can be artificially generated by a brain hack do you believe it do you there's a brain hack or a trick that can kind of close the circuitry in your brain that initiates your oxytocin because remember it happens basically in your brain in your own body even though the other person is involved it's not like they're shooting chemicals from their body into yours right your experience is a subjective one and in your feeling of the subjective experience is what makes your brain chemistry do a certain thing which triggers your oxytocin that flows into your body in your mind it makes you feel awesome so if there were some way to close that little circuitry and activate your oxytocin without the benefit of a person there wouldn't that be cool it turns out there is and I've taught you the trick but until you see lots of examples of it you don't completely get the beauty of it and the trick is that our mind is an association engine it's a it's a pattern recognition engine sometimes but it's also an association engine so if for example I took this bottle of water yeah that's a bad example this is too common let's say I took this little tripod that's a little bit less common than a bottle of water and every time every time I showed it to you I fed you a delicious meal your favorite meal like the best food you've ever had in your life but no other time do you ever get to see this it's the only time you'll ever see it over time simply seeing this without the food would start to make you happy in the same way that the delicious food did so your brain just automatically pairs things whether you like it or not now you knew this of course because that's a little concept behind you hear a song that was your song when you were in a relationship and it makes you sad because it reminds you of that right so you know those songs can trigger a relationship you know the lots of other things can trigger these associations so if you would like to kill a little oxytocin and who wouldn't here's what you need to do the first thing you need to do is reproduce as some of the physicality that's what this blankets for this blanket is chosen scientifically sort of meaning that it's just the right feeling and softness because when I have it on me I get a feeling of softness and a little bit surrounded it's actually sort of hugging me now if you think that being hugged by a soft blanket is so completely different than being hugged by a human being well of course it is but it's not that different because your body is an association machine and when you associate the feeling of wow that is soft and warm and feels good on my body it's going to trigger some of the same chemistry and mental processes and just by memory and Association of the real thing so some of its physical there were tests of little monkey babies that didn't have mothers and if they gave them a warm water bottle they actually were pretty happy because the just the physical warm water bottle felt sort of like a person felt or like a mummy so reproduce the physical comfort of a human hug so you might want to get you know you might want to be near the fireplace if you have a pet who's good at snuggling well I'll put on a blanket sit by the fireplace get on their comfortable rug spoon with your bigger old dog or your cat on your chest and these these feelings are similar enough to things that you feel when you're with a real person then it can trigger them at least partially and then then the other thing you want to do is you want to manage your mental shelf space and put things on it that create oxytocin and make sure that there's no space on the mental shelf for any bad thoughts to get in to work against it so if you just don't bother managing what you're thinking well thoughts we'll just sort of occur to you and semi random way and some of them will be bad so don't do that so once you're in your soft comfortable warm place hugging your cat or dog or whatever you're doing this assumes you don't actually have a human that you can be hugging then close your eyes and think about the person you most want to hug put yourself in this situation now here's the trick run through all five senses in order send yourself okay I can visualize what that looks like that's your eyes I can smell it you know the perfume the scent I can feel it and you're just in your imagination but you're also feeling your soft light yet the fire your pet perhaps maybe you've got that maybe you've got a body pillow by the way if you haven't tried a body pillow you should because it's almost disturbing how good it feels so if you have one try that so imagine if you will and fill up your mental space with just thoughts where you cycle through all of your your sensations you know your your hearing your touch your scent your taste if it makes sense if there's something that you often would eat or taste with this person so you just run through it and you make sure that you're concentrating as much as possible on the thought of what it feels like to be with that one you would most like to cuddle it works best it works best if it's somebody that you have an actual relationship with or you can remember it and you have good feelings about it not something you broke up with ideally but you have something there's only positive so I will be gauging of Christina as I as I often do while I'm hugging my my pillow and of course it's the rest of you I know how hard it is for all of you but I want you to take a moment to feel sorry for me not only can I not be with my fiancee but by terrible luck she is the most attractive human being in the multiverse now it'd probably be easier not to see her if she if she were not so darn lovely and if I didn't love her so much and if she were not so incredibly attractive but that's my / thats my my personal hell but i do get to spend time with you that's not nothing and tonight when you go drifting off you're gonna remember the oxytocin trick and you're gonna feel almost like a tingle you're gonna feel some of you not all of you and not all the time but some of you are going to feel it when you get in the zone and you can feel the warmth than me yeah you're just comfortable and you're thinking about that person you must want to hug and you feel like a little tingle it'll be like a little almost like a blush that comes across some part of your body it could be different everybody's a little different so you might feel a little sore in your head or your neck I have a little tingle on your arms but that's how you know you're in the zone and tonight you're gonna have one of the best sleeps of your life and you wake up feeling a little bit better than normal you might not know why but it's a little thing called oxytocin have a great night I'll see you in the morning

bum bum bum bum bum bum bum but your

phones on silent you know what time it

is

yeah yeah you do it's time for the

evening simultaneous Waddle that's where

you get your blanket on oh yeah

feels comfortable calms you down from

these stressful times

it's a way to get off the news I'm

trying to wean you off the news so you

can slip into a comfortable great

night's sleep and you know you're

addicted you're addicted to it because

your days are better all right now I'd

like to thank all the people who made

news today they had nothing to do with

the corona virus because I don't know

about you but I wouldn't mind talking

about something else for a while

first of the news Linda Tripp has passed

away just hours ago I guess and she was

called the Clinton sex scandal a

whistleblower she died at the age of 70

and I would like to read this sentence

to you from the Daily Mail this is a

British publication and I want you to

fill in the last part of the sentence

now I swear I'm not making this up

everything I tell you from you know

about this totally legitimate and I just

want you to guess how this sentence ends

I'll just read you the first part this

is from the Daily Mail today quote Linda

Tripp secret conversations with Monica

Lewinsky led to the impeachment of Bill

Clinton in 1998 after she blew the

finish the sentence Linda Tripp

conversations with monica lewinsky led

to the impeachment of Bill Clinton in

1998 after she blew thee after she blew

the rest of the sentences after she blew

the whistle on their affair she was a

whistleblower oh oh the sentence was

talking about Linda Tripp okay okay I

got it now got it all right you probably

know by now that Bernie Sanders has

dropped out he's he has dropped out of

the race but he's keeping his delegates

that's not exactly a good loser is it

I'm gonna drop out of the race

if I keep my delegates I'm not gonna

give me my delegates so it's not a clean

win for Biden and of course by now

you've all seen the the president Trump

quote and I say this a lot but it always

bears repeating President Trump doesn't

even know how to be uninteresting you

know love him or hate him you know he

annoys you you know you love him

whatever no matter what you think of him

I just don't think it's in his character

that he can be uninteresting like in any

context anywhere in any room under any

situation he's everything he says is

just like wait what and this is another

one so his reaction when he heard the

news he was talking about it he said

quote I don't know why President Obama

hasn't supported Joe Biden a long time

ago Trump says he feels something is

wrong it does he feels something is

wrong it does amaze me that President

Obama hasn't supported sleepy Joe he

knows something that you don't know that

I think I know

then you don't know now you have to

admit if you had said okay we're gonna

have this you're a moment when you're

going to say something in public and I

want you to you know get the best

writers in the world and bring them

together and try to come up with a

sentence or two

that's so provocative and so and so it's

so screws with your hand that the people

can't stop talking about it for 24 hours

you have the best writers in the world

and be like well suppose he says this

now that won't work and I don't know if

you could I don't know if the best

writers in the world could have come up

with something this that's more

provocative than the way I think he just

sort of came up with it on the spot I

mean that really is a gift you have to

admit love it or hate it you just can't

turn away it's just so interesting the

way he does it

now of course one of the many things he

does right in holding your attention I

talked about before it's an author's

trick in a writer's trick which is you

create curiosity and you see the

president do that all the time he says

well you know you'll find out later

he always has he likes to have little

surprises he likes to tease you that

there might be a surprise coming so he

knows how to keep you interested by not

giving you the answer because anybody

anybody standard like a normal

politician who didn't know how to do

this stuff so well a normal politician

would have just made an accusation right

a normal politician would say well Joe

Biden's socialist too or he voted

against that thing or he was for this

war or something but that's that's how

any normal politician would have

approached it you just say a fact but

the fact gives you no curiosity

there's no curiosity it's just like yeah

of course you say that because you're on

the other side I'm gonna hear this a

million more times it doesn't stake it

all

trumpets it in the form of a like a

puzzle a riddle it's a quiz it's sort of

a quiz and a rental and sort of a story

with a cliffhanger you don't know quite

what the answer to the story is but you

feel you have you have a notion and

there might be the same notion he has

now I've told you before that two of

these strongest forms of persuasion are

pacing and leaving and so in this case

the president is sort of pacing the

public because the public feels almost

exactly the way he's framing it which is

I think I know why Obama is not

endorsing I'm not going to say it out

loud

but I think I know so that's so he knows

how to completely connect with his

supporters of the way nobody's ever

really done before I don't think from

the presidency and then the other trick

which I've talked about less but it

might be the most powerful one is when

he tells you what you're thinking as

you're thinking it if I ever I don't

know if you've heard me say that before

but a powerful way to instantly connect

with somebody in a way that allows you

to be influential with them because that

connection just like locks in and you

can do it very quickly and the technique

is you tell somebody what they're

thinking accurately I mean if you do it

wrong then doesn't work at all but if

you can accurately guess because you've

just been around a while and you know

how brains work if you can guess

somebody's unique thought and the trick

is has to be a unique thought not not an

obvious one you know guessing that

somebody's hungry before lunch is not

not going to get it done so you want it

you want to like reach in and guess

somebody's really specific thought and

if you can do that you just gonna click

and you and the two of you lock in and

then you know there's an opportunity or

a channel open for persuasion and you

see the president doing this in this way

because

he says directly he knows something that

you don't know that I think I know that

you don't know so he's basically talking

about what's in our heads and and

everybody else right the what's in the

public's heads and he kind of nails it

without actually saying it which is we

all think we know we're not sure if you

know what I know or if I know what

you're thinking but I feel like we all

know we're thinking the same thing so

anyway he hit every dough you can hit in

persuasion and it was funny as well

here's some good news

I'm full of good news today one of my

neighbors who couldn't finish college

because of the coronavirus stuff his

home of the family is doing some

shopping because she's in that young

healthy relatively healthy category and

so she was nice enough to give me some

groceries a few times so far and today

she was at a store for other purposes

and saw toilet paper for sale on the

shelf let me say that again my town had

toilet paper on the shelf and I'm not

talking about industrial toilet paper

I'm not talking about stuff you wouldn't

want to get near the the tender bottom

of your self I'm talking about the good

stuff

12-pack Charmin yeah that's right solid

gold and so she said would you like me

to you you know get some for you and I

was texting it's like I couldn't type it

fast enough and she said you want one or

two that's like one or two one or two I

didn't even know that was an option

and I started weeping while typing to to

I think there might have been a limit

which by the way it will be the

secret to getting everybody enough is if

the the big box stores when they do get

new supply and and it looks like it's

happening if they limit you know to per

customer or something like that so I

think that's what's gonna happen now

let's talk about predictions how many of

you remember when I predicted when the

toilet paper supply would start to

replenish I said it would be about a

month from the the first day that your

stores got empty shelves and I did like

back in an envelope calculation to you

know guesstimate the average of how much

people hoarded and but then you have to

calculate in that people are home more

so they're using more stuff home and

then calculate him that the the

businesses probably were working

double-time

to produce more so calculating all that

and I think I said about a month from

the time that your shelves first emptied

how close did I get in my town I think I

nailed it right I think well you don't

know but about a month from the last

moment that you could buy these products

in my town it's today I think it's just

about just about a month so that was

just a back-of-the-envelope calculation

but looks like that's going to come

through we have to wait and see if let

me know let me know if any of you have

experienced that yet all right

let's say this you know one thing that

this coronavirus situation has done and

I think after it's over there's gonna be

all these unintended benefits that are

really gonna rack up and one of the

interesting things about it is it be

created this little test lab where there

were lots of ambiguous situations that

people in public were competing in a

sense people were competing to have the

best take on it and the most accurate

interpretations the best predictions and

so there are lots of like elements and

you know parts of the story of the

corona virus pandemic but in each of

those little sub stories and each of

those little subplots there are people

like me you know people in public

pundits and famous people and

politicians and celebrities making all

kinds of predictions and statements

about them and so in a very condensed

period like we've never seen before we

got to see people's minds at work in

public and then we fairly quickly got to

see who is more right than other people

so he says you Apollo up sound bad

you know you're right I can last few

days I can feel that there's some

difference so you're right anyway so I

think one of the good things that comes

out of this is you're gonna find out

who's good at this stuff and I'm gonna

tell you a little bit more about my

predictions so you can see how I stack

up with the public predictions all right

so there's a prediction from the experts

that say the US will reach its peak use

of resources and the most will need on

around Saturday which is pretty close

right this is the weekend and I don't

see the task force being panicked it

looks like they figured it out like we

found enough we moved in

around we flattened a curve enough yeah

you know they were pushing other from

every direction from finding new ones to

figuring out you know I had a retrofit

things do quickly building new ways to

build them and and everything but it

looks it's beginning to look like we're

going to get past the peak of it without

the the grotesque shortages that would

kill people from their lack now I just

saw a message just before I got on from

somebody said in a particular hospital

that they were reusing stuff and may

have caused infections and maybe

somebody and maybe somebody actually it

could have died from that it's hard to

know exactly what caused what in these

situations but if you were looking at it

overall you know there's no doubt there

were individual bad situations but if

you were to look at it overall it kind

of looks like we got it done

maybe it's still too early but it

started to look like the team humans and

Team America specifically it's kind of

starting to look like we got it done

which would be spectacular now of course

the skeptics will say it was all the big

hoax that there was nothing to do so the

reason that he did so well is that there

was no problem in the first place and

we'll never be able to solve that those

two different movies of the little play

forever but yours here's the way I'd put

it can it be said let's say things go

the way the optimist would like them to

go we get through Saturday and we don't

run out and then even though the problem

is going to continue for weeks we get on

top of the supply problem and we

basically give or take a few special

cases basically we just don't run out of

stuff from this point on could it be

said if you think about yourself in the

future and you're looking back at it

you're a historian could it be said that

we were unprepared

now your first thought is hell yes we

were unprepared because we had to

scramble so hard to get all these things

but let me let me just put this thought

in your head that would make sense if

you had only one big problem if you had

one big risk you should be really

prepared specifically and and then the

most maximal way for that one risk but

what if you live in a world in which you

have untold potential risks everything

from pandemics to asteroids to you know

unexpected Wars to you know EMF bombs to

who knows what revolutions you know mass

psychosis global warming you know you

pick your pick your emergency I would

contend that what it means to be

prepared in a world of tremendous

uncertainty and a variety of dangers to

which you could not possibly prepare for

all of them that what it means to be

prepared is to have systems in place

that are very flexible and adaptable and

when a new threat comes in which is

always going to be different from the

last one you know you're your next

threat is never quite like the last one

you know this virus isn't like the other

ones exactly so being prepared in the

future might not be a case of being

prepared like a goal like my goal is to

be prepared for this thing because what

if there are so many things and some of

them you can't even imagine you can't

even think up the trouble that's coming

toward you it's just something you never

saw before in that case and I think that

does describe the future in that case

isn't your best form of preparation a

tremendous ability to communicate

incredible colleges and education system

to produce the kinds of scientists and

your researchers and doctors they need

for a variety of situation

we have these systems for governing that

apparently were up to the task in terms

of the fact that you know we knew who

was in charge okay mr. president

he immediately you know used his powers

to create a team that team used the

powers of emergency and and you know the

influence of the president's office and

all that the military everything all of

these systems

it's like systems on top of systems on

top of systems and how'd they do well

our biggest problem is we're sort of

ossified with all these regulations and

red tape if our system could not

immediately self-correct and cut through

the red tape when an emergency required

then I would say you're not prepared but

what if your system is so flexible at

the moment there's a need we got to get

rid of all these regulations they made

they made sense before you know in a

luxury time they made sense but right

now we just gotta get rid of them if you

could just slice through them which i

think is what the administration did it

looked to me like the administration

just sliced through regulations

everywhere they saw him like a you know

like a samurai so were we prepared to

get rid of regulations yes yes we had a

system in place there quite efficiently

identified and then removed obstacles we

also have the Internet I would say that

the the contribution of just individuals

as they communicated and on the internet

and and even the leadership that was

shown on the Internet I'm talking about

the you know the Mark Cuban's and cetera

the people who just stepped up and added

something useful and there are a lot of

ideas and connections and you know

buyers and sellers finding each other

and ideas that needed to be fleshed out

with more people so the internet the

Internet is this amazing system and in

in my opinion specifically Twitter

I I'm a little biased but I think

Twitter's whereas the brain of

civilization and because it exists all

the best ideas could sort of find the

right place and get filtered in a way

that we could have never done before you

know prior to Twitter so if you look at

everything from our political systems

even our financial systems the fact that

we have such a which you were you know

banking system and you know and that

minuchin could go in there and they had

a full toolbox minuchin had a full

toolbox what tool did venusian want to

use that was not available to him not

right well you know maybe you can think

of one but i can't because the the

economy of the United States was robust

minuchin goes in there and says all

right it's an emergency I'm gonna push

the buttons for emergencies and all the

buttons are there they're all there

because we weren't already in the

depression because we had good systems

so I would say that we're probably you

know it's human nature that we you beat

yourself up for your mistakes and you

don't give yourself enough credit for

the things you do well but I think where

we're heading with this if we do get

past the peak without running out of

stuff and I'm optimistic now I think we

really have to pat ourselves on the back

and I'm talking about humanity in

general because there are a whole bunch

of systems that really delivered that

they adapted that the systems themselves

were almost like living creatures

because none of the systems were on day

one adapted to the task but you know

let's just take one example you know

Twitter is not adapted to the task on

day one but it takes 10 seconds for a

hashtag to appear and suddenly Twitter

is morphing into exactly the tool for

this disease it's almost like you could

think of creating a hashtag

Twitter is almost like an antibody

you're a white white blood cell look

because let's say the the body human is

attacked so something about humanity is

attacked whether it's a pandemic or some

walls what's the first thing we do when

when humanity is attacked the first

thing we do is somebody makes a hashtag

write the hashtag then attracts all the

the attention and the trends and then

people know where to go and then it

connects everybody and then all of the

resources of the world all the different

systems start spinning up because of

this little hashtag so this hashtag is

like the antibodies that that get formed

on Twitter and they start spreading on

Twitter which connects all the systems

and and pushes them into operation and

then people can find each other and make

connections they know it's important

what's not imagine if you had to depend

on just the news yeah imagine this

pandemic came and there was no social

media and you just had to depend on the

news that's scary isn't it

that's really scary so the thing that's

sort of invisible to you is the stuff

that happens gradually and what's

happening gradually is we've you know

most of us have sort of grown up with

this evolving internet world

so you see you lose track of how

different it is from you know anytime

before that and one of the differences

it's almost alive you as soon as that

this was a problem was identified it

turned into a hashtag you're reformed

Twitter in real time and and created

like this little brain of society that

was focused on this one problem then all

the systems were activated and each of

them morphed into a new system every

system think about it every system in

the world probably every system in the

world just morphed into a new system and

just days while we watched because we

needed it a most most incredible thing

you've ever seen in your life I hope I

hope that we all remember it

in the way that you know we should let

me give you some some of my most

unlikely predictions you've heard these

before but if there's anybody new it's

always a good context so I've been

saying for years that you should make

predictions in public and then you can

see if you're good at it because people

will remind you if you missed it and if

if you do you should tell people you got

it right so you're my most unlikely

predictions well of course you know I

famously predicted that Trump would win

in 2015 so that would that sort of put

me on the map for predicting stuff but

here are some of the really weird ones I

predicted when we didn't know who the

Vegas shooter was and people were saying

it was probably Isis I said it was not

but that's not the that's not the fun

part the fun part is that when Isis took

credit for it

I still publicly said nope and then

people reminded me you know Isis doesn't

take credit for things that they didn't

do that's I think there was one example

where they might have but basically once

they take credit for it it's Isis but I

held tight and of course it was not Isis

so so that was a one for me when the

Cuban embassy allegedly had a secretive

sonic weapon and all the experts and all

the news was reporting it was a secret

weapon and I said never going to find

that secret sonic weapon that doesn't

exist have we found the secret sonic

weapon that doesn't exist we have not

and I think that at this point the

experts probably agree that it's not any

kind of a weapon whatever it was and of

course you you know I was one of the

first to say stop the flights from China

I was one of the first public people to

say of course masks work how could mask

not work it doesn't make any sense now a

lot of people realized it but you know

there was sort of a funny thing

happening when

when it first came out that the experts

you know Surgeon General and the World

Health Organization CDC to everybody

when they were all telling us that masks

wouldn't help I feel like there was this

phenomena that happened all over the

place

which is that a whole bunch of smart

people sent in themselves but B'nai

allowed as soon as they heard this they

thought to themselves this is that right

is that right because because that

doesn't feel right like how could not

how can it not help at least a little

bit and they would make their silly

arguments about touching your face and

you'd be like yeah but that doesn't that

doesn't feel right but I don't think

anybody wanted to say it out loud

because literally every expert just just

said no don't do it they don't help so

what are you gonna do are you gonna go

in public and say out loud in public I

disagree with every scientist and expert

who's weighed in based on my skill as a

cartoonist is anybody dumb enough to do

that well yeah I did that that's exactly

what I did i bucked every expert and

scientist in the world who all of them

know far more than I do because it was

obvious that they were just wrong so you

don't count that on my on my list I

think by the way I made it easier for

other people to say it in public because

you know when the first the first City

it goes and doesn't get killed you got

oh the first idiot didn't get killed

maybe I can go too and so here's where

I'm heading honest oh and I also

predicted that splitting ventilators

would be a thing and as of today the

Surgeon General just put out some

guidance that said it's it's a last

resort but it's an approved last resort

which makes sense right if you have any

other way to do it you wouldn't do it

that way and then here's another one so

my public estimate for the final death

toll will probably be you know well off

of the action

number but maybe the closest one in the

country so I might have the closest

estimate while still being off a bit so

mine was under five thousand net meaning

after you saved saved people who didn't

get in car accidents for two months

count them and etc counting everything

in there would be closer to five

thousand and we would do such a good job

it looks like the official estimates are

sixty thousand as of today but that's

gross so if you just netted out the ones

that were saved it's probably gonna be

half of that so somewhere in the

neighborhood of thirty thousand would be

the effectively the predicted net my

guess was five thousand I think the

thirty thousand is probably gonna come

down a little bit so if the experts were

saying a hundred or two hundred thousand

and maybe a million and I said five

thousand and it comes down to you know

net fifteen thousand or something I'm

gonna say I had the best prediction

we'll see but here's the weirdest one

let me let me do a little fact checking

with you because you know how it's easy

to have selective memory it's really

easy to have selective memory and like

imagine do you predict the things you

didn't predict so I need your help on

this who in the public who talks about

politics what public person said before

I did that Biden was mentally incapable

kid do you remember anybody saying it in

public like actually saying oh I'm

watching this and it looks like his

brain is not functioning did anybody say

that that you heard that you heard

before I did somebody says everyone well

everyone everyone is said is since yeah

everyone said his since but I might have

been the first one to say it publicly

maybe Mike Serna yeah I mean

so I'm not gonna claim that I said that

first but I was among the first and

wouldn't you say that a year ago it

wasn't as obvious but now everybody can

see it so I would say that everybody who

is on record as having said you know a

year ago I was kind of calling this out

already all those people are right right

yeah doctor who was on it early example

but my weirdest prediction is and I I

tweeted it today and I know you're never

supposed to reveal a conversation a

private conversation you have with the

president but this is a special case and

I'm only revealing this one little

nugget because it's fun and because the

president wouldn't mind and it was that

when I when he he invited me to the Oval

Office to chat in 2018 so this is August

2018 so justjust think about how long

ago this was it's August 2018 and he

asked me my prediction for who would get

the nomination and I said Kamala Harris

and he said Joe Biden so in August of

2018 President Trump called the and I

think we can assume that by don't get

the nomination unless he falls apart but

Trump called it he called it correctly

confidently he was pretty confident

about it and he called it in August of

2018 that's pretty good

right I have to say now my prediction

seemed to be going poorly when Carla

Harris suspended her campaign so you

might say to yourself well Scott after

Isis has taken credit that's when you

can say you're wrong oh no that's not

how I roll I don't care if Isis no

credit I'm still gonna say it wasn't

Isis as with the Vegas shooter and just

because Carla Harris stopped running for

president that didn't mean she wasn't

going to get the nomination no if you

recall I was quite

assistance that might that my prediction

would stand now as of today the news is

reporting that he's hinting so strongly

that he's going to pick her as vice

president that at this point you might

be surprising if he didn't because he's

just sort of talking about her in a way

that makes you think he is he's not

doing a good job of hiding his

intentions now let me say as clearly as

possible

it's not a done deal because first of

all I'm not even sure that Biden gets to

pick his own vice president at this

point I feel like the deep state is just

going to assign him a vice president so

that the usual people are in charge once

once he gets into office or or let's say

even he has to drop out before he gets

an office the vice president would be

the obvious one to take over the top of

the ticket

so if Camille Harris is the one who is

picked I would say we're no more than

60% likely at this point if I had to put

the odds on it but it's still my

prediction she would become the vice

presidential pick for a candidate that

even the Democrats realized is not

capable to hold the job and even Biden

has suggested that he knows it too

because he's talked about getting

somebody younger for the obvious reason

and it feels as though unless something

changes it feels like the obvious path

of this is there for all practical

purposes Komal Harris will be will be

the will be the nominee

whether officially or not in a practical

matter I think people will be inviting

voting for the vice president so would

you say my prediction of Comley Harris

as the nominee would be wrong under

these circumstances issue were the vice

presidential pick

well my critics will say yes is wrong

and I will of course say yeah it's

technically wrong it's technically wrong

and somebody says you are out of touch

guess what happens to people who say you

were out of touch they become an of

touched now you're at a touched know

you're at a touched again the rule is

you can disagree with anything you say

you just can't say something about me

don't say I'm out of touch just tell me

what I don't know that works too alright

somebody's saying yes still wrong now if

I didn't know what you meant by that

I'd probably block you for that but I

know what you mean

so I see a lot of you who are rejecting

the prediction so so just remember this

when you come back to mock me should I

be should I be wrong

should I be wrong I will look you in the

camera and I will admit I was wrong you

don't have to remind me right you don't

have to remind me I'll admit it and I

promise you I will admit it if she does

not get the vice presidential nod all

right let's see here say yeah well I

kind of said this before but I feel like

when this is over whenever that happens

I feel I feel like we're gonna be proud

I feel like humanity is gonna feel like

it did well the others of course you

know the the tragedies that come out of

this and the you know the discomfort and

pain are all terrible and cannot be

minimized but I think we're going to be

proud to recommend this I think it'll

work that well

alright see what else is going on here I

also think that the unintentional

benefit from this pandemic

we'll be we don't like your message what

message the accidental benefit will be

decoupling from China because I think

public opinion was sort of beginning to

lean in that direction yeah baby China

is not our friend

but I think the pandemic changed

people's emotional feeling about China

and the whole relationship and so I

would say at this point we came out way

ahead yeah the the pandemic is gonna

cost us how many trillion two or three

two or three trillion but I think we

still come in ahead in the long run if

we cut the cord with China and bring our

stuff home I think we could make up

three trillion because remember the what

is the what's the full economy does

anybody know the full it isn't a five

trillion dollar economy somebody help me

out with that but I think you know if

you take that three trillion and spread

it down over X years as one does I think

just the benefit of getting China and of

our supply chain and bringing that work

home we may end up making back the whole

three trillion in the long run all right

so I've predicted that there will be an

oxytocin delivery service if we have to

keep up this social isolation because

you know humans go a little squirrely if

they don't have physical touch and

physical touch releases a chemical in

you called oxytocin it's the thing that

makes you bogged with people it's the

thing that gives you a feeling of

well-being it's the thing that comes all

your stress and makes all your problems

go away you've probably noticed that you

could have all the problems in the world

but if you're with your loved one and

you have a good time together suddenly

all the problems in the world don't seem

so bad so that's the oxytocin and you

know since we all have this social

isolation what are you gonna do what are

you gonna do if somebody in the comments

is saying our economy is five to six

trillion I'm seeing six trillion

so the the point stands a six trillion

dollar economy could probably get back

three trillion over 25 years you know

just by the benefit of not dealing with

China anymore potentially so oxytocin so

what's gonna happen if we keep getting

starved of oxytocin besides the fact it

will be unhappy and and crazy I think

you might see people who already have

been tested to have recovered and have

antibodies they may do that business

that you've heard of I think it still

exists where people actually get paid to

hug people and they just go and they

cuddle with you for a while if you don't

have anybody in your life it's usually a

woman I don't think has to be but I'll

bet you you see that business bring up

because think of you know once we have a

bifurcated population where some people

have recovered and they have the

antibodies but other people are so

vulnerable they could die the people who

have the antibodies that are confirmed

to have recovered will be like super

beings who can you know who can you know

deal in both worlds while the people who

haven't yet caught anything and don't

have a vaccination will be you know

cowering in our caves so I think some of

them will actually it will be like you

know ordering door - I think people will

order hogs

like actual literally you'll you'll go

on your app and you'll say I just need

15 minutes of spooning and somebody will

come to your house and spoon you for 15

minutes and you pay them by the app

could happen so I would like to rate for

you for tonight

an artificial oxytocin high so that

chemical that normally is only produced

by close physical contact can also be to

a slightly lesser extent can be

artificially generated by a brain hack

do you believe it do you

there's a brain hack or a trick that can

kind of close the circuitry in your

brain that initiates your oxytocin

because remember it happens basically in

your brain in your own body even though

the other person is involved it's not

like they're shooting chemicals from

their body into yours right your

experience is a subjective one and in

your feeling of the subjective

experience is what makes your brain

chemistry do a certain thing which

triggers your oxytocin that flows into

your body in your mind it makes you feel

awesome so if there were some way to

close that little circuitry and activate

your oxytocin without the benefit of a

person there wouldn't that be cool it

turns out there is and I've taught you

the trick but until you see lots of

examples of it you don't completely get

the beauty of it and the trick is that

our mind is an association engine it's a

it's a pattern recognition engine

sometimes but it's also an association

engine so if for example I took this

bottle of water yeah that's a bad

example this is too common let's say I

took this little tripod that's a little

bit less common than a bottle of water

and every time every time I showed it to

you I fed you a delicious meal your

favorite meal like the best food you've

ever had in your life but no other time

do you ever get to see this it's the

only time you'll ever see it over time

simply seeing this without the food

would start to make you happy in the

same way that the delicious food did so

your brain just automatically pairs

things whether you like it or not now

you knew this of course because that's a

little concept behind you hear a song

that was your song when you were in a

relationship and it makes you sad

because it reminds you of that right so

you know those songs can trigger a

relationship you know the lots of other

things can trigger these associations

so if you would like to kill a little

oxytocin and who wouldn't here's what

you need to do the first thing you need

to do is reproduce as some of the

physicality that's what this blankets

for this blanket is chosen

scientifically sort of meaning that it's

just the right feeling and softness

because when I have it on me I get a

feeling of softness and a little bit

surrounded it's actually sort of hugging

me now if you think that being hugged by

a soft blanket

is so completely different than being

hugged by a human being well of course

it is but it's not that different

because your body is an association

machine and when you associate the

feeling of wow that is soft and warm and

feels good on my body it's going to

trigger some of the same chemistry and

mental processes and just by memory and

Association of the real thing so some of

its physical there were tests of little

monkey babies that didn't have mothers

and if they gave them a warm water

bottle they actually were pretty happy

because the just the physical warm water

bottle felt sort of like a person felt

or like a mummy so reproduce the

physical comfort of a human hug so you

might want to get you know you might

want to be near the fireplace if you

have a pet who's good at snuggling well

I'll put on a blanket sit by the

fireplace

get on their comfortable rug spoon with

your bigger old dog or your cat on your

chest and these these feelings are

similar enough to things that you feel

when you're with a real person then it

can trigger them at least partially and

then then the other thing you want to do

is you want to manage your mental shelf

space and put things on it that create

oxytocin and make sure that there's no

space on the mental shelf for any bad

thoughts to get in to work against it so

if you just don't bother managing what

you're thinking well thoughts we'll just

sort of occur to you and semi random way

and some of them will be bad so don't do

that so once you're in your soft

comfortable warm place hugging your cat

or dog or whatever you're doing this

assumes you don't actually have a human

that you can be hugging

then close your eyes and think about the

person you most want to hug put yourself

in this situation now here's the trick

run through all five senses in order

send yourself okay I can visualize what

that looks like

that's your eyes I can smell it you know

the perfume the scent I can feel it and

you're just in your imagination but

you're also feeling your soft light yet

the fire your pet perhaps maybe you've

got that maybe you've got a body pillow

by the way if you haven't tried a body

pillow you should because it's almost

disturbing how good it feels so if you

have one try that so imagine if you will

and fill up your mental space with just

thoughts where you cycle through all of

your your sensations you know your your

hearing your touch your scent your taste

if it makes sense if there's something

that you often would eat or taste with

this person so you just run through it

and you make sure that you're

concentrating as much as possible on the

thought of what it feels like to be with

that one you would most like to cuddle

it works best it works best if it's

somebody that you have an actual

relationship with or you can remember it

and you have good feelings about it not

something you broke up with ideally but

you have something there's only positive

so I will be gauging of Christina as I

as I often do while I'm hugging my my

pillow and of course it's the rest of

you

I know how hard it is for all of you but

I want you to take a moment to feel

sorry for me not only can I not be with

my fiancee but by terrible luck she is

the most attractive human being in the

multiverse now it'd probably be easier

not to see her if she if she were not so

darn lovely and if I didn't love her so

much and if she were not so incredibly

attractive but that's my / thats my my

personal hell but i do get to spend time

with you that's not nothing and tonight

when you go drifting off you're gonna

remember the oxytocin trick and you're

gonna feel almost like a tingle you're

gonna feel some of you not all of you

and not all the time but some of you are

going to feel it when you get in the

zone

and you can feel the warmth than me yeah

you're just comfortable and you're

thinking about that person you must want

to hug and you feel like a little tingle

it'll be like a little almost like a

blush that comes across some part of

your body it could be different

everybody's a little different so you

might feel a little sore in your head or

your neck I have a little tingle on your

arms but that's how you know you're in

the zone and tonight you're gonna have

one of the best sleeps of your life and

you wake up feeling a little bit better

than normal

you might not know why but it's a little

thing called oxytocin have a great night

I'll see you in the morning