Back to episode — Episode 1396 Scott Adams - Dilbert Filter on the Wuhan Lab Story, Headlines That Don't Match Stories
Context —
rms of what this could mean for the planet. It's a 10 and a 10. Did you know that this news is a 10 out of 10 for the health of the planet? I mean this is so big it's almost incalculable if it works. Right now even if it doesn't work, like I said, it probably moves us closer to the one that does. You know, they might have to tweak it or whatever. But this is amazing news. Is it the top headline?…
← Previous segment →real.
There's nothing you can do with the knowledge. We are chasing knowledge with no use. It doesn't have a function. You think it does, but I don't think it does. It just feels like it should matter, but it doesn't. It doesn't. Because I agree with Fauci when he says there's no way anybody did this intentionally. It just wouldn't be a rational act.
All right, what are other reasons in a Dilbert filter? Oh, here, here's another one. Did you note that it was only maybe 48 hours ago that we were saying that Fauci was lying? Fauci lied about X. Fauci lied about Y. Fauci lied about this. But already it's starting to soften. So now we're going from him lying to, at least in this one situation, to underplaying. He's not lying about the Wuhan lab being a potential source of the leak. No, he wasn't lying about it because he didn't tell a direct lie. He only underplayed it. He underplayed it.
Who gets to decide what is underplayed? Is there some international standard for what is underplayed versus what is played just right versus what is overplayed? See the difference? If something is a lie, you can debunk it or confirm it. If I say this is a lie, you can fact check it. But can you fact check underplayed? You see the trick? We went from something that could potentially be proven or not to something that's pure opinion. I think you should have said more words around this. I'm not sure he should have.
Here's why. So here are some Dilberty reasons to not immediately look into the Wuhan lab. Now I think we should, so I'm saying these are the Dilbert reasons, not good reasons. One is that it might stop all gain of function and maybe related research. There has to be a reason that a lab does gain of function stuff. There are two reasons. One would be to weaponize it, which we don't have a confirmation anybody did, and if we did I wouldn't believe it. But we certainly have the experts saying that. The other reason you do gain of function is to prevent an outbreak. The point of gain of function, the whole point, is to avoid a pandemic. Now it may have caused one. That's possible. But it doesn't change the fact that the point of it was to make us smarter and better prepared.
So if you were a reasonable person who cared about the world, mig
Context —
ht you try to discourage people from looking into the Wuhan lab as the source just because it might have a dampening effect on other research that's essential? It's a tough one, isn't it? Because you might find that the most moral position you could take on this is to lie. It's not impossible. It could be that the most moral position would be to lie about it and just downplay it because you don't…
Next segment → →