e of the most important things to know to look at the news. So there was a physicist named Gell-Mann and he would read the news and he would see a story about physics which was his expertise and he would say oh my God they got everything wrong. And then he'd see another one about physics and like they did it again it's wrong again. Every time I read about my expertise it's wrong. But then he would turn to the next page about something that was not in his expertise and say oh that looks right. And one day he realized wait a minute could it be an accident that everything I know about is wrong but the things I'm not an expert on are right? Maybe it's all wrong all the time.

So one of the things that maybe you've experienced, I'd love to see if you've had this experience. If you've had the press write about you you've seen how inaccurate it is. Have you experienced that yet?

No. So here's what I have experienced and I think this is similar to what you're talking about. So I remember a profile was written about me for I want to say GQ but it might have been another magazine. And the profile that I read didn't necessarily reflect back to me what I thought of myself but I didn't think it was inaccurate in terms of what the writer may have thought about me if that makes sense.

Sure. Sure. I wasn't misquoted. Nobody was lying about me. And over decades of my experience I'm trying to think and I don't think I've ever read anything about me from a reporter that was just wholly untrue. I don't think.

All right. So my experience having been the subject of news hundreds and hundreds of big stories they're wildly inaccurate even on basic things like what my jobs were, where I live. I mean really basics. Who I married. My age. And then if they try to interpret anything about what my opinions are that's just all ridiculous. So the first filter I put on it is that just because I'm not an expert in that field doesn't mean it's real because the news is terrible at getting the right context. Often the facts are right as you said but sometimes the context is left out.

Let me give you some. Here's another example. In science, science told me for years that having two drinks a night was fine. In fact it might make you healthier. I've said for 30 years I know that's not true. And I'm using my economics degree to tell you that the only people who would do those studies are the people who sell alcohol. And if the study went the other way they wouldn't show you. Now if you don't understand that science is motivated, meaning that the only person who's going to be able to afford a big multi-year $10 million controlled study with a placebo are the people who are selling something because nobody else just does it. So you can't really trust a study done by somebody who could make millions of dollars if it goes one way and they'll lose money if it goes the other way. Because you could expect they would simply hide it if it went the other way and if it were inaccurate but in their direction they'd put it out and see if anybody noticed. That that's the world I live in.

Okay. Now I speak from experience because it was my job to give data to my bosses. And I remember going into when I worked for the bank it was my job to say if each of the branch outlets were doing a good job so that the managers could be evaluated. And I took the data to my senior vice president and I said I can guarantee that the data is crap because it comes from all different places. There's no credibility to the data so therefore my conclusions are also useless. You really can't tell who's doing a good or bad job. The data is garbage. The senior vice president of the bank said to me I know and I don't care. I only use the data when it agrees with what I wanted to do. That is the only way that corporations work. And I was on the inside. So I went to another company just to make sure it wasn't that one company. Went to the phone company and it was my job to do analyses that agreed with what my boss wanted to do and so I did. And that's where I learned that whenever there are a lot of variables involved it's the assumptions that drive the outcome. It's not the data.

Drive the outcome not the data. I'm just trying to understand that.

Okay keep going.

All right. So an example would be if I think the discount rate or the interest rates are this it looks like a good idea. But if I assume that there's something else and there was lots of room for assumption we could go the other way. So I could simply pick my assumptions based on how I wanted the output to look.

So okay. So here's an example of an agency that in my estimation is not lying about this and I'd be curious to know what their agenda would be. So for decades NASA has been saying that climate change is real. It's man-made and it's a growing threat. Why would they lie about that?

Excellent question. That was going to be my big climax to talk you out of believing in climate change.

All right. So can we save it because with a little bit more...

The only reason I'm reluctant to is because we're going through a list of your accomplishments and your background and that's fine but it hasn't gotten to the heart of the conversation which is the media. So I'm willing to accept everything that you've said to this point but that's not what the conversation is about.

I think it is. I thought we were talking about how I can determine what's true in the media. Is that wrong?

Yeah sure sure sure. But to me the larger question is the claim that all news is fake. That's the question I'm interested in.

Right. So here's another one. I've also studied mass hysterias. So when I saw that there was a story that said the Russians have a secret sonic weapon that they're using on our embassies I said oh that's a classic mass hysteria. When they said the doctors have found actual real damage in these people I said that's a mass hysteria. And months and months and months go by and then the report comes out there's no sonic weapon. We think it was a mass hysteria. Now I knew that on day one because I studied mass hysterias. If you studied them you'd know it was a classic.

You personally have concluded based on everything that you've read that Havana syndrome is nothing but mass hysteria. And are we now at the point where science, the sort of respectable science establishment has also said that or is that still your claim and your claim alone?

No. That's now the common narrative is that it has been debunked as a weapon. There are still some people saying they think it is but the more common narrative is they studied it to death and they found out there were some sounds that were happening and it's still a mystery but they kind of ruled out the weapon thing.

Now here's how you could rule out the weapon even if you didn't know about mass hysterias. It's the Scott Alexander rule. Scott Alexander was a blogger who pointed out, the first time I saw it, it's a pseudonym by the way, Scott Alexander. And he pointed out that if you see a story that says a dog bites a man well you probably won't see that story because that's ordinary. Dogs bite people. If you see a story that a man bit a dog well that'll probably be in the news. But here's the second part. It's almost certainly not true. So about 19 out of 20 stories, this is my own estimate, that are fantastical on the surface turn out not to be true. So when you tell me that there's a secret sonic weapon that the Russians are using to really do an act of war on America by attacking an embassy and doing it