Episode 846 Scott Adams - Which Presidential Candidate Might Survive to Election Day, Social Distance
My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a Extreme social isolation works...and we are NOT doing it Bo Biden and Kamala Harris were very close Joe Biden's cognitive decline Russia bankrupting American shale oil businesses Gavin Newsome's coronavirus leadership Google demonetization of keyword "coronavirus" ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ If you would like my channel to have a wider audience and higher production quality, please donate via my startup (Whenhub.com) at this link: https://interface.my/ScottAdamsSays I use donations to pay for the daily conversions of the original Periscope videos into Youtube and podcast form, and to improve my production quality and search results over time. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Please subscribe to my channel…it REALLY helps. Like my video? Hate my video? Let me know, VOTE! Please leave a comment, let me know how I'm doing. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hey everybody, come on in. It's time for a coffee with Scott Adams. That's why you're here. Best part of the day. Yeah, it is. It really is. You think those parts of the day where you're off having all kinds of fun are the best parts, but no, no. It's right here. This is the best part.
View segment →And all you need to participate is a cup or a mug or a glass, a tankard, a chalice or stein, a canteen, a jug or flask, a vessel of any kind. Fill it with your favorite liquid. I like coffee. Enjoy it with me now with the unparalleled pleasure, the dopamine hit of the day, the thing that makes every…
View segment →No, that's how to do some social distancing, right? Am I right? There's some social distancing right there.
View segment →Let's talk about all the stuff in the news. So over in Italy, I saw a thread from, I guess it was a doctor in a hospital over in Italy, where they're being hit hard with the coronavirus. And apparently it's Night of the Living Dead, bodies piling up, whatever's the worst you could imagine, that's ha…
View segment →So let's talk about some other stuff. The dumbest thing that I hear in politics lately is coming from Bernie Sanders and people who say the same thing. And they say that President Trump doesn't believe in science. Now I don't think there's anybody who doesn't believe in science. What does that even…
View segment →All right, let's talk about Joe Biden because I think we have to. As the New York Times put it, I read this somewhere and I think it was on the Fox News site, quote, "prominent Democrats began publicly insisting that the ticket, the Joe Biden ticket, include a woman, preferably a black woman." All r…
View segment →Here are some things that are being said about Joe Biden. Dr. Jill Stein, you know her for ruining Hillary's chances because she was working with the Russians. No not really, that's what people are saying. And she ran in 2016 and got some votes and people say she siphoned them away from Hillary, pro…
View segment →All right, did you see the video of the Biden rally? You know there were some protesters. I forget what they were protesting but they held a big sign up and Joe got a little flustered. Did you see how he handled it? If you want to see who is not going to be your next president you have to watch that…
View segment →All right, see what else we got here. Well looks like Russia is trying to attack the United States with oil prices. So I'm learning a little bit more about this situation. So if you're not up on it it goes like this. Every country that produces oil produces it at a different cost, partly because of…
View segment →Gavin Newsom did something that shocked and amazed me yesterday. The governor of California, much maligned, much criticized governor. And you know for context there are people like me who've been saying critical things about the homeless situation and nuclear energy and some other things. But with t…
View segment →There's some bunch of free technology platforms for people who are going to work at home. So you've seen, and again this is beautiful and inspiring to watch, that the country, the United States, the citizens are just sort of jumping in and saying what can I do. And you're seeing the tech companies d…
View segment →All right so let me give you an update on demonetization and YouTube. So I learned yesterday from Google, so this what I'm going to say now is not my opinion or a guessing. This is actually from my contact at Google who is the right person for this, not just an employee at Google but the person who…
View segment →What's going on with your show with Christina? We have beta tested that and rejected it. So Christina and I were going to do a separate thing with the two of us and we filmed a few and played it back to see if we liked what we saw. And we just didn't enjoy doing it enough. So I think if it had been…
View segment →Somebody says coronavirus wedding. Well here's the thing. We were engaged and we're talking about our wedding plans so we have not finalized anything. But of course all of our plans were built around some kind of travel. And one of the main places that we were planning to travel this year, or at lea…
View segment →All right you could Periscope and what. So the age act program. Yeah I think I'll just be doing my own thing here working on yoga, writing, math and quilting. Very good. Very good. So I think we'll you know. I'm just looking at your comments. All right thanks for the comments and I will talk to you…
View segment →Hey everybody, come on in. It's time for a coffee with Scott Adams. That's why you're here. Best part of the day. Yeah, it is. It really is. You think those parts of the day where you're off having all kinds of fun are the best parts, but no, no. It's right here. This is the best part.
And all you need to participate is a cup or a mug or a glass, a tankard, a chalice or stein, a canteen, a jug or flask, a vessel of any kind. Fill it with your favorite liquid. I like coffee. Enjoy it with me now with the unparalleled pleasure, the dopamine hit of the day, the thing that makes everything better. It's called the simultaneous sip. Go. Mm-hmm.
No, that's how to do some social distancing, right? Am I right? There's some social distancing right there.
Let's talk about all the stuff in the news. So over in Italy, I saw a thread from, I guess it was a doctor in a hospital over in Italy, where they're being hit hard with the coronavirus. And apparently it's Night of the Living Dead, bodies piling up, whatever's the worst you could imagine, that's happening in the Italian hospitals right now because of the coronavirus.
Meanwhile some as yet publicly unnamed individual was shaking hands at CPAC, including with all kinds of senators and politicians. And we have a president who's been shaking hands, and apparently he's still going to have his rallies.
Here's my opinion as of around today. This is sort of a tipping point for me. I think it's irresponsible to have political rallies, because if you're looking at what's happening in the other countries, and you really ought to because it's not good. But if you look at Italy for example, they're in a world of hurt, and it's because the medical resources were overrun. Now there are people saying to me, "Scott, don't be so panicky because you know it just affects old people and you know most people are just gonna get a cold." Well yes, except that in Italy there's no healthcare services anymore. It's just for one purpose. Their entire healthcare system, at least the high-end stuff where you've got a hospital, it just doesn't exist anymore.
So if you break your leg in three weeks, do you know what your healthcare plan is in the United States? Limp. If you break your leg in three weeks in the United States there's a good chance that your healthcare solution will be the limp, because it won't be healthcare. It might last for a couple months. Now that's the situation in Italy and that's the situation if we don't keep it under control.
But will we keep it under control? It turns out that South Korea is actually getting a handle on theirs, and they're not doing extreme social distancing. They must be doing a lot of it but it's less extreme than some other places. So we do see some progress in South Korea. China allegedly is getting a handle on it but we don't know what that really means. Japan is doing better than Italy because they have way more, a lot more hospital resources. So Japan is not overrun yet. They're doing better but they're having some issues there.
Apparently I'm hearing also from people in Japan. The social media is great because you could hear individuals telling you what their actual life is like. And there's one person in Japan who says that there's plenty of goods in the stores and people just immediately went into extreme social isolation and it seems to have worked.
So here's what we know. We know that extreme social isolation is absolutely effective, and we know we're not doing it. And we know that the President of the United States is modeling not doing it, and the people he's competing against to be the next president are not doing it. I don't know how much longer we can put up with that. Do you?
Because let's put it this way. You know on one level it's up to the president whether he has a rally. It's up to Biden. It's up to Bernie. It's not up to us, is it? No, it's up to us. It's not up to them. It's not up to them. Don't let it be up to them. We're sort of in this together, right? The president doesn't get to decide to have a rally and then there's a rally. We have to decide. All right, everybody has to decide or else there's no rally. If only one person decides there's a rally, then there's a rally of one person.
So I'm not sure we should continue to allow, and "allow" is the right word because we can stop it. We can stop it today. I don't think we should allow our politicians to continue to do rallies, given that we know exactly what works: social isolation. And we know exactly what doesn't: continuing business as usual. It's not a mystery anymore. We know. And we know that if we don't get it early it's going to get us.
So I think it's completely irresponsible. And I would go so far as to say if we have another week of rallies, you know maybe this week is sort of an edge case, but if next week we're still doing rallies, we don't have anybody running for president who's qualified to lead us, at least in this situation. Let me say that as directly as I can. If President Trump next week, you know this week again it's on the edge, but by next week if they're still doing rallies and things are still worsening in the coronavirus global situation, none of them, none of them are qualified to be president. Unfortunately that's my opinion.
So let's talk about some other stuff. The dumbest thing that I hear in politics lately is coming from Bernie Sanders and people who say the same thing. And they say that President Trump doesn't believe in science. Now I don't think there's anybody who doesn't believe in science. What does that even mean? There's nobody who doesn't believe in science.
Now of course they'll point to climate change, but that's because the critics can't tell the difference between economics and science. What President Trump called a hoax, he wasn't saying I'm a scientist, I've looked at the science, blah blah. He was talking about the Paris agreement and the economic implications, which clearly were pretty sketchy. Now was that a belief? Who knows. But you know we can't read his mind. But the point is there was no point at which the president didn't believe in science. That's different than not believing the scientists, and it's different from believing that scientists might have control of the science but no control of the economic implications, which are the part you actually do something about, you know, beyond inventing stuff.
So it is so dishonest to call anybody anti-science. It just bugs me more than other stuff. You know it's different than other lies because you could say this person did X, maybe it's a lie, maybe they did not do X. That's just a plain lie. That's bad enough. But to blame somebody for doing something that isn't a thing is sort of like a double lie. It's a lie on the stupid. It's something like blaming your opponent for dematerializing and traveling to another planet by his thoughts and throwing the revolution on the other planet and returning by beaming himself back to this planet. Okay that was a terrible example but the point is it didn't happen and it couldn't happen. So blaming somebody for something that doesn't even exist is just the height of political stupidity. And people are buying it.
All right, let's talk about Joe Biden because I think we have to. As the New York Times put it, I read this somewhere and I think it was on the Fox News site, quote, "prominent Democrats began publicly insisting that the ticket, the Joe Biden ticket, include a woman, preferably a black woman." All right, so now it's being widely reported that the important Democrat people want a black woman on the ticket with Joe Biden. Well who's that gonna be?
Now some people say it can never be Kamala Harris because she attacked him at the debate. Well it turns out there's a back story. Turns out, and I was just learning this in its depth today, I was aware of this story that I'm gonna tell you but I didn't know the depth of it. It's the depth of it that makes the difference. Turns out that Kamala Harris and Joe Biden's now deceased son Beau Biden were really close. And not just professionally. They were close. They talked to each other all the time. They were both attorneys general at different places. And so she was sort of close to Joe Biden because of that. And apparently they've rekindled whatever that was and they got past whatever happened at the debate.
So does anybody doubt that she's the first choice now? Are we at the point where you know it's not gonna be Stacey Abrams? If it's Stacey Abrams I don't know anything about anything because I've watched her and she's so weak I can't believe that the people in charge, you know the Democratic leadership, would allow that. And I don't think that's the winning formula anyway.
So he says okay, you were right in the comments. That's all I wanted to hear. I would like to remind you that I made the most ridiculous prediction you've ever heard. The first ridiculous prediction was that I could pick the candidate back in 2018 when there were lots and lots of people running. And I peered into the crowd and I said I think it's gonna be Kamala Harris. And then when she suspended her campaign, this is the fun part, I said I still predict it will be Kamala Harris. What would be a weirder prediction than predicting the person who dropped out of the race was going to get the nomination? Was that the most unpredictable prediction you've ever heard in your life?
Well let's see if it happens. I think everybody would agree at this point if whoever the vice president pick is, is going to be the shadow president. So I'm technically wrong and you know my predicted bet, I lost money because they're very specific what it means to be the presidential candidate obviously. But in effect I got this right. I think it's looking that way. Now if she doesn't get nominated I'm wrong, just flat-out wrong. But if she does it would be my best prediction of all time. I'm pretty sure.
Here are some things that are being said about Joe Biden. Dr. Jill Stein, you know her for ruining Hillary's chances because she was working with the Russians. No not really, that's what people are saying. And she ran in 2016 and got some votes and people say she siphoned them away from Hillary, probably did. And so Jill Stein is out there saying directly that Joe Biden has mental decline in public. Did I mention it's Dr. Jill Stein? Medical doctor Jill Stein. Harvard-trained medical doctor Jill Stein is saying in public, okay now it's just obvious. I'm paraphrasing but basically she's saying, she's kind of implying that you don't need to be a medical doctor to see this.
I tweeted another medical doctor and I've been reading some other folks weighing in who are actual experts at working with dementia patients and Alzheimer's people, or at least they say they are on Twitter. You can never be a hundred percent sure if anybody is who they say they are. But people who are professionals are saying in public, unabashedly, that it's obvious there's a problem.
Now do you remember when people were saying this about Trump? And do you remember that there was just a tremendous blowback from medical professionals, as they should, to say whoa, you know, medical ethics, medical ethics. We do not diagnose people who are not our patients. You don't diagnose people you haven't met, haven't examined. Never. There's no ever. Period. You do not diagnose from a distance.
Well do you? Let me give you an example. Suppose you were a doctor. Somebody showed you a picture of an automobile accident and there was a headless body over here and then a very clear picture, no doubt about what you're seeing, the actual head which has been severed ten feet from the body. The doctor sees this picture and the person on the scene says what should we do doctor, should we give them CPR? And the doctor looks at the picture and says no, I'm not there but I think it would be unnecessary to give CPR because you see the head is not actually attached to the body. Probably dead. No, certainly dead because the head is not attached to the body.
Now would that be an ethical failure because the doctor's not there, the doctor has not examined the patient, the doctor is simply just looking at a picture? Would that be unethical? No, because the head is missing. It's obvious. You don't have to be a doctor. A person with half a brain can see the head is dead. And we haven't reached that point with Joe Biden where he's a headless corpse, but we have reached the point where medical professionals are willing to say in public, okay just look. Am I right? We've crossed that line where it's no longer medically unethical for a working professional, a medical professional, to say in public yeah just look at that. That's obvious.
That's a big deal because the medical profession did not cross that line with Trump. Am I right? And when somebody did, the other medical professionals poured in and said whoa, too far, you know, and people walked it back a little bit and tried to tap-dance. Well you know I'm not saying for sure, that sort of thing. But we're not seeing that this time. It's different.
All right, did you see the video of the Biden rally? You know there were some protesters. I forget what they were protesting but they held a big sign up and Joe got a little flustered. Did you see how he handled it? If you want to see who is not going to be your next president you have to watch that video. Watch Joe Biden try to not be Trump. Because Trump would have said hey, get those bums out of here, and the security would take them out, and Trump would tell jokes and the crowd would love it. It would be part of the show. That's the way Trump handles it.
How did Joe Biden handle it? Well he needed to be different so he had to handle it in some way that's not Trump-like. So he starts saying that's all right, let him go, we'll leave him there. And as he says that the security guards are coming in and grabbing the guy. And then Joe Biden taking control of the room, it's like okay just let him go. He says this isn't the Trump rally, we don't need to do that. Just let him stay. Let him stay.
And here's the funny part. The security guards absolutely ignored him. It was like he wasn't there. And these big beefy security guards just grabbed these guys and locked them up and just started dragging them out of the room, you know on their feet but they're pulling him out. And you watch him and Joe is even as they're being taken out by these security guys, it's alright, yeah just leave him there. And I thought I was seeing in my mind like one of those expired, what do you call it, a dandelion when it's just the little white stuff that blows away in the wind. In the old day the dandelion looked like an old dandelion up there and the other dandelion. There was just nothing there. There was no leadership. There was no power. There was no control. It didn't look like he was in control of himself much less the room. He did not control the room. And wow is it obvious. It is so obvious that there's no leadership skill there whatsoever. Then you could, I don't know how you could watch that and then vote for him. That'd be hard.
All right, see what else we got here. Well looks like Russia is trying to attack the United States with oil prices. So I'm learning a little bit more about this situation. So if you're not up on it it goes like this. Every country that produces oil produces it at a different cost, partly because of the technology they use and partly because of how they're getting the oil. So it's expensive to get it in shale. It's less expensive some other ways. Russia as it turns out, both through investment and luck about the type of oil they have, has maybe the lowest, possibly the lowest production costs, or it's right in that category somewhere.
And they've decided to start a price war because the U.S. shale business in particular had been so good that it was taking market share from Russia and everybody else. And we replaced Russia as the biggest producer. So Russia wants to find out how to get its money back. When oil prices are low, we're already low. So Russia was already in trouble because prices were low-ish. But they decided to go right at OPEC and Saudi Arabia by lowering them and starting a price war, which Saudi Arabia immediately matched. So we're in a price war.
And if the price war continues it will bankrupt the shale producing parts of our energy industry, which is pretty big. It's going to bankrupt them. And this is really aggressive because the intention of Putin, according to the people who know what they're talking about, his intention is to bankrupt them. It's actually a direct, obvious, you know nobody's hiding the plan. But it's all legal because it's business, right? In business you're allowed to do whatever you want if it's legal. It's legal. And lowering your prices is completely legal. If Russia can do it they can do it.
So they're going to take out our shale business, which is a continuation of this theme which you've seen under Trump, which is that all wars that can... let me say that again. I would say that the Trump doctrine, which has never been named, that I'm just going to name it that myself. Let's call it the Trump doctrine of war or the Trump war doctrine. Now of course I'm putting, I would be putting words into his mouth so this is not coming from the president or anything like it. But by observation I would say that Trump believes that all wars are economic wars. And that if you simply treat the economics as the war, well it's the war.
So Russia basically just declared war on the United States. But I think we declared war on them first by taking over their primary business. Now here's the problem. A lot of smart people think the price of oil may never go up high again because there's just so much of it and we're so good at getting it and you know the economy is slowing down this year anyway and you know then there's green energy. We've got new developments in nuclear power etc. coming online all the time.
But the problem is that Russia's income is selling weapons and oil pretty much. You know Russia is sort of like a criminal enterprise that sells oil and weapons. And if they can't sell oil and weapons and make money the whole country's in trouble. And guess what they can't do right now? Sell weapons and oil and make money. So the only two things that they can do that, because there's not a major war. Most of the big wars seem to be winding down now. I don't know this for sure but it seems like that would be bad for the arms business, the Russian arms business. Now it could be that they have a robust business even in peacetime as people are arming up. I don't know the details there. But I have to think that a peaceful world is bad for Russia because they sell arms. And obviously the oil situation would just put them out of business if it stayed low.
So this is a really, really big change with COVID. And it gets it kind of speaks to this question which I've been asking for a long time, which is why are we enemies with Russia? You know I've been saying this forever. Why don't we just say hey Russia, you know if we get along we're both better off. It's obvious. So let's just get along. You can see we do it with our other allies. When we get along with them we all get rich. When we don't get along we don't. So let's just get along. Then I always wonder why wouldn't that work with Russia? And I think we just got the answer.
The answer is they can't sell their oil if we're selling our oil to the same people. In other words Russia can't really coexist with the United States being a gigantic oil producer because they need all of that money to stay alive. So I'm not sure that they can be our economic partner because they have to compete with us so directly. It's way more directly than other countries compete with us and on that important industry, the energy. So maybe there's nothing we can do there where Russia will just always be enemies until one of us gets out of the oil business I guess. I think it comes down to that.
So I think Russia, well let me say it directly, based on the current trajectory of things the Russian state is doomed, right? Because they can't survive low oil prices and it doesn't look like anything is going to change the low oil prices. So that doesn't mean that they won't actually do it because people are pretty good at scrambling and surviving and doing what they need to do. But the trajectory for Russia is doomed just if nothing big changes. And I don't see anything big that's going to change. So that's a big problem. Might make them more flexible but it might make them the opposite.
Gavin Newsom did something that shocked and amazed me yesterday. The governor of California, much maligned, much criticized governor. And you know for context there are people like me who've been saying critical things about the homeless situation and nuclear energy and some other things. But with this coronavirus stuff he was giving a press conference, Gavin Newsom was, and he was asked whether President Trump and the administration are helping him. And he gave an unabashedly positive response and essentially said everything that we've asked them for, everything they promised, they did. Which is a big thing to say in politics. It was very clearly supportive of the administration's efforts on coronavirus. And it wasn't a hedged, you know it would be easy for a politician to say well you know for once they're doing something right, you know to kind of hedge it. Or to say you know well we're not getting everything we want to keep the pressure on but we're getting a lot. That would have been easy to say but he didn't. He didn't. Gavin Newsom stood in front of the world and he said that the federal government is absolutely doing everything he needs, everything he's asked for.
And I thought to myself that's some good leadership there. Okay I like to play fair, you know, because I've criticized this guy quite a bit. I'm not sure he needs to be our governor much longer. But this was really strong leadership. That was exactly what I wanted to see him say to make me feel the way I needed to feel and do the things I need to do. He made me feel that the government is effective. And I'm sure that there must be tons of little hiccups and problems and they don't, you think that the reality is that things never move as smoothly as the politicians say when they say things are good. Well but just for him to come out and give this little bit of positive reinforcement that the government and the state is working well together was powerful. It was useful. It was right. It was good for the country. It was not political. It was pure leadership. And I appreciated it. So thank you Gavin Newsom. Great job.
There's some bunch of free technology platforms for people who are going to work at home. So you've seen, and again this is beautiful and inspiring to watch, that the country, the United States, the citizens are just sort of jumping in and saying what can I do. And you're seeing the tech companies do this. And I tweeted around a list of technology platforms that are good for working at home like Dropbox and WebEx and those kinds. So if you're in a company and you've just been told to work at home and you don't know what all the good tools are for doing that, you know how do you share files and how do you work remotely and stuff, look at my Twitter feed for the list of platforms that are free. They're free during the crisis. So you got that going on.
All right so let me give you an update on demonetization and YouTube. So I learned yesterday from Google, so this what I'm going to say now is not my opinion or a guessing. This is actually from my contact at Google who is the right person for this, not just an employee at Google but the person who does this job who is my contact. And I've been assigned this contact because I was complaining about demonetization and they were demonetizing any reference to coronavirus. And I believe they still are but they have now stated publicly now that they recognize that that's an issue because most of the coronavirus coverage is people trying to be helpful. All right I'm doing nothing but talking about coronavirus except trying to be helpful.
So the demonetizing has two impacts but one of them is obvious. I'm a little uncertain of the other. So my Google contact told me yesterday something that I believe I don't understand correctly or I disagree with or there's something going on that I need to figure out. But anyway she said that demonetizing doesn't change how many people see it but I'm almost positive that's not true. So I'm gonna verify that and I think maybe we're talking about different things. Because here's what I believe to be true. I believe that their recommendation engine favors monetized content because why wouldn't it, right? Why wouldn't it favor its own monetized content? Yeah if it's going to suggest things for people to see, things which are monetized are by definition the things that are great for YouTube, right?
Somebody says there are thieves but I don't think there's any evidence that ads are playing that people are not getting paid for. I don't think that's going on. I've not seen any evidence of that. I think they either show ads or don't show ads. They don't show the ads and then keep the money. That's the opposite. It wouldn't make sense. The reason that Google demonetizes those things is on behalf of their advertisers. If Google made all the decisions with nobody else giving input they would monetize everything. Why the heck wouldn't they? If they're gonna allow the content on their platform at all of course they would monetize it if they could.
So be careful about who's Google making a decision and who's the advertisers making a decision. I have confirmed the experience I'm having is identical to what David Pakman is experiencing on YouTube. I just saw an update from him and his experience, he's an anti-Trump left-leaning guy, and his demonetization experience is identical to mine. So if you're thinking oh Scott, Scott's got, they're blaming the advertisers but really it's Google that's doing it, mm-hmm there's no evidence of that. The evidence is that liberals and conservatives are both being demonetized because of the content. If you mentioned politics or coronavirus it's just automatic. So we're trying to work through that but there appears to be no solution to that as far as I can tell.
Somebody says it's both the advertisers and the Google bias. That's the speculation that I don't see evidence of it but I neither could I disprove it. Can't prove a negative. Somebody says Google has proven to be biased in search engines. Yes but this isn't search. So I'm not saying they're not biased. I'm just saying I don't have any evidence that would lead me to say that, given that liberals and conservatives are both affected.
What's going on with your show with Christina? We have beta tested that and rejected it. So Christina and I were going to do a separate thing with the two of us and we filmed a few and played it back to see if we liked what we saw. And we just didn't enjoy doing it enough. So I think if it had been bad but we loved doing it we probably would have done it until we could do it well. But it was bad and we didn't love doing it. A lot of it has to do with just two people trying to schedule the same thing at the same time and agree on it. And it just added a level of relationship complexity that we didn't need. So we tried it. That's always my strategy. My strategy is if you don't know, give it a try. Worst thing that happens is you get embarrassed and you don't do it.
Oh but separately Christina will be producing more piano solos. So she's working on her repertoire, building up her number of songs. So every day I go downstairs and she's practicing Chopin and she's working up two lists I guess. She's got one to play. So yeah geez she's super gifted. Watching Christy play Chopin, which I've just learned is among the hardest of all pieces to play, it's really remarkable. I just look at it I go I don't know how anybody could do that. It just seems impossible.
Somebody says coronavirus wedding. Well here's the thing. We were engaged and we're talking about our wedding plans so we have not finalized anything. But of course all of our plans were built around some kind of travel. And one of the main places that we were planning to travel this year, or at least I was, I was going to tell her about that later, but was Italy. And Italy of course is off the list as is travel basically.
So here's the good news. This coronavirus is bad for extroverts but it's not bad for everybody if you know what I mean. Introverts and people who didn't like crowds anyway are just saying are you serious? I just got an excuse for being exactly the way I want to be anyway. And the answer is yeah you did. You just got an excuse for being exactly the way you wanted to be anyway, which is stick to yourself, keep your numbers low.
So we don't have a plan yet but you are right it probably will be a coronavirus wedding. Which means you know that awkward part where you don't know who to invite? I think we might be able to avoid the awkward part where you don't know who to invite because that's coronavirus. Well if it will invite nobody or just a few people anyway we'll work that out. Yeah introverts are kind of winning in this I have to admit that. I'm sort of a converted introvert. I would say that I'm genetically inclined to introversion and I like lots of alone time. I need lots of alone time. I need hours every day where I don't see other people or else I get a little squirrely.
So I have a Periscope wedding. Oh my god that's a good idea. That's a good idea. I don't think I could convince Christina but I'd do it if it were up to me. I'd do it. I don't think there's any chance she would agree to it but that is a damn good idea. I'll bet you. Yeah I bet you. Good to see a bunch of video weddings right because nobody wants to go infect all their own relatives. That's the worst thing in the world.
So like I said I'm gonna be enjoying my alone time. I think I'm gonna be doing the experience in Italy which was really scary. I think I'm gonna be doing a lot of social distancing. I told you that it's helpful to have a project. So if you too are going to be social distancing and I hope that you do, you should have a project. And the project is not something you're working on all the time but just something you have as a fun thing that you want to improve, a skill you're working on. And in my case I've decided to work on my arms. And again it doesn't matter what it is. Just something you always wanted to do that you wouldn't have had time to do before because in your busy life but now you're gonna be home a lot.
So my goal is I'm going to try to work on my muscles so you can look at it before and after. So I'm telling you now that three months from now since I'll have so much time in my home gym I hope to make a muscle and it's bigger. And then I'm going to say huh well I was locked up for three or four months but look at these guns. Now of course that's a vain and not very important objective. You might want to learn a language. You might want to pick up a skill. Take an online class. But take advantage of it because I'm not entirely sure we're worse off by pulling back and maybe you know having a little alone time. Maybe learn to meditate. I hear that's good for your body.
All right you could Periscope and what. So the age act program. Yeah I think I'll just be doing my own thing here working on yoga, writing, math and quilting. Very good. Very good. So I think we'll you know. I'm just looking at your comments. All right thanks for the comments and I will talk to you later.
hey everybody come on in it's time for a coffee with Scott Adams that's why you're here best part of the day yeah it is it really is you think those parts of the day where you're off having all kinds of a dull are the best parts but no no which it's right here this is the best part and all you need to participate is a cup or a mug or a class a tanker cello sur Stein a canteen jerger flask a vessel of any kind fill it with your favorite liquid I like coffee enjoyed me now with the unparalleled pleasure the dopamine Yetta the day the thing that makes everything better it's called the simultaneous it go mm-hmm no that's how to do some social distancing right am i right there's some social distancing right there let's talk about all the stuff in the news so over in Italy I I saw a thread from I guess was a doctor in a hospital over in Italy where they're being hit hard with the coronavirus and apparently it's Night of the Living Dead bodies piling up whatever's the worst you could imagine that's happening in the Italian hospitals right now because of the corona virus meanwhile some as yet publicly unnamed individual was shaking hands at CPAC including with all kinds of senators and politicians and we have a president who's been shaking hands and apparently he's still going to have his rallies here's my opinion as of around today this is sort of a tipping point for me I think it's irresponsible to have political rallies because if you're looking at what's happening in the other countries and you really oughta because it's not good but if you look at Italy for example they're there in a world of hurt and it's because the medical resources were over up now there are people saying to me Scott's got sucked don't be so panicky because you know it just affects old people and you know most people are just gonna cold well yes except that in Italy there's no health care services anymore it's just for one purpose their entire health care system at least let the high-end stuff you know where you've got a hospital it just doesn't exist anymore so if you break your leg in three weeks do you know what your health care plan is in the United States limp right if you break your leg in three weeks in the United States there's a good chance that your health care solution will be the limp because it won't be in health care it might last for a couple months now that's the situation in Italy and that's a situation if we don't keep it under control but will we keep it under the code control it turns out the South Korea is actually getting a handle on theirs and they're not doing extreme social distancing they must be doing a lot of it but it's less extreme than some other places so we do see some progress in South Korea China allegedly is getting a handle on it but we don't know what that really means Japan is doing better than Italy because they have way more a lot more hospital resources so Japan is not overrun yet they're doing better but they're they're having some issues there apparently I'm hearing also from people in Japan the social media is great because you could hear individuals telling tell you what their actual life is like and there's one person in Japan who says that there's plenty of goods in the stores and people are just just immediately went into extreme social isolation and it seems to have worked so here's what we know we know that extreme social isolation is absolutely effective and we know we're not doing it and we know that the President of the United States is modeling not doing it and the people he's competing against to be the next president are not doing it I don't know how much longer we can put up with that do you because let's let's put it this way you know on one level you know it's up to the president whether he has a rally you know it's up to Biden it's up to Bernie you know it's not up to us is it no it's up to us it's not up to them it's not up to them don't let it be up to them we're sort of in this together right the president doesn't get this to decide to have a rally and then there's a rally we have to decide - all right everybody has to decide or else there's no rally if only one person decides there's a rally and then there's a rally of one person so I'm not sure we should continue to allow and it allow is the right word because we can stop it we can stop it today I don't think we should allow our our politicians to continue to do rallies given that we know exactly what works social isolation and we know exactly what doesn't continuing business as usual it's not a mystery anymore we know and we know that if we don't get it early it's going to get us so I think it's completely irresponsible and I would go so far as to say if we have another week of rallies you know maybe this week sort of an edge case but if next week we're still doing rallies we don't have anybody running for president who's qualified to leave us at least in this situation I let me say that is directly as I can if President Trump next week you know this week again it's on the edge but by next week if they're still doing rallies and things are still worsening in the coronavirus global situation none of them none of them are qualified to be President unfortunately that's my opinion so let's talk about some other stuff the dumbest thing that I hear in politics lately is coming from Bernie Sanders and and people who say the same thing and they say that President Trump doesn't believe in science now I don't think there's anybody who doesn't believe in science what does that even mean there's nobody who doesn't believe in science now of course they'll point to climate change but that's because the the critics can't tell the difference between economics and science what President Trump called a hoax he wasn't saying I'm a scientist I've looked at the science blah blah he was talking about the Paris agreement and the the economic implications which clearly were pretty sketchy now was that I / believe who knows but you know we can't read his mind but the point is there there's no point at which the president didn't believe in science that's different than not believing the scientists and it's different from believing that scientists might have a control of the science but no control of the economic implications which are the part you actually do something about you know beyond inventing stuff so so it's it is so dishonest to call anybody anti science it just bugs me more than other stuff you know it's different than other lies because you could say this person did X maybe it's a lie maybe they did not do X that's just a plain lie that's bad enough but to blame somebody for doing something that isn't a thing is sort of like a double lie it's a lie on the stupid it's something like blaming your opponent for dematerializing and traveling to another planet by his thoughts and throwing the revolution on the other planet and returning by beaming himself back to the planet okay that was a terrible example but the point is it didn't happen and it is a couldn't happen so blaming something for something that doesn't even exist is just the the height of political stupidity and people are buying it all right let's talk about Joe Biden because I think we have to as the New York Times put it I read this somewhere and I think I'm Fox News site quote provident Democrats began publicly began publicly insisting that the ticket the Joe Biden ticket included include a woman preferably a black woman all right so now it's being widely reported that the important Democrat people want a black woman on the ticket with Joe Biden well who's that gonna be now some people say no it can never become Harris because she attacked them at the debate well it turns out there's a back story turns out and I was just learning this in its depth today I was aware of this story that I'm gonna tell you but I didn't know the depth of it it's the depth of it that makes the difference turns out the Carmel Harris and Joe Biden's now deceased son Beau Biden were really close and not just professionally they were they were close they talked to each other all the time they were both attorney generals at different places and and so she was sort of close to Joe Biden because of that and apparently they've rekindled whatever that was and they got past whatever happened that's a debate so does anybody doubt that she's the first choice now are we at the point where you know Stacy it's not gonna be Stacy Abrams if it's Stacy Abrams I don't know anything about anything because I've watched her act and so weak I can't believe that the the people in charge you know the Democratic leadership would allow that and I don't think that's the winning formula anyway so he says okay you were right in the comments that's all I wanted to hear I would like to remind you that I made the most ridiculous prediction you've ever heard the first ridiculous prediction was that I could pick the the candidate back in 2018 when there were lots and lots of people running and I peered into the crowd and I said I think it's gonna be Connell Harris and then when she what she's suspended her campaign this is the fun part I said I still predict it will be Kabul Harris what would be a weirder prediction than predicting the person who dropped out of the race was going to get the nomination was that the most unpredictable prediction you've ever heard in your life well let's see if it happens I think everybody would agree at this point if whoever the vice president pick is is going to be the shadow president so I'm technically wrong and you know my predicted bet I lost money because they're they're very specific what it means to be the you know the presidential candidate obviously but in effect I can't I got this right I think it's looking that way now if she doesn't get nominated I'm wrong just flat-out wrong but if she does it would be my best prediction of all time I'm pretty sure here are some things that are saying about Joe Biden dr.
Jill Stein you know her for ruining Hillary's chances because she was working with the Russians no not really that's what people are saying and she is so she ran in 2016 and got some votes and people say it's safe and them away from Hillary probably did and so Jill Stein is out was saying directly that Joe Biden has you know mental decline in public did I mention it's dr.
Jill Stein medical doctor Jill Stein harvard-trained medical doctor Jill Stein is saying in public okay now it's just obvious I'm paraphrasing but basically she's saying she's kind of implying that you don't need to be a medical doctor to see this I tweeted another medical doctor and I've been reading some other folks weighing in who are actual experts at working with dementia patients and Alzheimer's people or at least they say they're on Twitter you can never be hundred percent sure if anybody is who they say they are but people who are professionals are saying in public unabashedly that it's obvious there's a problem now do you remember when people are saying this about Trump and do you remember the there was just a tremendous blowback from medical professionals as they should to say whoa you know medical ethics medical ethics we do not diagnose people who are not our patients you don't diagnose people you haven't met haven't examined never there's no ever period you do not diagnose from a distance well do you let me give you an example suppose you were a doctor somebody showed you a picture of automobile accident and there was a headless body over here and then a very clear picture the no doubt or what what you're seeing the actual head which has been severed ten feet from the body the doctor sees this picture and the person on the scene says what should we do doctor should we give them CPR and the doctor looks at the picture and says no I'm not there but I think it would be unnecessary to give CPR because you see the head is not actually attached to the body probably dead no certainly death because head is not attached to the body now would that be an ethical failure because the doctors not there the doctor has not examined the patient the doctor is simply just looking at a picture would that be unethical no because the head is missing it's obvious you don't have to be a doctor a person with that the head is dead and we haven't reached that point with Joe Biden where he's a headless corpse but we have reached the point where medical professionals are willing to say in public okay just look am i right we've crossed that line where it's no longer medically unethical for a working professional a medical professional to say in public yeah just look at that that's obvious that's a big deal because the medical profession did not cross that line with Trump am i right and when somebody did the other medical professionals poured in and said whoa too far you know and people walked it back a little bit and tried to try to tap-dance well you know I'm not saying for sure that sort of thing but we're not seeing that this time it's differently all right did you see the video of the Biden rally you know wish there were some protesters I forget what they were protesting but they held a big sign up and Joe got a little flustered did you see how he handled it if you want to see who is not going to be your next president you have to watch that video watch Joe Biden try to not be Trump because Trump would have said hey get those bums out of here and the security would take him out and and and Trump would tell jokes and the the crowd would love it it would be part of the show that's the way Trump handles it how did it Joe bad Biden and late' well he needed to be different so he had to handle it in some way that's not Trump like so he starts saying that's all right let him go he'll leave him there and as you say that the security guards are coming in and grabbing the guy and then Joe Biden taking control of the room it's like okay just let him go he says this is in the Trump rally we don't need to do that just let him stay let him stay and here's the funny part the security guards absolutely ignored him it was like he wasn't there and these big beefy security guards just grab these guys and lock them up and just start dragging them out of the room you know on their feet but they're they're pulling him out and you watch him and Joe is even as that being taken out by DISA it's alright yeah just just leave him there and I thought I was seeing in my mind like like one of those expired what he called it a dandelion when it's just the little white stuff that blows away in the wind in the old day of the line it looked like an old dead line up there and the other died the dais just there was nothing there there was no leadership there was no power there was no control it didn't look like he was in control of himself much less the room he did not control the room and Wow is it obvious it is so obvious that there's no leadership skill there whatsoever then you could I don't know how you could watch that and then vote for him it that'd be hard all right see what else we got here well looks like Russia is trying to attack the United States with oil prices so I'm learning a little bit more about this situation so if you're not up on it it goes like this so every country that produces oil produces it at a different cost partly because the technology they use and partly because of how they're getting the oil so it's expensive to get it in a shale it's less expensive some other ways Russia as it turns out both through investment and luck about the type of oil they have has maybe the lowest possibly the lowest production costs or it's right in that category somewhere and they've decided to start a price war because the US shale business in particular had been so good that it was taking market share from Russia and everybody else and we we replaced Russia as the biggest producer so Russia wants to find out how to get his money back when oil prices are low were already low so Russia was already in trouble because prices were low ish but they decided to go right at OPEC and Saudi Arabia by lowering them and starting a price war which Saudi Arabia immediately matched so we're in a price war and if the price war continues it will bankrupt the shale producing parts of our energy industry which is pretty big it's going to bankrupt them and this is really aggressive because the intention of Putin according to the people who know what they're talking about his intention is to bankrupt them it's actually a direct obvious you know nobody's hiding the plan but it's all legal because it's business right in business you're allowed to do whatever you want if it's legal it's legal and and lowering your prices is completely legal if Russia can do it they can do it so they're going to take out our shale business which is a continuation of this theme which you've seen under Trump which is that all wars that can the core let me say that again I would say that the trumpet doctrine which has never been named that I'm just going to name it that myself let's call it the Trump doctrine of war or the Trump war doctrine now of course I'm putting I would be putting words into his mouth so this this is not coming from the president or anything like it but by observation I would say that Trump believes that all wars economic war and that if you simply treat the economics as the war well it's the war so so Russia basically just declared war on the United States but I think we declared war on them first by taking over their primary business now here's the problem a lot of smart people think the price of oil may never go up high again because there's just so much of it and we're so good at getting it and you know the economy is slowing down this year anyway and you know then there's green energy energy we've got new developments in nuclear power etc coming online all the time but the problem is that Russia's income is selling weapons and oil pretty much you know Russia is sort of like a a criminal enterprise this sells oil and weapons and if they can't sell oil and weapons and make money the whole country's in trouble and guess what they can't do right now sell weapons and oil and make money so the only two things that they can do that because there's not a major war that most of the big war seem to be winding down now I don't know this for sure but it seems like that would be bad for the arms business the Russian arms business now it could be that they have a robust business even in peacetime as people are you know arming up I don't know the details there but I have to think that a peaceful world is bad for Russia because they sell arms and obviously the oil situation would just put them out of business if it stayed low so this is a really really big change coven and it gets it kind of speaks to this question which I've been asking for a long time which is why are we enemies with Russia you know I've been saving this forever why don't we just say hey Russia you know if we get along we're both we're both better off it's obvious so let's just get along you can see we do it with their other allies when we get along with them we all get rich when we don't get along we don't so let's just get along then I always wonder why wouldn't that work with Russia and I think we just got the answer the answer is they can't sell their oil if we're selling our oil to the same people in other words Russia can't really coexist with the United States being a gigantic oil producer because they need all of that money to stay alive so I'm not sure that they can be our economic partner because they have to compete with us so directly it's way more directly than other countries compete with us and on that important industry the energy so maybe there's there's nothing we can do there where the Russia will just always be enemies until one of us gets out of the oil business I guess I think it comes down to that so I think Russia well let me say it directly based on the current trajectory of things the Russian state is doomed right because they can't survive low gasp oil prices and it doesn't look like anything is going to change the low oil prices so that doesn't mean that they were actually do because people are pretty good at scrambling and surviving and doing what they need to do but the trajectory for Russia is do just if nothing big changes and I don't see anything being this going to change so that's a big problem might become flexible but it might make them the opposite Gavin Newsom did something that shocked and amazed me yesterday the governor of California much maligned much criticized governor and you know for context there are people like me you've been saying critical things that is the homeless situation and nuclear energy and some other things but with this coronavirus stuff he was giving a press conference Gavin Newsom was and he was asked whether President Trump and the administration are helping him and he gave an unabashedly positive response and essentially said everything that we've asked them for they everything they promised they did which is a big thing to say in politics it was very clearly supportive of the administration's efforts on coronavirus and and it wasn't a hedged you know it would be easy for a politician to say well you know for once they're doing something right you know to kind of hedge it or to say you know well we're not getting everything you know want to keep the pressure on but we're getting a lot that would have been easy to say but he didn't he didn't gavin newsom stood in front of the world and he said that the that the federal government is absolutely doing everything he needs everything he's asked for and i thought to myself that's some good leadership there okay I like to I like to play a fair you know because I've criticized this guy quite a bit I'm not sure he needs to be our mayor I'm sorry I'm not sure he needs to be our governor much longer but this was really strong leadership that was exactly what I wanted to see him say to make me feel the way I needed to feel and do the things I need to do he made me feel that the government is effective and I'm sure that there must be tons of little hiccups and problems and they don't you think that the reality is that things never move as smoothly as the politicians say when they say things are good well but just for him to come out and give this little bit of positive reinforcement that the government's in the state is working well together was powerful it was useful it was right it was good for the common it was not political it was pure leadership and I appreciated it so thank you gavin newsom great job there's some a bunch of free technology platforms for people who are going to work at home so you've seen the and again this is this is beautiful and inspiring to watch that the country the United States the citizens are just sort of jumping in and saying what can I do and you're seeing the tech companies do this and I I tweeted around a list of technology platforms that are good for working at home like Dropbox and Web.
Ex and those guides so if you're if you're in a company and you've been just been told to work at home and you don't know what all the good tools are for doing that you know how do you share files and how do you work remotely and stuff look at my Twitter feed for the list of Twitter platforms that are free they're free during the crisis so you got that going on all right so let me give you an update on D monetization and You.
Tube so I am yesterday that I'd learned from from Google so this what I'm going to say now is not my opinion or a guessing this is actually from my contact at Google who who is the right person for this not just an employee at Google but the person who does this job who is my contact and I've been assigned this contact because I was complaining about D monetization and they were d monetizing any reference to coronavirus and I believe they still are but they have now they've been they've stated publicly now that they recognize that that's an issue because most of the coronavirus coverage is people trying to be helpful all right I'm doing nothing talking about coronavirus except trying to be helpful so the d monetizing has two impacts but one of them is Louisville I'm a little uncertain of so my Google contact told me yesterday something that I believe I don't understand correctly or I disagree with or there's something going on that I need to figure out but anyway she said that deep monetizing doesn't change how many people see it but I'm almost positive that's not true so I'm gonna verify that and I think maybe we're talking about different things because here's here's what what I believe to be true I believe that their recommendation engine favours monetized content because why wouldn't it right why wouldn't it favor its own monetized comments yeah if it's going to suggest things for people to see things which are monetized are by definition the things that are you know great for You.
Tube right somebody says there are thieves but I don't I don't think there's any evidence that ads are playing that people are not getting paid for I don't think that's going on I've I've not seen any evidence of that I think they either show ads or don't show ads they don't show the ads of them keep the money that's the opposite of it wouldn't make sense that the reason that Google do you monetize those things is on behalf of their advertisers if Google made all the decisions with nobody else giving input they would monetize everything why the heck wouldn't they if they're gonna allow the content on their platform at all of course they would monetize it if they could so be careful about who's who's Google making a decision and who's the advertisers making a decision I have confirmed does the experience I'm having is identical to what David Pakman is experiencing on You.
Tube I just saw an update from him and his experience he's he's a anti-trump left leading guy and his D monetization experience is identical to mine so if you're thinking oh Scott Scott's got they're blaming the advertisers but really it's Google that's doing it mm-hmm there's no evidence of that the evidence that the Liberals and the Conservatives are both being demonetised because of the content if you mentioned politics or coronavirus is just automatic so we're trying to work through that but there appears to be no solution to that as far as I can tell somebody says it's both the advertisers in the Google bias that's the speculation that I don't see evidence of it but I neither could I disprove it can't prove a negative somebody says Google has proven to be biased in search engines yes but this isn't search engine seized so I'm not saying they're not biased I'm just saying I don't have any evidence that would lead me to say that given that liberals and conservatives are both affected what's going on with your show with Christina we have a be tested that and rejected it so Christina and I were going to do do a separate you know the thing with the two of us and we we filmed a few and played it back to see if we liked what we saw and we just didn't enjoy doing it enough so I think if it had been bad but we loved doing it we probably would have done it until we could do it well but it was bad and we didn't love doing it a lot of it has to do with just two people trying to schedule the same thing at the same time and agree on it and it it just added the level of relationship complexity that we didn't need so we tried it said that's always my strategy my strategy is if you don't know give it a try worst thing that happens is you get embarrassed and you don't do it oh but separately Christina will be producing more piano solos so she's she's working on her working on her repertoire building up her number of songs so every day I go downstairs and she's practicing Chopin and she's working up two lists I guess he's our as one to play so yeah geez she's super gifted watch watching a christy to play Chopin which I've just learned is among the hardest of all pieces to play it's really remarkable I just look at it I go I don't know I don't know how anybody could do that it just seems impossible somebody says Corona Beauty wedding well here's the thing we were you know we're engaged and we're talking about our wedding plans so we have not finalized anything but of course all of our plans were built around some kind of travel and one of the main places that were planning to travel this year or at least I was I was going to tell her about that later but was Italy and Italy of course is off the list as is travel basically so uh here's the good news here's the good news this Pronovias is bad for extroverts but it's not bad for everybody if you know what I mean introverts and people who didn't like crowds anyway are just saying are you serious I just got an excuse for being exactly the way I want to be anyway and the answer is yeah you did you just got an excuse for being exactly the way you wanted to be any way which is stick to yourself keep your and keep your numbers low so we don't have a plan yet but you are right it probably will be a coronavirus wedding which means do you know that awkward part where you don't know to invite I think we might be able to avoid the awkward part where you don't know who to invite because that's coronavirus well if I will invite nobody or just a few people anyway we'll work that out yeah introverts are kind of winning in this I have to admit that I'm I'm sort of a converted introvert I would say that I'm genetically inclined to introversion and I like lots of lots of a long time I need lots of a long time I need hours every day where I don't see other people or else I get a little squirrely so I have a periscope wedding oh my god that's a good idea that's a good idea I don't think I could convince Christina but I'd do it if it were up to me I'd do it I don't think there's any chance she would agree to it but that is a damn good idea I'll bet you yeah I bet you good to see a bunch of video weddings right because nobody wants to go infect all their own relatives that's the worst thing in the world so like I said I'm gonna be enjoying my alone time I think I'm gonna have to really the experience in Italy which was really scary I think I'm gonna be doing a lot of social distancing I told you that it's helpful to have a project so if you two are going to be social distancing and I hope that you do you should have a project and the project is not something you're working on all the time but just something you have as a you know a fun thing that you want to improve a system you're working on and in my case I've decided to work on my arms it and again it doesn't matter what it is just something you always wanted to do that you wouldn't have had time to do before because in your busy life but now you're gonna be home a lot so by my oh my good my goal is I'm going to try to work on my muscles so you can look at it before and after so I'm telling you now that three months from now since I'll have so much time in my home gym I hope to make a muscle and it's bigger and then I'm going to say huh well I was locked up for three four three months but look at these guns now of course that's a vein and not very important objective you might want to learn language you might want to pick up a skill take it take it online in class but take advantage of it because I'm not entirely sure we're worse off by by pulling back and maybe you know having a little alone time maybe learn to meditate I hear that's good for your your body all right you could periscope and what so the the age Act program yeah I think I'll just be doing my own thing here working on yoga writing math and quilting very good very good so I think we'll you know I'm inch sized I don't know I'm just looking at just looking at your comments all right thanks for the comments and I will talk to you later
[Music]
hey everybody come on in it's time for a
coffee with Scott Adams that's why
you're here best part of the day yeah it
is it really is you think those parts of
the day where you're off having all
kinds of a dull are the best parts
but no no which it's right here this is
the best part
and all you need to participate is a cup
or a mug or a class a tanker cello sur
Stein a canteen jerger flask a vessel of
any kind fill it with your favorite
liquid I like coffee enjoyed me now with
the unparalleled pleasure the dopamine
Yetta the day the thing that makes
everything better
it's called the simultaneous it go
mm-hmm no that's how to do some social
distancing right am i right there's some
social distancing right there let's talk
about all the stuff in the news so over
in Italy I I saw a thread from I guess
was a doctor in a hospital over in Italy
where they're being hit hard with the
coronavirus and apparently it's Night of
the Living Dead bodies piling up
whatever's the worst you could imagine
that's happening in the Italian
hospitals right now because of the
corona virus meanwhile some as yet
publicly unnamed individual was shaking
hands at CPAC including with all kinds
of senators and politicians and we have
a president who's been shaking hands and
apparently he's still going to have his
rallies here's my opinion as of around
today this is sort of a tipping point
for me I think it's irresponsible to
have political rallies
because if you're looking at what's
happening in the other countries and you
really oughta because it's not good but
if you look at Italy for example they're
there in a world of hurt and it's
because the medical resources were over
up now there are people saying to me
Scott's got sucked
don't be so panicky because you know it
just affects old people and you know
most people are just gonna cold
well yes except that in Italy there's no
health care services anymore it's just
for one purpose their entire health care
system at least let the high-end stuff
you know where you've got a hospital it
just doesn't exist anymore so if you
break your leg in three weeks do you
know what your health care plan is in
the United States limp right if you
break your leg in three weeks in the
United States there's a good chance that
your health care solution will be the
limp because it won't be in health care
it might last for a couple months now
that's the situation in Italy and that's
a situation if we don't keep it under
control but will we keep it under the
code control it turns out the South
Korea is actually getting a handle on
theirs and they're not doing extreme
social distancing they must be doing a
lot of it but it's less extreme than
some other places so we do see some
progress in South Korea China allegedly
is getting a handle on it but we don't
know what that really means Japan is
doing better than Italy because they
have way more a lot more hospital
resources so Japan is not overrun yet
they're doing better but they're they're
having some issues there apparently I'm
hearing also from people in Japan the
social media is great because you could
hear individuals telling tell you what
their actual life is like
and there's one person in Japan who says
that there's plenty of goods in the
stores and people are just just
immediately went into extreme social
isolation and it seems to have worked so
here's what we know we know that extreme
social isolation is absolutely effective
and we know we're not doing it and we
know that the President of the United
States is modeling not doing it and the
people he's competing against to be the
next president are not doing it I don't
know how much longer we can put up with
that do you because let's let's put it
this way you know on one level you know
it's up to the president whether he has
a rally you know it's up to Biden it's
up to Bernie you know it's not up to us
is it no it's up to us it's not up to
them it's not up to them don't let it be
up to them
we're sort of in this together right the
president doesn't get this to decide to
have a rally and then there's a rally we
have to decide - all right everybody has
to decide or else there's no rally if
only one person decides there's a rally
and then there's a rally of one person
so I'm not sure we should continue to
allow and it allow is the right word
because we can stop it we can stop it
today I don't think we should allow our
our politicians to continue to do
rallies given that we know exactly what
works social isolation and we know
exactly what doesn't continuing business
as usual it's not a mystery anymore we
know and we know that if we don't get it
early it's going to get us so
I think it's completely irresponsible
and I would go so far as to say if we
have another week of rallies you know
maybe this week sort of an edge case but
if next week we're still doing rallies
we don't have anybody running for
president who's qualified to leave us at
least in this situation I let me say
that is directly as I can if President
Trump next week you know this week again
it's on the edge but by next week if
they're still doing rallies and things
are still worsening in the coronavirus
global situation none of them none of
them are qualified to be President
unfortunately that's my opinion so let's
talk about some other stuff the dumbest
thing that I hear in politics lately is
coming from Bernie Sanders and and
people who say the same thing and they
say that President Trump doesn't believe
in science now I don't think there's
anybody who doesn't believe in science
what does that even mean there's nobody
who doesn't believe in science now of
course they'll point to climate change
but that's because the the critics can't
tell the difference between economics
and science what President Trump called
a hoax he wasn't saying I'm a scientist
I've looked at the science blah blah he
was talking about the Paris agreement
and the the economic implications which
clearly were pretty sketchy now was that
I / believe who knows but you know we
can't read his mind but the point is
there there's no point at which the
president didn't believe in science
that's different than not believing the
scientists and it's different from
believing that scientists might have a
control of the science but no control of
the economic implications which are the
part you actually do something about you
know beyond inventing stuff so so it's
it is so dishonest to call anybody anti
science
it just bugs me more than other stuff
you know it's different than other lies
because you could say this person did X
maybe it's a lie maybe they did not do X
that's just a plain lie that's bad
enough but to blame somebody for doing
something that isn't a thing is sort of
like a double lie it's a lie on the
stupid it's something like blaming your
opponent for dematerializing and
traveling to another planet by his
thoughts and throwing the revolution on
the other planet and returning by
beaming himself back to the planet okay
that was a terrible example but the
point is it didn't happen and it is a
couldn't happen so blaming something for
something that doesn't even exist is
just the the height of political
stupidity and people are buying it all
right let's talk about Joe Biden because
I think we have to as the New York Times
put it I read this somewhere and I think
I'm Fox News site quote provident
Democrats began publicly began publicly
insisting that the ticket the Joe Biden
ticket included include a woman
preferably a black woman all right so
now it's being widely reported that the
important Democrat people want a black
woman on the ticket with Joe Biden well
who's that gonna be now some people say
no it can never become Harris because
she attacked them at the debate well it
turns out there's a back story turns out
and I was just learning this in its
depth today I was aware of this story
that I'm gonna tell you but I didn't
know the depth of it it's the depth of
it that makes the difference
turns out the Carmel Harris and Joe
Biden's now deceased son Beau Biden were
really close and not just professionally
they were they were close they talked to
each other all the time they were both
attorney generals at different places
and and so she was sort of close to Joe
Biden because of that and apparently
they've rekindled whatever that was and
they got past whatever happened that's a
debate so does anybody doubt that she's
the first choice now are we at the point
where you know Stacy it's not gonna be
Stacy Abrams if it's Stacy Abrams I
don't know anything about anything
because I've watched her act and so weak
I can't believe that the the people in
charge you know the Democratic
leadership would allow that and I don't
think that's the winning formula anyway
so he says okay you were right in the
comments that's all I wanted to hear I
would like to remind you that I made the
most ridiculous prediction you've ever
heard the first ridiculous prediction
was that I could pick the the candidate
back in 2018 when there were lots and
lots of people running and I peered into
the crowd and I said I think it's gonna
be Connell Harris and then when she what
she's suspended her campaign this is the
fun part I said I still predict it will
be Kabul Harris what would be a weirder
prediction than predicting the person
who dropped out of the race was going to
get the nomination was that the most
unpredictable prediction you've ever
heard in your life well let's see if it
happens I think everybody would agree at
this point if whoever the vice president
pick is is going to be the shadow
president so I'm technically wrong and
you know my predicted bet I lost money
because they're they're very specific
what it means to be the you know the
presidential candidate obviously but in
effect I can't I got this right I think
it's looking that way now if she doesn't
get nominated I'm wrong just flat-out
wrong but if she does it would be my
best prediction of all time I'm pretty
sure here are some things that
are saying about Joe Biden dr. Jill
Stein you know her for ruining Hillary's
chances because she was working with the
Russians no not really
that's what people are saying and she is
so she ran in 2016 and got some votes
and people say it's safe and them away
from Hillary probably did and so Jill
Stein is out was saying directly that
Joe Biden has you know mental decline in
public did I mention it's dr. Jill Stein
medical doctor Jill Stein
harvard-trained medical doctor Jill
Stein is saying in public okay now it's
just obvious I'm paraphrasing but
basically she's saying she's kind of
implying that you don't need to be a
medical doctor to see this I tweeted
another medical doctor and I've been
reading some other folks weighing in who
are actual experts at working with
dementia patients and Alzheimer's people
or at least they say they're on Twitter
you can never be hundred percent sure if
anybody is who they say they are but
people who are professionals are saying
in public unabashedly that it's obvious
there's a problem now do you remember
when people are saying this about Trump
and do you remember the there was just a
tremendous blowback from medical
professionals as they should to say whoa
you know medical ethics medical ethics
we do not diagnose people who are not
our patients you don't diagnose people
you haven't met haven't examined never
there's no ever period you do not
diagnose from a distance well do you let
me give you an example suppose you were
a doctor
somebody showed you a picture of
automobile accident and there was a
headless body over here and then a very
clear picture the
no doubt or what what you're seeing the
actual head which has been severed ten
feet from the body the doctor sees this
picture and the person on the scene says
what should we do doctor should we give
them CPR and the doctor looks at the
picture and says no I'm not there but I
think it would be unnecessary to give
CPR because you see the head is not
actually attached to the body probably
dead no certainly death because head is
not attached to the body now would that
be an ethical failure because the
doctors not there the doctor has not
examined the patient the doctor is
simply just looking at a picture would
that be unethical
no because the head is missing it's
obvious you don't have to be a doctor a
person with that the head is dead and we
haven't reached that point with Joe
Biden where he's a headless corpse but
we have reached the point where medical
professionals are willing to say in
public okay just look am i right we've
crossed that line where it's no longer
medically unethical for a working
professional a medical professional to
say in public yeah just look at that
that's obvious that's a big deal because
the medical profession did not cross
that line with Trump am i right and when
somebody did the other medical
professionals poured in and said whoa
too far you know and people walked it
back a little bit and tried to try to
tap-dance well you know I'm not saying
for sure that sort of thing but we're
not seeing that this time it's
differently all right did you see the
video of the Biden rally you know wish
there were some protesters I forget what
they were protesting but they held a big
sign up and Joe got a little flustered
did you see how he handled it
if you want to see who is not going to
be your next president you have to watch
that video watch Joe Biden try to not be
Trump because Trump would have said hey
get those bums out of here and the
security would take him out and and and
Trump would tell jokes and the the crowd
would love it it would be part of the
show that's the way Trump handles it how
did it Joe bad Biden and late' well he
needed to be different so he had to
handle it in some way that's not Trump
like so he starts saying that's all
right let him go he'll leave him there
and as you say that the security guards
are coming in and grabbing the guy and
then Joe Biden taking control of the
room it's like okay just let him go he
says this is in the Trump rally we don't
need to do that just let him stay let
him stay
and here's the funny part the security
guards absolutely ignored him it was
like he wasn't there and these big beefy
security guards just grab these guys and
lock them up and just start dragging
them out of the room you know on their
feet but they're they're pulling him out
and you watch him and Joe is even as
that being taken out by DISA
it's alright yeah just just leave him
there and I thought I was seeing in my
mind like like one of those expired what
he called it a dandelion when it's just
the little white stuff that blows away
in the wind in the old day of the line
it looked like an old dead line up there
and the other died the dais just there
was nothing there
there was no leadership there was no
power there was no control it didn't
look like he was in control of himself
much less the room he did not control
the room and Wow is it obvious it is so
obvious that there's no leadership skill
there whatsoever then you could I don't
know how you could watch that and then
vote for him it that'd be hard all right
see what else we got here
well looks like Russia is trying to
attack the United States with oil prices
so I'm learning a little bit more about
this situation so if you're not up on it
it goes like this so every country that
produces oil produces it at a different
cost partly because the technology they
use and partly because of how they're
getting the oil so it's expensive to get
it in a shale it's less expensive some
other ways Russia as it turns out both
through investment and luck about the
type of oil they have has maybe the
lowest possibly the lowest production
costs or it's right in that category
somewhere and they've decided to start a
price war because the US shale business
in particular had been so good that it
was taking market share from Russia and
everybody else and we we replaced Russia
as the biggest producer so Russia wants
to find out how to get his money back
when oil prices are low were already low
so Russia was already in trouble because
prices were low ish but they decided to
go right at OPEC and Saudi Arabia by
lowering them and starting a price war
which Saudi Arabia immediately matched
so we're in a price war and if the price
war continues it will bankrupt the shale
producing parts of our energy industry
which is pretty big it's going to
bankrupt them and this is really
aggressive because the intention of
Putin according to the people who know
what they're talking about his intention
is to bankrupt them it's actually a
direct obvious you know nobody's hiding
the plan but it's all legal because it's
business right in business you're
allowed to do whatever you want if it's
legal it's legal and and lowering your
prices is completely legal if Russia can
do it they can do it so they're going to
take out our shale business which is a
continuation of this theme which you've
seen under Trump which is that all wars
that can
the core let me say that again I would
say that the trumpet doctrine which has
never been named that I'm just going to
name it that myself let's call it the
Trump doctrine of war or the Trump war
doctrine
now of course I'm putting I would be
putting words into his mouth so this
this is not coming from the president or
anything like it but by observation I
would say that Trump believes that all
wars economic war and that if you simply
treat the economics as the war well it's
the war so so Russia basically just
declared war on the United States but I
think we declared war on them first by
taking over their primary business now
here's the problem a lot of smart people
think the price of oil may never go up
high again because there's just so much
of it and we're so good at getting it
and you know the economy is slowing down
this year anyway and you know then
there's green energy energy we've got
new developments in nuclear power etc
coming online all the time but the
problem is that Russia's income is
selling weapons and oil pretty much you
know Russia is sort of like a a criminal
enterprise this sells oil and weapons
and if they can't sell oil and weapons
and make money the whole country's in
trouble and guess what they can't do
right now sell weapons and oil and make
money so the only two things that they
can do that because there's not a major
war that most of the big war seem to be
winding down now I don't know this for
sure but it seems like that would be bad
for the arms business the Russian arms
business now it could be that they have
a robust business even in peacetime as
people are you know arming up I don't
know the details there but I have to
think that a peaceful world is bad for
Russia because they sell arms and
obviously the oil situation would just
put them out of business if it stayed
low so this is a really really big
change coven and it gets it kind of
speaks to this question which I've been
asking for a long time which is why are
we enemies with Russia you know I've
been saving this forever why don't we
just say hey Russia you know if we get
along
we're both we're both better off it's
obvious so let's just get along you can
see we do it with their other allies
when we get along with them we all get
rich when we don't get along we don't so
let's just get along then I always
wonder why wouldn't that work with
Russia and I think we just got the
answer the answer is they can't sell
their oil if we're selling our oil to
the same people in other words Russia
can't really coexist with the United
States being a gigantic oil producer
because they need all of that money to
stay alive so I'm not sure that they can
be our economic partner because they
have to compete with us so directly it's
way more directly than other countries
compete with us and on that important
industry the energy so maybe there's
there's nothing we can do there where
the Russia will just always be enemies
until one of us gets out of the oil
business I guess I think it comes down
to that so I think Russia well let me
say it directly based on the current
trajectory of things the Russian state
is doomed right because they can't
survive low gasp oil prices and it
doesn't look like anything is going to
change the low oil prices so that
doesn't mean that they were actually do
because people are pretty good at
scrambling and surviving and doing what
they need to do but the trajectory for
Russia is do just if nothing big changes
and I don't see anything being this
going to change so that's a big problem
might become flexible but it might make
them the opposite Gavin Newsom did
something that shocked and amazed me
yesterday the governor of California
much maligned much criticized governor
and you know for context there are
people like me you've been saying
critical things that is the homeless
situation and nuclear energy and some
other things but with this coronavirus
stuff he was giving a press conference
Gavin Newsom was and he was asked
whether President Trump and the
administration are helping him and he
gave an unabashedly positive response
and essentially said everything that
we've asked them for they everything
they promised they did which is a big
thing to say in politics it was very
clearly supportive of the
administration's efforts on coronavirus
and and it wasn't a hedged you know it
would be easy for a politician to say
well you know for once they're doing
something right you know to kind of
hedge it or to say you know well we're
not getting everything you know want to
keep the pressure on but we're getting a
lot that would have been easy to say but
he didn't he didn't gavin newsom stood
in front of the world and he said that
the that the federal government is
absolutely doing everything he needs
everything he's asked for and i thought
to myself that's some good leadership
there okay I like to I like to play a
fair you know because I've criticized
this guy quite a bit I'm not sure he
needs to be our mayor I'm sorry I'm not
sure he needs to be our governor much
longer but this was really strong
leadership that was exactly what I
wanted to see him say to make me feel
the way I needed to feel and do the
things I need to do he made me feel that
the government is effective and I'm sure
that there must be tons of little
hiccups and problems and they don't you
think that the reality is that things
never move as smoothly as the
politicians say when they say things are
good well but just for him to come out
and give this little bit of positive
reinforcement that the government's in
the state is working well together was
powerful it was useful it was right it
was good for the common
it was not political it was pure
leadership and I appreciated it so thank
you gavin newsom great job there's some
a bunch of free technology platforms for
people who are going to work at home so
you've seen the and again this is this
is beautiful and inspiring to watch that
the country the United States the
citizens are just sort of jumping in and
saying what can I do and you're seeing
the tech companies do this and I I
tweeted around a list of technology
platforms that are good for working at
home like Dropbox and WebEx and those
guides so if you're if you're in a
company and you've been just been told
to work at home and you don't know what
all the good tools are for doing that
you know how do you share files and how
do you work remotely and stuff look at
my Twitter feed for the list of Twitter
platforms that are free they're free
during the crisis so you got that going
on all right so let me give you an
update on D monetization and YouTube so
I am yesterday that I'd learned from
from Google so this what I'm going to
say now is not my opinion or a guessing
this is actually from my contact at
Google who who is the right person for
this not just an employee at Google but
the person who does this job who is my
contact and I've been assigned this
contact because I was complaining about
D monetization and they were d
monetizing any reference to coronavirus
and I believe they still are but they
have now they've been they've stated
publicly now that they recognize that
that's an issue because most of the
coronavirus coverage is people trying to
be helpful
all right I'm doing nothing talking
about coronavirus except trying to be
helpful
so the d monetizing has two impacts but
one of them is Louisville I'm a little
uncertain of
so my Google contact told me yesterday
something that I believe I don't
understand correctly or I disagree with
or there's something going on that I
need to figure out but anyway she said
that deep monetizing doesn't change how
many people see it but I'm almost
positive that's not true so I'm gonna
verify that and I think maybe we're
talking about different things because
here's here's what what I believe to be
true I believe that their recommendation
engine favours monetized content because
why wouldn't it right why wouldn't it
favor its own monetized comments yeah if
it's going to suggest things for people
to see things which are monetized are by
definition the things that are you know
great for YouTube right somebody says
there are thieves but I don't I don't
think there's any evidence that ads are
playing that people are not getting paid
for I don't think that's going on I've
I've not seen any evidence of that I
think they either show ads or don't show
ads they don't show the ads of them keep
the money that's the opposite of it
wouldn't make sense that the reason that
Google do you monetize those things is
on behalf of their advertisers if Google
made all the decisions with nobody else
giving input they would monetize
everything why the heck wouldn't they if
they're gonna allow the content on their
platform at all of course they would
monetize it if they could so be careful
about who's who's Google making a
decision and who's the advertisers
making a decision I have confirmed does
the experience I'm having is identical
to what David Pakman is experiencing on
YouTube I just saw an update from him
and his experience he's he's a
anti-trump left leading guy and his D
monetization experience is identical to
mine so if you're thinking oh Scott
Scott's got they're blaming the
advertisers but really it's Google
that's doing it mm-hmm
there's no evidence of that the evidence
that the Liberals and the Conservatives
are both being demonetised because of
the content if you mentioned politics or
coronavirus is just automatic so we're
trying to work through that but there
appears to be no solution to that as far
as I can tell somebody says it's both
the advertisers in the Google bias
that's the speculation that I don't see
evidence of it but I neither could I
disprove it can't prove a negative
somebody says Google has proven to be
biased in search engines yes but this
isn't search engine seized so I'm not
saying they're not biased I'm just
saying I don't have any evidence that
would lead me to say that given that
liberals and conservatives are both
affected what's going on with your show
with Christina we have a be tested that
and rejected it so Christina and I were
going to do do a separate you know the
thing with the two of us and we we
filmed a few and played it back to see
if we liked what we saw and we just
didn't enjoy doing it enough so I think
if it had been bad but we loved doing it
we probably would have done it until we
could do it well but it was bad and we
didn't love doing it a lot of it has to
do with just two people trying to
schedule the same thing at the same time
and agree on it and it it just added the
level of relationship complexity that we
didn't need so we tried it said that's
always my strategy my strategy is if you
don't know give it a try worst thing
that happens is you get embarrassed and
you don't do it oh but separately
Christina will be producing more piano
solos so she's she's working on her
working on her repertoire building up
her number of songs so every day I go
downstairs and she's practicing Chopin
and she's working up two lists
I guess he's our as one to play
so yeah geez she's super gifted watch
watching a christy to play Chopin which
I've just learned is among the hardest
of all pieces to play it's really
remarkable I just look at it I go I
don't know I don't know how anybody
could do that it just seems impossible
somebody says Corona Beauty wedding well
here's the thing we were you know we're
engaged and we're talking about our
wedding plans so we have not finalized
anything but of course all of our plans
were built around some kind of travel
and one of the main places that were
planning to travel this year or at least
I was I was going to tell her about that
later but was Italy and Italy of course
is off the list as is travel basically
so uh here's the good news here's the
good news
this Pronovias is bad for extroverts but
it's not bad for everybody if you know
what I mean introverts and people who
didn't like crowds anyway are just
saying are you serious I just got an
excuse for being exactly the way I want
to be anyway and the answer is yeah you
did you just got an excuse for being
exactly the way you wanted to be any way
which is stick to yourself keep your and
keep your numbers low so we don't have a
plan yet but you are right it probably
will be a coronavirus wedding which
means do you know that awkward part
where you don't know to invite I think
we might be able to avoid the awkward
part where you don't know who to invite
because that's coronavirus well if I
will invite nobody or just a few people
anyway we'll work that out
yeah introverts are kind of winning in
this I have to admit that I'm I'm sort
of a converted introvert I would say
that I'm genetically inclined
to introversion and I like lots of lots
of a long time I need lots of a long
time I need hours every day where I
don't see other people or else I get a
little squirrely so I have a periscope
wedding oh my god that's a good idea
that's a good idea I don't think I could
convince Christina but I'd do it if it
were up to me I'd do it I don't think
there's any chance she would agree to it
but that is a damn good idea I'll bet
you yeah I bet you good to see a bunch
of video weddings right because nobody
wants to go infect all their own
relatives that's the worst thing in the
world so like I said I'm gonna be
enjoying my alone time I think I'm gonna
have to really the experience in Italy
which was really scary I think I'm gonna
be doing a lot of social distancing I
told you that it's helpful to have a
project so if you two are going to be
social distancing and I hope that you do
you should have a project and the
project is not something you're working
on all the time but just something you
have as a you know a fun thing that you
want to improve a system you're working
on and in my case I've decided to work
on my arms it and again it doesn't
matter what it is just something you
always wanted to do that you wouldn't
have had time to do before because in
your busy life but now you're gonna be
home a lot so by my oh my good my goal
is I'm going to try to work on my
muscles so you can look at it before and
after so I'm telling you now that three
months from now since I'll have so much
time in my home gym I hope to make a
muscle and it's bigger and then I'm
going to say huh well I was locked up
for three four three months but look at
these guns now of course that's a vein
and not very important objective you
might want to learn language you might
want to pick up a skill take it take it
online in class
but take advantage of it because I'm not
entirely sure we're worse off by by
pulling back and maybe you know having a
little alone time maybe learn to
meditate I hear that's good for your
your body all right
you could periscope and what so the the
age Act program yeah I think I'll just
be doing my own thing here working on
yoga writing math and quilting very good
very good so I think we'll you know I'm
inch sized I don't know I'm just looking
at just looking at your comments all
right thanks for the comments and I will
talk to you later