Episode 979 Scott Adams: Buggy Imperial Prediction Model, and Carrier Wave for Persuasion

And suddenly, a great calm fell upon the Internet because it was time for coffee with the Scott Adams Without Coffee. Evening edition. Yes, once again we meet here in this digital playground where I will take your mind and strange and wonderful directions. Oh, yeah, you're going to learn something. Your body will be alive. Have I oversold it yet? Well, let me see if I can meet this lofty claim in the next 60 seconds. If you're not enjoying yourself, I lied. So that's my promise to you. And the clock's already started. In 60 seconds, you're going to say, okay, that was kind of fun. That was kind of fun. And I'd like to bring in my special guest to help you with some affirmations. You might recognize them.

You are more beautiful than a blossoming flower on a warm spring morning.

It's true. You are. Could we hear another Mr. President?

Some of us build walls, but you tear them down.

You tear them down by being yourself.

You make America great again.

Just be yourself.

Let your inner beauty shine outwards, just like mine does.

Just like his does. I would like to thank John and Julie Moseley. Mosley. Mosley. Or is it Mosley? You should really send a pronunciation guide with your name, John and Julie, because we don't know if it's Mosley, Mosley or Masli. Possibly Mosley, but I'd go with Mosley if I were you. There is a weird and wonderful thing happening. You know, timing is everything. I tweeted that there's a guy who's been building his own. Trying to build his own outdoor drive in Theater for 10 years, and he's just about done. And now it's time for Outdoor drive in theaters. So he works on this thing for 10 years, and when he's about ready to be done, suddenly the world really needs an outdoor drive in theater. So you can't. There's nothing you can do that's as good as getting lucky, timing wise. I think I told you probably yesterday or maybe this morning that I got lucky with a stock pick. There's nothing that substitutes for luck. All the preparation in the world is not ever going to be as powerful as luck. Now, you can manipulate your luck by going where there's more of it. I talk about that a lot. But you can't change luck itself. You can simply go where there's more energy, more chance for luck to find you. You can certainly do that. So. So here's where I'm going with this. So in 2013, I wrote this book, how to Fail Almost everything. And it made sort of a modest impact, but I don't think it was the right time because things were starting to look good. We're entering a pretty good period economically. And I think people didn't really think I need to really shake things up or do things differently as much as. But here we are now in these uncertain times and people are asking the question, what do I do now? What's next? And so I think that that's caused some kind of a renaissance because everywhere I go it seems people are now mentioning this book and they're mentioning two concepts from it, the talent, the idea of the talent stack and systems over goals. And one of the ways I tell you that you can tell if an idea is going to be viral, if an idea is really going to catch on or grow. So that could be an idea or it could be a product. And the thing you look for is always the same thing. You look for what people are doing with their physical body. Don't listen to their words, you can't read their thoughts, but you can watch what they do with their body. So if somebody, for example, writes a book that's based on my ideas, they're actually doing something that's physical, they're writing a book if somebody passes around, makes a video. So a number of people made videos talking about the ideas in the book. And Tim Ferriss was nice enough to give a big shout out when he was asked, what's the best. Somebody asked him recently what's the best career advice? And he just gave my career advice. You know, he, he gave me credit for it and he wrote about me in his book Tools for Tools of Titans or for Titans, Tools of Titans. And now if you don't know the name Tim Ferriss, I mention him specifically because he would be probably the leading person right now in terms of career advice. So if he, if he chose to highlight what was in this book, it's pretty important. So I promised you that I wasn't going to do just a commercial. Like I try to make sure that if I mention anything that I've done that has any kind of a price tag on it, I would also give you some value. And here's the value. There has never been a better time to improve your talent stack. You still have time. You've got probably a lot of you, maybe you got weeks more, a month more. And I'm hearing every day, I think today five or six people told me that they changed their life by changing their talent stack or using systems versus goal. That's five or Six people just today told me it changed their life. And they use those very words, by the way, that's not my exaggerated version of it. They almost, to a person, they say it changed my life, turned my business around, that sort of thing. So I would say it's one thing to know that there were some tools and it's one thing to have the opportunity. It's another thing to have the opportunity to use them. That's kind of perfect. I mean, this is the time. There are a lot of people who are going to emerge from this thing with superpowers and you could be one of them. Let's talk about the. This story is so expected, except by people who have never done models, I guess. So the Imperial College model, that was the prediction model that said there was going to be dire consequences with the coronavirus. Half a million people dying, I think just in Great Britain. So it was the scariest of the models. And to some extent it probably influenced the shutdown, lockdown strategies. But we don't know how much because there was a lot of other information. But it was probably one of the bigger factors, people think. And today we find that their code was released. So a lot of people said, hey, you know, given that we're maybe running the entire planet based on this model, do you think you could do us a solid and show us the computer code that produced it? What do you think happened when the experts looked at the computer code? If you don't know this story, just fucking guess. Just fucking guess. What do you think happened when the experts looked at the code? Let me read you a few comments. And if you didn't know this was true before you knew it was true, then you didn't talk to somebody who's done this kind of work in the real world, let's say. Here's a comment. So experts have derided the coding, called it a buggy mess that looks more like a bowl of angel hair pasta than a finely tuned piece of programming. Shall I go on? Allow me to continue. Quote, in our commercial reality, we would fire anyone for developing code like this. And any business that relied on it to produce software for sale would likely go bust. Said, blah, blah, some data expert. And then this is the best part. I don't know if you'll fully appreciate. Maybe you have to have some experience with software to fully appreciate this next part because it's a little bit nerdy. But this is something you don't want to hear about your software. Quote, I don't know if I can even read this. There Appears to be a bug in either the creation or reuse of the network file. If we attempt two completely identical runs, only varying in that the second should use the network file produced by the first. The results are quite different. So basically, you can run the same fucking data through it and you get a different answer. So there's your prediction model that just determined how to run the world. The funny thing is there's a slice of the population which I count myself in, who have simply had experience in this world. We fucking knew this. I didn't have to see the code. We fucking knew this. No examination of the source code necessary. I think I've been warning you. How long have I been warning you? All right, I think I have a hypothesis for a mystery that I've been doodling on for a while. And the mystery is this. We have so many states and so many countries, all with their own leaders doing various different things to battle the coronavirus. Wouldn't you say that generally speaking, it doesn't seem to make any difference who the leader is, right? Because they all seem to be somewhere in the range. And when they're not in the range, there's a reason, you know, like they got some old people or they hit a nursing home before they caught it. But generally speaking, the mystery, that's the part that's a mystery to me is it feels like everybody's performing somewhat similarly, which makes me think that leadership isn't a thing. But here's what I realized today. Here's my new hypothesis. Try this out. This is such a unique kind of crisis that it's a bottom up leadership by necessity. In other words, when the experts come to the leader of any country, the leader says, I don't know what to do. Seriously, I've never managed a coronavirus crisis. Tell me what to do. The experts then would go about the task of telling the leader what to do. But I believe the nature of experts, generally speaking, there will be exceptions, but the nature of experts is that they probably coordinate and probably. It took very, probably a very short amount of time for all of the experts in all the countries to check in with all the other experts, the World health organization, the CDCs, you know, probably a lot of people checking in with America to say, all right, we think we got this, but what are you doing? Let's just make sure, you know, is that the same thing Europe's doing? You know, what are they doing in China? So what you would expect, because it was an expert driven solution, is that the experts would be managing the leaders and not the leaders managing the experts, which is a more typical situation in normal business and normal government. Right. Mostly the leaders are telling the experts what solution to come up with. But because this caught us off guard and our leaders are not virologists or anything like it, I think leadership became somewhat unimportant because the leaders were all listening to the experts. The experts were all talking to each other. And so they had different resources. So some of them said, we got hydroxychloroquine, we don't have ventilators, let's play it this way. We've got old people, we don't. Let's play it this way. But the coronavirus doesn't seem sensitive to leadership. And I think that's why, because it was a bottom up, like a reverse leadership situation. Just a theory. All right, here's my weirdest new theory. And as I say, too often, if you have enough experience in different domains, which is part of having a talent stack, you can see the world more clearly. And I've now combined three of my experiences to see one new thing more clearly. And I'm going to run this by you now. You heard an early version of this, but this is the more complete version. The early version I wasn't happy with. It goes like this. And first of all, my experience at the phone company and putting together basically digital signals that crossed wires. Not personally putting them together, but I was in a lab and we were always dealing with sending carrier signals across the line. So the carrier signal is just sort of the baseline signal that gets manipulated so that when you read the manipulations of the other end, you know what got sent. But it's a carrier signal. And now, as you know, I'm learning to play drums. And you, of course know that I write about persuasion a lot. Well, those three things sort of came together and I finally realized this. Let's call it a hypothesis that persuasion, when you're persuading other people, has a carrier signal, meaning that there's something that connects people from a distance. It could be in the same room, but at a distance from you in the room. And that thing is vibration. But the vibration comes in different forms. It could be singing, it could be instrumental, it could be music, it could be chanting, it could be the Pledge of Allegiance, it could be praying. And all of those things have the same quality, which is that people find the same vibration. If you look at a church, for example, it's actually built for good acoustic vibration. So when the choir is singing, everybody in the church is vibrating. Now Is it a coincidence that in every large organization where persuasion is important, they're trying to get you to be, let's say, more committed to the organization, more religious, maybe more patriotic? Maybe you've joined a cult. Maybe you went to a concert and they're just trying to make you like the act so you'll buy the albums. In all cases, you're part of a group that is being influenced by vibration. But the vibration. Here's the fun part. The vibration is not the influence. The vibration is just setting up the carrier signal. So once everybody's on the same vibration, now you can do the persuasion. So it's really just making the connection. Just like a phone call, the line is connected, but you still have to send something. And the sending can be the lyrics of the song. It could be the words of the Pledge of Allegiance or the, you know, the national anthem. It could be whatever you're chanting. But I think it also could be melody. You could put melody on top of vibration. And by the way, this is where music comes in. Because it took me a while to figure out that the beat of a drum is actually just a vibration. It's just a slow one. If somebody's singing, it's the. Literally, the air is vibrating at a higher rate. But if you're beating a drum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, it's still a vibration. It's just super slowed down. So it's all vibration. And all of it affects us the same way, which is it just connects you. You say, okay, I'm vibrating at the same. Same pitch, same frequency, let's say, as these other people. And then the persuasion goes right in. It is not. It is not an accident that every group that wants to, I'm going to say brainwash, but it's not always for bad intentions, but they are trying to persuade. Brainwash, convince. And once you see that pattern, it's kind of amazing. And that's also. If you ever notice that music is better when you're with your friends. Have you noticed that? For me, the only music I really loved in college was the music that I saw somebody else enjoy at the same time in the same room. And until I saw somebody else enjoy it, I didn't enjoy the music. And I think what it was is I would see somebody else sort of matching the, you know, matching the music and vibration and between the music and the other person, then I would sort of, you know, match the vibration as well. So that, too, was just Persuasion. I just didn't know it at the time. So those were My comments for today. Does anybody have a question which they would like to ask me? Just looking at your comments here. And by the way, is anybody feeling better about the lockdown? I mean other than the obvious financial panic, is anybody feeling that we'll get past this stock crash? What are the odds of a stock crash? You know, the stock market is I think completely irrationally priced and yet rationally irrationally priced. It's the damnedest thing because the, by all accounts the stock market should be lower, but it's a future looking indicator. So it's clear that the people who have the money to invest believe the stock market is going to be okay in the long run. So are they right? Here's the fun part. It's not that they're right or they're wrong, it's that they are making it so. So the people who are booing the stock market, they're not just guessing that it will be good, they're making it good. And so if people keep the stock market high enough, it's lower than the high, but it's still in that acceptable bottom of the acceptable range. If you keep it there, then the people who own stock are going to feel like they can spend money and pretty soon we're going to really need people to spend money to get things going. So as long as we can keep that stock market sort of even artificially high, it creates the opportunity for people to spend in a way they wouldn't have if they had been afraid that they were losing their stock value. Somebody says the stock market is priced for a Trump win. I think that's true. Yeah. Face masks equals carbon dioxide. Is that another story? There are all these crazy stories about your face mask is going to kill you. I think it's just a, it's just something about the fact that there always has to be another side to every story. You know, if the main story was air is good, you know, if, let's say, if you could imagine that tomorrow there was some magic technology that cleaned all the pollution out of the air. Like all man made pollution, just tomorrow just cleared it all out of the air. It would take about a week before you'd see a story that says doctors claim they're removing all the pollution from the air is lowering your immune spots because now you're just not used to it. Now if you walk into a room that's got a little bad air pollution in the room, well you're going to get sick because you didn't toughen yourself up with that pollution. So there's probably not anything that there won't be a story on the other side. So when I look at the mask stuff, I just think that, of course there's a story on the other side, but as long I'll just stick with this as long as it still makes sense to sneeze into your elbow. Mask makes sense. That's it. That's the whole argument right there. Any chance for a Kamala to be vp? I think so. Although doesn't it seem like we should have known by now? I don't know what Biden's waiting for. There might be lots of. Lots of maneuvering in the background. You have to assume that people are trying to figure out what to do in that whole Biden situation. The Sorrento thing. Well, I would put the Sorrento claim of a cure with emphasis on claim. I would demote that to sort of all the other stories of things that might save the day. I don't know that it has a special place, but it was promising for about a day. Somebody says, I've had asthma. It's very difficult wearing a mask. Yeah. You know what I'm expecting? Here's what I'm expecting. I think that someday you can have something like a mouthpiece or maybe a mouthpiece that also covers your nose that's just sort of like a mouth nose thing. And it'll have some electronics in it. Maybe you'll have a far UV light so that the air that's coming in and out of your mouth is just actually disinfected on the way in and out. And maybe we'll just always wear them. You just attach it to your face and you'll just breathe better. It'll clean the air. Oh, Snickers is old and she's a little limpy today, but she's been pretty active. I tried to make her not active, but it's hard. Is Stacey Abrams going to be vp? I don't think so. I think that would be the least likely choice. Well, Elizabeth Warren is pretty unlikely. Sorrento never claimed a cure. Well, I will only say what the. What the news report said. The news report reported that the CEO specifically called it a cure. So whether that actually happened or that was fake news, well, who knows? Have I found any science backing the masks? Well, at this point, would you trust any science about the masks? The only thing I'm completely sure of is that it blocks droplets. If it blocks droplets. And that's basically the whole problem. I think they work. Can Mars be colonized by humans? Inevitably. I think the colonization of Mars. Elon Musk is right. It's not really a question of if we'll colonize Mars. It's not really an if question. We're definitely going to colonize Mars. It's just going to. How long does it take? Vaccine still a long shot? I think so. I think vaccine is still a long shot. And I'm a little puzzled by all the optimism that's being shown. But, man, do I love the Trump plan of having the military deliver it. Should we get one that works? That is just, that's just such a good show. I just hope the military doesn't mind doing it. I don't imagine that they would mind, given that it would be saving lives. But I wouldn't want to use them for the wrong purpose. But it feels like the right purpose. Just my own personal feeling about it. Funniest book I've ever read. Good question. Probably. Maybe a Dave Barry book or forgetting the name. Yeah, maybe a Dave Barry book back in the days. All right. Will Nikki Haley be in the new Trump administration next round? I don't know. Kind of. I don't know their relationship, really. I think you'd have to know how they feel about each other. Mars is a loser planet. Somebody says. Well, so far they don't seem like winners. Did you notice that the entire top left of CNN was people who died? I'm wondering if there's going to be a lot of, a lot of old famous people dying just because of this weird situation. Not necessarily because they got coronavirus, but it feels like they're coming in waves now, don't they? You know, I'd said one of the things that young people are going to experience is that because there are so many famous people in the world and those famous people are sort of, you know, reaching a certain age, that there should be. We should be reaching a point where a famous person or three dies every day just because there are so many of them. Right. Isn't it inevitable that we'll get to three or four famous people dying every day? Not because there's more death, but because there's just so many damn famous people. What false flag will be between now and November? Well, you, you almost have to wonder if they're going to try some Russia thing again because, man, do they like their Russia. Pranks for a false flag, though. Good question. Lots of opportunities. I don't know. Hey, by the way, have you seen Kim Jong Un lately? I don't know how long we have to wait before we see Kim Jong Un. My Guess is that he's still alive. Or we know it by now. But it is funny that we're not going to see him for a while. Florida is perfect weather to kill the virus. Maybe. So when am I getting married to Christina? We'll get married on May 2nd. Oh, that's right. It already passed. So we had to postpone our wedding date for the obvious reason. And we're just sort of hanging loose to see what's what because, you know, you can't really make a wedding plan, I mean, unless you did it next year or something. So I think we want to do it as soon as it's safe and practical, but we don't know when that is. I could see Elon Musk getting a Space Force contract. Yeah, maybe. Could be. Man, I can't believe Ruth. Ruth Bader Ginsburg is hanging in there. She is. She is a trooper. And it makes you wonder how much she's actually participating in the decisions. You know, she probably has clerks that are doing the heavy lifting. But does it make sense for her still to be on the job? I just don't see how that makes sense. My guess on Kim was different. Well, my guess on Kim. So remind me. My guess on Kim was that he was. I'm trying to remember how many times I changed my opinion on that. All right, somebody's got to remind me. But the longer you go, you have to modify your opinion. But let me stick by this. I don't think he's healthy, and I'm remembering my opinion now. So here's my opinion. My opinion is that the video and the photo could well be faked, which is different from saying he's dead or alive. But if it's faked, it would at least mean he wasn't doing well. So there is certainly a possibility, a strong one, that he's, you know, he's not conscious or in control. Probably not dead, though I feel like if he were dead, we'd know it. But if he's just not in control and maybe he's sick and they don't know which way it's going to go, that might be a reason to throw us a little fake video, buy a little time, see how it plays out. And we might be in that phase, but I would just put percentages on it at this point. I don't think you could say he's dead or alive. Yeah. Phyllis George died at 70 today, which is way too young. You know, for those of you who are young, wait till you get to the. The age where all the people your age are dying every time you turn around. Yep. Somebody exactly your age died. I'm not 70, but eventually that's going to happen. All right. I don't have much else to say, so I'm going to end you here. Keep it short and sweet, and I hope that I talk to you again soon, and I will see you in the morning.