 I'd like to talk about this, I mean, just a little thing that kind of ticks me off constantly in a while, not constantly in the last few days talking about coronavirus. And that is the inability, seeming inability of people to deal with probabilities, to deal with statistics, to deal with just probabilistic thinking. So this is, this is the example, right? So I have said over and over and over again that the likelihood of hospitalization and the likelihood of death is significantly greater if you're old and I've given some statistics and I don't have them in front of me, but it gives statistics that if you get this, if you get coronavirus and you're over the age of 75, your probability to die, first of all, your probability to be hospitalized based on numbers I've seen coming out of New York is about 50% and then your probability to die is, you know, about 15%. So 15 out of every 100 people who are over the age of 75 who get coronavirus are dying. Again, don't, don't, the number, the specific numbers I'm saying might not be true and of course we don't know how many people actually have it and we don't know, I don't know because we're not testing. So all these death statistics are not clear. So I'm just using this as an example. Clearly the probability and the probability as you get younger declines and it declines significantly of death. So once you get around 40, the probability of death is significantly lower and if you get into the teens and if you get, you know, teenagers and young children, the probability of dying is something like and again, don't, my point here is not the specific numbers I'm quoting, but the principle is something like one in 10,000. So it's very, very, very rare for somebody to die who's very young. Now they're complicating factors. I've also said if you have certain preexisting conditions, that's true, the list of preexisting conditions is pretty long and a lot of people have preexisting conditions, but the fact is that if you have preexisting conditions, the probability that you will die goes up. So I make this claim and people come back to me with, but young people are dying and the answer is yes. But the probability of young people dying is low and when you make decisions in life, you make decisions partially, not all decisions, but based on probability of outcome. So you have to think about probabilities. If the probability of an outcome, for example, flying in an airplane, if the probability of dying in an airplane crash is basically so small as to be equivalent to zero, but not quite zero, because some people do die in air crashes. You go in an airplane, you don't worry, you fly around. The probability of dying in a car accident is much higher than it is in an airplane crash, but you still, it's so small, you don't think about it. But there's certain activities, I don't know. Let's assume this is true of skydiving because I obviously haven't prepped my examples of risky behavior. Property of skydiving is, I don't know, 1%, well that's, that's 1 in 100 die. I don't think it's that high, but let's say that was high. Well now, that really causes me to think about whether I want to go skydiving or not. It's something to think about. Now if the probability was 15%, oh my God, I'm not doing it, no way, am I taking a 15% chance of dying. Now it's still true that some people die in car accidents and some people die in airplane crashes, but it's such a low probability it doesn't change your behavior. Whereas if there was an activity where 15% of people died, it would change your behavior, should change your behavior. That is true in all of the things we do in life. We don't know, it's very rare that we know with certainty what will happen in the future, right? So most of our decisions about the future, at some extent or another, probabilistic. What is likely to happen? What is the likely outcome? Now the likely outcome doesn't always happen. That's why it's likely not certain. So pointing out that some people do indeed die in a plane accident doesn't change the fact that the chances of you dying in a plane accident when you get on this particular plane are statistically as close to zero as one can get. Somebody says that the probability of skydiving is 0.0007%. I don't know if he made it up or if that's true. The probability of dying climbing the Everest is 6.5%. In other words, 6.5%, all else held content, because I'm sure there are issues of age and preexisting conditions and lots of other things, but all else held contents, the probability of climbing Everest is 6.5%. That is a non-trivial percent. It's a good reason not to climb Mount Everest. But if the probability of skydiving, of dying in skydiving is truly 0.0007%, then that's negligible. It's not significant. I mean, I wouldn't skydive because I'm afraid of heights. Had nothing to do with the risk of dying. So it's really important we get the probability down. So what happens when I post this stuff about elderly people and young people and so on? Is somebody will say, but young people die. And they'll tell me a whole story about some young person who's dead. And I see this on Facebook all the time, who died in no preexisting condition. And it's very sad. And nobody knows why they died. But of course, that is completely unexpected. If you look at the probabilities, there's a certain probability that somebody very young with no preexisting condition will die. But the probability is very, very low. Now, it's not to say there's no reason for them dying. Unfortunately, we don't understand the reason how the virus worked. But it's just that's the probability. So anecdotes, as horrific as they may be, do not disprove the principle. Do not disprove the fact of probabilities. And probabilities matter. If people, if coronavirus affected everybody the way it affects teenagers, we wouldn't be talking about it. We wouldn't care about coronavirus, even though some people would still be dying. But the death rate would be so low that no change in behavior would be justified. It's because some people within the population are dying at rates of one, five, 10, maybe even 15% that we are scared and we are motivated to change our behavior. So probabilities matter. How high the probability matters. You can't think about life. You can't think about the future based on, you can't think about risk based on anecdotes. You have to think about risk. You have to, in terms of probabilities, the probability, a good outcome versus a bad outcome will occur. And you have to weigh them. Just like you do, I mean, not exactly because you can't live your life exactly like this. And the probability, I mean, I was just going to say just like in poker, but you can't actually do it like in poker because in poker, the probabilities are actually known. If you've got a very mathematical mind and you see a hand and you know what's on the table, you can tell with a high degree of likelihood what are the chances of you winning a particular hand. And the same in life. But if you undercut that rationality, that assessment of actual outcomes, of the probability of something happen and not something else, and you overload it with basically fear mongering through anecdotes, then that is unhelpful. Now, if somebody says nurses and doctors have died, sure. How many of those nurses and doctors, what were the ages? One, two, did there be existing conditions? And three, most important is what was the viral load? There's no quite, it seems like, I shouldn't say without doubt, but it seems like the amount of virus you're exposed to will determine to some extent how severe the case you're going to get. Now, none of that has been proved, but that is what people suspect. And doctors and nurses have been exposed to high doses even when they're young. And even when you're young, if you're exposed to high doses of it, you might get sick. But again, all of that goes into assessing the probabilities. And one of the things one would say is, for doctor and nurse who are exposed to the virus constantly, the probabilities are higher that they will get sick and potentially die from this. So, again, the fact that these people, the fact that doctors and nurses are dying, doesn't change the fact that just adds more information. It changes the probability assessment given your job, given you're exposed to the virus, given what you do. But again, the probabilities affect choices we make. Probabilities affect our behavior. Probabilities are what it means assessing the likelihood of things and what it means to plan and act towards a future. And you cannot base your actions on low probability, rare events that you might have an anecdote for. So, stop posting anecdotes. They're unhelpful. All they do is fear manga. All they do is create fear in people because they think the anecdote is representative. When the numbers suggest, the actual data suggests that they are not. Somebody's saying, can I have a medical prescription? I've had Amesh Adulja on the show a few times, a couple of times. And I'm trying to get him again, but he's so busy it's hard to schedule him. But I speak to him and I've been in a conference call with Amesh to kind of get updated on his thinking about it. So hopefully he has impacted the way I think about these things. But again, this particular issue is not relevant. It's not relevant to be a medical doctor or anything else. The question is, do you know how to assess data? Do you know how to evaluate data? And you know, it's what I do for a living is I'm like, that's what finance is. It's all about assessing data and making predictions about the future based on probabilities, based on likely and unlikely outcomes. All right, so it's really, really important not to get caught up in the anecdotes and to respect the data, respect the science, respect the numbers and base your behavior on actual data, on actual facts, on actual probabilities, probabilities of facts. What we need today, what I call the new intellectual would be any man or woman who is willing to think. Meaning, any man or woman who knows that man's life must be guided by reason, by the intellect, not by feelings, wishes, whims or mystic revelations. Any man or woman who values his life and who does not want to give in to today's cult of despair, cynicism and impotence and does not intend to give up the world to the dark ages and to the role of the collectivist. Using the super chat and I noticed yesterday when I appealed for support for the show, many of you step forward and actually supported the show for the first time. So I'll do it again. Maybe we'll get some more today. If you like what you're hearing, if you appreciate what I'm doing, then I appreciate your support. Those of you who don't yet support the show, please take this opportunity. Go to Iranbrookshow.com slash support or go to subscribe. Iranbrookshow and make a kind of a monthly contribution to keep this going. I'm not sure when the next...