people, and my son said, “Dad, people aren’t going to believe or trust what you say about markets when you’re on Fox. And you don’t need a network anymore. You’ve got a million Twitter followers, and with social media now, you can reach people.” And young people do watch short videos, so, with my videos we’re at least making people aware that there’s another way to think about these things, that the answer isn’t always another government program.
question. [Laughs] I make videos – a video a week – and I’m averaging almost two million views, so, some people are into it. But I agree, we are not making much ground, and I’ve stopped being shocked, but I was shocked. Because once I saw the light, I naively assumed that, “God, all I have to do is explain what I learned, and people will say, ‘Oh, yeah, that makes so much more sense.’” But they don’t. Some people’s brains will just not take this in. My wife and I fight over this stuff. I’ve been trying to convince her for 35 frickin’ years, and there’s still a new argument whenever she reads the New York Times . Dan Ferris: I was looking through your book, No, They Can’t , and every couple of pages, you’ve got a new section that starts with a little box, “What intuition tempts us to believe versus what reality taught you.” For example, seat belt laws save lives, that’s what intuition tempts us to believe. What reality taught me is that seat belt laws also cost some lives, and nobody ever talks about that. It’s part of the problem here, that people just go with their first gut reaction. And when it comes to who to vote for, it’s like, “Who looks good on TV and sounds good?” not, “Who makes sense?” But there really is no solution for that, is there? Although you’re educating... I think you’ve done that rather well. But also, in other words, John Stossel is not running for office. John Stossel: Right. I would suck at running for office because I have no patience, and I can’t smile at strangers and ask them for money. But you know I left my Fox TV show because I wanted to reach young
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It’s part of the problem here, that people just go with their first gut reaction. And when it comes to who to vote for, it’s like, “Who looks good on TV and sounds good?” not, “Who makes sense?”
And then the videos go to schoolteachers – there’s a nonprofit that offers them free, Stossel in the Classroom – and probably 10 million high school students, some middle school students, watch them in class. So, even if they forget them or we’re not convincing them, they at least know there’s an alternative to state control. Dan Ferris: So, John, you mentioned giving people another way to think about things. Give me another way to think about the government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. Surely, John – I’m going to play devil’s advocate – you understand that lots of people could die, if we don’t shut everything down, right?
American Consequences
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