Game Theory: Who Will Survive [CENSORED] Virus?

today we're talking about wait what just happened I said today wow you gotta be kidding me am I not even allowed to call it by its name even though the news is talking about it constantly fine I'll just have to use our imagination today's episode is inspired by the most viral topic that's sweeping the globe in 2020 you could say that this topic is infectious you won't believe your ears when you hear the conclusion of this episode today we're talking about which video game character is least likely to survive a viral outbreak a purely hypothetical totally not inspired by real-life events global pandemic a topic that just randomly popped into my head at the top of 20/20 and I wanted to cover completely unrelated to anything else happening in the real world how was that am I good boy they youtubing in 2020 is hard roll intro [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] hello Internet welcome to game theory we're just a quick promo here at the top we have ourselves a cool new pullover hoodie with a really awesome Japanese inspired design the text on the sleeve reads game theory and the chest is but hey that's just the theory a game theory or at least I think that's what it says we had two translators double check it independently of each other so either it's right or this is the most well coordinated Frank ever and it actually reads food on noodles are delicious either way I really love the design I hope you do too it's only available for the next 10 days so if you're interested check it out in the merch shelf down below anyway spring is upon us love is in the air and so is a certain airborne virus that shall not be named and maybe I'm just getting a little stir-crazy this winter maybe I'm just sick of how serious things in the world have been lately baby I just wanted to go back to the over-the-top ridiculous theories that this channel is built on but whatever the reason today's episode is dome capital izd um dumb just super stupid topic ridiculous extraneous dumb dumb silly Willy but you know what it's fun so there's that the question I'm looking at today if you're willing to indulge me for the next 15 minutes or so is which video game character would be most likely to die from a global pandemic it's a hypothetical illness vaguely approximating the behavior of virus that shall not be named were to start spreading through the connected universe of all video games since as we all know at this point all video games are connected who would be the first to kick the bucket who is our patient zero I'm also gonna answer who has the best chance of living but you know that's significantly less fun so that's it no more cringy introduction required if you're looking for tips on how to survive the hottest viral virus or you're just looking to pass the time while you're stuck in quarantine well then this episode is for you and nothing is stopping me from doing it except for maybe some virulent airborne particles first things first in order to know who's gonna get infected we need to know how a hypothetical global pandemic like this would work viruses are small particles of genetic material that are surrounded by a protein coat some viruses also have a fatty envelope covering whoa I love that Conan ooh that is so sweet thank you it's protein viruses are incapable of reproducing on their own and as such they violently infect host cells for their own survival if we were to model our fictional virus after recent ones that have appeared in the news it would be spread via small respiratory droplets the type that escaped when you're coughing or sneezing no big shock there it's pretty commonplace for most viral infections Nelson's spread sickness quite like a big old globule of sneeze directed at your face I mean I'm not even sick and just seeing the animation that we just made to demonstrate that last sentence made me feel a bit ill but when it comes to outbreaks the biggest variable is airborne transmission you see what's made big viral outbreaks of the past so dangerous was in large part because of how far they're able to spread through the air measles for instance could spread at distances as great as 30 meters that's nearly 100 feet for more recent viral outbreaks appearing in the headlines the range is much more limited UC San Francisco infectious disease expert Charles Chu makes it clear that viruses like the virus that shall not be named require direct contact quote from him if you have an infected person in the front of the plane for instance and you're in the back of the plane your risk is close to zero simply because the area of exposure is thought to be roughly six feet from the infected person end quote now this is great news if you're the guy in the back row of the plane sure you might not be able to lean your seat back in which case you're gonna go viral for other reasons because you've resort to punching the seat of the woman in front of you when she reclines but on the plus side you're less likely to contract the hottest infection since bird flu so let's assume that that's horror hypothetical video game virus spreads either direct contact or within a six foot radius now let's talk about counteracting that spread one you could just avoid people altogether can't get infected by other people if you're never around other people that my friends is why gamers wound up being the master race ah the perks of being forever alone but eventually you're gonna have to venture out into the world which leaves us to option number two face masks now when I say face masks you might think of a surgical mask like this or the ones that you see everyone wearing around Japan fashionable and hygienic except they're not you see it turns out that surgical masks are completely ineffective against viruses because viruses are too small and so they can easily pass through the mask to quote from the Center for Disease Control or CD see a surgical mask quote does not provide the wear with a reliable level of protection from inhaling smaller airborne particles and is not considered respiratory protection leakage occurs around the edge of the mask when the user inhales end quote see what the CDC wants you to wear our masks like the n95 respirator on Commander Shepard and this is my favorite facemask these sorts of masks are more akin to what you might see a housepainter wear that's because the n95 respirator can be molded to fit tightly against the contours of your face forming a tight seal so the virus can't creep around the edges and into your nose or mouth the CDC explains that the n95 respirator quote filters out at least 95% of airborne particles when properly fitted and donned minimal leakage occurs around the edges of the respirator when the user inhales which brings us to the topic of facial hair you heard that right my friends those little flavor savors under your nose are one of the key deciding factors for who will and who won't be surviving our little global health emergency because here's the thing if you have any facial hair dancing across the seal line for the mask it renders the respirator ineffective it's the exact same reason why I now that I have this incredible luxurious beard and no longer vacuum seal cups to my face just by sucking out all the air which you might not think it's all that big of a deal but to be honest I do a lot of my best thinking with a cup suction to my face hashtag first beard problems in fact when it comes to virus prevention this is such a serious consideration in virus control that the CDC started going viral themselves on Twitter when they started sending this infographic around detailing which facial hair styles are most likely to get you infected seriously look at this chart it's so ridiculous what's with some of the names that they're using I mean the toothbrush mustache yeah everybody I know calls it the toothbrush moustache there's absolutely no historical figure that comes to mind when a person sees this kind of moustache absolutely no person alive or dead associated with this moustache that would keep me from rocking this sort of thing in public right now anyway my wife Stephanie sent this to me the other day partly because she cares about my well-being but mostly because she wants me to lose the mat daddy beard and just add a quick side note here for a second ever since I grew the beard everywhere I go people won't stop calling me mat daddy guys please stop do not call me Matt and whatever you do do not make hashtag mat daddy trend okay I repeat I totally do not want mat daddy to become a thing it would be awful if that nickname were to stick for me okay so again just a public service announcement mat daddy not a thing thank you very much long story short certain styles of facial hair are keeping you healthier than others so basically this character from the game ninja town which is literally just a mustache with a mustache yeah he's totally forked okay so facial hair breaks the masks airtight sealing greatly increases risk of infection simple enough now comes the question of what hairstyles are putting people into the danger zone let's go back to the infographic no offense to the CDC thank you for everything that you do but you basically opted to use the default male me for every single hairstyle variety is the spice of life people what good is living through a global health crisis if you don't have anything to live for but looking at the chart it becomes immediately clear that if this were a real disease which it clearly is not it would practically wipe out every major YouTube gamer I mean at this point having some scruff on your face is almost as requisite as having a giant wall of sound paneling behind you or at the very least a display of every video game you have ever purchased ever this proves that I am a serious gamer laudable but again I digress focus Matt we're talking about what fictional video game characters live and die so let's settle it right here right now which video game character makes it through this epidemic and which ones go the way of the WiiU right after that we know that clean-shaven characters are gonna get themselves good results link is sitting pretty Zelda is sitting pretty agent 47 from hitman looking clean as always and same goes for Duke Nukem know at a glance you might think that Kirby's safe but there are two problems first his eyes and mouth are so close together that the respirators sealing surface passes across his eyeballs zooming Kirby's gonna want to blink on occasion that's gonna break the seal secondly Kirby's mouth can of course stretch way outside the boundaries of the mask hate to say it but Kirby could be in mortal danger now then what about the video game characters who aren't clean-shaven basically if your moustache doesn't stray too far away from your mouth it's not gonna interfere with the respirator sealing surface bodes well for the likes of Mike Haggar mustache era Solid Snake and even mecha Hitler from wolf Stein what if he called it a toothbrush mustache Mario however isn't looking quite so super all of a sudden his mustache might be a bit too big but you know he's got options option a tucking his mustache so it doesn't cross the respirator sealing surface or option B makes shaved Mario a reality oh god put it back yeah I think we can all agree that we're rooting for option a or for Mario to just die it also means that even more mustachioed men are in the danger zone dr. Eggman Wario and Master onion from parappa the rapper all in the red similarly full beards are a one-way ticket to virus town kratos might wanna stick with the safer young kratos look same goes for Geralt in Witcher 3 stubble breaks the respirator seal just like a beard does which means that that whole dynamic beard growth feature ain't gonna be so great amid a global health crisis forget tossing a coin to your witcher to toss an eraser instead anyway i could list these characters off for hours if only there was a more efficient way to present such a staggering amount of data like i don't know an infographic great idea me here it is folks the game theorists infographic on facemask friendly hairstyles I took the CDC's information and put it into terms us gamers can understand but let's keep in mind here this facemask infographic doesn't tell us the whole story remember viruses like this don't just spread through airborne particles they spread through direct contact as well that means that personal hygiene especially washing your hands is gonna protect you more than any loose-fitting surgical mask ever will furthermore just because someone contracts a virus it doesn't mean that they're gonna die from it and here comes the tough discussion at this point you've undoubtedly heard talk of how deadly certain viruses can be the fact of the matter is that death tolls from around the globe make for great grabby headlines traditional media's equivalent of clickbank but let's pull out and look at the real statistics here the media tends to overinflate the news scare tactics leave out things that skew how we process the information that they're giving us overall China's CDC found that 2.3 percent of confirmed cases of recent unnameable diseases died which puts it deadlier than the flu but it also puts it below things like 2003 SARS outbreak the SARS outbreak in 2003 had a death rate of nine point six percent but even the 2.3 percent chance of recent diseases is still a misleading number you see the Chinese CDC found that the fatality rate was fourteen point eight percent in people eighty or older likely reflecting the presence of other diseases a weaker immune system or simply worse health overall by contrast a fatality rate was 1.3 percent in 50-somethings point four percent in 40-somethings and point two percent in people ten to thirty nine the twist of this episode today is that most if not all the video game characters listed in this infographic we created would likely survive a hypothetical viral infection like the one that we're talking about today they're all generally young and healthy and sure if they can track the virus they're gonna have themselves a heck of a miserable two-week period but there's a high likelihood high likely would over 90% that they're gonna bounce back on the other end so even though someone might have dangerous facial hair there are a lot of other non facial hair factors - and we need to take those factors into consideration because let's be honest here we don't really care which video game characters make a face mask seal the best we want to know who's gonna die am i right so let's first establish who is definitely not gonna succumb to our pandemic based on the factors we discussed earlier the character best poised to survive this epidemic is young clean shaven has good hygiene and doesn't come into contact with a whole lot of people our ultimate virus survivor is drumroll please Princess Peach yes first of all she spends huge swaths of her time isolated in one castle or another maybe she's not coming into contact with many carriers of the virus though we'd never ask a lady her age she does seem to be well under the age of 40 which is where susceptibility to viruses begin to rise obviously Princess Peach has no facial hair or at the very least is shaving it off on a regular basis but on top of it all Princess Peach basically wears gloves all the time meaning that her hands aren't coming into contact with anything hazardous long story short a relative loner trapped in a castle with no facial hair and protective gloves definitely gonna be our best candidate for surviving the worst and Mario remake the world after the bacteriophage is settled but now let's consider which character is most likely to die basically we're looking for the polar opposite of peach elderly very hairy horrified Jean and perhaps most importantly comes into contact with a lot of people with those factors in mind I humbly give you for not all that much longer cranky Kong the original Donkey Kong from the arcade cabinets this guy checks all the bad boxes elderly big check facial hair that won't fit under a mask check and check this guy's entire face is hair poor hygiene I mean the guy runs around barefoot in the jungle all day eating bananas straight off the ground and throwing his dentures at complete strangers and displayed living in the middle of a jungle cranky Kong gets out quite a bit for his age comes into contact with a lot of different people recently has been running around putting his immune system at risk in Donkey Kong Country tropical freeze never mind the fact that he's been kicking it with the Super Smash Brothers crowd Super Smash Brothers is of course basically the CDC's worst nightmare by the way it's like one big petri dish of disease if you think about it characters from every universe imaginable converging to participate in close quarters hand-to-hand combat I mean most fighters are young and strong enough to survive the virus if they have to contract it but cranky Kong is an elderly and feeble exception this old boy's body needs to be ready to fight off viral infection if it can but cranky Kong is not slowing down if anything it seems like he's been putting himself even more at risk in recent years and that could very well catch up to him if the virus that shall not be named ever makes it to Donkey Kong's country so there you have it my friends if anyone's gonna succumb to the epidemic its cranky Kong but while we're on the subject of protecting yourself from viral outbreak let's transition over to talking about our sponsor for today's episode Nord VPN because guess what biological viruses aren't the only ones that you have to be defending against in fact the most aggressive viral attacks are coming over your computer and Nord isn't just about protection with Nord VPN you suddenly unlock a truly global Internet for yourself now what do I mean by that well you know how Netflix has different content available depending on what part of the globe you're in with Nord those regional distinctions disappear because with one touch suddenly your Internet can seem like it's coming from anywhere in the world let's say for instance the UK and that in turn gets you access to stuff that you can't get access to in the u.s. new weekly episodes of RuPaul's Drag Race good luck trying to watch that show in the US I have almost every streaming service currently available and I still can't watch it but with Nord I can it's available on Netflix same story with the Breaking Bad sequel better call Saul sure u.s. Netflix says that it has the new episodes but those are just the new episodes for Netflix from last season to get the really new episodes that are airing each and every week as they're airing you flip it over to the UK with one click and boom suddenly my internet looks like it's coming from overseas even new movies that you really should see like uncut gems it's a great film that unfortunately got snubbed by the Oscars and you can see everything that the Oscars missed because it's available on Netflix only if you have a VPN to flip it over to the UK and sure I'm using the UK as my personal example here but Nord has thousands of servers across 60 plus countries so if you're stuck in quarantine zones or you're not leaving the house for fear of viruses Nord is not only there to protect you nor it is also there to entertain you go to Nord BPM comm slash matpat M 80 P 80 and use the code matpat to get 70% off a three-year plan plus an additional 1 month for free that's Nord VPN comm / matpat three years of protection and entertainment for a low low price link is well you know down in the description below now then if you'll excuse me I have a new episode of RuPaul's watch so in the meantime remember that's just a theory Oh game theory stay safe out there and thanks for watching [Music]

Channel: The Game Theorists

Views: 3,455,739

Rating: 4.3100634 out of 5

Keywords: mario, princess peach, witcher, the witcher, witcher 3, kirby, donkey kong, god of war, doctor mario, doctor mario trailer, kratos, eggman, doctor eggman, sonic, sonic the hedgehog, solid snake, metal gear solid, wario, link, zelda, breath of the wild, breath of the wild 2, luigi, pandemic, the science of pandemics, virus, facial hair, the science of facial hair.beards, mustache, beard, matpat beard, matpat shave, game theorists, game theory, gtlive

Id: eDhGnub97h4

Length: 17min 56sec (1076 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 14 2020

Reddit Comments

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[u/yiutiffany615]

Please like this here and at the comment under the original video if you find it there. I’ve never asked for this, and asking for likes with this comment would probably get me a lot of trouble, but this video just contains some misleading info that might cost someone their lives.

Matt, I've always loved your work, and I've always had faith in your research, but this video is... misleading, to say the least.

Let's talk about three things.

1. About how the virus that shall not be named requiring direct contact to spread.

That is, indeed, true. The virus does work that way, *BUT* , it is not that simple as "someone's in the front and I'm in the back so I'm safe". NOPE.

A plane is an enclosed environment where people make a ton of contact with each other. If the person at the front row is infected with unknown deadly virus X, the person at the back could easily be in grave danger because they are serviced by the same flight attendant. In fact, there's already reports of a flight attendant who unknowingly was infected serving over 20 rows of passengers, which means the 20 rows of passengers have all been exposed to the virus. So while in an ideal situation, yes, you won't get infected by the passenger in the front row if you sit at the back, the real world just doesn't operate like that.

I know you quoted that example from an expert, but planes (and cruise ships) are actually really high-risk locations, and it could mislead some of your viewers into a false sense of security when you just quote him like that.

1. About surgical masks being “completely” ineffective.

Again, it is true that surgical masks are ineffective when compared to N95, but “completely” is a misleading word. You quoted the Center for Disease Control (which I assume is a US organization), that “a surgical mask does not provide the wearer with a reliable level of protection from inhaling smaller airborne particles and is not considered respiratory protection” and “leakage occurs around the edge of the mask when the user inhales”. While both of those statements are true, that is not the full story. Yes, a surgical mask can’t prevent you from breathing in the virus in air particles, but you know what it can protect you from? Droplets. If someone coughs near you, or if you’re coughing next to someone, a surgical mask largely reduces the possibility of you getting in contact with droplets or just coughing droplets onto people. In short, it at least stops you from easily coughing the virus out on other people through droplets like shooting a canon, that minor difference could actually save someone’s life.

In regions like Hong Kong and Taiwan (which both had some terrible experience with SARS), doctors actually recommend wearing the average population to wear surgical masks and educates people how to wear them properly immediately after the outbreak. Most of the population wears a mask when going out. And, though foreign experts doubt it makes any differences, the virus just simply spreads significantly slower than in Italy and the UK. The first case in Hong Kong was discovered on 23/1/2020, and up to 15/3/2020, there are 148 discovered cases, 4 deaths and 84 recovered, In Italy, the first case was discovered in 31/1/2020, and up to 15/3/2020, there are 24,747 cases. Yes, you can say that this is not a fair and scientific comparison, that there are so many different factors affecting the spread of the virus. But to say the least, you cannot ignore the high possibility that the practice of wearing surgical masks could have helped reduce the number of discovered cases.

In this time of crisis, people from China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and other Asia cities and countries are already under serious pressure when coming to wearing face masks in Western countries. Asians were reported to be beat up and called “virus” by British people in the UK, my parents actually got yelled at and demanded to take off their masks in NZ… I mean, we respect anyone’s beliefs that face masks are not that great of a protection, but saying that it is “completely” useless is not only wrong, but also adds to the pressure of discrimination. A lot of Asian people are now giving up something we believe is effective, and are well-informed on how to use properly, just because people will see us as “infected” or laugh about how we’re overreacting or stupid, because people they trust in, like you, told them “it’s *completely* ineffective”. I know you have no ill intentions, Matt, but I just want to tell you that face masks just might be *a bit more* effective than you said in the video. Anyway, I won’t tell anyone to wear it if they don’t believe in this, just not hate on someone that does so. BTW, don’t going stocking N95s in your garage, leave them to your doctors and nurses, they need those to save your life while protecting themselves.

1. About how deadly/not deadly the unnamed deadly virus is

I know you’re trying to comfort people and stop people from over-panicking Matt, but when talking about how the news medias are inflating the story, you’re kinda also misleading people here. Let’s talk about the statistics.

“Overall, China CDC found, 2.3% of confirmed cases died.(3.4% as of March 3)”, which makes the mortality rate lower than SARS (9.6%), with the fatality rate being 14.8% in people 80 or older. That is, indeed, the numbers China CDC gave out, but I really doubt those numbers when you base your entire argument on that one country only. You see… I didn’t mention the number of deaths caused by the virus in Italy, right? Well, if the statistics China gave out was accurate, with 24,747 confirmed cases, there should be around 487 deaths, but the number of deaths in Italy is actually 1,809, raising the fatality rate in that country to 7.3%. The numbers of confirmed cases in the world’s currently third most infected country, Iraq, is 13,938, and 724 of the cases are reported dead, which makes the fatality rate 5.2%. Now, I’m not saying that China’s lying or anything……butttttt, the statistics from every country is… inconsistent. Data was collected in different ways, some countries don’t even allow people with symptoms of infecting the virus to go check anymore, and some don’t count people who died before receiving medical assistance into the confirmed cases, so the numbers, in this case, are not that likely to be accurate.

But you know a number that we should be aware of tho? The number of confirmed cases around the globe. Up to this moment, there are more than 169,358 confirmed cases around the world, you know how many cases there were for SARS, the way more deadly virus that Matpat mentioned for reference, had? 8,096. SARS spread around the world for 10 months, and 8,096 people were infected. The virus that shall not be named had spread for only 4 months, and we have 169,358 cases already, that’s almost 21 times more than SARS. So even with a lower fatality rate, a lot more people had died, and will die, from this virus, not to mention suffer from lung problems even after they recovered.

I know, Matt, that you’re trying to be positive, and encourage people to stop panicking because of the virus. I also know, that writing all of this is possibly meaningless. Not a lot of people will read through this long comment, and those who do will probably hate on me for ruining the fun and making people more scared. But you know what? It’s better to be informed and extra cautious and live, than be blissful and misled and dead. I have nothing against a light-hearted video that lightens up people’s lives in a difficult situation, in fact, I saw the title and clicked in here with a smile, expecting to see a educating and funny video. Instead, this video left me uncomfortable. Hoping that by writing this long comment, that some of the people who watched this video, could at least be more alerted.

You’re a internet celebrity, Matt. A lot of teenagers and even adults look up to you, and they will trust you, without doing that much research themselves. But, in this case, you are Olaf, just like you said in you recent Frozen 2 theory. You put out a video that is half truth, and half misleading, and unlike “water has memory”, your video might create beliefs that cause people their health or life. I beg you, please be more cautious when doing research about a possibly deadly virus, find multiple resources, don’t brush off details that people should know.

And if anyone did in fact read this whole comment - the virus that shall not be named is dangerous, please be careful, Stay healthy.

This is not a theory.

Sincerely,

A game theorist

[u/EvilManifested]

Yeah this is in pretty poor fucking taste. Lost some respect for you here, Matt.

[u/seiwaltz]

The text on the front of the hoodie only says "But that's just a theory" in Japanese. I only noticed because if it said "Game Theory" it would have to use katakana and I didnt see any on the front.

[u/LavaCouch]

This theory is in poor tastes to be honest. MatPat said before (plus it's obvious) that he will always do theories on current trends. Fidget spinners, Baby Yoda, Paul brothers, bad movies, Fortnite, Minecraft, Avengers, etc. It makes sense because those are what get searched and bring in ad revenue. But milking Coronavirus? Really MatPat? The whole world is on shut down and you are trying to get views over it? COVID-19 has NOTHING to do with either of your channels. At least demonetize it or donate all earnings to coronavirus research.

[u/[deleted]]

I have been watching GT for 6 years at this point and i'm just disappointed in the GT team. They had six people working on this video and this still ended up on Youtube. MatPat has done stupid things in the past but this is past the line. It would be so different if you made a video about the dangers of Covid-19 and how to stay safe. But this just seems like your trying to monetize peoples deaths. At the very least you should respond to the criticism.

[u/Minztea]

How many of the people complaining of the video actually watched it? The vast majority of the video is talking about the virus itself, how it works, transmission, prevention, statistics medical professionals find the most noteworthy, etc. You can't sit here and call something tasteless without actually watching the damn thing..

[u/LuigiBoi42]

MatPat made the right call to not only give us an entertaining video, but to also secretly tell us how to survive this new potential plague.

[u/SwagDoll420]

This is the worst theory since Sans is Ness. This one is in the worst taste possible. I like MatPat, but man is he dumb sometimes.