Joe Rogan Experience Review podcast - 509 JRE Review of Michael Malice

Episode Date: February 27, 2026

Michael Malice returns to The Joe Rogan Experience for a deep conversation on power, ideology, media narratives, and the psychology behind belief. Known for his anarchist philosophy and sharp cultural commentary, Malice explores why systems expand, why people obey authority, and how narratives shape perceived reality. In this episode, we break down Malice's core frameworks — incentives over intentions, ideology as identity, cancel culture as social enforcement, and humor as a tool for challenging institutions — alongside Rogan's practical pushback on whether these ideas can work outside theory. This episode is less about politics and more about understanding how power operates, how beliefs form, and why questioning authority remains uncomfortable but necessary. If you've ever wondered why systems behave the way they do, this one's for you. For more Rogan exclusives support us on Patreon patreon.com/JREReview www.JREreview.com For all marketing questions and inquiries: [e-mail] Please email us here with any suggestions, comments and questions for future shows.. [e-mail]

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You're listening to the Joe Rogan Experience Review. What a bizarre thing we've created. Now with your host, Adam Thorn. It might either be the worst podcast. One. Two, one. Go. Enjoy the show. Hey guys and welcome to another episode of the Joe Rogan Experience Review.

Today I'm joined by Pete and we are breaking down the Michael Malice episode. Michael's an author, political commentator, cultural critic known for his anarchist philosophy, sharp humor and ability to challenge mainstream narratives from both the left and the right. he frequently appears on the Joe Rogan experience. I believe this is like his 12th time he talked about. Did he say 12th or 8th? I can't remember. But a lot of times.

And, you know, he's on to discuss power structures, media narratives, ideology, and the psychology behind political belief. Malice blends philosophy, sarcasm, and provocation, which makes these conversations feel like cultural analysis. more than political debate. Honestly, I'm a big fan of Michael. I didn't really care for his face paint thing. I felt like that was just a bit silly. Yeah, he's silly. He's a silly man.

Silly, silly man. But he said he's working out a lot. He's balking. He didn't like being accused of balking, though. He seemed weird about the whole thing. He's getting defensive. It was weird. Just talk about working out, buddy.

It's all right. I know you're intimidated by Joe, because he's just way stronger than you. And, you know, but it's okay. Just be cool. And then he was like, I can't work out my legs because they get too big. What do you want?

It sounds like he's been working out for like two weeks, if you ask me. That's like something I would say when I'm like 14. Yeah. My legs get too big. My forearms are actually ridiculously jacked. They won't fit my jeans.

What? You can't buy new jeans. Jinkos. Bless. Wear some jinkos. Well, we're already picking on them, folks. but he's a good dude. Good dude.

Yeah, he kind of opened up with like a bit of anachism explained peace. You know, he reframes anarchism as skepticism towards coercive authority rather than chaos. So are we just any time we're skeptical of authority, are we anarchists? Or it seems extreme? When you throw a brick. through a window. That's anarchy. It seems more anarchy. I don't know.

I'm more of a Dead Kennedy's style anarchist, if I was going to be. That's like burn it all down. That's what you'd like to think that you are. That's, I play by the rules, everybody. That's why I have not got ahead. I obey my taxes, play by the rules. But yeah, he's just kind of saying that is the anarchy of the day. I think he's just encouraging people to be skeptical.

And there's a lot of skepticism these days. Bush. People, it has a Bushism all day. People really are, I think, more skeptical than ever of many institutions, whether it's just the government as a whole, the CIA, what the FBI are up to, what we're being told. It's like, it's hard to believe any of it and take any of it. of it seriously like what direction do you go down the um being a conspiracy theory is now the

theorist can be in conspiracy theorist is now the norm everybody is the young kids either they don't care or they don't believe anything sure that's kind of they're like nihilist because it's all it's all fake and retarded yeah it's just it's hard to know what is going on It seems like they got a good grasp over it, though. Michael seems like he's got a lot of cool stuff to say about all this stuff. He's wicked smart. Right. I mean, you know, Malice explains that people assume that the government equals order, right?

That's what the government is doing. But historically, many forms of order existed without centralized control. He's not a big fan of that centralized control model at all. we have to have some order like him as a course like there's different levels of ordering a society starting at like the family unit on up to a nation and then a globe so we as depending on the numbers of people you have to fall into one of the levels of order sure if you're just living in the woods with your family it's just the patriarchy or the mom top down in that in that sense but if you have a village and you probably have to get a head guy that collects some money to keep the

potholes filled. So if we don't have order in that regard, we don't have a society. Well, Rogan brings that up. And he even asked Malice, like, well, then in that case, if you don't have, you know, kind of centralized control like this, what replaces things like roads and emergency services? Well, Malice did reference, well, it's market solutions and decentralized models. It's kind of like the free market will do it. It seems like every time the free market gets a hold of something,

if there's not checks, it just inflation goes crazy. They have their own problems. And people steal money. Yeah. It's just that greedy shit. But the government does that too. $500 for a hammer? Come on.

Come on. Probably a good hammer. I'd think they're just $5 for the hammer and $495 for the space program or the the reverse engineering spacecraft. That's it. $500 hammer. I want it hammering its own nails in. Yeah, that's,

I got a pretty cool hammer. That'd be dope. Yeah, it'd be dope. I mean, you know, malice even jokes. Like, people imagine Mad Max when they're hearing of anarchism,

you know, which shows kind of how branding shapes perception. But it's, he's saying, no, it's not that at all. It's just skepticism to the point where people just kind of give up on, I guess, playing by the rules that all the control that government has over people. And I assume that means that eventually the government just has to start applying more pressure to get us to behave.

Yeah. Or the opposite, which is give powers back to us and reduce its size, but that's probably not going to happen. It would be nice to have a little more freedom and less taxes or taxes that I wouldn't mind even paying more taxes if I had something to show for it like free health care or you know incentive to buy houses stuff like that. It's like a lot of European countries were successful with that until their welfare system ballooned and they no longer have any funds. Sure. But, you know, the Scandinavian countries had a lot of taxes. but yeah, they had a lot of services

that those things literally paid for. Right. And no crime. Yeah. It was actually going to somewhere useful. Yeah. But here, I don't know. You got something to believe in.

They just sign away so much money that they just take from us. Mm-hmm. And then, you know, like all that fraud that's being uncovered in California, now that that guy is down there. Nick. Yeah.

He's down there. Sirley's doing that. Having a snoop around. Look around. And he's like, look what we're finding. I bet Gavin Newsom is like kick him out of the state. Gavin Newsom. Yeah, he's just a hack.

We always need like a couple of minutes every episode to... Just recently see that thing where he's like, I can't read good either, just like you guys. That was unbelievably rude. And they're all clapping. He's like, I'm just like, you guys. I'm just an idiot. You can't read.

Yeah, I got 900 on my assid, just like you. I can't. You ever see me read a speech? I'm blind. I can't read. But then he's like previously on record saying he reads, he read a 250 page book in one hour. Oh, yeah. Everything's a lie at the side of his mouth.

Yeah. Just turns into whatever he needs to be for that day. With a lot of hand flapping around. Like the ultimate politician. That's why he's good, though. His greasy hair and his gravely voice. I, God, he's handsome too. I hate him.

It's so frustrating. I mean, I really do want him to be the best pick at some point, just to watch how he, there's going to just be so many people that don't fall for it, though, I think. There's no way he can win over enough people. Like, he'd just be one of those guys that, like, gets close-ish. I mean, especially if you are in California,

And you have a little bit of a head on your shoulders. You're going to say, wait a minute. That's the guy again? The guy that did this to our state, now is going to do it to our country? No thanks. Unless you're just voting on party lines, which we don't recommend. It could happen. It could happen.

Yeah. They also talk a little bit about the psychology of obedience. And this was interesting. You know, malice emphasizes that people obey or. authority, even when skeptical internally. This podcast is brought to you by Brooklyn Bedding. I love a good origin story, and Brooklyn Bedding has one of my favorites. John, the founder, literally built this company from the ground up in Arizona without a college

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Brooklyn Bedding.com promo code J-R-E-R, right? It's like you kind of have to. You feel that pressure. Yeah. And, you know, I mean, we saw that so much during COVID, for one. And I still, to this day, I'm kind of shocked by how efficiently almost everybody fell in line. It was like they make the rules. And if somebody had just told you before many of those rules had come to place that they were going to happen. And then what do I as an individual think people will do once that happens? I'd be like, well, they're not going to follow it. Like, no way.

Like, not go to work or just stop all their business. You know, it was like all of it was just. Not play basketball? So much of it was like, well, obviously there's going to be so much pushback that they're just going to have to find some sort of middle ground. There was no middle ground. They just pushed harder and harder and harder until almost everything was shut. Almost everywhere. Yeah.

Well, in California, but there were some places that were just, there's some bastions of freedom left in the United States. Thank goodness. Well, the U.S. did a good job in a lot of places like that, for sure. but yeah I mean the pandemic policy of compliance and how even questioning was like socially discouraged

early on questioning anything was that was even banned yeah it would get you banned get you fired get you in a lot of trouble get your family broken up

friends unfriending each other oh people were turning on each other left and right I think it was a good a good thing in the long run for us because now, I hope, we've learned and won't be so easily

dissuaded. You know, false flag attacks are now, that's on the front of everybody's lips, false flag attacks. Oh, who attacked who? Who really attacked who? Sure. And then, oh, another pandemic.

Is Bill Gates funding this one as well? Or we just can't, there's so much skepticism. Well, it's a shame because we really did. before that, most people did defer to experts for answers. Oh, yeah. In almost everything. You know, it was like, oh, well, if all the, if the majority of the experts are saying that this is happening, we need to do it this way.

Well, they're the experts, so that's fine. Obviously. But when it came to things like COVID, because there was so much manipulation in the narrative, then, and that started to become clear, that all of a sudden we realized, well, wait a second, what are the experts? Are they just waiting around for a narrative to be told? And then we saw the experts. Is pressure actually far more powerful than experts? Well, yes, we found out that's true.

By a long way. Yeah, yes. Because the experts were idiots. The CDC, the people that ran the CDC, what should we do? Oh, six feet. Or what should we do? Let's not do a Super Bowl this year. or just silly stuff arbitrary.

Remember when they had the cutouts, like the Kabul cutouts of the games? And you could like put your face on there or something? Yeah. Could pay to. God. All those Zoom calls. And they were like,

we're bringing people back together with Zoom calls. It's like you'll have nothing and be happy. And you'll just see your friends and be delighted. Mm-hmm. You will see your friends on a screen and be delighted. Yeah. And everyone was touching with elbows. I'm back to mouth kissing.

That's safe. Yeah. Grandma. Everyone. French kissing everyone. Just the makeup for COVID times. Get in here. Come on.

Pete, that's the, that's the mailman. I know. Leave me alone. Look at his calves, though. It's just doing his job. The size of them. What do they always wear shorts? It's a hot job.

They're moving around. And they have great calves. Show them off. Strong people. So those boxes they're carrying around. Yeah. Tiptoe exercises. Autistic.

Walking on the toes, autism style. The other side of autism. Is it? Yeah, if a little kid always tiptoes around? Uh-oh. Maybe he's just trying to reach places. Too many vaccines. Oh.

Okay. RFK coming up this week. We are banned. RFK Jr. coming up this week. What about media narratives? They get under that, like the manufactured reality. And, you know, this stuff drives malice nuts. You know, because he's on the forefront of these sorts of things.

And he's always kind of combating that and playing, definitely playing devil's advocate about those sorts of things. It's almost, they didn't really bring up any Ben Shapiro stuff on this episode and both of those two know him well enough. It's like everyone is just skirting that whole topic right now. I wonder, I wonder why they're not bringing up the absolute bashing that Ben is getting online.

I don't want to believe it, but I think that Joe has definitely stepped away from stirring up any trouble, mostly because he has five rotating billionaires on his podcast, all of which were on the Epstein files. And he's having a few people in his ear, I'm sure. And Benny Boy is well-funded. by some of those people.

Really? Yeah. You think he's struggling with it? Joe's having an issue. He's taking a lot of flack from the YouTube Warriors, the podcast reviewers. I mean, I'm looking at Ben's three last posts to Instagram right now, and I can't even read 50% of the comments on the blog.

pod. And this pod is explicit and totally unedited. And I can't read some of them. We fly by the seat of our pants. We can't even say those things. No. And like... There's a lot of emojis. The least the least offensive

is still on there. It's just a comment out of nowhere that says Ben Shapiro is literally five foot two. I mean... There's nothing wrong with being five foot two, but you can't be a dick. Why does he hate America so much? I mean, it just And he's definitely done something to his comments to, like, close them down.

You know, to, like, limit the comments because of the way they're hitting. Like, he has a post today, and it only has 44 comments on. I mean, he's followed by, like, millions of people. He's not even getting a thousand likes on some of his posts. I think that the smokescreen of the Daily Wire is fading away. And they better do something quick. maybe put somebody else and do the old Brett Cooper move and put someone else just looks just like him and does the same thing to get his face out of there people don't like it anymore yeah I'm looking at

comments on another one of the post too same guy Ben Shapiro is literally five foot two he's just putting that on every single one of these it's just fair play to him that's funny that is funny that is funny if you like making fun of Ben for being short, you know, objectively funny. But, yeah, I don't know. It's like, it's a difficult time for many of these guys in the media right now. You know, they're getting as much distrust, energy and skepticism towards them. And I think Rogan is just somewhat taking a step back.

Like, look, he somehow still. kind of has like political commentators and politicians on. RFK Jr. comes on later in the week. Right. Still talking to him. But the way he's talking to them, I think, is changing. You're noticing that. Yeah, I'm noticing that.

It's quite a bit. You know, he's like just somewhat staying out of it. Which he doesn't have to. Do you think it's just like a headache? That's fine by me. Yeah. Does he need to throw himself in the deep end with everything? Like, does it necessarily?

have to, and I'm not trying to stick up for him because I do the review podcast, right? I'm just saying, I'm just playing a part here, right? I'm saying, could it just be that he's like, you know what, I don't want to keep getting right in the middle of something with controversy? Like, he still has plenty of opinions where he's just like, I don't care for that, or that's messed up, or that seems nuts. It doesn't seem like he's shying away from people that want to talk about it. he's not shying away from indulging those pretty terrible theories. Yeah, I mean, he had Avery on shouting about how they were all eating babies and the pizza. And he was 100%.

He's got Metsker on. Yeah. Who is very convincing. Yes. I like that guy. He is hilarious. Also, he's down every rabbit hole. I liked his hat a lot better than I liked Malice's face paint.

I'll tell you that. Right. Yeah. His Badger hat or something? Uh-huh. He's a character. Yeah, Metsk is kind of on fire at the moment. They did...

They got into the Epstein a little bit, but this was... I noticed that Joe was chopping it up a little more. Like, trying to make Malice laugh a little more. Joe was, like, kind of goofing around. Keeping it light. It was nice. Keeping it light.

It's nice to have, like, an old Joe back in a way. Well, it also is... because malice can have a tendency of just getting really deep and serious into something and then it's just like a long slog of like, you know, a diatribe of what he's thinking, feeling and this whole, you know, just goes straight down one topic for a long time.

So, yeah, it was like kind of keeping it light. But did you think it was unusual that there wasn't more talk in the direction of Epstein? I felt like this was going to be a heavy Epstein episode. Thought so too. I thought so too. It was surprising to me. Yeah, about like 10 minutes

and then the rest was just everything else. And whatever, he's going to have someone else on that's going to get into that stuff. Yeah. I almost wonder, like, I wonder if, since he's just piecemealing together,

the Epstein stuff, I wonder if someone could go through and make a compilation of all the little chunks that have been talked about, about Epstein, with Joe, since the release,

on all the different episodes and make a whole episode out of that and just, you know, chronologically do it. So it makes sense. So there's not all jumping around and see if there's like actually somewhat of a consensus opinion that he's throwing out there. Yeah. There might be one of those things. YouTube like that. It'd be interesting. Be interesting.

I'm just hoping again for like one of the big names to come on and really just summarize this whole. whole bitch once it's done. And I've just got a feeling it, it almost has to be an Alex Jones episode. And now when I bring that up, I'm getting a lot of pushback. People like, no chance. He's not coming back on. But if anything could bring him back on. Like, the thing that Alex basically called out, like, well over a decade ago, I think, a long time ago, he called out that island and what was happening. Yeah. and for him to now come on and be like, told you, this is where we're at.

Though supposedly he's even being a bit weird. Yeah, he's glazing Trump's involvement. Right. And not addressing it, which is, you know, not great. Because I want to be a fan of Alex's. He's a fun guy to listen to. He's funny. He feels like he's fighting against something else,

and he needs Trump. to be doing something. You know what I mean? He's like found another enemy. And he's like, well, he did have to pay a billion dollars, right? To families of Sandy Hook.

Do you think he's hoping for a Trump pardon? I think that he... By kissing Trump's ass for a little bit. He needs money. He's probably broke. No doubt. Like, he's probably getting paid. But you think someone's slipping him some cash?

He's getting money. Like, he's got, he's tied his horse to Trump and somebody, That's a fun conspiracy. I hope that I'm not true, not right. Alex Jones has pulled off. Why else would he do this? We can get to anyone.

Enough cash, enough gold. Speaking of getting to anybody, they were talking about who's easier to blackmail, like Michael, Michael was, and Joe were talking about that. Who's the easiest to blackmail? It's obviously males, because women aren't going to be falling into some hot dudes,

honeypot, you know? No. Just, like, he, Who's going to honeypot Hillary Clinton? She's ice queen. She's not getting black milk like that. They like money and power. Yeah.

You can give them some of that. Anyone can be bribed. That's what I was thinking to. Everybody wants something. In a different way, they can be bought and leverage. Sure. But it's easiest with people like Lindsay Graham, who allegedly likes the fellows. And he's a conservative Republican in a conservative state.

So he's got to hide it, therefore easily controlled. It's it. How would you get to Joe, do you think? Maybe that's happening. Maybe that's what you are noticing. Maybe how you get to Joe is you befriend him to some billionaires that just happen to be connected to some of the big things going on. And Joe, therefore, just takes a little step back. And that's the best you can get out of him because you can't.

You can't buy him. Right. You know, if he notices anything, he's going to, he's going to just be like, nah, nah, not having that. I've got to stay impartial and have my free speech and just keep my opinions. But if he's got his buddy's like Elon and some of the other big players, he's like, well, I'll just kind of skirt around some of their issues that they're involved in, not really bring it up too much. Why did he have Epstein's chef on? Do you remember that episode? He had Epstein's chef on?

Yeah. Really? Yeah. Get out of here. Let's look that one up. Let's look it up. But he had Epstein's chef on from what I remember, and they didn't talk about Epstein one time. What number is that?

How do I not know about this? Yes, Rogan hosted Adam Perry Lang, who worked as a chef for Jeffrey Epstein. Episode 1469. of the Joe Rogan experience in May of 2020. Well, was that after, when did Epstein kill himself? 19. 19, wink, allegedly. Allegedly.

There's a, I mean, the chefs are the first to die. Like the Clinton chef, Obama chef. Yeah, the bad swimmers. They're bad swimmers. Terrible swimmers. That's not a race joke. It's because of their hats. Waterlogged.

They're generally chunky. Big hats. You can't swim with a spatula, folks. Well, this guy got off lucky for being alive. I wonder how you cook baby meat. The appearance drew criticism because Rogan did not question Lange about this at the time, well known. I do not remember this. I cannot believe it.

And Epstein was convicted in what, 2006? a registered sex offender he pled guilty to like some really lessen charges but there were some egregious charges uh-huh so a simple search would have revealed that oh I do remember this guy yep I remember him being on there

and I guess it just didn't stand out because they didn't talk about any Epstein stuff did they talk about de-glazing pans or something or cooking a chicken fricacy or something? Yeah, what heck? I don't know.

I mean, I don't remember enough about it. I could probably go back and find myself reviewing it, or maybe it was one of the episodes that I would have skipped. But, huh, that's interesting. There's an episode coming up with Jim Brewer that I'm, maybe we'll do that one. I'm real interested in that one. We should.

Jim's the best, and he loves to get into some conspiracy stuff. He also was not a big fan of the COVID stuff. I think he was quite defensive. about it because, and he was definitely a very liberal guy before all of anything COVID happened. But I think he's been very good friends with Joe for a long time. Joe's looked up to him as a comedian forever. Since SNL. And yeah, and they've just been tight.

And I think that, you know, Jim knows Joe well. And I don't think Jim appreciated how Joe was treated during that time. and I've got a sneaky feeling that's kind of what set Jim off on that That really pissed him off He just seems like a loyal guy He's a good dude

That's all I've ever heard about him Solid friend Goat Boy and S&L Brilliant legendary Keeps getting shocked So good I still think his best role was half-baked Yeah

When he just goes on They send him to go get No no They didn't send him to get food but he just had that massive order for Harlan Williams to go get. He's like, blah, blah, blah. And four big pizzas, everything on him. And funnions.

Yeah. It's just amazing, dude. It's one of the most legendary breakdowns. Man, I got to watch that movie again. Classic. Let's do it. Let's break our sobriety, smoke some weed and watch that shit. Let's put that on.

We can watch that. But we're only not drinking. Weasley. That's true. It's fine. Okay. It's good for your blood pressure. Mine's pretty good right now, though.

Allegedly. If you're old enough and it's an appropriate setting. And if it's a legal state. That's true. That's true. Not Texas. Is that right? Oh, they have that fake weed at CBD Delta or...

Who knows? They must have medical there, though, right? Do they have medical everywhere? I believe so. Every state? Yeah. I think it's also decriminalized in most states as well. There we go.

So it's a ticket. And a confiscation. You can't drive with it. Anyways. Anyways. Pete knows. We're getting into looking into it. We're getting into some weed.

There we go. They talk a little bit about ideology as identity. And this was interesting. You know, Malice argues that ideology becomes part of personal identity. Right. He explains why people defend political positions, even when evident. contradicts them. And that's interesting.

Like, you know, you must have seen this. It's like a friend of yours is like telling you a point like they did the research themselves. And you're just like, wait a second, I know you and you know nothing about this subject. Now, I'm not saying I know anything about the subject, but you're talking to me like you discovered it yourself or you did research when surely you. the only way you know this is you just watched a show

or saw some Instagram clip that was telling you what to believe. And because it lines up with the party or some ideology that you're supposed to believe in, you're like, well, that's the facts. And now I've got to tell other people. Happens all the time.

Yeah, I've seen that. That's, you know, when facts are presented, opinions must change. Otherwise, you're no longer relevant. Well, you'd hope so. That's when you get old. But I think we're all guilty of that to a point as well.

We love to hear those sound bites and be like, oh, I'm going to use that one. Yeah. That's my new facts for the day. My new identity for a while. Yeah. I'm now that guy that knows this. And you're just like, do you really care that much? Like some of the opinions that I even accidentally catch myself thinking I should have,

I'm like, I don't care about this at all. What do I care about that? Yeah. Because the news just told me. to. Well, this really clever, you know, one minute long Instagram real just told me. Some gal while she's put on her makeup talked about the Epstein files to me. I was mesmerized. You're like, I believe it.

I believe anything she says. I believe what she's saying. Excellent cat's eyes. Right. It's very true. I mean, Rogan even discusses how disagreement is interpreted as moral threat rather than intellectual disagreement. and yeah, I mean, I agree with that. Yeah, just because we disagree doesn't mean I hate you or I hate your whole ideology.

Well, it shouldn't. We should be at a disagree. I love having those friends that you can, like, have a real ideological disagreement with. And then at the end, you're just like, all right, well, what do we do next? Should we go for beer? Like, just move on, do something? Real pizza? Yeah.

What are we doing? later. UFCs are on. Sweet. Let's go watch that. Instead of, I need to go home. Like, what are you 12? Did I upset you that much? Yeah. You got to go home and, you know, call your other friend and be like, can you believe you said that? That's my whole identity wrapped up in this idea that I didn't research myself and was told by the news to think. People do it. I think we're at a point in our lives as important in our culture where we don't believe anything anymore. Nobody is Nobody is a lot. I'm trying not to get tied to ideas too much.

Because I just, one, I don't know if I believe it. And two, I don't know if it's all that important. Being friends with people is more important than tariff regulation. Sure. It's like how you're treating each other. That's really what I'm not falling out with people because of their ideologies, ever. It doesn't happen. People might do it with me if I,

get too serious about something fine but how I fall out with people is like their behavior consistent their ethics or their treatment of others or their treatment of me I'm just like that's out of line you either stop doing that I'll throw that boundary out or just no go hang out with someone else like this is not cool belittle and berate somewhere else someone else somewhere else they got into assisted suicide oh yeah remember that part that's right talking about Newsom again. Uh-huh. Mm-hmm.

So what's Newsom's thing? He's trying to get it. Well, he did it with his mother, who was very sick. Uh-huh. And Michael was, actually, I thought a bit harsh. And you know I'm not here to stick up for Gavin, but to be fair, every case, it doesn't mean just because Gavin's been a dick that everything he does is dickish. Gotcha.

That's not how anyone is. He's a human after all, or a lizard person. Yeah, check his mask. Pull it. Pull his skin. But, you know, his mother was very sick. And he talks about the assisted suicide portion. I think it was, you know, quite painful cancer and all the rest of it.

And he helped her along with that. Malice was just like, I can't believe he talked about that and promoted it and all these things. But Joe had a really good point. He was just like, well, hey, if it's a ton of pain, like, what do you just want your family members to just suffer forever? It's like for how long? I mean, if you can artificially keep someone alive in massive discomfort for years, what's the point of that? What's the quality of life there? So, yeah, it was way more.

And look, Joe's not one for sticking up for Gavin either. No, he's also a sensible person when he's kind of breaking an idea down. I just felt like Malice lost that point. I don't know why he was taking that one. It, like, segued into elderly in general, being on, being a drain on our system. And so they might be, they're often offered that as a solution, in Canada, at least. There's definitely a slippery slope. There is a slippery slope there.

With the potential of what that could be. So homeless are on that list, elderly. I mean, if it starts to come into mental illness, then, like, we've got to be real careful. So if somebody is just chronically depressed always, but they're functioning well and their bodies work and they're not in physical chronic pain, I mean, is their depressiveness a type of pain,

if they're in their own sort of torture? It's like, well, how can you be sure? And how can you really analyze that? Have we done everything for them? Right. And how careful do we need to? be about allowing those types of decisions to be made. And also, you know, that is a kind of gateway to a sort of eugenics road if certain powers get into place. And they start manipulating the masses

to be like, oh, it's fine to do it. You should do it. If you have a bad day at work, you have a tough week. Going to the suicide booth. Suicide booths, it is. What was that, Futurama? And they go in and it's like souls everywhere. It's not even. Thank you. You are now dead. Yeah. The knife at the end is twist.

Twist. Awful. Thank you. That was quite the future. So there's like, um, people have been euthanized already that way in Canada. Just like 25 year old sad girl. Unbelievable. Homeless guys that are depressed.

Uh, veterans. So there's a pretty crazy. Once our government takes control of certain things, they don't give it back. And I don't think they should really have a say in who gets to, who gets offered medical suicide. It's just, I have some ethics regarding it. My grandmother actually took her own life that way. Medical assistance in dying, Gam Gam Gam. Yeah.

79 or 89. 89. She was quite frail. She hadn't really no health issues. She could just kind of stiffened up if we don't use it. We'll lose it. So she stiffened up and couldn't make it to the bathroom, was wetting yourself. So she did do that. I still, I say it's a slippery slope.

This was in New Mexico? I'm conflicted, yeah. And they have that there? Yeah. Okay. What's the process? Do you know how it went down? She was in hospice, or she got in touch with hospice, had a doctor talked to her.

And a couple sessions took two sessions of visiting the doctor, and then they issued my mom the drugs. And then they went back to her house, and they did it there with her kids hanging around. Really? Wow, I didn't know this. Yeah. God bless Gam Gam Gam.

Yeah, she's very brave. That's a very brave decision. That's a very brave decision. But still, I'm conflicted about the morals of it. Yeah. Well, because you can imagine if someone is very old and maybe they're not thinking all that well or their kids don't have the best interest in mind and there's a lot of inheritance. You know, there's ugly things that come into stuff. And all of a sudden they're kind of being pressured into it.

Like, you know, come on, Gam Gam Gam Gam, it's really the best thing. We're all very busy. We just don't have time to be coming over here every day. Yeah. And it's like, hold the first. here, drove him out of town. We're here to take care of you. I already took a day off work for this.

We drove in from Texas. It had that feel. We got to leave early tomorrow to beat traffic. Yeah. Taping his watch. It's just at some point, I did notice it seemed like she was maybe getting a little pressure to do it

from my parent, for my mother. It's like the, remember on the Monty Python the Holy Grail. They're like the sick people. They'd be pulling them away. He's all, I'm getting better. And you just whack them with the hammer. Could you, come on.

Here's a couple of pets. Come on. Take them away. Here's a couple of pets. I'm all right. I'm getting better. I feel like I can go for a while. We shouldn't laugh about it.

But it's like there is an absurdity potential to it that highlights how the, you know, the darkness that could creep into those sorts of decisions. and why it needs to be handled so carefully, right? For sure. Yet also, I think there is potentially a place for it as well. Yeah, I mean, I'm, you know, if you're getting one of those diseases that just kind of eat you away, you know, Parkinson's or one of those ones that just very quickly, like everything just goes. ALS. Right?

you can't move and you can't do anything and it's inevitable like there's no cure for it your mind's going to start going and it's like hey i can i can take some dignity and you know in your own terms don't have dignity otherwise but it's like you may not feel like you do and yeah you go out kind of the way that you want to but the trick is you have to be cognizant and of sound mind to make the decision so if you wait too long and you're of no longer of sound mind who's putting you down. Right. Yeah, then you're getting put down. Sure. And that's a little bit, it's a little bit dark. But you got to have your, what's about you. Yeah. Which do I ever, I don't know. Look, there's no easy way out, folks. That's all there is to it. There's no easy way out.

You'll know it was, I did it if I did it with a hammer to myself. What's it? He really wanted to go. Remember that on Team America? Where they're like, if you get captured by the other side, instead of like giving them a suicide pill or whatever, they just slide the hammer across the desk. You'll need this. He's like, what? Bossworth. Just bash yourself with a hammer. Oh, that movie was brilliant.

So good. You talk a little bit about power incentives. Like, malice was repeatedly emphasizing incentives over intentions. It was like discussions of bureaucracies expanding regardless of original mission. so, you know, I mean, I guess you could talk about a U.S. aid that way. Like, it was set up for aid, I'm pretty sure. Co-opted by evil people. Well, co-opted by like an arm of the CIA so that their oversight commissions

couldn't really see what they were up to. And they were, like, running, you know, coups out of these different countries. And, you know. It's weird how you can stick. up for that on a side for a side oh us a id was a you know a boon we were giving condoms to feel in africa and to peel away the veil a little bit oh they were overthrowing democratic elected countries but that was the immediate narrative as soon as those got in yeah because they wanted to demonize Elon as soon as possible and the amount of data that he was getting a hold of

like, oh, this is all an invasion of someone's privacy. Well, yeah, hopefully the people causing fraud. And let's get behind that curtain and see what the heck is going on over here. And then Bono comes on, Rogan, which, you know, they even talk about on this one, he's like, there's like 30,000 people to or, well, he's not. He doesn't talk like that. He's Irish. But he talks about 30,000 people already starve to death or what. It's like the quickest narrative to throw out that.

And then Joe was like, who? Without even check. Who is, when? And they all fell apart. And they're like, well, what about all the other fraud that's out there? And it turns out Bono didn't really look into anything. He just, like, was told something by one guy once. And he's like, that does, that sounds bad.

Did you go to the island? Probably went there. Did he go? Played. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the best one. Bloody Sunday. Yeah, yeah.

They had some bangers. They were better back in the day. They got a bit yeah, yay for me. Yeah, a little bit of clap, yeah. A bit like blowing in the wind and saying yeah a lot. I like their political days a bit more. Back in the 80s. Sunday, Bloody Sunday.

Classic. Talk about the troubles. It was a tough time out there. Yeah, tough time. Well, look, let's wrap this one up because they were rambling on for a while. I was, I got to say I was a little disappointed. more epistine heavy. I'm not going to lie. I think we're going to get our fill next with somebody else.

We're going to get there. I mean, look, the episode leans heavily on malice's strong lane, right? It was like power, psychology, less news, kind of more framework. What stood out for me is like incentives was the central theme, repeated examples of narrative formation, a lot of strong overlap with previous malice appearances. I mean, it was very much him. I like him coming on. And Rogan consistently grounding theory with practicality, right? It was a bunch of that. Online reaction, some great quotes.

He explains incentives better than anyone. True. Always makes me rethink authority. And that's something that Malice has done well for a long time. Best philosophical Rogan guest. One of them. critics critic

say too abstract also solutions feel vague and then lastly feels pessimistic I don't know I thought they were just shooting the crap

shooting the crap shooting crap shoots overall online rating for this one ran through the AI from Reddit and X and all the places

that people leave comments a solid eight out of ten for this one quite a strong score for Roe I think it's because it had like that Rogan strength conspiracy

kind of shit on the powers the bee energy. Very loose, cool conversation. It was pretty solid. And I'd say malice doesn't try to win the arguments here. He tries to change the lens. The conversation keeps returning to one uncomfortable idea. Systems

behave predictably, even when people don't. I liked it. It was a solid episode. good malice. Check it out. We're going to have more later in the week. We're probably going to do, yeah, we'll probably do Brewer and RFK, Jr., I'd imagine. We've got to do RFK. What do you think? I'm into it. And Brewer. Let's do both. All right. Thank you so much. We appreciate you as always. Take it easy. Bye.