The Joe Rogan Experience - #2214 - Shane Smith

Episode Date: October 16, 2024

Shane Smith is a journalist, executive, and co-founder of VICE Media. Look for his new video podcast series, "VICE News: The Truth?," coming soon. https://www.youtube.com/user/vicenews Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Joe Rogan Experience. Trained by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. What's up? How are you? Good to see you. Good to see you. What you been up to, man? That's a loaded question.

I'm doing a podcast now. You are doing a podcast now? Yeah, yeah. When did you start? Yeah, yeah. A couple months ago. What made you want to do that? Just got tired of being on the outside?

Yeah, Yeah. Yeah. Yeah a Couple months ago. What made you want to do that? Just got tired of being on the outside looking in That's it. Yeah, you know, it's you actually I'm gonna I'm gonna paraphrase you so you got to tell me the exact quote Okay, but you said um Covid was a fucked up time. And I went in thinking that vaccines were the pinnacle of human technology and came out thinking that the moon landing wasn't real and Michelle Obama was gonna take a look. And I was like, I was me.

Like during COVID I was like, I became obsessed with social media and acts and like just looking at shit and whatever and I'm like you know what's true what's not true like what's what like because everybody's speaking so forcibly this is what one question I wanted to ask you is you talk to all these dudes all the time one of the things I missed like I would be I would be talking to people and be like oh this is going on Afghanistan I'll be like oh I was just there that's not what's happening or you know this is happening is in Iraq oh I was just I love talking to people I love meeting people and be like, oh, this is going on in Afghanistan. And I'll be like, oh, I was just there. That's not what's happening. Or, you know, this is happening as an Iraq.

Oh, I was just there. I love talking to people. I love meeting people. And I love sort of knowing stuff. Like you can just say, well, I'm going to go there. I'm going to figure it out. Right. So I saw this stuff on social media and I was like, wow, you know, there's all this stuff like, but no one's really going after it and saying like, as an investigative journalist saying, what's real, what's not real, what's true, what's not true. You are.

You're getting in there. There's a few people doing it. They're all investigative journalists. They're all independent. They're all completely outside of any kind of Washington Post, New York Times. Which is great. It's the only way to do it. It's impossible to exist in mainstream media and be legitimate now.

There's going to be guardrails. Yeah, there's no way. mainstream media and be legitimate now. There's gonna be guardrails. 100%. But you talk to everybody and that must be fascinating because you get the inside track. Like your brain is like a wealth of information. Yeah, it's like I had an unexpected education. Yeah. Like an unanticipated, unplanned education in all sorts of things. Yeah, and these guys are super interesting and you get to learn and that's amazing. It's pretty amazing, yeah. I mean, you learn a lot of bullshit too. Like some of the stuff you learn is not true.

Well that's the problem. Yeah. I got a question. Yeah. Bobby Kennedy seems to be like so fast. I remember I used to watch Tony Blair during question period and he'd like leap up and he'd be like blah blah blah and he was so like he knew everything and the facts and stuff. Like you've interviewed him a bunch of times?

I've talked to him many times. I interviewed him once. Is he that good in person? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, he's legit. I mean he was an environmental attorney. Yeah, I know. That was his background and you know he's had a, I mean, a crazy life. Imagine you're 14 years old and your dad gets killed by who knows, but it might be the government. That's my first episode. Yeah.

Assassinations, Deep State, getting into it. Well, it's a real thing. You know, I don't know who's doing it or what faction or how small the amount of people are that are involved in it imagine if you're like a legitimate person working for the CIA and you think that the CIA is trying to assassinate Trump and you're like what the fuck you know or or whoever that's our first episode it's got to be I mean it's got to be a small faction of intelligence agencies that want to do things. Like, how many people do you think

were involved in the Kennedy assassination? So there's a guy named Peter Dale Scott, who actually wrote the book on the deep state and brought, like, the concept over from Turkey to here and broke it. And if you talk to him, so he was really involved, or wrote about, or covered the, they tried to assassinate Castro That was the first American deep state thing which is like by the way, it's that's that's factual. That's like Oh, yeah

There were the mob and Cubans and the CIA and they tried to commit many times they tried to kill them Failed. Yeah, and then You know that sort of morphed and there's all this sort of mix into the Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy Robert RFK assassination attempts that this guy was referencing. And you're just like, Deep State has such a negative connotation to it because it's like conspiracy-ish, but you're like, when it got explained to me by the guys who sort of coined the terms, which is, you know, like there's this intelligence agencies or the Pentagon, career bureaucrats, who by the way go back and forth, it's a rotating door, they go to Raytheon, they go to Boeing,

they go all the way and they get the contract, trillions of dollars, and they act in cahoots with each other and you're like, yeah, that makes total fucking sense. Of course. Yeah, it's a business relationship. It's a business relationship. It's a business relationship. And then if they have something that needs to happen, you have all kinds of people who will do that thing for you. Yes. So it's not why, yeah, exactly.

It's not bureaucrats in the CIA. It could literally be one guy who's a top executive. Or a hundred. Or a few people that come to a conclusion and don't even have to say it and then a plan gets hatched yeah and then next thing you know there's a guy on a roof yeah we're already into yeah I can just see the fucking tweet stop it but but it but for sure it like it's like I found that fascinating not only so I started doing like the snipers. We got the sniper, fascinating dude, he has the longest confirmed kill, 3.5 kilometers.

So we started just talking technical shit. And you're like, okay, could it be done? And the sniper's like, what do the snipers have to say? And then we got to the head of the guy who trained all the Secret Service people. And we got that, actually we got Trump's head of security for 18 years, personal head of security guy, first time we ever talked. He was a great, great guy. Keith Schiller.

And then we got into it and then everyone started talking about the deep state, deep state. And I'm like, what the fuck is the deep state? Like I know what the deep state people think is. That's the other thing is online everyone has so many givens. You know like in math, one plus one is a given. So there's so many givens. You know, like in math, one plus one is a given. So there's so many givens. You're like, well, let's look at the givens. Like, what is the deep state? So I literally went after the guy who coined the phrase and he's like, and I'm like, oh yeah, that sounds completely, I mean, I know those guys, like that sounds

completely believable. And then, so when you believe that, then you start saying, okay, well, how do these things look? look like what do they look like? Fascinating but I mean look I'm into all this stuff and then you're you're there like all day every day doing it It must be it's fascinating. I love it. So that so I did get sick my long-winded answer I did get sick of being on the outside looking at it is fascinating But I like the way I do it because I get to talk to anybody I want to. Like I don't have to just deal with things that are disturbing.

I can talk to someone who's a beekeeper. I can talk to someone who makes cabinets. Yeah, you made your own empire, which is fucking awesome. Well, it's just what I'm interested in. It just happens to be that a lot of people are interested in these things, so it's just what I'm interested in. It just happens to be that a lot of people are interested in these things. So, it's lucky. And it's also because I'm actually interested in it, I don't have to have fake conversations.

Like, there's no one I have on where I'm like, I can't believe I'm talking about this. You know, like, well, you see that, right? You see that in like late night talk shows. They don't want to be interviewing this person. It's too much. Yeah, it's nonsense. Well, Vice, this episode is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. Pressure can be a good thing, like on the mat or in the ring.

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Download FanDuel and get more from North America's number one sportsbook. Please play responsibly. 19 plus and physically located in Ontario. Gambling Calm, call 1-866-531-2600 or visit connexontario.ca. When you started Vice, it was one of the most refreshing news sources because it was like these intelligent people

that didn't seem like regular journalists. They seemed like just people that you knew. Yeah, because it was these intelligent people that didn't seem like regular journalists, they seemed like just people that you knew. Yeah, because they weren't. Yeah, they were just people we knew. Right. They seemed like normal people, and yet all of a sudden they're wearing a flak jacket in a war zone. They seem like normal people and they're hanging out in a hot tub in Thailand. That was it. It's like it was normal people that were interested. Like, Vice Guy to Travel, that one with Hindmo's

Arctic Adventures, that is till today one of that one with Heinmo's Arctic Adventures. That is till today one of my favorite videos of you guys every day. I fucking love that story because it's amazing. You've got this guy that lives in... The most remote human... Yeah, like in this tiny cabin. He's been there since the 1970s. He doesn't even...

He saw 9-11 in a photograph. That's all he knows about it. He doesn't have, he saw 9-11 in a photograph, that's all he knows about it. He doesn't have any television up there, he gets VHS tapes occasionally and watches them on a tiny TV, and he just lives in this subsistence lifestyle, just fishing and hunting and living off the land, and an intelligent, interesting, articulate guy. And he seems way happier than most people I know. For sure. Yeah, he was the most remote human until we found those people in Russia and in, like, Siberia who had run from Stalin and this family who had gone up into the mountains and just

lived there for, like, 80 years. Whoa. By themselves, like, made shoes out of bark and, like, totally self-sustaining up in the mountains of Siberia. Like they thought that they didn't know about the moon landing, they didn't know about like... What kind of gene pool do they have? Not a lot. I think there was a lot of... Inbreeding. Oh, God. How many people were there? I don't know. You could look. I don't know. It's like there was six when they found him,

I think, and one was like 80 who was the youngest or something. Oh, God. Yeah, yeah or something oh crazy story though yeah so they ran from Stalin just stayed alive they thought Stalin was like you know still there oh yeah it's just funny you can't name a kid Adolf but you can name a kid Joseph there you go and that word no it's a little weird Joseph was too common yeah Joseph Yeah, Joseph's very common. But wasn't Adolf really common with the Germans? I don't know. Maybe. I don't know. I mean, Joseph is everywhere. I know. That's like a Bible. Yeah. Yeah, no Adolf in the Bible, so. No. Didn't make the cut. Didn't make the cut. But when you guys were, you know, when it was young, it was like, it was new

internet, right? Because internet opened up a bunch of you know, when it was young, it was like, it was new internet, right? Because internet opened up a bunch of different possibilities, and it opened up possibilities for legitimate independent journalism, and legitimate independent thinkers who were really disconnected from the sort of stiff, stuffy, mainstream perspective of what's going on in life. And you guys gave, you guys gave a completely unfiltered perspective as a normal human who's experiencing these bizarre circumstances in these exotic lands. And it was awesome, man. It was awesome. And then now it's this bizarre propaganda machine that's ideologically captured to the point where it's preposterous. Like, they say things that are just so outlandish and so not in tune with logic or objectivity.

It's so strange to see going from what you made to what it is now. Yeah, look, I mean, I could get into the nuances, which are many and boring, but basically what happens is, you know, and I actually called it from the beginning. I said, look, we're gonna get too big. And at that point, we're gonna become the thing that we're like, we were a challenger brand and we're going to become the status quo and then we're going to get our asses kicked. A. B. I said look all internet is now consolidating and media is consolidating and everybody's

consolidating because they have to because there's the big five are taking all the money and we knew it was coming but it came like look I'll tell you another thing in media you know there's not a lot of people picking shit like you get to pick shit because you run your own shop you're the main but like when you run media it's like people put on what people watch that's the rule like you just put on shit and people watch it and then like if you say I want to do this and nobody watches it then

you don't get to say I want to do this that often. So and we always had a thing where we gave the company over to the interns if we just stayed a Gen X free giveaway we would have never gotten into video. In fact when we got into video we were derided by the old guys for selling out because going to online video was seen as a sellout because we should have stayed a magazine. So we used to give it over to the interns. And then the interns just, they had a different fucking everything. They had a different philosophy, they had a different subject, they had a different

fucking everything. And they were going, and by the way, the traffic was still there, and I was the same. I was looking at it, and I was like at you the fuck is this right the fuck is going on and you know they're like well that's the traffic and your fucking things you like it's no traffic because you're an old man so anyway I was semi retired for a number of years and you know look when did you get out? I moved to LA 15, 16 around there. So I moved to LA because our biggest clients were there, the biggest platforms were there, no one was out there, and you know, I had kids and I was like, okay, like I can move to the country and commute into New York

or I can move to LA. So I moved to LA and that started a whole, that was not smart in retrospect because you leave and it starts like Game of Thrones shit. And then also quite frankly, if you wanna know the metaphysical fucking reasons why, I can get into it. Okay.

All right. I love metaphysical There you go What the best time for vice the time that you're talking about the time that I loved was You know you would go before all the big investors and everything you would go to like Italy, right? and you would get an apartment and you know, you get a girlfriend and You find an office and you hire people that look like you or hang out like you or just are cool or whatever. And you would build it.

You would buy the fucking computers on your credit card and you would fucking go to the grandmother's place for fucking lunch and Cinque Terre. You would like fucking figure out all the cool places to hang out with you, with your friends and stuff. And then you'd have a big party and everyone would come and advice would be launched. Then you'd get on a train and go to Sweden and do the same thing. You'd live there for six months. You'd build something.

It was tangible. The mag would come out. You'd start shooting stuff and it would be fucking awesome. And then when it got to be like you fly in and you meet with lawyers and accountants and it's shit and then you fly out again the next day, it's terrible, right? And so when that happened, I was like, I won't do this anymore and I'm not good at it.

Like I was good at building, I'm good at building, I'm good at, like founders are not necessarily operators. One of the smart things you've done is like, just keep your own shit your own shit. And I got, you know, my eyes are too big for my stomach in a way because you're just like, let's keep going. The big thing too is keep it small. Keep it small, dude. Keep it small. It's just me and Jamie and we have a video editor that's not even local. He just gets it on the internet. And also Jamie is super good vibes, which is

the best. But it's the most important. I have friends that have big podcasts and they have this huge staff and they have all these people running around. I'm like, what do all these people do? And it's like they want this feeling of they're the boss of a bunch of employees for some reason. They want all these production people that are creating content. But then you have inter-office conflicts and they're always putting out fires and people are

complaining and then people leave and make videos talking about what a piece of shit boss you were. And it's like, hey man, you're, you're dealing in this thing where there's currency in that information. There's currency for these, these mediocre people. So you, you hire these mediocre people and these mediocre people attack you cause there's currency in attacking you, but you didn't

need them in the first place. This whole thing was stupid. Like you're making a little bit more money, but you have more problems, but you don't notice that money. Like you have to pay attention to what you notice, right? Whatever the fuck you have in your bank account, if you're a fairly wealthy person and you have $100 more, $100 less, $1,000 more, $1,000 less, you don't notice it. But I'll tell you what you do notice. You notice hassle.

You notice problems. Those problems are worth a lot of money to get rid of. Like if you had a bunch of employees, like fuck, what can I do? There's so many people, it's so annoying. God, I wish we were small again. Getting back to small again Is a grind you're gonna fire people. It's a you got a downsize. You got to figure out how to do it

That's a mess man You don't want that mess so that extra money that you got by making things too big you fucked yourself You got greedy you you looked at it the wrong like someone said to me like I was in the park on the comedy store this friend of mine was not even very successful was like I'm trying to find a new assistant. I go. Why do you need an assistant? He goes you don't have an assistant I go no I go this is what you do Do less shit if you need an assistant you're doing too many things do less shit Don't get a fucking assistant you have an assistant

You have what happens at David Spade the guy shows up with duct tape and a taser and tries to kill you. Remember that? Because they wind up resenting you. Because if you've got some person who's working for you, he's making $50,000 a year and you're making, you have $50 million. They want to kill you. After a while, they're like, I'm a part of this too. They don't think of it as this is a great job and this job could eventually lead to something bigger. People get resentful. Also, the type of people that are 34 years old

are working as an assistant, probably a little fucked up, probably made some mistakes, probably not really on the right path in life. Now, all of a sudden, you're connected at the hip to this person, and then they want to tell you about their problems, and maybe got an X, Y, or maybe they got a this, and if they're making more money, they're gonna make more money

And so you've you've you've because you wanted to appear like you have a everybody wants a big organization Yeah, like fights is big now, you know the JRE we've got thousand employees worldwide. We have three employees Yeah smart, you know Harvard you should hire you to teach business because that is a hundred percent of it. No, I'm just saying. No, that's this business. But listen, it's so fucking right. Like you just said what's in my fucking brain. Like it's that a hundred percent of that is true. Everyone should listen to this guy because it is a hundred fucking percent true. When you're younger...

Run a tight ship. Yeah, exactly. When you're younger, you're like, oh, fuck it. And look, a fucking punk kid that came from nothing. So when you have employees, there is actually a Harvard thing where they say there's a paradox where you hire somebody because you want to have someone to help you, but they're not as good as you, and you hire someone who's not as good as you, and then you hire someone who's not as good as them.

So then all this stuff, and you have to do more work, there's more hassles, then you have a whole group of people reporting to you and this is exactly not out of business. And I even knew that going in. And then you hire and you're exactly right, and you hire all these people. All they need to do is be in the same room as you. Yeah. And then that's access. And once there's access, then you're exactly what you said. Then you deal with their issues. And you deal with everything. Shane, can I pull you aside for a second? There's a project that my friend and I are working on. We'd like to get you involved. Yeah. Oh. But yeah, no, it got too, it definitely got too big. And you're exactly right. Like, look,

you're a wise dude because like you keep it small, you're exactly right. That's like, after having learned what I've learned, like we have a tiny little team that makes this thing and it's super, like, it's like the early days of Vice where you're just making shit and talking to people and chopping it up and doing stuff and trying new shit out and doing, well one week it'll be like this and the other week it'll be like that and we'll just fucking do everything. It's so much more fucking fun. You're 100% right.

Yeah, fun is the most important thing. Like if you, Brian Cowell said this to me once and it's really great advice. He goes, all you really want is to be able to go to a restaurant and not worry about what things cost. Everything else is bullshit. 100%. It's true. Everything else is bullshit.

100%. You get used to cars, you get used to houses. I realized early on, I got an apartment when I lived in North Hollywood. It was the first nice apartment I had. After I was in it a couple weeks, it was just my house. Just like the house I have now. It's not that much different.

It's just like your home, okay great, what do you need? You need a couch, you need a TV, you need a bedroom, you need a kitchen. That's all you need. Hopefully it doesn't stink, hopefully it doesn't suck, hopefully your neighbors aren't loud, hopefully, it'd be nice if you have a view, that's cute. But other than that- I'll go a step further than that. Is you, I don neighbors aren't loud, hopefully it would be nice if you have a view, that's cute.

But other than that... I'll go a step further than that. I don't know about you, but you accumulate shit, right? And I, because I never had anything, I was like, I got into watches, I got into shit, I got into art, then I got like, I don't even fucking drive. And I got Johnny Cash's fucking car from 1969. What kind of car is that? So in 1969, Johnny Cash had the number one show in America, and ABC got him a one of a kind Rolls Royce, extra long body, all black, black mahogany interior.

And check this out, so I got it, so it was me and Wayne Newton. Remember, I used to gamble, so I was in Vegas, won a bunch of money. I actually had to fly to China, and my my buddy stayed there and he was me and Wayne Newton bidding against each other for Johnny Cash's car. And when we got it, it was like burning fucking fuel oil, just black smoke coming out. Oh yeah, they're terrible. So I turned it into a Tesla. No.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's fucking awesome, dude. It's awesome We chopped it. It's turned into it. We kept everything with this. Is it online? Can I see this thing? You can see yeah Yeah, did you put it online? No, but there's a picture's picture Can you send it to Jamie so we can see it? Just pull up Johnny Cash's Rolls Royce 1969 it's a black all black Rolls Royce so I turned it into a Tesla redid the whole interior fucking who did that for you I'd have to get the fucking the name that's it oh look at that yeah what would Johnny Cash feel yeah about

his Rolls Royce getting I think you'd fucking love it cuz I was out with Rick Rubin in that car yesterday that's Johnny Cash not Johnny Carson Johnny Cash. Didn't you say Johnny Carson? No, Johnny Cash. You said he had the number one show on TV? Yeah, the Johnny Cash Variety Hour. Oh my god. I thought you said Johnny Carson. So ABC gave him this car and yeah, I was with Rick Rubin in that yesterday. We were driving around in it. It's so fucking fast and it drives like a fucking crazy boat. Wow. You're gonna come out and yeah, drive it. So you took a Tesla Model S and converted it. Yeah, these are the dudes who did it. Wow. And we redid all that wood now, so it's all the original black mahogany from... So when the batteries go bad

you can just swap the batteries out. Just plug it in? No, you just plug it in. No, but eventually the batteries will deteriorate to the point where you'll get really low mileage. You probably get low mileage already, right? That thing's heavy as shit. It's heavy as shit, yeah. God, that's beautiful.

You must have had to upgrade the brakes in a big way, right? Because it's very heavy. Yeah. Fucking beautiful car, though. This is such a good car. Because when I came out to LA, I'm like, I'm going to get a shit brown Agatha Christie Rolls Royce and an MS-13 driver with like the full 13 and like a safety. Am I late for the party?

Hello. And so, and so I got this one and I'm just, it's fucking awesome. Wow. That's so cool. They're doing, there's even the company called Everati. Yeah. They're uh. Do they do the electric, the swap overs? Yeah, they do swap overs for I know they do Porsches

I think they do a Mustang as well, but they take these classic cars The problem is like you You're not supposed to do that. You're not supposed to do this. I will say this I don't have any desire to have one of these things But I think they're dope as far as like but the thing is like for me. I see that oh, that's disgusting Get that off the screen. I see that that does disturb me to know what you took a GT 40 and turn it electric The thing about those old cars is the mechanical feel and that is 90% of the experience of driving one of those Well, this car barely ran like the problems it was fucked

Yeah, but you could get a resto mod. You could rest them on it Anyway, I love the thing is like they're supposed to have I could see doing it with Johnny Cash's car It's kind of funny, but you do into that you should go to jail You do that to a GT 40 you should go right to jail. What's the horsepower as it is? Well not really originally, you know, this is the this is Ferrari versus Ford. This is the original car I actually have the next version of that which is the Ford GT. I have one of the 2005 ones that's a stick shift. I feel like if you drive a car like that, you have to drive a manual It can only go 160 miles, right? And that's if you're driving like a grandma, but it has 800 horsepower. It's probably faster shit

You know electric cars are different than any other car in terms of the speed that you get Yeah, the way it feels to just go wish yeah, but there's no sound Just part of that car is That's that car that car is like visceral, it's exciting. There's an engine behind you. It's like, let's go baby, come on Shane. You feel it in the turns, you wanna feel the bumps, you wanna feel the fucking steering in your hand,

the wiggling of the tires. It's a ride, it's not efficient. It's not supposed to be efficient, it's an experience. It's a sensory overload. It's not just transportation Yeah, that's why turning one of those things into electric is I did it because it was burning fuels burning blacks I barely fucking ran So so did it so love it but the thing of my long-winded answer to that question was I I started I collected all this shit and you were saying, it doesn't bring

you any fucking that. It may be cars for you because of that. So I just go, you know what? All of that shit, I was talking to Rick about this too, like I'm just going to get rid of it. Like the more I free myself from that shit and all that stuff, you're just like, you know what? Psychic burden.

I used to go, speaking of the old days of ice, I had everyone who used to laugh because I go for literally years with a backpack and I just be like well I wear his black jeans and black t-shirt like I just buy new ones if I need something you just go to a pharmacy one of my to this day I like if I go to a fucking pharmacy in a foreign country I'm stoked because it means I'm getting shit that I need like shampoo and fucking toothpaste and that little scissors from my nose hairs and shit and that means like I'm on top of my game. I'm fucking ready to go. I can fucking interview people and do shit because I'm gone to the fucking pharmacy. And I love

going to fucking supermarket because you just like I'm going to buy some fucking food and then we're going to go do some work and it's going to be fucking awesome. That shit gives me pleasure. Fucking a watch or a car or shoes or fucking nothing. Yeah, most of those, they're cool. I'm interested in engineering and artwork, right? And I feel like that's why I have so much art in this place. I love people's expression. And I feel like cars are artwork.

That's how I view cars. Sure. Especially old cars. I have a lot of old cars. And those old, like, big- Art deco cars, like- Muscle cars. Oh, muscle cars. 1960s to early 1970s muscle cars. That's what I love. I love them.

I love them. I drive them like they're just, it's like I'm on an amusement park ride. That's how I feel about them. And I just, when I was a kid, those were the cars that everybody wanted. So to me, it's like I get a real joy out of those. But if I didn't have them, I'd be fine. If I just drove my Tesla to work every day,

I would be fine. Like the level of happiness you get in terms of like how much you have to work for some things, it's not worth it. It's not worth it. Too many people strive for this thing that doesn't give you anything back. It's just this thing that's hard.

Just because something's hard to get doesn't mean it's good to get. And there's a lot of things that people strive for that are difficult to achieve, but they're not valuable when you get there. No. And speaking of psychology, yeah, like you talk about old muscle cars, the car I learned to drive was my grandmother's car that she gave to my cousin when I was 13, he was 16 or something, and he taught me how to drive. And it was a Nova SS, it was an old like, fuck it, it's so, so good.

I have one. I have a 69. It's so beautiful. I have a 69 that has been completely redone by this guy Steve Strope. So nice. And it's the craziest Ever this one this one's incredible because it's understated resto mod. It's understated It's not like it's a powerful beast, and it's but badass looking

But it's not like like a Ferrari like you know Ferraris can be beautiful. It's different. It's different It's a different flex. Yeah, you know the the, you just have money. That's a Nova. That's mine. That's my 69 Nova. I love it. Look at that. That's like exactly, hers was gold. I still remember that.

Mine is like, it's got 1969 Camaro fenders. So they made it like wider so they could fit larger tires and tubbed it out. It's all custom and has a supercharged L24. That's what her engine did not look like. Yeah, it's a very efficient driving car, but it's just so fun. It's just like you drive that thing,

it's just this experience of sounds. And to me, it's like those cars are the ones that resonate with me. But if I only had one, I would be fine. I just like them every now and then, but they're not the thing. They're not the end all, be all. They're not family, friends, love, community. There's all these things that people put those objects above.

They put above everything in your life. You strive for that thing because it's a symbol of success. And it's nonsense. So I had, speaking of psychological damage for things, I grew up poor, but went out with a very rich girl and it was her birthday. We were in France, it was her birthday. And her uncle had forgotten her birthday. And so he's like, oh, here, take my watch, kind of thing. And they're like, No, no, no, like, you know, that watch is like $50,000

watch, whatever. And I was like, it's no fucking watches worth $50,000, like $50,000 like watch. And it was like a classic Patek fucking moon phase, whatever. And I remember clocking the watch. And when I got money, I became obsessed with the classic Patek, which is now like 500 grand, not 50 grand, the moon face. That's so crazy that a watch is $500,000. Oh some of them are like five million dollars. Isn't that nuts? Yes. And so like those Richard Millet watches? Yeah I mean the the most expensive are still Patek's, but yeah like those ones are I mean rare ones like I was obsessed with so I like the Paul Newman Panda but they have like the lemon or the champagne Panda which is the gold

version of that which which they made like four of and I want I was chasing that down and now I'm like you can't fucking wear it. Right. Like every place I go you can't fucking wear anything. Like I was flying here and you can't put it to security you know so what the fuck you what I can you put it through security I think you think they would snatch it oh watches get snatched all the time yeah but then you know where's my watch yeah just like it goes through the little thing yeah like how fast there's so many it's not happened to me although I have nearly lost them many times because you have a few

ales on the plane and take your shit off and put it in the box and then you... Oh no. I've never done it, but it's been close calls, but there's so many stories in the watch world about you're going through customs, you're going through security, you're going through somewhere, someone takes your phone. I've had a lot of people be like, how much does that watch? And you're like, it's fake. I always say it's fake. Anyway, so I'm getting rid of all that shit just because you're like, it doesn't fucking mean anything. And what actually does mean shit is like you were saying, like, you know,

learning shit, like making shit, but also at the same time, like going like, I'm learning shit. It's fun. It gets me fucking happy. Look, I'm fucking back talking to you. It's fucking interesting. It's good for your brain. Positivity. Yeah.

It's good for your mental health. Good for your mental health. It's also what life is about. Life is about growth. It's about learning. It's about experiencing things. When you get an opportunity to talk to someone like I talked this woman the other day Diane Boyd, yeah, short this book a woman amongst wolves, right?

She spent her entire life tracking wolves and and and handling them and coloring them and studying them And she lived in a cabin in the woods for years by herself with no water and no electricity. Love it Yeah Fascinating like just like you're a totally different type of person than I ever experienced. What's your life like? by herself with no water and no electricity. Love it. Yeah, fascinating. Like, just like, you're a totally different type of person than I've ever experienced. What's your life like? What do you do?

Like, what do you think about this? I'm hooked already. What do you think about that? I love it. I love wolves. Yeah, I mean, it's, to me, there's so many opportunities in this life to be stimulated by exciting and interesting things.

Yeah. Where you can learn about stuff. 100%. And if you can figure out how that's your job, and it's not just something that you do on the bus on the way home, but it's actually your job, that's a good life. Definitely, I mean, for me, that's what I love doing.

I like talking to people, and I like learning, and I like, if you're learning shit, then other people obviously do fuck as they're learning, and it's just, it's an awesome thing to be able to do. Is there a way to do something like the original Vice but just keep it small and never let it grow? Like listen, the Vice News right now is me and I'm making podcasts, I'm doing shit that I find interesting.

Is it still Vice? Do you call it Vice? Yeah, I mean Vice News is different. So are you still one of the owners? Like how does it work? I mean, it's complicated. You don't have to get in the woods if you don't want to. It's complicated. Still one of the owners like how does it work? I mean? It's it's called to get in the woods. Yes, it's complicated. I mean it's complicated I'm not like I I was the largest shareholder and then I went to owning nothing

I lost the most out of anybody not that I'm asking anybody to fucking cry for me anything It was actually a good thing because you you like when you realize a lot of the stuff about happiness and stuff, you realize it not when you're cashing checks. You lose, you know, not a calm sea, never a good captain made, you know. But yeah, throughout all the, you know, the changes, basically I was still in the backdrop, you know, just around. Why didn't you sell when it got at the top? Why didn't you get rid of all your shares? Actually, look, that's the whole thing about... I did. I sold some and, you know, took some money off the table, which is why I could semi-retire. But everyone's like, you know, oh, Shane, you know, could have sold, should have sold. He said no. He said, I've never said no to money in my whole fucking life. I was building vice to sell it. I

never fucking said no. That's all fucking bullshit.. We tried to sell it to Time Order tried to sell it to Disney It was just like you know When Disney said no we went into private equity and then you know that relationship now is never good So well, it's the old adage go woke go broke and that's what happened with vice people stopped They just stopped vice is one of the best examples of go woke go broke ever because vice was fucking huge and it was exciting It was interesting, you know, you had great shows and then it just got too weird Yeah, I mean yes media and media got weird and look everyone's looking at for us and then we can get on ownership But you know who left the fucking porthole open of the Titanic. You're like, yeah hit a fucking

iceberg not just us, you know look at all the new media like right it culture five five five companies take up 87 cents of every advertising dollar in the world and Independent media gets the rest and it's getting smaller and smaller. The money dries up and when the money dries up you start getting frantic, right? You start fucking flailing around looking for shit, whatever. You start looking for solutions. Other people start looking for solutions. Young people start fucking saying this is what we got to do. This is what we got to do. You have 5,000 people saying what we got to do rather than five. Mm-hmm.

And you got people who are semi checked out if not checked out and you know shit got set. we gotta do this, this is what we gotta do. You have 5,000 people saying what we gotta do rather than five. And you got people who are semi-checked out, if not checked out, and shit got set. Nobody's fucking, it's my baby, nobody got fucking more sick about it than me, but you're like, okay, you know. So now, you know, we're doing, Vice News is me, we're doing the podcast, we're doing, it's fun again, we're just fucking building, trying to do new shit

with fucking AI and with some other stuff, it's fun. And,'re just fucking building trying to do new shit with fucking a high and with someone says it's fun and But yeah, I do I do other shit on my own and you know look the other thing too is I Also spent time living my life, which I hadn't been doing I'm sure you do out here. You got to go and you gotta live your life again And you have to live your life. You have to live your life Did this idea that your career should be your whole life is foolish. It really is foolish. It's foolish.

It's foolish. Because you don't have that much time. You don't have that much time. I was talking to somebody. You're Gen X? Yeah, I guess. 67? What's that?

You're Gen X. Yeah. I was saying to someone, because we were the forgotten generation, and everyone was like, I was shitting. And I was saying to someone, if you look at the Carl Sagan thing of like we live in the greatest envelope of history ever like you have the billions of planets and the billions of years of this planet like we live in this final time when There's oxygen and there's water and you can fucking eat and you can fucking you know And then I'm like okay if you look at that and then go the best ever

Time has been like our little window Like you're born in the 60s, you grow up in the 70s, you're fucking free to go play in the creek and fucking go hunting and fishing and all that shit. And then, you know, no parental supervision. But there's never been like a major fucking warning. We're not getting pitchforked in the stomach. You know, food has been like for the first time really in history, food is now everywhere is good for every kind of quality wise. Travel, luxury, fucking international travel, like being able to do freaky jobs rather than work in a factory. All these fucking things happen for Gen X.

And God knows if it happens again, because AI is going to be all human endeavor done by machines and environmental shit and fucking the world is changing in ways we can't even fucking imagine. I have young kids and all the parents were clucking like hands about they're not learning math. You're like, AI is going to change fucking everything. And so I'm like, I was talking to someone and saying, it's ironic, but GenX actually lived in the greatest historical window of all time, potentially. And so I'm not going to just fucking not enjoy that.

I'm going to go out there in life and just be like, I'm literally living in the greatest single fucking window in the history of history. We most certainly have. And we live in the greatest time of technological change in human history. We started out like you and I can remember when phones were attached to the wall. I remember when it was a... we had to spin the wheel to make a phone call. You got a call. And if you fucked up, like goddamn it, you had to hang up and start from scratch. It

took a long time to make a phone call. Joe, there's a phone call for you. Right. And when people would call and you were on the phone, it would just be busy. When is he getting off the phone? You call him back. God damn, he's still busy. And then it became call waiting. Oh, hold on, someone else is calling. I got someone else.

Maybe they're more important than you. Hold please. And then he'd come back. And then it was caller ID, oh this motherfucker's calling, fuck him, and then answering machines were the greatest. And when you could get a remote answering machine, so I could call my answering machine and listen to you, leave me a message, hey meet me at the bar at 10,

and I'd call you back and leave a message on your machine, hey I got your message, I'll meet you at the bar at 10. I love that. It was incredible. I love that. It was incredible. I'll see you on Saturday at 8. But we were also free from the confines of social media.

And social media has brought an incredible amount of information to people, but has also created a lot of very mentally ill people, whether they realize it or not. It's like you're getting a low dose of radiation all day long, every day. It's also addictive. Yes, very, very, very addictive. Super dopamine hits. Uh-huh, yeah. And then it can be psychologically very damaging if you read stuff about yourself.

And I've had many friends that started becoming successful and then started doing really well and then started reading people's comments about yourself. And I've had many friends that started becoming successful and then started doing really well and then started reading people's comments about them. The hate is crazy. And it drives them nuts. It hurts their feelings. It really does. I mean, oh, poor baby.

But I mean, really. As a human being. As a human being, yeah. They're human beings. And I know that the people, look, if I was not a famous person, I was a person that was like who I was when I was not a famous person I was a person that you know was like who I was when I was 19 years old I would 100% be leaving shitty

comments on YouTube videos and shitty comments on someone's Instagram or Twitter or whatever it's what people do it's normal it's not it's not the people's fault because it's a very disconnected disassociated way of communicating with people that's not congruent. It's not normal for human communication. It's not what we're designed. We're designed to do this. I'm looking at you, you're looking at me.

I smile, you smile. We're buddies. We're having a good time. That's how people are used to communicating with each other. When you're communicating with people through text, it's fucking bizarre. It's very bizarre. It's very different, and it's not good for you to take in the opinions of hundreds of thousands of people

that may or may not be mentally ill, may or may not be going through a divorce. Yeah, have an axe to grind. Or just, look, if you're successful in particular, there's a lot of unsuccessful people that are very bitter, very sad, and they wanna find everything wrong with you. We were talking about this in the green room last night. I fucking loved the new Beetlejuice movie.

I loved it. I read so many bad reviews of it. So many bad reviews that it fell flat. I had a giant smile on my face the whole time. I'm a huge Tim Burton fan. I think the guy's brilliant, and I think his movies are so unique because they have this

Fingerprint of Tim Burton on this. It's like it's so obviously through his mind his vision. I think the guy's incredible I love all his films. So for me, I was like, oh, this is great when they got to the Soul Train I was like, yes, I love it. This is so Tim Burton and People criticize that in particular there was something offensive about the soul train like fuck off Also people say shit about fucking restaurants and everything and I'm like, yeah, it's fucking great. Every fucking cheeseburger I love cheeseburgers fucking good Some guy for the New York Times wrote a negative review about Peter Luger steakhouse in Brooklyn Peter Luger steakhouse in Brooklyn is a fucking classic if If I'm

anywhere near that area, I'm eating there 100%. That place is sensational. It was near our old vice office and we, when we didn't have any money, the hack was you go there, order lunch to go, and you order the burger because it's all the ends of the steaks, and the fucking killer burger, and you take it down to the river, and you look at Manhattan, and have this five dollar burger at the time, and you're like, this is the greatest fucking lunch in the greatest city, I fucking love it here, man.

If I can make it there. Exactly, yeah. And I was like, fucking New York, man. This is Peter Luger fucking burger, and fucking there's Manhattan, and we're gonna fuck, I just. But this review was so toxic, and Ari and I had just eaten there.

Ari Emanuel? No, Ari Shafir. We had just been there like a month before. And we're like, what the fuck are you talking about? We had one of the best meals of our life. It's also an experience. Yeah, it comes sizzling. Like the whole thing.

And there's butter on it. It's old. And the smell. Oh yeah, it's old. The swag and the fucking best. All the guys who worked there, been there for 35 years. Shout out to Peter Lugers. Shout out to Peter Lugers.

But it's the point, it's like even a place like that, that you should go there and just take in what you're experiencing. You're experiencing a classic old school steakhouse that does it exactly the same way every time. And have him forever. Forever. Forever. But it's just that people even in that will find negativity. Everything sucks.

And I think we were talking about this last night that I think this is a symbol of the times we're going through right now because everyone is so anxious. The presidential elections are headed and no one knows what the fuck is going to happen or what's the right answer Yeah, is it better if she gets in is it better if he gets in is he gonna be a dictator is she gonna crack down A free speech are we gonna be in World War three? What's happening? Does Iran have a fucking nuke was that earthquake a nuke or was it just an earthquake? You know, there's a little test the weather why does God hate Florida like what all these different things like there's so much going on

Israel and Gaza and the Middle East and fuck, man. Everyone is like, fuck Tim Burton, fuck that movie, fuck this, fuck that, and fuck that restaurant. It's just the zeitgeist is disturbed. We don't have... It's not a peaceful time in our... There's a lot of anxiety. Yeah. in in our lot of anxiety yeah yeah and I don't you know I think we're missing out

on the reality of our existence which if we lived at any other time we lived in 1924 and you got a time machine to go to 2024 you'd be like holy shit this is amazing or 1824 oh yeah when you go get stabbed with a fucking bayonet and die of gangrene over like it Like it was fucking unpleasant. And you're eating shit, you're shitting all the time because everybody's still in the refrigerator. Everybody weighed 120 pounds because there was no food. There was no food. And you couldn't drink water because you'd get the shit. It was bad.

It was bad. There's a reason why most people in history were drunk. Because they had to drink alcohol because if you drank regular water, you'd have fucking poison in it. It's like you're getting bacteria. And then when we moved to cities we're like you know what now we got to figure it out we'll just put it in pipes and this beautiful lead pipes. Well now it's PVC pipes, everyone's got plastic in their balls. Well that's the other problem I wanted to talk to you about is don't you freak it because because when I first started started studying politics you have to take stats and

they're like there was a southern new teacher He's like you can have a statistic to prove anything and my thing now is this is what I became interested in It's like all this is why I won't start with our KG Everyone has all the stats and then they give stats so forcefully that you believe in like well that sounds fucking thing and the stats About this and their stats about that and all the stats are bad Yeah, there's no about this and there's stats about that, and all the stats are bad. There's no good stats. There's no good stats. Well, there's a good stat in terms of, if you look at society in comparison to society

of 200 years ago, it's safer. That's Elon Musk. Yeah. He's like, if you look at it. People are kinder, people are way more, it's way more educated. Educated, healthy, we understand things more. Yeah, and like if you look at the sort of coefficient of hundreds of years ago, Elon

brought that up and I remember looking at that going, oh yeah, fuck, we're doing good. Which is when I got into the Carl Sagan shit of we're actually living in the greatest fucking window of all time. Where's the fucking anxiety coming from? And I don't know who said this, but I think it was, I don't know who said this, but work satisfies need, desire, and sanity. Like you need to work for food. You know, desire because happiness is going forward, right? And then sanity is if you don't fucking work, you go crazy. This is my fear with universal basic income, which think is inevitable. Yeah. I think this is the

only way we're gonna be able to keep people alive. My fear is that we're gonna have too much control over those people if we do that and then those people will have no purpose and we'll have an even more disenfranchised population than we have today and the haves and the have-nots will be even further and further apart and and there's no real education that is in school today where you take a child and you say, hey, look, the world is going to change, and most of these jobs are going to be useless.

You're going to have to find something that you love that resonates with people. And if you do that, people are going to be willing to exchange that for money. Whatever it is, if you can make... Ceramics. Like this table, a guy named Drew made this table. I know the man who made it, he is a carpenter, he made a table out of wood. We gave him the specifications, I told him I like oak.

This is a handmade thing, and a handmade thing is always, to me, is going to be very valuable. I love a handmade knife. I love things that someone worked on. I love a painting, like a painting that someone, like my friend Taylor made this, he painted it. He sat down in his studio, he painted it, and I love that, that's always gonna be valuable. The problem is, most people have never been encouraged to pursue their interest.

They've been encouraged to get a job They'll be a safe job and they probably don't even know what their interests are how those interests could translate They've been stifled. Yeah, right. They've been stifled. Well, you're exactly right. So actually when I was spending a lot of time in Silicon Valley There was a lot of this talk and they're talking about universal, you know living wage or or basic wage. And I was like, what are you fucking talking about? You're going to give everyone a hundred grand? Right. And they're like, well, the synthesis of AI is all human endeavor done by machines. I'm like, wow, come on. So I was kind of the skeptic, you know, this is 10 years ago and now all of this shit has come true. They were already thinking about this back then because they're also saying exactly what you said, which is

let's say quantum computing happens and AI at the same time which is probably three years away one quantum computer has enough computing power that all the existing computers in the world today right and then you add AI to that so there's a whole new fucking tech revolution where it becomes even more rich people who own shit and and even more so they're like if unless you take care of those people they're gonna come because we're the nerds They're gonna come with the hammers and the currency is gonna be bullets. It's not gonna be right And so you're just planning the apes you got fucking, you know people on one side here I'm the big brains on the other side and you're like, oh there are they already knew this they were already thinking this because they're like

We're gonna buy them off But people are gonna go crazy if you buy them off. It's not necessarily buy them off. It's keep them alive Yeah, okay, because people are not gonna have any fucking man buy them off there cuz they're afraid I don't think we should look at it that way I think there's got to be a concerted effort to educate people about the possibilities of their life on earth That you that they've been indoctrinated to think that they have to be a worker. How many of these people are out there that are doing masonry work really want to be a painter? How many of those people that really wanted to be in a band? How

many of these people? There's something probably that most people want to do. One thing the universal basic income will do is if you know you give everybody a hundred grand a year, wherever it is, you're gonna satisfy satisfy their... They're not going to worry about rent, they're not going to worry about food. So now, maybe they can pursue... The problem is people get fucking lazy when you give them free money. It's just a fact. Maybe you're right. It's not everybody, but a lot of people. They just exist and they'll just play video games all day. And look, if we're going gonna deal with a society where everything is run by AI and automated that you're gonna have to give people

money because the Extraordinary wealth is gonna be generated by AI is gonna make that Not that difficult to do especially when you consider how much money we give to other countries already Right over the last couple of years. We've given a hundred and what how many billion dollars to Ukraine? I think it's more than it's up to 200 billion now yeah something crazy like that that amount of money when you're dealing with AI when you're dealing with automation just to keep people fed and housed like that's reasonable but you're gonna have to figure out a way to give people purpose

yes and and that's gonna have to that's hard be a revamping of the education system that's exactly to be a revamping of the education system. That's exactly right. It's a revamping of the education system because you're saying, well, all of these, we were, and this is another great thing on GenX, but we were built to be workers. You're supposed to get, universal education is supposed to just be enough so you can be a good worker and a good taxpayer and you get a job and then by The way you get out of college and you're you already have debt then you buy a consumer durable You buy a fucking car you buy a yeah a washing machine and that's you know We'll give everybody that but we give you debt and then you buy a house and then you're in debt and then you finally get

Out of debt and then you die right and so you just work work work work work and by the way you're exactly right you Had to get a job, J-O-B, not F-U-N. It's just you go and you do it and they give you money. And then you become an adult. That's it. Yeah. And then, you know. But that's not true.

Because all of this human endeavor is now going to be done by machines. And you're like, OK, now what do you got? And I agree 100%. It's going to be something that we can't even fathom, which is, what do you really like to do? What do you love doing? By the way, building a table is worth more than fucking being a corporate executive.

Well, it is if you enjoy it. Exactly. Yeah, if you have a business that you actually enjoy doing. Exactly, that's what I'm saying, that's what we have to teach. Rather than. We have to, and there's also this comparing thing.

I was at dinner the other night and my friend, who's friends with this billionaire, his friend is a billionaire, and his friend was comparing his wealth to friends of his that own multiple corporations that are worth 30, 40 billion. He's like, I'm fucking poor compared to that guy. You missed the whole point. You missed the whole point of getting wealthy. You have fuck you, buddy, and you're not even saying fuck you. You should be on a boat somewhere, man.

You should be marlin fishing. You should be fucking lying in the sun. You should be doing things you enjoy doing. You should be taking that trip you always wanted to take. That's what you're supposed to be doing. You're not supposed to be keeping up with other billionaires. So you're working 16 hours a day on Adderall, just so that you can fucking get those stock numbers moving.

Like, what? Well, the one, yeah, the smartest thing anyone ever told me about money was my old man, and he said, life is like a shit sandwich. The more bread you have, the less shit you have to eat. This is a guy who, the only dude who ever lost money on insider trading, he was not good with money. But, but, but it's true, like's true, like the one thing that you do notice

when you're getting a bit of cash, people are fucking nice to you. They're nice to you. And when you don't have money. Not online. Not online, no. But like, and then you realize, like, oh fuck, like people can be, like are not nice to you, you know?

In general, a lot of times. And you're like, that fucking sucks. And like, yeah, to you you know in general a lot of times and you're like that's fucking sucks and and like yeah when you get a bit of money a bit of success whatever people are not fucking nicer and that's the one thing that that you know that I that I remarked upon in my life the rest of it's all garbage the rest of it's all bullshit but but but but people being nice and like you know not shit not sucking yeah is that's pretty good people being nice and like, you know not shit not sucking. Yeah is that's pretty good That's nice and having a cushion. Yeah, so you don't have to worry about like I remember the first check I got a real checker got a development deal from Disney of all people when I was like

I guess I was like 26 and it was the first time ever I had like a good chunk of money like six figures in the bank Yeah, and I felt weight different. I felt weight lifted off me, like a physical feeling of, whoa. Because my whole life it's like, how am I going to eat? How am I going to pay my rent? How am I going to do this? And then all of a sudden, I don't have to worry about that anymore. And I was like, oh, I get it now. And I remember this revelation, like, okay, now I just have to keep this momentum going. Because once you have a good amount of money where you don't have to worry about money anymore, that feeling, you don't want to ever get back to that desperation

feeling. That's a terrible feeling. And that's the feeling most people are listening to this existent. That feeling of concern about your bills. It's the number one struggle in marriages. It's the number one struggle for everything. For everything. Well, this is why we're getting, bring it up. I had the exact same moment in my life. I never had any money and then I'll never forget it. I was walking down the Ramblas in Barcelona because I was living there trying to set up Vice Spain. And I went in a bank machine and we had done some deal and it was the first time I got paid any money. It wasn't

a lot of money, but it was, you know, same kind of deal, like six-figure thing. And I took out the money and I went, like my life changed. I still remember how it smelled. I still remember, because my life changed. It was the first time I didn't have $28 in my bank account. And I just went, and like my breathing changed. Like you said, like, it was like... A weight lifts off you. A weight lifts off you. And that and humans don't like to go backwards. But yeah, living in that sort of constant fear, that's the problem with money. And that's why there is a chance, and it was good that you brought that up actually, that

like you can kind of take this any way, like humanity can take the next, let's say 20 years, any way we want to take it. And you can take it to be like, let's fucking learn from what we've learned and be positive and try to take this as a fucking thing where humanity gets better and we do this in the right way rather than just do it fucking knee-jerk reaction,

freaking out, like what the fuck's gonna, like I think I'm sure that you're gonna Look back at a time when like social media was fucking fucking up kids heads here. We're gonna say that was crazy, dude Right, it's gonna be like smoking. We're gonna look at the stock market and go. Yeah It's fucking completely manipulated by supercomputers and trillion dollar funds and the little guy gets fucked Why would the fuck did we let that happen? There's gonna be all kinds of coming out of the pond moments where we go, hey, we were doing it wrong. But there's this big, you know, chaos is a ladder.

There's this big, you know, chaotic time right now and you're exactly right and people getting anxious about it and everything. And you're like, yeah, we gotta use that as a time to say, hey, why don't we fucking have an economy where there is a universal basic wage and or living wage and we take that to doing shit where you do something that you like and and you're you're you're happy about because that your job is probably going away. I guarantee you it will cause less crime. I think crime will dip substantially. I think there'll be less civil unrest. People's needs will be met.

It'll give everyone that feeling of, oh, I don't have to worry about my bills anymore. It's just finding purpose. That's gonna be the next thing. And the people that are really gonna be fucked are the people that didn't find purpose already, and then they're like 40, and then that happens. Because they're gonna be sad.

And that's what I'm worried about. I'm worried about the people that are already sort of indoctrinated into a certain specific way of living and then all of a sudden their purpose, which was their job, you know, they worked at the factory and they're like, you know, Johnny's employee of the month, Johnny, you're doing a fucking great job, we really appreciate you. And that guy feels purpose.

He puts in a hard day's work, when he gets that paycheck, he knows he earned it. That's who he is. He's the number one guy at the plant He's the foreman. He's the guy the men respect. That's a real thing for human beings We need a thing that makes us feel like we were progressing Yeah, it's it's a part of our DNA our DNA the reason why we're still alive The reason why we survived is because we solved problems. We figured out what's going on

We've made ourselves useful and it makes you useful to the tribe, it makes you feel good, you have a sense of purpose. That's the guy that's the best hunter. She knows how to fucking plant vegetables, he knows how to make cloth. Everybody had a job, and it gave you a sense of purpose. We're gonna have to figure this out quick, because I think it's gonna be like the birth of a child.

It's gonna be like this screaming, ah, painful, ah. It's gonna be this thing filled with anxiety but it is happening whether we like it or not. And if we don't start educating children about the benefits of having a fulfilled life where you're doing something you actually enjoy and not telling them don't do that, it's too hard,

don't do that, it's risky. Thank God I didn't listen to anybody because my whole- You wouldn't exist. I would have not a thing I did ever anybody told me to do. Not fighting, my parents tried to stop me from fighting when I was doing martial arts, when I tried to do comedy, they were worried

that why aren't you, you did so well in martial arts, why are you quitting and doing this new thing? And every fucking step of the way, when I started doing podcasts, my friends were like, what are you wasting your time doing this for? It was all, we started doing video podcasts. People were like, why are you spending so much time doing video, that's so stupid, nobody watches video.

Everyone says no. I was like, I don you spending so much time doing video? That's so stupid. Nobody watches video. Yeah, everyone says no. I was like, I don't care. I just want to do it. Like, just do what you like to do. But I just, for whatever reason, got lucky that I got into a pattern like that very early in life. Both my parents worked, so there wasn't a lot of guidance. So I found a thing that I liked and I just went and did it. And you know they're like, why are you wasting your time? They're like, bye mom. I fucking leave the house and I was on my own and so I got into a pattern of that early.

But there's so many people that don't and so many people that get a job. And then that job's gonna go away and it's gonna be replaced by a fucking computer. And if you're listening to this and that happens to you, don't become an alcoholic. Don't just give in. Find something else. Find purpose. Find a thing. Go back to what you love.

There are so many. I wish I had 50 lives to live simultaneously. Me too. I would have a bunch of different jobs. I've always wanted to do a bunch of different things. There's so many interesting things in this life. Well I think you're 100% right, but I also think, especially with kids, now is the time to start saying exactly that. Yes. Like, listen, I did what I wanted to do,

and the same thing, everybody told me no, everyone told you no and all that stuff, which by the way, when I heard them saying no, like when you're like, I'm gonna get into fighting, yeah, no, no you're not. I'm gonna do comedy, yeah, no you're not, dude. Oh, now I'm gonna get into fighting yeah no you're not I'm gonna do comedy yeah no you're not dude you're not doing oh now I'm gonna get into the park what the fuck's a podcast you're not gonna fuck I can hear them saying no my brain Howard Stern used to mock podcasts and he was my hero it's like a guy who loved listening to him on the radio and hearing

him mock podcast when I was doing I was like damn I was like oh he's wrong. The laugh of the victorious. It's a good laugh. It's a good one. It's the best laugh. But yeah, so everyone said no to me but so now I agree you have to go to kids and say look dude, do whatever the fuck you want and do what you're good at, do what you're passionate about, like do that whole thing.

We gotta stimulate them. Stimulate them with interesting things. I mean, that's when we're talking about how I got this unexpected education on this podcast. I realized that it wasn't that I was not interested in things or that I wasn't intelligent. It's that I wasn't stimulated. And I was a very physical person when I was a kid.

I had so much fucking energy. And when you're sitting in a class and you're a little buzzsaw, it was like, I can't do this. If I lived with the wrong parents, and especially in a different time, I would have 100% been medicated. But what it was was that I was a different car.

I wasn't a Honda Civic. I was a Shelby Mustang, for the shirt I'm wearing. I was a, I wasn't a Honda Civic. I was a Shelby Mustang, the shirt I'm wearing. I needed to go, I need to go. I gotta get stimulated by things. I need stuff that excites me. I can't just sit down and I'm not good at listening. Which is not what school does. It cuts off the tall trees.

It doesn't just do that, it tells you to not go for it. It tells you you're a bad person if you can't be forward. You don't fit in. Yeah. But like somebody had to be Johnny Cash. 100%. We all celebrate these people that escaped. Somebody had to be Jimi Hendrix. Somebody had to be Richard Pryor. Like obviously they were real, like so they did it. And everyone told them not to, it's like a reward for getting out of that fucking quagmire of bullshit and mediocrity, and that's what we, it's gotta be the Smith-Rogan Academy

and just say look, don't do any of that shit. Yeah. You fucking do what you love and also find shit that interests you and go do that because I didn't do that for a while, it's like a fucking purgatory. You gotta pursue it like your life depends on it because it actually does.

It actually does. And you can get gig jobs, you can wait tables, you can drive Uber, I drove limos, I did construction, I did whatever I had to do, I delivered newspapers, I did whatever I had to do to try to do a thing that, and I didn't know if I was gonna make it, but back then, when you're 21 years old, you have no responsibilities. No health insurance, no nothing, and you're 21 years old, you have no responsibilities.

No health insurance, no nothing, and you could just fucking try things. Just try things. And if you don't do that, you're gonna be sad. And that's the reality of the world we live in. When people wanna talk about the levels of depression in this country, what about the levels of purpose? And do they coincide?

The levels of how many people have learned to control their emotions How many people have learned to get their health in order? How many people have learned how to meditate how many people have learned how to think about things before you make a decision and try? To give yourself advice objectively Medicaid or not Medicaid not Medicaid at all how many people have learned how to like Apologize to your friends apologize to your friends, apologize to your family if you made a mistake. How many people have learned to own up

to when you were in the wrong, instead of just covering it up and pretending and arguing and trying to distort things. Just learn, learn and grow. We all make mistakes. And if you're on the wrong path in life and if you're doing something you don't want to do Figure out a way to get the fuck out of that job and actually do it don't talk about it fucking do it

Because if you don't and if you do it, it's gonna be so exciting. It's gonna be terrifying. You're like, oh my god I can't believe I'm afraid. Oh my god. I gotta I gotta make this happen, but fucking go for it You don't have much time. You have to you You got to. You have to. If you don't, you're going to be sad. And that's just the reality of a lot of people. Or you're going to be angry. And it's really, you're not even angry at the things you think you're angry at. You're angry at your existence. Well, that's when I go back to this thing of, you want to talk about meditation is whenever you get angry or anxious, whatever, say, look, you're living in the greatest fucking window of time

ever in the history of fucking time. Ever. Ever. So what are you waiting for? The better window of time? Right. It's not coming. Right.

And so when you put it in a sort of grandiose perspective, you're like, I'm going to enjoy the fucking shit out of today because this is the best day in the fucking world ever. It's the best day ever. But not only in the world, in the history of the world, but in the history of every other planet that we know about. And part of what makes it exciting is that we're almost blowing it apart. Yeah. Well, that's the other problem.

That's what you should enjoy if you're sitting at a restaurant having a nice steak and a glass of wine. You should enjoy the fact that, you know, we're not in rubble. You should. That's a you should enjoy if you're sitting at a restaurant having a nice steak and a glass of wine. You should enjoy the fact that we're not in rubble. You should. That's a real thing. That's a real thing. That's a real thing. I feel like that every time I come back from somewhere.

That's one thing about reporting is you come back and you're like, you really fucking enjoy, you really enjoy life. This really is the promised land. Yeah, it is. It really is. I mean, clearly not for everybody, but also there's a possibility. The opportunity awaits itself right here It really is the greatest country the world has ever known in the middle of all the bullshit

We're going through and all the chaos and all the potential wars that we're involved in and wars were involved in It's still the greatest place ever the greatest time ever. It's just confusing It's also one of the only countries you realize guys like us like you have a kick at the can. Yeah right. Most countries you don't have a kick at the can. You got the wrong last name, wrong accent, caste systems. Yeah well just and and and like like England yeah Europe if you're as aristocracy then you had everything and if you weren't you had nothing. And if you want to get ahead people get angry at you. There's some stat like again going back to stats, but there's some stat like 80% of the world's wealth is inherited and by 2045 it's gonna be even higher

It's gonna be like you know and you're like oh fuck you for yet because we come from oh We made money or Elon made money or fucking Larry Page made money or whatever Those are the real rich guy Bezos and and but but the majority of the world It's like yeah, my parents had money a thousand years ago. So I have money today. That's so crazy And that's how you make Joffrey's That's how you make fucking yeah. Yeah, that's how you make lots of them. Yeah, you make monsters monsters And so so yeah, like you come here and I'm like, I'm an immigrant and I came here, I was the ambassador for fucking New York.

I'm like, I came here with no fucking shoes, I'm a billionaire, I fucking love it, it's the greatest fucking city in the fucking world, fucking amazing. And the Canadians were like, because the Canadian identity is like, we're not American kind of thing. And I was unapologetic, I went to New York,

I'm like, this is the greatest goddamn city in the fucking world, which it is. And then I moved to LA. I'm like, this is the greatest goddamn city in the fucking world and Which it is and then and then and then I moved to LA when I kids. Well, it was a pretty fucking nice I used to want to live in Canada. I used to love Canada. I love Canada. Hey, don't get me wrong I love Canada Canada's a great place to I thought about living in Vancouver. That's beautiful I was like I live in Vancouver Like if shit hits the fan United States, I always felt beautiful country. And Canadians are amazing people. They're amazing. Amazing people.

I always feel like Canada has 20% less douchebags. Yeah. That was my feeling. When I used to do shows up there, we would all talk about it. We'd do a gig in Toronto. We'd do a gig in Montreal. Yeah. And we're like, Canada is the best. The best. I love it up there. I love the people. They're friendly and hardworking.

Great place to go. And they're peaceful. Smart. And they're smart And they're peaceful. Smart. And they're smart and they're educated. It was always fun. I loved it up there. I just love the attitude of the place. I've met so many cool people in Canada. But now the way Trudeau is running it, it scares the shit out of me. I'm like, you guys are sliding

into communism. You're sliding every day. They push a little bit further, a little bit further. I mean, if you don't get rid of that guy, if you don't turn that thing around, you're fucked. Yeah, look, I've seen a lot of things happen in Canada where, to me, it's government shouldn't run things at all. Like if we can stay away from it, what does that mean? It means like universal health care. So when I grew up, it was good. You could go to any hospital,

the doctors were all good, some of the best doctors in the world, and then because they didn't manage it correctly and it got too big, it got too good, like 80 cents of every dollar was going to managing it rather than the doctors. So they left, they came down here, there's a big brain drain, and now you can't get a doctor. You have to sign up and wait for three years. It's like the NHS in the UK or something, and it just doesn't work because the government's too big. It's just, you know, once you get the government involved, it becomes like a welfare program. You're just paying all kinds of people to work on the thing that, but no one's doing the actual thing that

they're supposed to work on, the healthcare. Bureaucracy. Bureaucracy. so it's a problem. But my later stages in life, to get into this and to get into the American political system and the bull goose loony that is this political cycle and this electoral cycle and Canada and what's happening in Europe,

I really get this feeling, and maybe, we're gonna get into it on this, but when I was younger, you know, and I was studying stuff, I always feel like I would love to go back to being in college because when I was in college, I just wanted to get out. I wanted to get out and make money and stuff and I just did everything to just get the fuck out. And now I'm like, if I could just read books and talk to people and then write about that, I'd fucking, where do I sign up? I was just read books and talk to people and then write about that I'd fucking where do I sign up?

Yeah. Just thinking about shit. So I fucking would love to. It's wrong timing when you're, but anyway. But I used to study, I loved philosophy, I loved politics. When I first came down to America and I had been studying American politics, Bubba Clinton was a consensus politician, reduced the size of government, took the largest deficit of all time, turned the largest surplus of all time, and then Bush got in, turned

the largest surplus of all time, largest deficit, increased size of government. I'm like, no one said boo. No one said anything. And you're like, the whole fundamental principles of the Republican-Democratic party, immigration. Before Trump, there's none more Reagan than me, was the calling card of the GOP. Reagan was the best president for immigration, if you're an immigrant, ever. He was super pro-immigration and the Democrats were against it. They completely switched their platforms on it.

And you're like, to me, when you look at America, you say, okay, it's a Republic, it's two party systems, they're always in power. One's like, that's a two party system, you're always in power, you're always in power or you're fucking trying to control the house. And you're like, is it all much ado about nothing? Is it all a political, like bread and puppet theater?

It's like, this is super fucking important for you to watch over here to give you some sort of thinking that I have some agency and I can vote and it's going to fucking matter about anything. Whereas what the fuck really changes on the big shit? Like what the fuck really changes on the economy? What the fuck really changes for any of the shit that we're talking about? About school, about education, about big, like the other shit you talk about, which

is fascinating and it's great that you do it, big pharma big food big education military industrial what the fuck really changes in that zero yeah the only thing that changes is if there's someone who really wants to push reform really wants to change things and the real question is like when you get a guy like Trump is promising all this stuff how much can you actually get away with? How much can you actually change? What can you actually do and will that change things for the better? Very little. Well, when it comes to...

Politically, politically, politically, America's set up to do very...the American government is set up to do very little and do it very slowly. That was what it was set up to do. Well, not only that. A long time ago, we gave in to allowing money to enter into politics in this huge, influential way. And then we allowed pharmaceutical drug companies to advertise on television. And food and... But all those things.

But those were the big ones. Because as soon as you had control of the narrative, there's no way the media is going to spoil the relationship that they have with their biggest providers of revenue. They're not going to do that. So whether it's the food companies or whether it's pharmaceutical drug companies, they're going to ignore as much as possible about the negatives of these products. And then you have a propaganda state where you have these people that are literally hired to say stories they know are not true because this will benefit the people that are their

advertisers and that's where you get fucking crazy. It's also how that model implodes which is fascinating. So that model becomes less relevant and the Michael Schellenbergers and the Matt Taibes of the world then people start turning to them the Glenn Greenwalds of the world. People say well these people Joe Rogan are honest and they're well I'm not a journalist. I know but but these people are honest. You interview a lot of people who tell a lot of things that people don't get other places Yes, um and then crazy people too, but that's fine

Comedians I want to know what you know about aliens. Yeah, I'm sorry I'm gonna hear that end of that thought I don't remember where I was going. Where was I going? You were so what they've done is they've created their own demise by giving it to Satan's deal So by sucking Satan's cock and getting all that money, you've now, you're not a news organization anymore. You're a propaganda outlet and everybody knows it. You have the news, but the news is a thin layer of bread on the shit sandwich. Yes, but that's been, see this is the thing, is that's been since the fucking beginning. It's

nothing new, like I forget who it was but I was talking to somebody who goes, what is news? What is news Shane? You know who Reuter was? You know who Reuter was? He started Reuters to start a newspaper to say fuck you to his enemy, blah blah blah. He just bought it. He was just a rich guy who bought it. I can't do zacks anymore but basically he got incensed with me because he was just like that's what it always was some rich guy would start a newspaper just to say fuck you to the other rich guy. Why did Bezos buy the Washington Post? well because he was on the cover of the New York Times what is it you can't be on the cover of the

New York Times eighteen days in a row and he was on thirteen on the Washington Post was he? something like that yeah by the way it worked yeah well i mean look you can use money to get a lot of things done. But it's just... I'm just know what I'm saying is there's always been money in politics and there's always been money in media. It's just now it's it's more obvious than ever before and now you're right. There are agendas. So my whole thing is like I'm an immigrant, but I'm non-political. I'm literally serious. Like, I believe in the game. I like the game. I like watching the game. And that's why I say, like, I like to take a look, like, okay, there's

this whole fucking thing going on over here where the status quo doesn't change. And I think you and I are like, look, that's what has to fucking change over there. That's the real power over there. This shit for me becomes, and it's funny, because this is like, I don't know what, I'm showing up myself, I don't know what this election is, 53, 54, something like that? The 54, 56? It's pretty close. Around there, somewhere. It fluctuates depending on what polls.

So we're on season 53. And that's why you have to have the craziness. You have to have two assassination attempts. You have to have fucking Biden, by the way, Biden has to be kicked out mid-election and we're gonna get so like you're like oh season 53 the Fonz is jumping the shark but the sharks eat my piranhas. Not only that, Biden's wearing a MAGA hat. Can I pause you for a second? Jamie, you brought something, Jamie you didn't bring it up, somebody else brought it up. Sean brought it up to me. Was there some sort of a physical altercation

between Jill Biden's people and Kamala Harris's people? There's been reports about this stuff on Twitter, but it's just Twitter reports. I haven't seen anyone show pictures or quotes. It's just a Twitter account saying stuff like that. What, is it a good Twitter account? I don't remember.'t remember a few people I follow where I know they're full of shit because they just want to see nonsense I like it. I just what is this? Good like it's a lot of the Michelle Obama has dick

Yeah, there's so many of them so many of them but I I love I love memes like oh my god I fucking love memes and I love memes like oh my god I love memes and how fast and hard you want to talk about creativity and art like some of them are so fucking good and so artistic and so quick you're like how the fuck did they fucking do that one like I fucking love it yeah and there's so inappropriate and that's what's fun about it is because they can never kind of say but it's true like this yeah yeah but I'm like yeah, I said this to Jamie so he knows what we're talking about. Yeah. It's just like. So I'm just, but like it's like there's so many of them now and so anyway that's like I was during during during uh during uh during COVID. Oh well this guy's pretty legit.

Right but just his per White House official, which he did just. How do you say his name? Potzabik. Potzabik. How do you say his name? Potzabik. Potzabik. But this guy's pretty legit. There was a physical altercation with Jill

and Kamala staffers in the White House after Joe's press room last week began with the accusation that Biden's were undermining Kamala's, Kamala deliberately per White House official. Well, it does seem like he's doing that like when he called that press conference He hadn't called any press conference. So he decides to call a press conference in the middle of a national emergency He's out. Yeah, and he's out and everyone nobody's still the president. So he can call a press conference

So he decides to do that. He'd be wearing the MAGA hat like look, there's no fucking way. They're happy They got kicked out and Jill did not want him to step down She started taking cabinet meetings, right? Like Yeah, I saw that. Who elected you? Can I do it? Let me do it. Let me do it I'm not elected either. Let me just sit in find out what's going on with these people What are you talking about? How are you running a cabinet meeting? But I'm just married to the guy that's the president But that's the whole thing too because she's sad at, I've sat in that room, like you can

go and you can sit in the room with her. Yeah, but he wasn't there. Yeah, he wasn't, but I don't think she was running the cabinet meeting. Oh, because that's what I'd heard. Yeah, that's what people say, because there's a picture of her there, but she's not running the fucking cabinet. Why do you want to ruin a great story? This is fun. It's fun if she's running it.

There you go. I hope she's running it. I hope she's boss bitch The thing the thing about it If you want to look at Like the greatest time of the Republican Party when when Reagan was a president It was his cabinet his cabinet was exceptional and because he's like he he had dementia But his cabinet was not initially he did not initially but later on but his cabinet was running America. It was fucking great, right? So you see the cabinet should run America I'd rather have the cabinet run something of professionals people who are like designed to do that rather than one fucking person is gonna go

Yes, no. Yep. Yep. That's great. They're the fucking Queen of England and they're supposed to be the Queen of England Yeah, do you think his dementia was convenient? whose supposed to be the Queen of England. Yeah, do you think his dementia was convenient? Whose? Reagan's. I always wondered if he was doing like a Jimmy the Chin type thing. No. Look, Reagan.

Here's Jimmy Tingle, who's an amazing comedian. He had this great bit way back in 1988 when Reagan was in trouble for selling weapons to Iran. And he said, I can't recall. And he goes, do me a favor, Mr. President, you ever selling arms to people who hate us? Jot it down. It's pretty good.

He goes, make a note. Put it on your refrigerator. I literally never even thought of that. I would do that. He said he couldn't remember anything Yeah, that's a good move. Who could tell you whether or not you can remember things you could play dumb Yeah, that's what Jimmy the chin did. I don't remember Do you know that story? No, Jimmy the chin gigante was a mob leader

Yeah, and he would walk around with a bathrobe and slippers and just mumbled to himself Yes, and he would walk down the street with his capo Yeah, and the FBI knew this. And so what they did was they put these little microphones on all the hubcaps so that they could record his conversation as he walked down the street. So as he's walking down the street, they were recording everything.

Wow. I love shit like that. I love shit like that. Like when Israel intercepts the pagers of Hezbollah and blows everybody's balls off, that is... Look, it's terrible that those people died, but it seems like they weren't good people. But at the bottom line is, you know how fucking genius that is? To stop the actual shipment... Yeah. Sorry, to figure out that they use this type of analog pager, stop the shipment

and then get them to all blow up at the same time. And wait months. Wait months. And make sure that no one's on an airplane. There's an amazing book called Rise Up and Kill First. I've read that. Yeah, it's a great book. It's about this.

It's about like we can't win a war, so we're going to assassinate our way to safety. Yeah, it's all about Israel. Yeah. It's crazy. And using political assassinations. Yes. Fantastic. It's crazy.

When you find out they're doing that, like, goddamn. Well, you know how goddamn genius that is. And imagine being them and realizing like this is how deeply Israel's infested your organization. In our shit. Whoo. Yeah. That's gotta be terrifying. Well, just recently they got the head of

Hezbollah and then the second head and then the third head within like three or four days of each other and then they're trying To get new guys and they're like yeah Yeah, I don't want that game. It's the whole thing is it's very very fascinating Well, there's people that invented Pegasus Yeah, you know they're invented that the ability to just date now You're getting your phone Pegasus to all they have to have is your phone number. Yeah, and they're in that's true I have I actually talked to one of the guys who owned that company if you want the hack for Pegasus I don't know if it still is turn your phone off repeatedly and then on because every time you turn your phone off

They have to re put the Pegasus in real. Yeah Well, that's that was from the dude. I would tell that to people just to, fucking idiot shut his phone off. No, I got it from the owner, it's true. Meanwhile, you're never off, the phone's actually never off. That's how you could use Find Your Phone.

I mean, I'm sure there's probably some hacks, but Eric Prince has a new phone called the Unplugged Phone that's designed by the guy who created Pegasus apparently and it's like this untrackable phone that kind of constantly but Who knows I I don't I think you track it I think you are first of all with quantum computing and quantum computing Becomes ubiquitous. There's going to be no more passwords. That's all gone, folks. It does not work. Security, encryption, bitcoin, your credit cards.

Oh, you're fucked. Everything. Everyone's fucked, and we're not prepared for that. 100% no. It's gonna be real weird, because I've always said, what money is today, essentially, is numbers. It's just ones and zeros. Yeah, we make it up.

And the thing that you see with the internet is as technology increases, people get more and more access to information, to ones and zeros, to data. The bottleneck is going to be money. And eventually, that's going to break through. And then what do you own? And who owns what? And where is it stored? And what is it? It's all digital. And soon, very soon, there will be no digital encryption, there will be no digital safety at all. By the way, you're talking about money, every fucking, so one of the most fascinating guys,

I think you talked to him too, I went to Russia and I hung out with him at the Metropole, which is funny because it's the whole, famously every room is bugged because it was the only place they let foreigners stay in Moscow. And so we're at the Metropole, we got into surveillance, but he opened my phone and like he was, like as we were having the interview, just showing me like how they can turn on the phone, how can they do it, and how to like take out this part and take out this camera and do this and do that. Just like as he was talking about overall government surveillance of everybody, which

by the way, I don't think a lot of people know what he did. He said, look, the American government is illegally, illegally spying on its own people. And by the way, hadn't told him. Illegally, they weren't allowed to. The mafia guys, they had to get warrants from judges and shit to fucking bug those cars. Now they don't have to get shit. They just't need shit. They just say they have fucking planes with Enzi catchers flying around. They're picking up right now or talking about it. Oh, 100%. Every time I have a conversation, every text I send, even the fucked up ones, I go,

what? Someone's got that. Oh yeah, so that's what they're gonna say. So not only your money, but like your whole search history, whatever's in your fucking computer. I tell my kids, I tell my kids like your phone is your whole human archive and at some point someone can take that thing and say this is you know evidence or this is this or this or like you you have to make sure that your phone is like you have to always be thinking. Not only that, if you're in some sort of a trial all that shit becomes public record.

Yeah. That's what gets really weird. There's two different people that were involved in trials where my text messages to them became public and got printed in stories. One was Alex Jones, the other was Elon Musk. It's very strange that they just have access to your text messages. For what reason?

Because they're talking to some guy that I know? What do you, the fact that, and the Alex Jones thing, they wanted every text message he and I had ever exchanged. Wow. Fuck you. Yeah. Fuck you. So we got it down to whether or not he talked to me about Sandy Hook.

That's another thing about this country. There has to be tort reform. Anyone can sue anybody for anything and not have to pay their lawyer and the lawyer can take 50% of the funds. It's extortion and it's just, it's, I don't know. Something has to change there because they're just sitting there suing people because they can. Yeah, that's, it's a sport for people and it's a way to make a living.

I mean, it's like gold digging. It's a viable strategy, you know? There's a lot of that. There's a lot of that. Definitely a lot of that. Tort reform, that would be a good thing. So we got tort reform, we got education. But I think what we were talking about earlier with quantum computing and AI, I think we're all in real trouble. Because I think this society is going to be completely reimagined and it probably will lean towards some sort of a more socialist existence because of necessity, because of this money thing.

Because I just really don't know how you're going to accumulate real wealth if everything becomes digital. I think if everything becomes digital, AI, quantum computer, we're going to have real chaos. compete we're gonna we're gonna have real chaos well the problem with quantum is it's gonna be okay there's a whole new so when when the sort of West or the north of the rich countries whatever leave everyone else behind you know monetarily is when you know the last 20 years of digital expansion and we just make you know trillion dollar companies and they're over here and we make all that money in that economy and then you go to like two thirds

of the world and that shit hasn't even penetrated yet. So quantum computing is that on steroids because it's like oh there's going to be a whole new economy because all the other computers are fucking obsolete, all the security is obsolete, there's a whole new economy being generated, who's it gonna be generated by? The ultra-smart, ultra-early adopters, super, like, you know, fucking rich people who can afford the quantum, blah blah blah, and everybody else is going even further fucking that way, going there's no more fucking fish. Right, and if you're just like, you know, rioting to get universal basic income raised up to $125,000 a year.

Like that's what we're gonna be dealing with. People are looking for incremental improvements in their life where they don't have any other way to make money. It's like they're stuck on the dole. And we could have an entire class of society that's just stuck on the dole forever. Which gets larger and larger.

Yeah, which gets larger and larger. Especially as technology increases to the point where almost all jobs are irrelevant. Like Hollywood is in deep shit. They're in real, real, real deep shit. That's what the strike was about because I'm doing it with news myself. You can get like, so when you do news, you get like, you have news services, right? So you get a news service, you get a wire, comes in, and you go, oh fuck, there's a

bit, somebody fucking blew up the car. And you have a news team. So you send out shooters and you send out a producer and they're fucking, hey, you know what I'm saying, and then he comes back and I would say news should be called olds, because you're just in there, three days ago, something happened by me. Right. With AI, it comes in right away, this just happened in Gaza, you can have video, you can have, you can say, I want Walter Cronkite in black and white reading me my news from Reuters, right? It can be Peter Jennings circa blown out color

from Vietnam era, it could be 90s era, it could be I want Pravda Tass fucking Russian Soviet, you can pick your own newscaster, reading you verified news, right? Right away before anybody else, before Fox, before fucking MSNBC before it's CNN for anybody BBC anybody and you're like why wouldn't you do that right so of course then but if you take that a step further everyone can become

their own you know movie director because you can just plug in your story want to talk about art you can plug in your story make a movie you will you do it through prompts and it dude almost almost instantaneously. Yeah. That's what's gonna be so bizarre and then the real problem with that is if AI is controlling the news like who's controlling AI like what control and are we gonna get to a point where we say you know we're gonna have to let sentient AI control information then we find out that sentient AI is withholding information from us because it doesn't think we're emotionally stable enough to process it, which we probably aren't. You know, if there's some sort of a civil turmoil that could happen because some information gets released.

If you were AI now and we're looking at the show, you'd say, yeah, these guys don't know what the fuck. We gotta take them. They're not good for this planet. Yeah, we would corner Zelinsky and go, what are you up to? No, I'm not saying... I'm saying like you have a news, like you have a service comes in, it's still people, but you have news service and then AI can make the images or can make the video or whatever. But I mean, look, when you when you look at media, you're like, oh, it's that's why the strike happened because they know you can everyone can can make their own fucking movie, everyone can make their own TV show, and that'll be the thing, it'll be like individualistic creators, it's not gonna be big studios anymore.

And that's, but that's just media, like it's gonna be every fucking business. Every business. Every business. Smith and Ricardo were like, who wrote, you know, the basis of capitalism, they're like, yeah, well, you know, they're both apologies for the Industrial Revolution, that's what it's called, Marx, but they were like, yeah, you know, the blueberry pickers will have to move to the cities and become iron mongers, and, you know, that'll happen. And they're like, well, blueberry pickers can't like forge iron. And they go, well, you know, a generation will die, and then they'll figure it out. Right. So it's that was the problem and you know that's going to be the problem with AI is like

there will be this thing of like people moving to building tables or making art or doing whatever but there's going to be this is why I think our kids are maybe okay but like when you said what I worry about is the 40 year olds sitting there who bought it all went to high school went to college did all the shit got the fucking job or sitting there you know trying to climb the ladder and that's all gonna go away. It's all gonna go away. Coding unnecessary. You're right like don't become an alcoholic because like it's probably the biggest freeing thing ever but like yeah there has to be okay like just pay that fucking person so that they don't lose their fucking

house because if you start losing your house, if you Smith and Ricardo it and start losing your house, which is my long-winded thing to go, there has to be some sort of weird social thing about it. Because if you just let them fucking die off, they're not gonna die off. They're gonna say, yeah. Yeah, that's the fear. The fear is rebellion. And I don't think that's necessary. I think clearly there's something happening to the human species that's technology driven and

we're moving into a completely new way of existing. And it's going to be a tumultuous journey. The transformation, the process is going to be scary. It's going to be very fucking strange because it's going to be unprecedented in its impact and the speed of its in speed Yeah, the speed is gonna be you know the internet it took a couple decades before we figured out how fucked up it is You know it came around in the 1990s people started using it. You know kind of everywhere You've got mail and then 2000 you started getting fucked up videos and craziness and then along comes social media And everybody's like oh my god Everyone's connected and everyone's addicted and and then you're getting all this negativity because that's what attracts views

So your algorithm is an information. Yes Overwhelming some of it. I love because it's like wow. Yeah, you know, I didn't know that and you find out it's true So you're like, yeah, and then a lot of it you're like, what the fuck? And that's not true and you're like, oh, they're funny. And so by the way, a lot of people have an axe to grind. That's the other problem is CCP, Chinese Communist Party are openly saying they're trying to fuck with our social media as is the Free Syrian Army, as are the Iranians, as are like... As are we. As are we.

We are fucking with it. I guarantee there's some sort of government agency that's involved with like just distributing narratives and arguing against certain things. Also if you go to Russia, they're like, yeah, you have the ruble. We are trying to fuck with you. Yeah. We're definitely trying to fuck with you. Of course. And you're like, okay, so if you're openly trying to fuck with us. And by the way, can you imagine if the Chinese Communist Party is spreading propaganda that there's $28 Big Macs, then what are they going to do when they have quantum computing? Right.

Well, once they have quantum computing, we're fucked financially. It's a race between us and them. Because as soon as someone has that with AI, the whole financial institutions crumble. We're going to be in a giant mess. And I don't understand how they could ever figure out a way to stop that. Yeah. I just don't, I see as technology scales up, it's just going to have more power and more access and the innovation is going to come so fast, you're not going to be able to keep up with it and then all of a sudden it'll be too late. Yeah. Remember when we were growing up there was a big

thing about like how you adopt technology. It takes you like 10 years to adopt it. What was it called? There was a term for it, it was a big deal in the 80s and 90s about culture lag, tech lag, something. You remember this now? It was a big concept when I was growing up anyway. How long it takes society to adapt to a new technology. And it was a big deal and culture lag something like that and there's like the the the speed with which quantum is going to change every quantum sorry quantum married with AI right the speed with which it changes everything is going to be like I mean I don't think we're even going to be able to sort of process that change.

No, I think it's going to happen so quick and I have the craziest thought about it that just keeps popping into my head is that I think that we are creating a new life form. That's what I really think. With AI? Yeah. Well, that's sort of been the... But I think that's what the universe does. I think that's probably what all these alien encounters are.

I don't think they're biological anymore. I think life gets to a certain point where it gets so smart that it creates a new version of itself that's superior. I mean, we get to aliens. Either it merges with it. I think that's what the aliens are. I think they're us. They're us in the future.

I think there's parallel. Well, that's the mathematical thing, right? Yeah. It's more mathematically plausible that it's us in the future than we evolved this way well it's also probably other civilizations from other places that are far more advanced to figure out a way to get here and it might be interdimensional travelers which sounds ridiculous until you talk to actual

physicists that can tell you it's provable dark matter dark energy 10 or 11 don't even know what that is. That's just a lack of an understanding of what the fuck is going on. Well I love that. Did you ever, if you haven't, Taylor Wilson, who's like the fucking genius, genius, genius of all genius physicists,

he's a young kid, built a functioning fusion reactor in his Reno garage when he was 13 years old. Michio Kako did something like that. This guy is next fucking level. Michio Kako, I think he made a particle collider in his house. He refined his own yellow cake. He staked claims and got uranium and turned it into yellow cake. That's nuts.

How old is this kid? 30. Now he's 30, but he was 13. and turn it into yellow cake. That's nuts. How old is this kid? Now he's 30, but he was 13. So he was 13, the government took him. I've been there. What a fucking super nerd. He's so amazing. Whenever you want to talk about anything

that has to do with physics, he's the guy. But what I love about it is, I think he was part of the team, I don't want to get anybody in trouble. I think he was part of the team I don't want to get anybody in trouble I think was part of the team right he knew about it anyway he's explained it to me the guys in Peru you know with the fucking most advanced telescope they're like VLT yeah they're like the planets are all here right and they should be here they're not in the right place and and and somebody had to go the math is wrong I like to believe it's him but maybe somebody, the math is wrong. I like to believe it's

him, but maybe not. Somebody said the math is wrong. And they're like, the math is wrong. That's all of the math. That's like physics is wrong. Yeah, physics is wrong. So like, because there's too much gravity to keep all the planets in play, they should be fucking flying off. So like, okay, 90% of the universe, we can't see. It's dark matter, dark energy and there's now these things deep in the coal mines and they have like these baths of some gas which they can see, they're weakly interacting molecular particles, wimps, and they have been this like now the fifth dimension which is now leading to there's infinite fucking universes and

Infinite possibilities and infinite so you're not crazy because physics is now saying all of this shit is fucking Probable. Yeah, you know, so that's one thing two is When I was talking to a very smart person, I'm not gonna say anything because I don't want anybody in trouble, but they're like look Interstellar travel isn't gonna be you and I go on a fucking spaceship, right? It's going to be there's you download your brain into a computer, it goes via laser into another thing that's got a 3D printer of a human that resembles you or might not resemble you. And it goes and you download and that's how you go these vast distances in space. And you're like, oh, maybe. So, but if they're doing that in the future, maybe. But if they're doing, I'm not saying that that's it. That's where you're, but if it does happen, then it makes sense

that you got these, these mixes. If you're downloading your brain into a computer, then it's possible that brain gets mixed up with AI. But what does that even mean? What is, The thing is like, what is your brain? And is the soul a real thing? Because I tend to think the soul is a real thing. I do too. I think there is some sort of a life force that's inside of you that's not just your heart beating. I think there's a thing inside of people and I think you recognize it when you're around people.

And I think it's one of the most unique aspects of being a conscious creature, is that we think of ourselves as individuals, but we're really connected to some great well of souls. To shield, yeah. Yeah, there's some thing that's going on where we're all in this together in some bizarre way that's, for some reason reason very difficult for us to recognize in normal, regular life. It's hard for us to, like, you get these moments where you feel it, whether it's a psychedelic

experience, a near-death experience, a profound love feeling. A joy. Yeah, there's the birth of a child. There's moments in life where you feel like everything's connected, like you see, like, through the curtains. Yeah. And you get a chance, connected, like you see like through the curtains and you get a chance, God, this is so much bigger than us. Or creativity. It's bigger than everything.

When something just comes to you and you're like, where the fuck did that come from? Right. Yeah, it's in the space around you somehow or another. That's the concept of like consciousness being like what you're actually is tuning in to what's out there. It's not local. Like, your consciousness is not this local thing. Your brain, the local thing, is just an antenna. And it's distributing this consciousness through your unique biology and your unique life experiences

and where you live and who you're friends with and what you interact with on a daily basis, what kind of energy you get in, what kind of energy you put out. And it's all somehow or another bizarrely connected to the way the whole universe works. That it all works together as one unique gigantic system. Yeah, religion, philosophy, also psychology, it all is like, yeah, there's one thing out there. Yeah. And you're like, what the fuck it is. And that's what it comes down to is like, And you're like, what the fuck it is? And that's what it comes down to is like consciousness. And as you get older and more mortal and realizing we don't have that much more time, that's

the kind of shit. That's why I said it's stupid to think that when you're 19 to study philosophy. When you get older and you're feeling more mortal and your brain's open to it, you're like, what the fuck are we doing here? What's it all about? You know, that's the craziest theory that Came from the Bob Lazar stuff the craziest, you know The Bob Lazar stuff the stuff the guy was working the back engineering UFOs for the government in the 1980s

This is what I've been waiting the whole fucking time to get into he told the same story This guy's told the same story for 30 plus years. It's the same story. He was an engineer. He worked at Los Alamos Labs and then he left there and they hired him to do propulsion work. And they brought him in and they showed him this thing that had an American flag on it. And he was like, oh, it had an American flag sticker on it. And he was like, oh, they're ours. That's why everybody's seeing these it. He was like, oh, they're ours. That's why everybody's seeing these things. This is like some top secret thing that we're working on.

And slowly but surely, and again, this is not fact, this is just his story. Slowly but surely, over time, he's brought in to analyze this thing, tell us how it works. He realized like, this is not ours. It's too small. The ship was made for three foot tall inhabitants

Everything looked like it was 3d printed. There was no seams. There was no bolts. The whole thing had no there was no electronics It somehow or another was connected to the minds of the pilots and it had some sort of a reactor that had a Stable form of element 115 which was just theoretical at the time You know, it wasn't even proven until they proved it with a particle collider in like the 2000s. So this guy was telling the story about how they have this element and they bombard this element with radiation and it makes this gravity propulsion device. So one of the things that he said was that they had a very thick book that was all information about religion and that this was one of the

things that they had got from these alien inhabitants, that we are vessels, that they look at us as containers for souls. Well, that's... That's Scientology. It was a little nutty, but also, like, if... Just think about this. That sounds crazy, that we're vessels for souls, but imagine if the life force of a soul is a real thing that's limited

to biological organisms, but then you create life that is not biological, and you create this thing that is this sentient life force that's digital, completely digital, but it doesn't have a life force, it doesn't have soul to it now imagine you Bridge the gap with hybrids So you have a thing that is part alive part of biological organism and part? interconnected and it needs to be if it wants to continue to have creativity and desire and needs and

to have creativity and desire and needs and it It actually has a task that it wants to accomplish that this has to be connected somehow or other to biology and That if you want biology you have to have a soul It's interesting because I speaking of kids. I believe that humanity is a grand evolutionary experiment because a lot of the Things that happen to you are weird. Like when you have a kid you change and when men have kids they change, when women have kids they change, kids change, like all these things happen. And it's just like this thing of like we have to do it, we have to do it and it puts

you on a path and you're like are we a grand evolutionary experiment? And if so, why? Well, if this is what the universe does when it creates superior beings, it kind of makes sense that we have all the attributes that we have. It makes sense that we're territorial, it makes sense that we fight over resources, it makes sense that we're competitive, and it makes sense that we're inquisitive

and that we constantly search for innovation. We want the newest best stuff all the time we have throughout human history. We've always newest, best stuff all the time. We have throughout human history, we've always aspired to have the best plows, the best trucks, the best this, the best that. We always want better, and we're always working on these things. What does that lead to?

That leads to artificial intelligence. It's almost like that's what we're doing. We're making this cocoon, and the butterfly's gonna come out of the cocoon, and we don't even know why we're making it. We're just fucking toiling along, doing our thing. And it also connects to materialism because one of the things that materialism does

is it encourages innovation. It encourages constant purchasing of goods. If the phones that we have right now are perfect and we never have to get a new phone, all you have to do is repair them. It would just be repair shops everywhere. You would need a new phone. There would be no need for innovation. Light bulbs. Yeah yeah right

but well light bulbs were better they used to be better because they didn't burn out. They never burned out. Yeah but then they came out with LED light bulbs like that's actually even better because then they don't you know. I like the old light bulbs. They're all cool. They are cool. No those ones burned out. No the original the original light bulbs never burned out. Yeah, they just have to make the film that's bigger. We're just like, nah, make it so they die off. Fuck those people. Make them buy another light bulb every year.

And that's it. Yeah, all the time. Yeah, you shut the lights out. You're going to burn the light bulbs. Yeah, and then they burn. They get black in the bottom. I'm like, shit, we lost the light bulb. But if phones were just, I mean, if we're satisfied,

phones are so good Why do we need new phones? We do oh the iPhone 16 coming out Are you gonna get it? Samsung has a 25 ultra 25 got a better zoom and you just fucking keep hopping on that It's just a normal thing that we do we do it with computers We do with everything you do with cars and I think just a constant thirst for technology. Was it Moore's law? Yeah, Moore's law. But Moore's law is out the window.

It's out the window now. It's all exponential anyway, as soon as all this stuff gets popped out, as soon as we give birth to that AI demon. So I cut you off when I shouldn't have, because I was wanting to hear you talk to more people who are more connected about aliens than anybody else, and I wanted to sort of mine that a little bit so so so So he it's three Foot high aliens who have we have their technology in area 54

Supposedly area 51 suppose it S4 area 51 S4 site four is where he worked see I don't know You know, I don't know. I don't know how much of it's bullshit. I think some of it's bullshit, right? So whatever it is, you have to say some of it's bullshit. It seems like the United States government is spending an inordinate amount of time studying these things. There seems like there's a ton of whistleblowers. There's a ton of programs that most of us did not know about. So why do these programs exist? So it is either a top secret drone program that has a super sophisticated propulsion system that's far beyond anything that we're aware of today.

That's probably true as well. But also, the universe is filled with stars. The universe is filled with planets. The odds that none of them have life are very low. There's Fermi's paradox. Like where are they? Well, they probably don't want us to know too much about what they are because they want us to figure out a way Our brains will be blown. Well also like get to the next level, right? Get to the next level and keep getting you don't you don't just fly in and give people death rays like Star Trek

You can't you can't change their evolution. I would imagine the correct path is to let people evolve. Let people make these mistakes, figure it out, have revolutions, have elections, have innovation, have this constant desire. Also if they come, then we think, oh oh there's the gods, there's the angels, there's whatever it is. Exactly, that's the problem too. And then also I think there's probably an interdimensional aspect to it. There's probably some things that aren't even real that you're seeing, but they are real somewhere else and you have a window to them.

There's probably bizarre states of consciousness where a certain amount of psychedelic chemicals are released by your brain in a certain level of anxiety in a certain environment and circumstance where you have access to a frequency that's not normally available to you. I think some people are having these kind of experiences and they're calling them aliens. But I do think there's something going on with crafts. And the thing about these crafts is they existed way before there's any reasonable assumption that people had technology that could do those things.

Like the Kenneth Arnold sightings from the 1950s is the best example. Something that was moving far faster than anything that we had, silent, looked like a saucer, skipping over the sky. They saw a bunch of them flying around. These guys are fighter jet pilots. They don't have a history of making up things. They're not liars. And there's a ton of them flying around. These guys are fighter jet pilots. They don't have a history of making up things

They're not liars and there's a ton of those sightings Yeah, and those sightings go way back they go way back and it's probably some of the stories in the Bible and the Bhagavad Gita You know, there's there's a bunch of stories about flying things and flying chariots and wars in the sky There's some wild shit. And you gotta imagine that if this is a long, slow process that every intelligent being goes through in the universe. That this is just like we look out, we see all these different planets

that are in the Goldilocks zone. So we know that the kind of life that we have can exist in these planets how many of them have people or things or some form of super intelligent organism yeah probably infinite numbers probably infinite numbers and they probably visit emerging civilizations it just makes sense just like we would just like we would visit a Stone age culture and watch them from afar if we found some lost tribe in siberia you know with

fucking the island of india you know north sentinel island yeah there's a there's tons of examples of how we behave in those situations and we're retarded you imagine something that's far more advanced than us it would be much more sophisticated in its approach probably would occasionally abduct people and study their biology, probably does have a way to erase memories, probably does leave people with significant trauma and confusion as to how this experience is real. How do you put it in the context of your normal day-to-day

life? How come it never happens again? You're just sitting home, wait, is this going to happen again? And then the rest of your life life you like freaked out that the walls are gonna melt and also you're gonna be on spaceship again If that is real like who fucking knows and those those people Imagine being one of those poor people that does get abducted by aliens and everybody thinks you're an idiot Everybody thinks you're a liar. Everybody thinks you're a fool. Oh Mike lost his mind thinks you got abducted by aliens. You know, I really did fool, oh Mike lost his mind, thinks he got abducted by aliens. Meanwhile he really did. Well that's going to be a problem when people finally find out they're going to be like, hold on a second now. It's going to be a real problem and I think it's a slow trickle. So I think that that's what we're experiencing and I think this is normal. I think there's like deep

denial in the 1960s and there's also Operation Blue Book, which is a concerted effort to dismiss all the sightings as illegitimate and swamp gas. I mean, J. Allen Hynek, who ran that program, eventually when he left the program became a huge UFO believer and then completely changed his tune and explained how he was told to debunk everything. There was a bunch of things that he couldn't debunk. I think the number is like 90-10. 90% of the things you could, oh, that's Venus, that's this, that's that.

10%, there's no fucking way. This is, whatever this is, there's physical evidence, there's a bunch of shit. Something happened. And he was a believer before he died, a big believer, and a proponent, and would talk about UFOs openly. And I think there's too many of those guys

for it all to be bullshit. There's too many people for it all to be bullshit. but some of it is bullshit and some of it is ours I think some of it is I think some of it might be back engineered I think some of the Bob Lazar stuff might be legitimate like they they found things whether these things were left behind for us to discover Whether they you know made some sort of a deal right? But I think I think there's intelligent life other than human beings that interacts with us. Bingo.

That's what I think. Look, it's interesting. My whole thing is, I don't know, but it's interesting. And why not, like, look into it and why not read about it and why not I mean People like well is everyone's this is the other thing not just with this with everything everyone so dismissive about everything You know, I know why you're a fucking wing nut If you yeah If you believe in that shit or if you read about it or if you want to look into it I'm like I have questions right I want to ask questions. Why why is it bad to ask questions? Right?

Why can't I talk about why can't I think about it? By the way, people will freak out that we're talking about it. And you're like, why? We're two guys chopping it up on your front porch and be like, look, let's ask questions. You're an interesting guy. You meet a lot of interesting people, so you are well-informed, I'd say better than 90%, 99% of people in the world. Okay, let's talk about it. That's interesting. Yeah No, it is interesting. I think so. Yeah, obviously a lot of people agree. It's just you're always gonna have people complaining You just can't listen. Yeah, that's the thing It's like if you live your life by the whim of people that are willing to complain openly about almost anything

You're gonna live a terrible life. Yeah, and kind of things, if they're not fascinating to you, that's fine, that's you. But I don't know how you could not be fascinated by congressional disclosures, whistleblowers, talking about programs that are beyond oversight, that are retrieving crashed UFOs and back engineering them. And we've been doing this for decades. Because if they're telling the truth,

either this is a spectacular lie, if they're telling the truth either this is a Spectacular lie or they're telling the truth. Yeah, and if they're telling the truth, how the fuck are you not interested? How are you not interested? What I have to go another level is the problem that I have is you're like, okay, we're interested in big pharma We're interested in big food. We're interested in oil. We're interested in military industrial companies. We're interested in all this stuff but if you start talking about aliens or if you start talking about this, if you start talking about multi-dimensional whatever, people negate all the other stuff you're talking about. Why?

Only to idiots. There's way more people that are, even the New York Times in 2017, they posted legitimate journalism on UFOs. But a lot of people, you got you know. Sure, you can't listen to them people.. But a lot of people, you know. Sure. There are a lot of people. You can't listen to them people. There's a lot of people that could join a cult. Like if you wanted to start a cult, you could probably do a really good job. You'd probably have a lot of people in your cult.

It'd be really easy to do. You'd have the biggest cult around. Pretty easy to do. Right? Why? Because a lot of people are gullible and they're stupid. It's easy to get people to do things. It's easy to get people mad.

It's easy to get people that think that Donald Trump is Hitler, and it's easy to get people to think that Donald Trump is Jesus. It's like, there's a lot of opinions out there. That's fine. That's part of the fun of life. That is. And morons and their stupid opinions is also flavor. It's a little bit of flavor in the soup of life.

There you go. Salt and pepper. Yeah, and sometimes morons learn. Salt and pepper yin and yang. I wanted to, I saw that on your thing. What was it, the molecule, the life molecule? We still can't figure out exactly what that is. So what this is is quantum entangled photons.

And the image that you're seeing in these quantum entangled photons is a Yin and Yang symbol. Wow. But we're trying to figure out, and this is where it gets like in the weeds scientifically, is that what it looks like or did you make it look like that to represent these quantum entangled photons but the shape is arbitrary, like you chose a shape to get these quantum entangled photons to exist in? I don't know how you would do that. I don't know this.

I don't understand the way they're recording it. I don't understand the technology behind it. I don't understand the science behind it. Here we go. Here we go. Scientists have used first of its kind technique to visualize two entangled light particles in real time, making them appear as a stunning quantum yin-yang symbol. So we don't know if that's how it looks or if the scientists made it look that way. Again, I'm reading this, I don't know what to tell you. A reconstruction of a holographic image of two entangled photons.

The new method called bifoton digital holography uses an ultra-high precision camera and could be used to massively speed up the future of quantum measurements. So this is the way it's worded. Go back to the way it's worded. It would be insanely cool if it was. The way it's worded is just weird. It's a first of its kind technique to visualize two entangled light particles in real time. But this is the part that gets me, making them appear as a stunning quantum yin-yang

symbol. Yeah, you don't know. It's like, what are you saying? Yeah, it's not clear. Yeah. But it would be fucking cool if it was true., but it would be fucking cool if it was true Yeah, it would be super cool. It was true But I think they made something this so that they would know if it worked

if we're giving this as long as we see this at the end result and Right, so like I don't understand that. I don't understand it. It's I'm too stupid for this conversation But they use just the facts that you that we know that But just the fact that we know that quantum entangled particles are real. Just the fact that we know this spooky action in the distance that Einstein talked about. The fact that we know that quantum particles can exist in a state of motion and still at the same time. They can be in superposition. Like, what do you say?

They go in and out of existence. It's measurable. We don't know where they go, we don't know what's happening, it's magic. It's all magic. And then the fact that atoms are mostly empty space, what does that even mean? What are you talking about?

What does that mean, how are they connected? Just the nature of existence itself is magical. Yeah, so when I went out into Taylor Wilson and he was picking up fucking yellow like uranium and turning yellow cake and he was just speaking to me like, because we'll talk about someone who's interesting, and he's like, well I mean we all know that like uranium is like stars, you know, parts of stars that explode and like hit the earth because they flew through, so we're just taking a star that landed on earth and we're

taking a piece of it and then we're releasing its power. And I'm like, I didn't know that. He's like, speaking like everybody knows that. And I'm like, wait a minute, uranium is like an X star that blew up that landed on earth and you can take it and that's how you do it. And he's like, yeah, well, we are that. We are that do it. He's like, yeah, well we are that. We are that. Yeah, I mean with that song. We are stars. But uranium is like the sort of the fucking like the concentrated, you know, and you're

like, oh you're making, by that fusion reactor is making a star. So you're making a star out of a star. Yeah, you're taking stardust and turning it into a star. What the fuck. How smart are people? People are fucking smart. It. Pretty amazing and you need that in order to power quantum computing by the way. You don't need multiple nuclear reactors to power quantum computing. All of it's bananas man. It's bananas. It's all, I mean thank God there's so

many different kinds of people because there's people that are wholly obsessed in pursuing that. Yeah. And then there's guys like us who will talk about it. Yeah. Exactly. Not exactly know what they're talking about. Not what they're talking about. Wow, I think this is what it is. Yeah. Taylor's going to call me and go, what the fuck are you talking about? I'm so fascinated by the people that study just the universe itself because they're constantly

dealing with new data. Like this James Webb telescope thing is like thrown everything into a tizzy. You know, there's these new red spots that were there, the formation of the universe, they don't know what the fuck they are and they went away. Yeah, like what is that? Love it. Quit, I'll send it to Jamie, because it's one of those ones where you're like, you read it and you're like, what does that even mean? What are you saying? Like, what is this? Yeah, that's why I love to interview people who are much smarter

than me, because again, I only understand half of what they're saying, but it is. I mean, it does, because we think we know what we're talking about, especially like scientists and physicists and everybody, and then something will happen. They're like, yeah, that was all bullshit. It's all new now. This is it on Life Science. James Webb Telescope found hundreds of little red dots in the ancient universe.

We still don't know what they are. Small galaxies that are either crammed with stars or they host gigantic black holes. The data astronomers have collected continues to puzzle them. And then there's the data where they're finding galaxies that were formed too quickly. So it's throwing into,

like they're starting to consider the possibility that the universe is far older than they thought it was. It's amazing. I love it. It's nuts. the possibility that the universe is far older than they thought it was. It's amazing. It's nuts. I love it. It's nuts. I love it.

It's probably filled with life, just like us. There's probably people doing stupid shit all over the universe. Can you imagine if they fucking finally find out and they were like, yeah, like Egypt? What do you got there? Nicotine. You want one? No, I want, I thought it was one of those Onnit mushroom things. But by the way, you sent me and I loved them.

Which one did you use? Alpha Brain? Alpha Brain, Alpha Brain, Alpha Brain. That's not mushrooms. We have a mushroom one too. It's called Shroom Tech. You sent me a mushroom, Shroom Tech. Yeah, that's a workout one.

You sent me some, whatever you sent me. Yeah, that's a quarter seps mushroom. It's great for oxygen utilization. Yeah, you sent me some. That shit's legit. And you don't have to just buy it from us, buy it from Monica, go get Cordyceps mushrooms. Super legit endurance supplement.

I did it for concentration. You know, it's good to beat juice. I did it for concentration, it was great. Well, that's alpha brain. That's alpha brain, that's the name. Yeah, alpha brain is the nootropic. That's alpha brain, we have a black label that's like a super strong one now, that's really good.

But there's some- I don't know if I need it, but I loved it, I loved the, you gave it to me, and I was like, wow, this is fucking awesome. Nootropics are legit. And it's not just alpha brain legit and it's not just out for better just to not smoke. No. No, I don't smoke This is just fun gives me a little extra energy. Well, it's just a little nicotine. We Makes the brain fire up. Yeah, yeah nicotine for the brain. It's really good for your brain. Yeah, it actually is It's just terrible for your lungs. Yeah. Well, if you smoke. Yeah,

probably the best way is probably a patch. But that just feels weird. Walking around with a patch. No, it's no nicotine good for the brain, bad for the... Well, I know guys who do that when they work. They put a nicotine patch on just for... Really? Nicotine is a legit nootropic as well. Yeah. Nicotine actually like positively affects cognitive function. Yeah, I knew it was good for the brain, but the lung thing is more the smoking because it's like when you burn something It's you have three thousand carcinogens vape is fucking terrible for you, too Anything you burn yeah, well anything you're putting in your lung you're putting chemicals in your lungs I'm not supposed to go in there like get fired up that way. Yeah, except weed of course man You know what's another?

unheralded nootropic creatine Creatine actually increases cognitive performance. I don You know what's another unheralded nootropic? Creatine. Creatine actually increases cognitive performance. I don't know what creatine is. It's a muscle supplement. It's like a supplement that they figured out in the 90s and people started equating it almost like steroids.

It was like a scandal that people were taking creatine. Like the powder. Scoops. Yeah. I get it in gummy form. I get creatine gummies. I just chew a few of them every day. Great for your brain yeah. Yeah, I get it in gummy form. I get creatine gummies. Yeah. Just chew a few of them every day.

Great for your brain. Great for your brain. Great for muscle recovery. There's a bunch of different stuff that's good for your brain. Yeah. You ever try neuro gum? I don't try anything. Neuro gum's great.

It's just gum. It's just gum. You chew it and it's got theanine in it and a little bit of caffeine. Great for firing your brain up. I'm going to go try it. So when you're doing this podcast thing, do you have like a weekly schedule? in it and a little bit of caffeine, great for firing your brain up. So when you're doing this podcast thing, do you have like a weekly schedule? You're doing it twice a week? Yeah, we just started.

I've done like five. And like again, so you do it once a week? How often do you do it? Yeah, it's going to be once a week. It's going to be once a week. And I do, you know, I'm interested in a lot of stuff. And so I'm new to the podcast game, but I Start it's like basically I start out. It's like they're long

They're like three-part is and it starts out with something I'm fascinated by that's on social media So for example, I was a reason why I'm talking about this stuff But like, you know something can come up and there's memes and like the assassination attempt and then there's conspiracy theories on both sides And I'm like everyone's interested in it, why don't we dig into it? Let's dig in. Right. And so I dig in and I, you know, I know a lot of people, can call them, get access and talk to them.

I just ask questions again, I'm not, I'm not, I don't have like, I'm not trying to shoehorn anything into anything. I'm just like, what? Just talk, just let's go. Tell me, what is this? Yeah. Yeah. And, and so I find that really, really fun.

Really interesting. Are you mixing this in with investigative journalism? Are you like going places and talking to people? Yeah, so I'm doing both. And then I'm just meeting interesting people and I'll meet somebody interesting and I'll just say, fuck it, we'll just talk and it'll just be a straight podcast and we're just talking for like two hours. Like, Peter Dale Scott blew my mind. And you you know there's a lot of people out there like it'll be a mix of big names

but I also want to go talk to the people who are you know putting stuff up and where they're getting their stuff and where they're getting their fact just dig in basically and you can dig in on the high end and dig on the low. What I found is if you get in the creation of the meme and who's creating it, it sort of starts as a wide thing and then it goes down into like some sort of like a philosophy or something bigger and then you when you get to the people who are like for example with the assassination attempts it got pretty quickly into the deep state and I'm like well let's talk about the deep state because everyone bandies the word around but nobody fucking

really knows what it is if you like want to get into clinical explanations or have real positive facts about what are the like you know historical evidence so that this exists and that they do this all the fucking time right and so I'm like okay let's let's chop it up and get into it and that that was like you know super fun and and and so I'm getting into all the stuff that I find interesting online up and get into it and that was like super fun. And so I'm getting into all the stuff that I find interesting online and on social media and saying let's just get into it. Yeah.

Just whatever you're interested in. Whatever I'm interested in. Look, I love all of this stuff. So like, I mean, right now I'm doing a lot of political stuff because it's the electoral cycle and it's crazy. And there's a lot, there's so much fucking bullshit like, and then when you see stuff you're like where's it coming from? Right. Like where's this fucking coming from? And you're right everyone has an agenda. Sorry. That's just what's so crazy about having so many

different groups manipulating us through bots. that we don't really know what people actually think. And the problem with people is they don't really know what they actually think. They know like what people, like there's a large percentage. I'm going to just say men because these are the ones that bother me the most. Men who say things because they know that people want to hear them and because they know it won't get them in trouble to say it and they don't necessarily believe it. Like it could be about trans athletes, it could be about like some sort of, it's a lot of it's connected to woke stuff, yeah politically correct. A lot of it's

connected to ideology. You know like they'll have super positive gas lighting version of what's going on at the border. You know, and they do it because they have to. Super positive? Yeah, super positive. Like, you know, it's important, immigration is important, and you know, it's very difficult for these people otherwise. Okay. And they have this like bullshit. Yeah, okay, also terrorists. Okay, also murderers and rapists getting released from Venezuelan prisons, making their way across the border. All that's real.

But there's two sides to that story. That's the one thing too, like 100%. So when I did my dive into immigration, you're like, because the reason why I got into it is you see the gates opening up and people coming through and I'm like, hold on a second. I've been reporting on the border for, I don't know, 10 years. There's no fucking gate where people fucking run through the gate, right? And then you look into the thing and it's like, oh yeah, like that was before the border,

it's after the border, and they were trying to get to the border, because what they try to do is like basically touch the fucking fence so that the border guards will then come so that they can get processed, right? And so like the gates open and all that shit, and the whole like, open border shit, right true but you mean it's not true it's not don't have an open border where people are just fucking coming in like look i'm an immigrant like i know how it works you have to come in and have you been down

to the south yeah we've been down to the south we've rode the beast we're in the darien gap look hold on before i get fucking into that. But there's, on the other side, yes it's true. So there's an immigration problem, huge immigration problem, and there are bad people getting through, and there are cartels running things, and there are illegal people, and there are all this stuff. And by the way, the Republicans have a great message that they stay on, the Democrats don't have a response to that message, right? It's a political fucking quagmire. but I don't care about the political quagmire. I'm like, let's go down. We talked to the head of the border guards. We talked

to both the head of the border guards. We talked to sheriffs. We talked to militia dudes in Texas. We talked to everybody, right? And the problem is, is there's fucking shit on both sides and there's no fucking sanity when it comes to immigration. There's nobody really saying, okay, this is what's happening here, this is what's happening here, yes, this is bad, but this is this and this is that and the other thing. And there's two narratives and one narrative is there's open borders with rapists and murderers coming in to cats and eating the dogs. And then on the other side, there's no real no real well that's not really happening what happened was they were in Mexico and now that they're being released in

here and here's the stats 80% are come to their to their meetings like they're whatever the fuck it is I'm forgetting the word now but when they get like after the process no but they get processed and then they have to come to a meeting and a meeting and a meeting and the the Democrats are like, yeah, it's 85% and the Republicans are like, 90% don't come and 85% do come. And you're like, well, where's the fucking stats coming from?

Can we not talk to Homeland? So we reached out to Homeland, we reached out to the fucking committee that runs immigration. We reached out to everybody and this is why it gets so frustrating is because nobody, like every answer is different. Every answer is completely different. Sorry to interrupt, but this is why I find it fascinating because there are, especially on immigration, there are so many givens about what shit means and in actual

fact like an open border doesn't mean an open border. It doesn't mean you can just fucking walk across the border into America. That's not, that doesn't happen. But some people are walking across the border into America. That's not, that doesn't happen. But some people are walking across the border into America. They're getting smuggled or they're trying to get to the border where they give themselves up to border guards who then process them. They become processed, they get kicked out, they go back, they stay here, and then they get fucking whatever. There's 50 different things that can happen.

But like to me, when I saw the open borders, they'll still have a tweet, right? Mm-hmm, and it'll say open borders and they'll have a fucking gate opening with people running through that gate So you think like oh, that's the gate to America that people are running through Well, there's a lot of openings. I mean that's not the thing about it turns out that that those That footage is all of course not true There are there are openings in the sense of people can smuggle themselves in through the desert at night. Well, you say smuggle, but people just go across on their own accord too. It's not just like smuggling.

Well, there's a lot of smuggling. There's a lot of smuggling. A lot of it. I mean, a lot of it is run by the cartels. Yeah. And which is bad. It's horrible. Horrible. Well, there's a lot of missing children.

Exactly. That's bad. It's like somewhere in the neighborhood of 300,000 missing children. It's very bad. Scary. Very scary. But I'm just saying, like, when you get into immigration as a thing, we're getting into it now.

So you get two narratives. Two completely different narratives. And near the twain show meet, that's the interesting thing, is usually eventually you can get down to something. Right. And on this one, you're like, you're like, literally, excuse me, it literally depends on who you're talking to. Right.

I'm gonna sip water. Yeah, that's what's scary about today, is that it's hard to figure out, and depending upon what tribe you're a part of, you know, if you're on the tribe of the right, you think one thing, you're on the tribe of the left, you think another thing. Even if you're a tribeless, I'm sitting there going, okay, so they'll talk to them about something. So I remember when I was interviewing Obama at the end of tribalist, I'm sitting there going, okay, so they'll talk to them about something. So I remember when I was interviewing Obama at the end of his presidency, I was like,

you know, what are your big, you know, and all he wanted to talk about was the Republicans. He didn't want to talk about his presidency. So I went to go see Speaker Boehner, because I was talking about Speaker Boehner, who, by the way, lovely guy, great guy, and he wanted to talk about his thing. And so you talk, and again, there the twain shall meet, and you're like, at some point you got to get down to this kernel of truth, and on immigration it's almost impossible to find. Or maybe it is impossible to find. Well, the bottom line is a lot of people

are being brought into this country and then being shipped to swing states. That's real. That's undeniable. The percentage of people that are in swing states of illegal immigrants moving to swing states is off the hook. It's crazy. It's a bizarre number. It seems to be a strategy. It seems to be a strategy. Why? Because they can't vote. Of course you can eventually. They're trying to do that. I mean you can vote like in 10-20 years. Well first of all, you have no ID voting, okay, right? This is something that they've pushed in California and they've pushed a lot of places. There's only one reason to have no ID.

That's to have people that can vote that shouldn't be voting. That's the only reason. If you only want the people to vote that should be voting, you ask for ID. Just like you ask for ID for everything else. For getting on an airplane, for every... I believe in ID. Look, I believe in ID. I'm just saying... But listen to me, the only reason to have no ID, the only reason to have no ID and to push that,

and it's only being pushed by the Democrats. There's only one reason that makes any logical sense. You want people to vote that probably shouldn't be voting so you can get some extra votes. That's the only thing that makes sense. So then if you have people like Nancy Pelosi who's openly talked about giving amnesties to the people that are already here, you have voters now. So you have voters in swing states that you brought into this country and you provided them an amazing life. And the Democrats brought them there. They're going to be loyal to the Democrats, especially if the Democrats continue to provide

them with housing and money. And why would you vote that out? Why would you vote for a bunch of people that want to deport you? They're talking about mass deportations. Imagine if you came here from Haiti. You lived a terribly poor life in Haiti. Now you have a good job in Springfield, Ohio. And you're like, I can't fucking believe we're in America.

This is amazing. And someone comes along and gives you the ability to vote. And then another group is saying, we're going to mass deportate you, because you people are eating all the dogs and all the cats. Then there's like this fucking fee. Of course, you're getting voters. You're bringing in voters and you're getting voters. You're gonna get them to vote for you. That's something I

haven't seen. I'm not denying it or fighting for it. That's something we haven't seen, like personally. Right, we haven't seen it but it's clearly a strategy that you could employ and if you were gonna employ that, wouldn't you move those people to swing states? You would. And if you find out that there's an app that you can use, and you use this app, and they'll let you in the country. You can schedule a way to illegally move to the country, and then you're legally protected once you've done that. So it's basically an open border.

Okay. You know what I'm saying? I do. I know the app. You know how hard it was for you to become an American citizen. Yes. Okay, it was very difficult. You came how hard it was for you to become an American citizen. Yes. Okay, it was very difficult. You came from Canada.

It took a lot of time. Right. It takes a long time. Chamath was explaining this to me. Long time to vote. Long time to do the thing. And you have to give a reason why you're supposed to be there. You have to be an exceptional person.

Yeah, you have to study, which I did, and I got 100% of my test. I have a couple of friends of mine who are just coming here from England. They wanted me. I had to do this visa thing for them, like give them a recommendation. But you have to be exceptional. You have to be something special. Or you can get on that app. Now you can just come over.

Look, I'm not going to get too into the app because I only did it through interviews, but the app is an actual thing that tracks the people who come into the country. It's done by Homeland. It's Homeland. Sure, but it allows you to schedule. It's Homeland following them around. It allows you to schedule an entrance into the country. Yeah, they're doing it to try to stop the waves of the illegals and making it somewhat legal. And in any case.

It seems like it simplifies people being able to get into the country illegally. I'm actually not going to defend it orifies people being able to get into the country illegally. I'm actually not going to defend it or talk about it anymore because I know the app exists and I know what you're talking about. And I know it's, you're right, it does, people do and they sign up to it and then they come and they get processed and then they wait for their thing and blah blah blah. Well it's the big argument on the debate between JD Vance and Tim Walz. You know, and they tried to frame it as if this had existed for a long time and that's

when JD Vance had to step up and stop them and say, you said you weren't gonna fact check and this is whether that's not true, that app did not exist. You can literally schedule it. It used to be for people that are already here. Like for kids that were born in Mexico but have lived their entire life in America.

Yeah, we gotta find out a way to citizenship for those folks, that's fucking crazy. I know a girl, she's 28 years old and she came over here when she was a baby and she's not an American citizen Yeah, because her family's from Mexico. Yeah, that's crazy to me. That's crazy. That doesn't make any sense She's been here her whole life. She's a goddamn American. Yeah, like let's figure that out I have look again. I have no dog in the race. I was literally just trying to get to Some sort of, okay, what are the facts? I didn't, like that's one thing.

Like I talked to everybody I could on both sides. And again, it's so confusing that even now I'm like, after having, like it's- It seems like a strategy. It does. Look, it could be a strategy. And there's a strategy on both sides for sure, and but you're it's just like it's it's it's so fucked up to try to find the facts on this stuff.

Right. Everybody has facts. Don't like I'm going to be inundated with everyone has fucking tons of facts. But what are the fucking facts? Because it's real. Exactly. Right. Well, that's what so many things mean we had that with COVID. We have that with the Ukraine war. Like who's responsible? Is it NATO? Did someone cross a red line? Would someone violate an agreement? What is happening in Israel? What are the facts?

Right. Are they really hiding in tunnels? Like, is Israel really shooting aid workers? What is going on? What are the real facts? What are the facts? And that's what I want to do on the podcast. And sometimes you get there and sometimes you don't.

And immigration obviously being a very interesting one and I'm going to continue on it because I'm like, it's not satisfactory. Although maybe that's just the answer. The answer is it's such a fucking huge and confusing issue. Well, it is absolutely a huge and confusing issue. And also, if you're a human being, you have empathy. If I lived in Ecuador or wherever these folks are from and I found out you could just cross America

or you could get on your app and you can get into America, 100% I would do it. And you would too. And yeah, we have the greatest country in the world and that's why people wanna come here. And yeah, you have this land of opportunity, it's amazing. But what we really have to do is make sure we don't let in murderers and fucking killers

and rapists and thieves and gang members and a lot of them are getting through and that's what we have to be careful about. It's not just not letting people in. Sure, I mean I bet we could sustain a lot more people in this country and I bet a lot of those people that come over are hard-working, very ambitious people that are excited to be here. They would love to be a part of the American experience. They probably love to recognize as Americans. Yes, immigration as it's being run right now is a fucking catastrophe. I think we can agree on that and it has to be fixed. It has to be fixed, but the question is, they could have fixed that. But how do you fix it if nobody, if it's become so political, and you can get into COVID on this exact same problem, it's become so political

That there's no fucking root basis and truth and people believe on one side this thing and believe on the other side this thing And fucking nobody's gonna meet him right and you're like, well what so then they need a show like yours to like lay it out That's what it is. You need something where someone is like We at least try and not come at it from a right-wing perspective or left-wing perspective Just come at it from like this is what it is. Yeah, I think there's more politically homeless people now than ever I really do believe that and they're gonna side with one side of the other based on their opinion mostly about Donald Trump But other than that, it's like you're trying to figure out like what team you belong on and both teams are filled with scoundrels You go far enough to the left and far enough to the right,

you have the same kind of monster that's adopted a different ideology. That's all it is. Well, they're politicians. And it's not just politicians, it's gang members. It's just the politicians, of course, that are like the leaders, but you've got these gang members because basically anybody can join. Anybody could join the left and anybody can join the right and there's a lot of mentally ill people Out there and so they join this and their whole identity revolves on Crushing the right or crushing the left and owning the libs or you know

That's that's a giant percentage of social media all these mentally ill people that are in a gang and that's all it is That's why they attack people try try to deplatform them, try to get them fired, letter campaigns. They're gang members. It's a gang, and it gives them purpose, because they don't have purpose in their life. Which is why they're on Twitter 12 hours a day, because they're mentally ill.

And it's exacerbated by social media. It is, because it's become so big, it is informing policy. I mean, on both sides. Because if you look at what gets adopted as narrative, then the narrative is being written on social media. It's not being written by traditional news. And so, fine.

Like that's why I'm like, hold on a second. I'm fascinated by this shit. You're fascinated by it. I think pretty much everybody's fascinated by this shit. It's informing policy, but nobody's actually reporting on or digging in or getting in. Everybody's still, I don't give a shit about the mainstream media, I give a shit about this stuff.

The only way you find the truth is social media. It's just you have to do a lot of sifting. A lot of sifting. You gotta figure out who's legit. A lot of sifting. And that's where community notes comes in very handy. I like that. And it clowns people on both sides. Yeah. And it's good. It's very important. Well that's what I said. I said look I'm just gonna go in and try to

dig through some of the shit, which by the way proved to be a lot harder. That's fucking real journalism, right? Like if you want to do that, I mean you know better than anybody, it's real journalism. Yeah, and look it's fun because there's a lot of people who want to talk about a lot of stuff. Yeah, and especially the way you're doing it now, we're you know, small. Small baby. Just keep it tight. Small baby.

Tight chip. I learned from the best. Nobody wants to listen. All these fucking dudes, all these dudes they get big and then they have staff and I go over to their place and I'm like, why are all these people here? There's so many people here, this is a mess. You did it right, I'll give it to you, man. You did it right.

And by the way, surprisingly, maybe not surprisingly, very wise, I'm speaking, I don't know of which I speak, I didn't fucking do it right. So I'm saying you did. Nobody came knocking with those dollars. I didn't have a thing that you could sell like that You know, cuz my thing only works if I'm at the microphone. Yeah, it's a different thing And it only works if I keep doing exactly the same way do it baby. I love it. I'm proud of you We've known each other a long time long time, bro. It's kind of crazy long time long time

But it was back in the fucking Tarzana or whatever. It was just over. Mm-hmm Was that Tarzan Woodland Hills Woodland? Yeah the old Yeah, you got me so fucked up on one of your fucking crazy weed fucking This is a fucking purple haze fucking White Widow probably some Joey Diaz and I remember just like oh Like either is a microphone here or... Yeah, that's the problem. We used to get people way high before the show and then they would kind of close off. It's not good.

Be paranoid. No, it's terrible. Because a couple of drinks maybe, but I can't, like if when I'm stoned I'm like, I can't talk. It is a bad strategy. Yeah. Pretty funny though. It was fun for me.

Pretty funny. I used to love to get my opening act super high. Yeah. Just to watch them panic when they go out there. I'm like, don't worry about it. Just go have fun. You got to learn how to be yourself in that fog. Maybe you can find something different when you're out there. Yeah. If you're like smoking it all the time, whatever you can get through it. But if you're just coming in going, Oh, I'm going to sit down with the number one podcast in the world and get as stoned as I've ever been. The scariest thing is when you're talking and you don't know what you're talking about. You lose train and you're like, I have no idea what I'm talking about and I don't know

what to come back to. But all you need is footnotes. Someone goes, trains. Yes. The train. That door up in your brain, and you have access to all the information again It's weird how it sort of compartmentalizes memory like that those were I gotta say though those were fucking fun and good days and And and you fucking blew up like an atom bomb dude is weird But it would they were fun days because we were doing it for the right reasons. It was just for fun It was just to do it because it didn't make any money for so long. It was just fun.

How long? Years, years. Five years? Yeah, something like that. And who was on it and sponsors? It basically paid to keep the lights on and paid for web hosts and all the, you know. How much did it cost back then to put it up?

I don't remember. It was pretty cheap. 100 grand? In beginning. It was super cheap because it was just a laptop and a microphone Yeah, that was super cheap and then we started expanding and then once I got a the first studio I'm like well I really need a bigger one then I got a warehouse and then then it started getting what was the one in Woodland Hills? There was like the first iteration or second? I had two at Woodland Hills. Did you go to the warehouse one? I went to the tiny one. Yeah, so there's a tiny one.

And then we had the big ass warehouse. We had a gym in there and all kinds of stuff. Yeah, it's like everything. Things scale up. But the most important thing is like, the reason why podcasts work, I think, is because people are listening and they know it's just a conversation,

so it works in your mind, it resonates in your mind. You know, this is not like some heavily produced thing where there's an agenda and there's a script and a teleprompter and you're trying to pretend that you're being real but you're not being real so that it doesn't feel right to people. Doesn't resonate. Right, and so the more people you have involved in it,

the more it's not gonna feel right. You know, like my friend had a studio and he has a glass wall and the production staff is all working and walking around behind this glass wall and he sees them and I go, that's a distraction. Yeah. Like why do you have that? This is bad for the conversation.

You've missed the point. The reason why it works is because the people at home, the people that are in there, they have earpods on right now going on a jog, they're just as much in this room as you and I are because there's no filters. It's just us. I'm taking mental notes right now because we fucked up a few of those things. But you're exactly right. Everybody thinks that they want to be a television show. And if you look at a television show, that's professional. I don't think professional's good.

I don't think it's good. That's why the best comedy shows are live comedy shows. You want to see comedy? Watching on Netflix is awesome. Watching it live is 70% better. Because you're there. It's a real experience. Collective experience.

To go back to where we're all tied together. Movie theaters, rock concerts, comedy shows. Yeah, and I think once AI comes around, live performance is going to be one of the few ways that we're going to be able to connect with each other. Yeah, the last human things they can't do. Yeah, yeah, in a real way. And that's a scary proposition, because we really don't know. Maybe for the first time ever, if you lived in 1970,

you were pretty sure what 1980 was going to be like. Maybe you were wrong a little bit, but you're probably pretty accurate. You could extrapolate. You could look at it and go, I see where this is going. Today, we have zero idea what 2034 looks like we are just guessing I'll go further I was driving around our studios in Van Nuys and I was driving from Malibu to Van Nuys and I'm like if you drive through like I don't know what that's why I said Tarzana's probably Tarzana

It literally hasn't changed a lot since 1924. Right. Like it's like the same houses, same fucking, like okay the cars are different but there's cars and there's phones but like okay there's a bit of technology but like it kind of is the same street. Looks the same. Looks the same, there's not a lot really. And you're like okay, a hundred years from now, this fucking looks nothing. Yeah.

Nothing like it does today. Yeah. That's scary. It is scary. It's weird. But we will remain. Yeah. We both said, like, look, you can either be positivist about it and say, look, let's mold

it to be like, great, I can fucking do something I love rather than work in a fucking factory, fucking punching out tool and die fucking pieces. I can go do know, go do what my first love was or something that I makes me feel filled with joy or we can become fucking Autobots who are crying because fucking online AI driven girlfriend dumped me. Well the thing is also today there's these kind of conversations that are out there that put these thoughts into people's minds and inspire them to do something that didn't exist when we were young.

There wasn't these kind of conversations that could really light up the fires of your creativity and your ambition and you decided to go. In fact, it was the opposite. Yeah, it was the opposite. It was no. Yeah. Shut up. Yeah, you had to be a real rebel.

Yeah. You had to be kind of a crazy person to even take that path. That's right. You had to be punk. You had to be fucking an outsider. Otherwise people would conform, just fucking do what everybody else is doing, be an accountant. And as you were struggling, if you got outside the lines and you were taking a chance, as you were struggling, people were praying for you to fall.

All of them praying that it didn't work out for you. Because it shows them up. They made the wrong choice. Yeah, they don't like it. But that's true. That is true. People want you to fail. They do. Until you succeed and then they're like, I was always in your corner. The thing is, some people don't though. Some people actually want you to succeed and they want they succeed themselves. They want you to succeed. Like, can you realize like that's a better way to live? I'm a cheerleader. I am too. Adopt that.

You can adopt that even if it doesn't feel right because you're grinding, you're trying to make it out. I'm telling you, hoping other people fail is the biggest waste of energy. Even your enemies, let them fucking just live in their own life. Don't hope they fail. Don't put any energy towards it. Everyone's just trying to get through the day. I'm a cheerleader and again, when people I know or when my friends do well, I'm like,

there's nobody happier than me. I'm like, that's fucking awesome. Yeah. That's just awesome. And when people fail or have a hard time, we're like, okay, bro, what can we do? Let's fucking do it again. Let's fucking get back on the horse.

Let's figure it out. And yeah, because otherwise, it's just a fucking bummer, you're right. Yeah, yeah. Ain't no fun if the homies can't have none. Remember that song? Yeah. There you go.

All right, brother, tell everybody what you know is, how can they find it? Where do they go? That's good. We just started, but I think on YouTube it's Shane Smith Has Questions, and wherever you can listen to podcasts, I guess. But I appreciate the plug. You gotta come on sometime. Always good to see you, my friend.

You gotta come on. I love you, man. I love you, too. Bye, everybody. Thanks for watching!