The Joe Rogan Experience - #2326 - Jimmy Carr

Episode Date: May 22, 2025

Jimmy Carr is a comedian, writer, and television host. Watch his Netflix special, "Jimmy Carr: Natural Born Killer," and catch him on tour this year. www.jimmycarr.com Go to ExpressVPN.com/ROGAN... to get 4 months free! This video is sponsored by BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com/JRE Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:00 The Joe Rogan Experience. Trained by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. I'm rehydrating having, well I think I got it from this show. The sauna cold plunge thing. I bet you did. I'm so into it. That's awesome. So addicted to it. It changes your life. It really does. It's like it's that dopamine for like... You're changing my life by crushing this liquid IV in the most bizarre way possible. I don't
Starting point is 00:00:35 know it's like it's somehow it's all smooshed up. Yeah it's humidity. Alright well. It probably got a little humidity in there. It needs one of them little packets you get in the chips that you always accidentally bite. Oh yeah. You know those little a little humidity in there. It needs one of them little packets you get in the chips that you always accidentally bite Oh, yeah, you know those little things they put in there to like absorb humidity Yeah, I don't know. I think that's what they're for right? Yeah They absorb humidity. Is that what they do? So salt or something. Maybe they provide it do they provide humidity? What are they so the I did the I'm now in, not exclusively, but like I'm, my hotel choice, I'm solving for places with sauna cold plunge. So I can kind of do that in the morning and feel alive.
Starting point is 00:01:13 There's a lot more of those now. Well, it's great. But you travel the world. I travel everywhere. So I was in like Vienna and they've got this incredible facility. And I went and it's like, you know, it's an amazing sauna, amazing cold plunge. So I get in there, I'm having a great time. Guy walks in and I get told off for wearing shorts because I've got swim shorts on and it's Austria and they like to sauna naked.
Starting point is 00:01:38 They wanna look at your cock. They wanna check it out. Okay, and now I've got no problem with that in a sauna. I've got zero problem in the sauna. I tell you where the problem comes. Post cold plunge. Yeah. That is some baby dick.
Starting point is 00:01:50 You know where the real problem comes. Aggressive gay men. In saunas? Yeah. I mean, there was very little of that going on, I think. Well, most of the time. I think saunas had that reputation for- Oh, I've seen it.
Starting point is 00:02:04 Like in- I've had a guy do it to me... Oh, I've seen it. Like, in... I've had a guy do it to me. Oh really? Yeah, I gotta look me in the eye and take his robe and like open up his towel while he's staring at me. Is there more to this story? Where does this... No.
Starting point is 00:02:18 That feels like... No. Okay. Yeah. There's no more to the story. Is the guy okay, Joe? Yeah, I didn't hurt him. I don't think I even said anything to him.
Starting point is 00:02:29 I just went like this and then just didn't look at him and then within three minutes he put his towel back on and walked out and left. So he was fishing. And that's how I met- Threw a line out there. That's how I met your mother. And that is how I met out there. That's how I met your mother And that is how I met Tony Hinchcliffe That's the origination story
Starting point is 00:02:53 Yeah, it was it was insulting because he wasn't even a handsome gentleman, you know Well, I mean a good-looking guy, you know in that business You don't know I don't know right? I mean, there's a lot of bears out there. A lot of guys are into the big guys. They're into big, fat, hairy guys. That's a thing. Right, yeah. I don't know.
Starting point is 00:03:15 This guy wasn't even that. He wasn't even a bear. You're disappointed that the guy that hit on you wasn't attractive enough. I've only had a few times in my life where men have aggressively hit on me, and both of them have been disappointing. Two ones in recent memory that I can remember. Not recent memory, like within, you know, as an adult. In saunas in... No, one in a bar and one
Starting point is 00:03:37 in the sauna. Okay, so in the bar. So how did you know the guy was hitting on you? I knew the guy, he's a gay guy and he just was getting drunk and then he started getting silly. But he got a little handsy, you know, like kept touching me. And I was like, you need to stop doing that or you're going to get hurt. Stop touching me. It just makes you realize like what it's like to be a woman. But way worse. I think it's very good for empathy
Starting point is 00:04:05 to have that experience to have a guy aggressively drunkenly hit on you yeah and to know what it's like. I often think like being a bit famous you kind of know what it's like to be a very attractive woman. Yeah but you don't because you're not as vulnerable and no one's trying to stick their dick inside you for dick inside you for I mean in terms of you have predictable conversations That's true. I think I often think like bullshitted Yeah We super attractive women have the same conversation with people over and over again and you blame them for being boring All right, where you go?
Starting point is 00:04:37 Hey, you come around here a lot. What's going on? Yeah, it's the same conversation again and again and again Yeah, we think like I always noticed that my friend Roshan Connerty pointed this out to me. She said really really attractive people like gorgeous supermodels speak very very slowly mmm because No one has ever interrupted them. Ha ha ha Like I speak quick because I'm rocking this. I go quick come on let's get something going here. Come on. Yeah that's actually a very good point right and also you probably
Starting point is 00:05:11 value your opinion way too highly because no one would ever question your ability to form a sentence or to figure something out because they want to have sex with you. Yeah so this is how horoscopes got big. The incredibly attractive women spoke about the horoscope and no one went, this sounds like some bullshit. It's interesting you bring that up because I was just watching the Danny Jones podcast today and he had my friend Hamilton Morris on who's been on this podcast a few times and they were talking about the Reagan administration and about how the war on drugs really got started. Like this is your brain on drugs, all that stuff, Nancy Reagan's pet project.
Starting point is 00:05:49 And it was because Nancy Reagan, according to Hamilton, and he's got, he's very- I've heard this. She had like a guru, didn't she? Yes. But this is where it started. She was mocked for being like this frivolous person who was the wife of the president. And Hamilton sort of relates it to the way Melania Trump gets mocked. And you know, she apparently famously spent like an insane amount of money on new China
Starting point is 00:06:17 for the White House, like new silverware in China. And China. Oh, like dishware. Yeah, but that's how we pronounce China China in the Trump household China but it was you know wasn't a Trump household back then Reagan that's a terrible Reagan impression but so anyway she went to her psychic slash whatever it is astrologer slash whatever this kooky person is and they gave good advice they said you got to do something
Starting point is 00:06:43 to distract it so you have to have a cause. And so her cause became the war on drugs. Her cause became just say no. Right. I mean, did that work out well? I forget. How'd the war on drugs go? How are we doing? Not just that. Well, Hamilton points out how many people were arrested and how many lives were destroyed because of this decision by this one woman who was the wife of the president who was trying to cover her ass because she was looking silly in the press. I got crazy drug views.
Starting point is 00:07:15 Do you want to hear my drug views? I would love to hear your drug views. Okay. Marijuana specifically. Okay. I think marijuana should be illegal for the under 30s. I think it should be legal 30 to 50 and then I think over 50 mandatory.
Starting point is 00:07:28 That's not bad. I don't like the under 30 but I in all defense I did not start smoking marijuana until I became 30. Well I think it's that thing of like there's performance enhancing drugs right and then there's and there's there's lots of them. I mean testosterone is probably the biggest and the best, right? There's way better ones than testosterone Well, but testosterone in terms of the world, but if you look at the world like people often quote the fact that yeah most of this You know the biggest CEOs in the world are male Yeah, but also 95% the prison population is male because what testosterone gives you is its risk
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Starting point is 00:09:23 YouTube, you can get your four free months by scanning the QR code on screen or clicking the link in the description Single moms also have higher testosterone. Do you know that? I never knew that yeah women that are forced to like take care of themselves and forced to like Make all the money and run the household and take care of the children their testosterone naturally rises Yeah, also women have more testosterone than they do estrogen. That's interesting, isn't it? Wild. I never knew that until I forget who said it.
Starting point is 00:09:51 I was like, that's kind of crazy. It's that thing of like, you know, for young women, if you're talking to young women, like what would the advice be? And it's like, because young men take risks, right? But young women tend not to take the same risks, but maybe if you do more calculated risks kind of levels the playing field a little bit playing field for what game? Well, I suppose Korea what choices you make in life. I think Wonder how much crossover there is between women's decisions career paths and men's like how often are women actually? competing with obviously they do but how often
Starting point is 00:10:25 you know what I mean like if if there wasn't any societal pressure for a woman to be a career woman and a boss girl you know because there's a lot of that there's like pressure to like show that you're as good as everyone else who's also doing this and you know Sally is a CEO you should be a CEO too and there's a lot of pressure but if you just let them decide their own path how much crossover there would there be with men and women? I don't know I mean I read a lot of it's like Mary Harrington and Louise Perry he's kind of great feminist writers and they often sort of talk about this thing of like going we talk about one stage of feminism above, and there's
Starting point is 00:11:05 three, there's like, there's the maiden, which is, you know, the young woman out for a career who can do just as, they can do anything a man can do, right? Absolutely. And then there's motherhood, which a man cannot compete, but feminism doesn't really talk about motherhood that much. It's like, it's become almost like a right wing thing to like celebrate motherhood that much. It's like it's become almost like a right-wing thing to celebrate motherhood, right? And then there's what they call the crone, the older woman post-menopausal who's absolutely pivotal in our society. If you think about anyone having a crisis, just a woman comes from nowhere in her 50s or 60s and makes you a cup of tea and takes care
Starting point is 00:11:45 of you. It's like it's an incredibly, that grandmother figure is so important in our culture, in our society, and it's not celebrated enough, I don't think. No. Well, I had a bit on one of my specials back in the day about my mom. My mom actually did say this. She voted for Hillary Clinton because she said, you know, I just want a woman to be president. And I said said you already make all the people like that's it you make all the people there's 8 billion people all of them made by woman I go you want to be president to you fucking greedy bitch I'm like what else you want all the money you want all you want a bigger dick like what what do you
Starting point is 00:12:20 want you want everything we don't celebrate the craziest thing, which is women make human life. Without them, it is not possible for any of us to be here. And that is almost like inconsequential. It's like you're not even... We don't even talk about it. And the sacrifice made, the... I know, thank you for your service. We really should say that to every mom.
Starting point is 00:12:42 Thank you for your service. You're making humans, especially if you're doing a great job. If you're a solid mom, that's amazing. If you're a solid mom, think about it. The best dad in the world is what? It's a mediocre mom. If I take my kids to the playground, it's like, oh, fantastic. If mom does it, it's kind of expected.
Starting point is 00:13:02 It's already factored in. It is a weird thing that that's not factored in. Yeah. It is a weird thing, right, that that's not really celebrated in society because any of us that have had good moms, and not a, most importantly, if you have friends that have evil mothers, we were talking about a story we read on here the other day. Oh, where this young girl was being like brutally stalked
Starting point is 00:13:22 online and harassed, and it turned out it was her own mother that was doing it. Yeah and it's you you can't get over the culture. How do you psychically, how do you recover, how do you trust anyone for the rest of your life? Your own mother. So it's like there's so many people out there that are just going through so much just with family life that like a good mom a mom that like takes care of you like you don't you don't appreciate it because you think it's like you're supposed to have that but my god that's so important
Starting point is 00:13:55 it's so important and I think it's I think it is like we're more impressed with CEOs which is hilarious it's nothing right but that thing a lot being loved unconditionally yeah by your mother and I was absolutely loved unconditionally by her in such a Brilliant way and you go that it kind of gets you to self-confidence Like you know what self-confidence is gonna feel like because that's it's sort of the same feeling Right, right, right. Well, you're just accepted. Yeah. But you're enough. It's not about what you do or...
Starting point is 00:14:27 They're happy just to see you. Like, here's Jimmy, my Jimmy, give me a hug. They're so happy to see you. Yeah, that's beautiful. I mean, that's what all human beings want. From friendships, from everything. We all just want to be loved and accepted. And then all the other stuff is just lashing out because you weren't loved and accepted enough
Starting point is 00:14:46 Or it's trying to get that, you know, you know weird way a weird way Like so you're trying to be you know, you're trying to collect stuff So you get right respect and admiration rather than from what you do and then it's like the mean people like mean people Have always been hurt. There's no mean people that just had nothing but love right? That's unless there's some suck something psychotic something broken Mean people have always been hurt. There's no mean people that just had nothing but love, right? Unless there's something psychotic, something broken, like genetically broken. I think you get that from having kids as well.
Starting point is 00:15:13 Like when you have kids, you start to see everyone else says, oh, you used to be a baby. Right, absolutely. What happened? Absolutely. Yeah, well, you got bad information in a bad neighborhood with bad people around you, and a lot of crime, and there you are. Yeah. Yeah, well some you got bad information in a bad neighborhood with bad people around you and a lot of crime and there you are Yeah, yeah
Starting point is 00:15:28 That's what's always disturbed me the most about people that don't have people that have had good lives Who don't have empathy for the plight of people that are in like the total like economic? Urban struggle wait, I mean're preaching to the choir here. I think that thing of like, gratitude as the mother of all virtues, and the idea of going, we don't see how lucky we are. Because we might see it on a surface level, like of going, oh, you know, I'm lucky
Starting point is 00:15:57 because I'm healthy and I'm able to write jokes. But then you don't see the kind of the layer below that of going, well, I was born with, I think beauty's a really interesting thing, right? So you see someone and they're born beautiful. Margot Robbie and you might go, oh, she's Barbie. She's gorgeous, it's easy for her. But when you look at Oppenheimer, you don't see,
Starting point is 00:16:19 well, that guy was born with an IQ of 160 and a work ethic. Now, work ethic is heritable, largely heritable, like 70% heritable. Really? Yeah. And you don't just develop that? No, I don't think so. I think like it's, well, I mean, you develop some of it
Starting point is 00:16:34 and you know, what you inherit, what you get in your, you know, your factory settings when you come out, that's what it is. You can only work with the other stuff. So that's the interesting stuff. Factory settings you think involve work ethic? Yeah, I think so. We'll get, we'll get.
Starting point is 00:16:50 I don't think so. He's on it. I don't think, my own life is a different example. You think your work ethic is? I do think it's just, I developed it, recognizing that it's valuable. And I think a lot of it I got from martial arts. Something like my parents didn't have a work ethic. It just, especially the physical stuff, it
Starting point is 00:17:10 was never – no one in my house did anything physical. They didn't do any sports, definitely didn't do any martial arts. It wasn't inherited at all. And then the idea of pushing yourself. Well, I learned from a young age that if you work harder than everybody else, you get better. It was just like simple math. And then it was also like... It was like, it was willpower rather than your... Willpower is a funny word, because it's really just knowing that there's a value in continuing to do things you don't want to do and that there's a process and it's hard to see the process when you're
Starting point is 00:17:51 in the middle of it because it sucks and you're tired and you don't want to keep doing this it's hard to do but if you recognize oh the more I do that the better I get if you're an intelligent person if you're an objective person and analyzes all the factors that are at play You go. Okay. What is the major factor here in terms of like getting better at a thing? Well, the major factor is work like the more work you do and the harder you work and the more Intelligent you work like the more intensity and the more enthusiasm you have, you just get way better than everybody else. Well, I've always thought that that's a really interesting thing of how hard you work is
Starting point is 00:18:30 important, but what you work on is the most important. Yeah, you know, it's that thing about you were talking about horoscopes or something. It's amazing how much knowledge and information and expert someone can be in total horseshit. Total horseshit. But I think this is where we get back to the Danny Jones podcast. I think there might be something to the original astrology. I think the people that were like really studying constellations and when people were born, I have a feeling that that is some like really ancient civilization knowledge that we just have like echoes of. You know when it got kind of famous in our culture was I think it was a birth of a royal baby in about 1910 something like that. And the London Evening Standard had,
Starting point is 00:19:22 they'd ran out of things to say about a royal baby. It's cute. It's got, you know, it's got little baby fingers and baby toes. It's a Leo. Yeah. And they did that. They got, someone came in and went, oh, you know, it was born here and it's the year of the rat and it's a Virgo and that means Sagittarius rising.
Starting point is 00:19:42 And they wrote the thing. And then they realized everyone is Kind of self-obsessed and wants to read about themselves. So that's that's the one bit of the newspaper that's about you, right? So naturally people are drawn to that. Yeah, and it's like cold reading It's like the way that they word these things you go. Well that could apply to anyone, right? But it does give you a nice chance to focus on you. What about me? What's going to happen with me? Yes, but what about me? The news? Who cares about Beirut? What about me? Yeah, I think that's the, in the human condition, that's going to be a
Starting point is 00:20:16 big part of it. Of course, of course. And that's how you sell newspapers. I think the newspaper version of the horoscope is obviously nonsense at least partially I shouldn't even say obviously but I think I have not studied this and I'm not committed to this but I do think the origins the original origins of astrology were probably based on some sort of an ancient understanding of the different effects that different stars when they're in alignment have on the universe. And I think it's partially, but look, we know that the moon literally makes the tide go in and out.
Starting point is 00:20:58 The gravity of the moon affects the water. It makes the tide go in and out to the point where there's a high tide and a low tide mark at the beach. This is why I'm rehydrating now. Yeah. Because I realize I'm mainly water. Mainly water. So if we're mainly water, like how is that not affecting us? Is it? Is it affecting us in some weird way that we don't totally understand?
Starting point is 00:21:20 But the idea that a constellation a hundred million light years away could be affecting us seems a bit of a scratch. I don't think that's what the idea is. The idea is that there is an infinite number of possibilities in terms of personalities and character traits and there's an infinite number of factors. There's genetic factors, there's environmental factors, there's all these different factors. There might be cosmic factors. I don't think it's the primary source of your personality or how you feel about the world, but I think it might be a factor. And I think it was probably much more of a factor when they didn't have light pollution. I wonder, is it one of these things where it's a really interesting way to think about yourself and analyze yourself
Starting point is 00:22:07 It's like almost like I don't have religion, but I can see the benefits of it I don't think religion works because like mass doesn't work because God is happy But mass works because people come together as a yes, and they kind of they meditate and take an hour off and I sort of think the great mistake they meditate and take an hour off. And I sort of think the great mistake, the tradition I'm from is Catholicism. Me too. And the great mistake was, I think they, Vatican II, they called it. So Vatican II is where they translated the Latin into whatever your local language was and made it more accessible.
Starting point is 00:22:37 That was like the 1500s, right? Yeah. And it's such a huge mistake because the idea was to be in awe. It's something like going to churches, it should be like standing in nature. Like being in awe of something. As soon as you translate it and you go left brain and try and make it make sense, it all falls to pieces. But it's not a left brain, our whole culture is left brain.
Starting point is 00:22:58 But it should be about right brain. It should be about the kushtol, the whole thing. The idea of like, there's a mystery here. And what's that great line? God is the name we give to the blanket we throw over the mystery to give it shape. Ooh, I like that. I think that's ACDC's roadie said that.
Starting point is 00:23:16 Really? Yeah. That's amazing. But what a piece of wisdom. That's a genius piece of wisdom. But it is that thing of like, you can call it whatever you want. You can attach it to whether it's a genius piece of wisdom But it is that thing of like you can call it whatever you want Now you can attach it to whether it's horoscopes or whatever your religion is
Starting point is 00:23:29 But the idea going there is a mystery and even when you get to you know physics at the I mean I love it when you have physicists on here. I mean Eric Weinstein is one of my favorite people in the world I just think he's a he's brilliant. He's a great great guy Yeah, great guy and but you you look at that and you go and they get to the Big Bang, and you go, yeah, but what happened four minutes before that? And they go, oh, we don't know. Well, we're back to the mystery then. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:23:51 Well, there's no escaping the mystery once you get into like subatomic particles. Like what's going on there? It's also, do you need religion where you go, okay, a random selection of atoms coalesced into a form that can contemplate its own consciousness and existence for 4,000 weeks. Is that not enough? Will that not do? No, we need miracles, Jimmy. When going back to the translation of the Bibles, one of the things I want to say, I think the
Starting point is 00:24:25 reason why that was important at the time was because that power was being abused, because most people couldn't read Latin. Most people couldn't read. I mean, really, when you think about reading, the Bible was the reason. The Bible was the bestseller that people went, no, I've got to go out and read a book. I've got to get out. It was pivotal event for the Catholic Church convening from 1962 to 1965. Oh, so we're talking about a different time. So we're thinking of the second Vatican, oh no, Vatican II?
Starting point is 00:24:55 Is that what you were referring to? So that was 1962. What we're referring to is the 1500s. We're referring to like Martin Luther. Oh no, that's the Protestantism. That's the idea of the... Well, the translation of the Bibles into different language. Yeah, well the... It was because it was originally in Latin. Well, it was originally probably in Aramaic. Yeah, but the idea of the Protestantism was the idea that you've got your own relationship
Starting point is 00:25:20 with God. So it went from being Catholics and Protestants to ultimately every individual was their own church. Yeah, Martin Luther's perspective was like, it's open to interpretation by you. You should develop this relationship with God through the word and that you should read and it wasn't up to the priest to tell you what it meant. It's fascinating though, that like the that there's a law of history. There's one law in history which is unintended consequences. And the consequence of that of course is that we over solve for the individual in our culture
Starting point is 00:25:56 now. Protestantism had such a huge influence that it's all about the individual and less about the group. And it's got to be a balance of the two. But it's a response to the power structures that were really detrimental and the power structures of the church. I mean there's a reason why the priests aren't allowed to have sex. It's because they were fucking everybody because they had power. You know what happened?
Starting point is 00:26:17 What happened? Okay. The plague happened. So when the plague happened, it wiped out about a third of the population of Earth. So the plague was huge. Now it had a much worse effect on the priesthood because everyone got last rites. So when you were dying, you got last rites. So the priesthood was knocked out, like 95% of priests died.
Starting point is 00:26:41 I didn't even think of that. The standards pre the plague, the standards in the church were the smartest guy you've ever met, the smartest guy in the village, the town, the region was the priest. The smartest of the smartest guy, the most intelligent guy became the bishop and the Pope was like this guy's a genius. It was the best of the best, the creme de la creme. The standards for the priesthood post the plague Guys got all his own teeth. You're in
Starting point is 00:27:12 Like it went down and then all that thing of like their plenary indulgences where you could buy your way into heaven Mm-hmm is all you know all of that came off the back of the thing So the standards kind of went down and then it became kind of corrupted. How dirty is that one, the buying your way into heaven? Well it's, I mean, well people don't realize that. People often laugh at like the, you know, he's going to blow himself up to get 72 virgins. The Crusaders all got a fast track to heaven. Nice.
Starting point is 00:27:44 Yeah. Some guy tells you. Yeah, I've just discovered this. Yeah. Yeah. I was having a conversation with a friend of mine the other day and she was telling me that there's a list of human beings that are alive today that are being considered for priesthood. Like they have to think, excuse
Starting point is 00:28:06 me, for sainthood. For sainthood. Yeah. So they have to like go over all these different religious figures that are alive currently and decide. If they're going to be a saint. Who's going to be a saint. You know, Christopher Hitchens, the great Christopher Hitchens, right? Christopher Hitchens, literally, you ever heard the phrase the devil's advocate?
Starting point is 00:28:26 Of course. He had that job. So when Mother Teresa was made a saint by the Catholic Church, they bring someone in when they're making someone a saint in the Catholic Church in the Vatican to be the voice of the opposition. And he got the job. He played the devil's advocate for real on Mother Teresa. He wrote a book about it. I've always wondered about him
Starting point is 00:28:47 loved the guy pissed off a lot of people got cancer I Hate to be the conspiracy theorist and at the time you hate to be the conspiracy theorist. Yeah I mean, I don't know if you're familiar with your brand, but you are At the time I was like wish she didn't smoke and wish you didn't drink. Now I'm like, God, I know a lot of people smoke and drink and they live forever. What the fuck's going on? Why, why did Christopher Hitchens die so young?
Starting point is 00:29:14 But then again, why did Hicks die so young? Hicks died at like pancreatic cancer, like 33 or something. Yeah, I don't think we can relate his death to pissing people off. No, no, no, of course not. Of course not. But it's fun to do. He's quite the writer. Oh, he's genius. He was so hitch 22, and there's a there's a book that he wrote about politics the Letters to a young contrarian. Oh my god. It's like
Starting point is 00:29:35 It's it's a man those bits of it's amazing things kind of books when people write their autobiography And it's like a it just it's a gift It's just you can you can feel like you know them. Well you can also like imagine what would you do if you were living this person's life you're going through all the various stages of life you're empathizing with them you're seeing their struggles you're seeing you know they're whatever they're going through and you're like wow what would I do like wow that's great. That's why he became this way.
Starting point is 00:30:05 Oh, wow, that's amazing. And you learn a lot from other human beings when they're really open. They really let you in. Which is one of the things I think, reasons why we detest people that are very manufactured and closed off. Like, you know the newscaster,
Starting point is 00:30:24 that you're never gonna, you don't know a damn thing about those people you know why this works yeah because you go this format this it's lot there's nowhere to hide no three hours of conversation you're gonna talk about what you're gonna talk about it's gonna come up and it's that this thing of it's authentic and authenticity is what people crave oh yeah and it's it's playful and I think I mean, okay This is my big theory on life. I think play is like we don't Stop playing because we get old we get old because we stop playing. Yes And in our job is George Bernard Shaw, I think said it first anyway, but he's wrong. You get old no matter what
Starting point is 00:31:04 He's full of shit You're gonna break a hip. Yeah follow that guy's advice. You're gonna fucking roll your ankle for sure Yeah, but maybe playing twister when you're 70. Great. That's a good way to break a hip but that thing of like going play is Sort of in short supply if you think about what anyone cares about right? Like people talk about sports all the time people talk about concerts and going to see music and people love seeing comedy and they love this kind of thing but this is like play right we're playing and sports is playing and theater is playing and comedies playing and there's
Starting point is 00:31:38 not enough play in life and really I always think of that thing of like when I'm performing shows like there's an illusion that it's me performing on stage But actually everyone in the room is performing. It's a performative thing seeing show if you think about when you last saw I don't know Bruce Springsteen life and Bruce Springsteen goes how you're doing and the whole place goes. Yeah If in Starbucks someone goes, how you doing? Yeah Psychotic. You get kicked out. Right.
Starting point is 00:32:09 The audience is doing their part. They're doing their bit. And especially in our game, in comedy, because the feedback loop, everything is split tested. Everything is, how do you feel about that? And the one audience member, they don't know anything about comedy and jokes. Get a hundred of them together, genius. They know exactly what's funny, what isn't funny, what's acceptable,
Starting point is 00:32:30 where the line is, and you're getting that feedback the whole time. So like doing comedy, it's not repetition, it's iteration. It's just that you're getting a constant sort of feedback from these people. It's magnificent. It's a mind meld, right? Yeah, and people want it because they want to come out. Because it used to be we'd gather around a fire and do this, right? And then we gathered around the wireless, and we talked.
Starting point is 00:32:57 And then we gathered around the TV and did this. That's what you guys call the radio back in England? The wireless? The wireless, that was what it was called, yeah. For real? Yeah, for real, that was called the wireless. Wow. Yeah, and then, The wireless, that was what it was called. For real? Yeah, for real, that was called the wireless. Wow. Yeah, and then, you ever heard that?
Starting point is 00:33:08 No. It's the wireless, RKO, the wireless. Wireless is like cellular coverage. Yeah, and then it's the, but then it's cell phones now. And we're alienated, we're more connected and less connected than ever. And then you go out, I was in the mothership last night doing Kill Tony, and that audience were like
Starting point is 00:33:26 Church yeah, their phones in a bag. They're not constantly distracted. Yeah. Yeah, it's so much better It's it's like a lot of people don't like it because they don't like to be disconnected from their little fucking binky their blanket Whatever it is their pacifier that they have to carry around with them everywhere we did it we did a thing on holiday where we put our phones in the safe in the morning and then check them, came back and checked them in the evening. It's getting more difficult because everything, you know, the podcast you're listening to, the music, everything's hooked up to this, the pictures, the camera, everything. But if you can, oh my God, it's so relaxing. Yeah, I've talked about this before, but I broke my phone once
Starting point is 00:34:05 when I was in Hawaii. And I was on Lanai, which is a very small island. So I had to order it from Apple and then have it delivered. And it took like three days. So for three glorious days, I had no phone. And it was amazing. I was like, why don't I do this all the time? And then right back to the phone.
Starting point is 00:34:21 Hang on. You showed me just before the show, how many unanswered text messages do you have on your phone? I'll tell you right now. Yeah, I think you feel, it feels like you might be disconnected. Well, I have to be. Otherwise I'll go crazy.
Starting point is 00:34:34 610. Unanswered messages. 610, yeah. This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. It's important that you take care of yourself physically and mentally because if you refuse to get help you're not just hurting yourself you're hurting the people around you. It can impact your family, friends, even your colleagues. And you know mental health has come a long way despite all our progress though
Starting point is 00:34:58 there's still a stigma. In a recent survey 26% say they avoided seeking mental health support due to fear of judgment. This Mental Health Awareness Month, let's change that. I'm encouraging everyone to take care of their well-being and you should too. Therapy is an excellent tool that everyone can benefit from. It teaches valuable skills from how to be more self-aware, to healthier ways you can express emotions and more. If you want to be a better version of yourself, therapy is where it starts and better help
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Starting point is 00:35:52 We're all better with help. Visit betterhelp.com slash JRE to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash JRE. So I, just to keep going crazy, It's betterhelphelp.com slash JRE. Sorry, just to keep going crazy, you have to be somewhat disconnected. I've gotten good at like compartmentalizing, going, can't talk, I don't wanna talk to anybody right now.
Starting point is 00:36:18 Just put it aside. And then that creates problems, cause then you get needy friends like, everything okay? Like how come you didn't respond? Like, I got a hundred messages. I can't respond. Well, you need, sometimes you need peace more than you need attention. You just got to know your own brain.
Starting point is 00:36:35 You got to know when you're overloaded. And I know where it is. I know like my overheat switch. I start to sweat. All right, I'm too hot. Turn the AC on you know I mean, so I have that same sense in my brain. I need boredom Mmm. I need a little bit of boredom. I had this thing recently thought about boredom is
Starting point is 00:36:55 unappreciated serenity Like travel like I'm traveling a lot of the moment. I'm on tour and sometimes you're in an airport There's nothing much going on and just chill just chill just sit yeah that's something pop it and live yeah isn't interesting that's like for creative types especially that's very valuable to be able to have some time where you just come up with ideas but instead you just flood them with nonsense car car accidents, boobs and fast cars. Just get bombarded with- Trevor Burrus Over-stimulated.
Starting point is 00:37:30 David Kopel Very little of it gets in. If I think about, like if I listen to a book on tape, like a very interesting book on tape, that's one thing. But if I'm just like doom scrolling, like how much good get, how much like, if I spend five hours of just looking at social media and looking at YouTube, what amount of good stuff is in there? Is there even 20 minutes of really fascinating shit that I absorb in the entire day? Are you familiar with that, the concept of Lindy books? Yes.
Starting point is 00:38:03 Like the idea of like how long something's been around is how long it's going to be around. So most stuff on the internet was produced in the last 24 hours and will be entirely forgotten in 24 hours. No one ever goes, oh I got to show you my favorite TikTok from two years ago. Right. It just doesn't happen. It's like if they do they're crazy. Yeah it's disposable. Oh now I got to get away from you. Yeah, you want to show me old tic-tacs You're fucking psycho. Yeah, it's like but it's that's the nature of it. It's right, right But like it's crime and punishment is not addictive You know the book. Yeah, you know, but Twitter is
Starting point is 00:38:39 Yeah, fascinating, right? Isn't it fascinating? Well, it's something like very valuable some amazing piece of literature is not addictive you know, I wonder Yeah, I wonder with that. I wonder is it the that thing of? Orders Huxley like the idea that brave new world Our power won't be taken from us by some overlords like in 1984, we'll give away our power for cheap dopamine. And the problem with the world is there's a lot of cheap dopamine on offer.
Starting point is 00:39:15 So doom scrolling, it's the same as in a casino. But then there's real joy if you go out and see live comedy. I think what we're, we're drug dealers, right? And the two drugs, it's dopamine and serotonin. And the dope means you don't quite know where the punch line is coming. You know there's a punch line, but you don't know quite where it's gonna be.
Starting point is 00:39:35 And then there's the serotonin, the joy of laughter as well. And then you can get a fake version online or video games are like a proxy for the career that the kid isn't having. Right. There's levels and layers and then a big boss at the end. It couldn't be a clear analogy or porn is a proxy for love and sex. It's like that we go for the easy option. Yeah. But actually when you work for it it's just better. Right. The thing is the easy options available instantaneously. It's very difficult to go fight in war, but you can play Call of Duty right now.
Starting point is 00:40:10 You just sit in front of your computer and then you're playing. So this cheap version might keep you from having a life of adventure because it spoon-feeds you bullshit versions of reality that are very addictive. Okay. So back to your work ethic. So the idea that you don't do that. You spend time doing difficult things. Yeah. Like the I got the cold plunge thing from listening to you. I was kind of interested in it and kind of chatted with friends. I tried it and loved it but you're putting yourself in a very uncomfortable
Starting point is 00:40:45 situation in order for benefits later. Yes. It's a kind of a sacrifice you make in the moment for something later. What draws us to that? What makes us do that? The process. So knowing that other people are completing this process and having positive results and sort of investing a little bit of time into it it either out of boredom or curiosity or whatever.
Starting point is 00:41:07 And then you realize, oh, this is real. Like this is real in terms of like fitness. Like if you want to start running, you want to run a marathon, you're like, that's impossible. I can't even run around the block. Well, if you run around the block three days in a row, you're going to get better at running around the block. And if you keep that up for a couple months, you're like, holy shit I'm getting around this block pretty easy now
Starting point is 00:41:26 And then you start expanding your runs and the next thing you know running a couple miles a day The next thing you know, you're entering into a 5k and the next thing You know you're running a half marathon and then you look back on that day where you couldn't even run around the block and you thought Running was impossible. So there's a process and there's a process of improvement but that process requires you to be uncomfortable and most people are unwilling to be uncomfortable. So if you are willing to be uncomfortable you will bypass most human beings in everything you do. Yeah it's also it's that thing of like we like that prioritizing now yeah seems to be the if can prioritize later, if you can sort of Chris Williamson.
Starting point is 00:42:07 Delay gratification. Yeah. Well, Chris Williamson's got this great thing. We were chatting about it, me and George Mack and him. Love that guy. It's amazing. He's great. He's the best.
Starting point is 00:42:17 But that thing of like 24 hours ahead, we've all got to serve someone in life. You've got to serve. And serving yourself in 24 hours is pretty good because it's it's that thing of like Booze is the best example like drinking is you're borrowing happiness from tomorrow. Yeah, right So that in a very simple way, you know, like the reason also it's like predatory credit card rates Like the kind of rates you get when you go to college and they give you a credit card You're a moron and they get like 39% interest or something like that. Something crazy, yeah.
Starting point is 00:42:46 That's what it's like. It's like you're not just borrowing money. Like your body's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm going to need more. I'm going to need more than you spent. Yeah. I find that thing of like the, it's whenever I feel anxious or depressed or any of those things, I always sort of think it's invariably with me, it's a hardware not a software problem. So it's like okay have I slept? Have I exercised? Have I eaten correctly? It's a good way to put it, hardware, software. And then you go okay this is a
Starting point is 00:43:16 hardware problem but it's so hard to fix that when you're depressed. It's so hard to like it's like it's all very well for us to go well you know go for a run and do some exercise and have a cold plunge. It's so difficult when you're depressed. It's so hard to like, it's like, it's all very well for us to go, well, you know, go for a run and do some exercise and have a cold plunge. It's so difficult when you're in that I'm very empathetic to that state. And I wonder, does it help that we slightly pathologize, you know, in our language, we say depressed and anxious, not sad and worried. I want I mean, I think for some people, it's a listen, you don't want to, you don't want to be trivialized mental health problems. But you you go sometimes it's just the human condition We're gonna worry about stuff. Certainly. You don't want to trivialize mental health issues. However You also
Starting point is 00:43:56 Understand that there's a tremendous benefit to being physically active that is actually better than SSRI statistically speaking. So what do you prescribe? Is it better to prescribe drugs, or is it better to be real with a person and say, I know this is uncomfortable, but this is what you're going to have to do. And it sucks, but it sucks for everybody.
Starting point is 00:44:18 And everybody has a test in life, and this is your test. Your test in life, you know, your test in life is not to try to win the Super Bowl. Your test in life is try to get up and not eat garbage today and drink a bunch of water and have some exercise. This is your test in life. Yeah. And it's not easy. It's well, the issue is that you want to be, I think kindness is in a kindness is, it's
Starting point is 00:44:42 the most wonderful thing. And here's the problem with kindness. There's a lot of kindness in the moment. Like, I've got kids, you've got kids, right? Your kids want, what do they wanna do? They wanna eat McDonald's and they wanna watch TV. But, and you wanna be kind in the moment, but you're gonna have fat, stupid kids.
Starting point is 00:44:59 Of course. So you go, well, let's have some healthy food and let's read some books and let's run around outside and maybe they don't want to do that now, but you've got to be kind to their potential. And then you kind of obviously, you know, that kind of teaches you that and then you kind of have to apply it to yourself because you go, well, they're not going to pay attention to what I say. They're just going to watch what I do. Sure.
Starting point is 00:45:23 But then, you know, individuals that are struggling, you know, the problem is if you don't know them, you don't know, like, what are they going through? Is this nonsense or is this, like, really serious? Like, if they had a really fucked up life or are they just really self-indulgent and lazy? Like, what are we dealing with here? Like, what are we dealing with? Are we dealing with, we dealing with like tremendous depression because of like physical and sexual abuse and beatings and violence in the house are we dealing with that or are we dealing with some kid who
Starting point is 00:45:55 Their parents doted on them too much and that maybe the parents were super negative, which is very That is is very contagious like if you have like very negative family members and then everybody in the family is always complaining it's always something's wrong and someone did something to them and it's oh yeah there's no joy I don't think I don't realize and maybe you do I don't think you realize how much you help people I'm like having these conversations on here they help me I think they help all of us. We're all human beings. We all go through weird shit just being a person. Yeah, it's not easy. And but having these conversations and I think there's something about you specifically, like the martial arts stuff, the it's a very alpha thing. And then your stand up-up comedian and very admired by your peers and you can have
Starting point is 00:46:47 Conversations about this stuff and I think it really cuts through to a group that wouldn't hear that I mean for me that that thing that you're saying there is about it's about agency and empathy and yeah I think there's a problem in our society that we give agency to people we don't like And we give empathy to people we don't like and we give empathy to people that we do like you know so if there's like a right-wing Nazi rally we say they knew what they were doing we give them agency right punished them or Elon Musk with the Hitler salute right okay so we say he knew what he was doing okay and then if we really like someone, we give them empathy and... Yes, that's a great example.
Starting point is 00:47:27 And sympathy. And the issue is we need to give everyone both because you go, look, no one is going to care about you more than you. You need to take responsibility for this. And you need to... It's very, very tough because you want to be, you want to give that agency and empathy to everyone. To give them the tools to have a better life. Yeah, and the more happy people are, the more happy people there will be. It'll expand. It's not like, it's not one plus one equals two.
Starting point is 00:48:03 It just, it's exponential, it accelerates. The more people are happy and enjoying their life, the more you will enjoy your life. And that's just part of a community. It's the natural human reward system that's set up to make sure that we all get along together and we continue to procreate and have a wonderful society until we meld with the machine, which is coming any day now.
Starting point is 00:48:25 I hope you're ready. I don't know. You want to hear my hot take on AI? I would love to. All right. My hot take on AI is we were not made in God's image, but we so wanted there to be a God, we made one in our image. So if you think about the attributes of AI, it's all-knowing, all-powerful, can perform miracles, it lives in a cloud.
Starting point is 00:48:49 Sorry, is that God or AI? Wow. Yeah, it's interesting. So at the moment- Especially emerging, it's an emerging God. Well, it's- It's not even done growing yet. At the moment, it's the Oracle of Delphi. It's like a 10-year-old right now though. It's not even an adult. Yeah and then where's it going to? Yeah. So the idea of like the interesting thing about AI is it's the the gap between me and who's the smartest guy we know, Eric Weinstein. Mm-hmm. Used to be enormous and the gap is getting smaller because AI can just I can ask it. Yeah, yeah bitch I got all the answers right here. Yeah. It's weird what's going on you know I had a gag about it about you know like a bit about in our universities you know the students are using AI to write their essays and then the tutors are using AI to mark the essays
Starting point is 00:49:36 and then after three years AI gets the job. It actually seems very fair. Yeah it's probably what's going to happen. What you're saying is very funny. It's like, it is accurate though. It does seem to resemble a god. Well, I wonder... Do you know who Marshall McLuhan is? Of course, the Canadian...
Starting point is 00:49:56 One of the great lines of all time. "...human beings are the sex organs of the machine world." Yeah. Oh, I get like tingles. organs of the machine world. Yeah. Oh, I get like tingles. Yeah, that one gives, and I think that I gave a shortened version of it. I think it's even longer, but it's fascinating.
Starting point is 00:50:16 Because it's so, never more true than today. Never more true. Like if we are really giving birth to AI, this is. Well, I wonder what will change. I wonder. I'm very optimistic. Right. So 120 years ago, 95 percent of the population worked in agriculture and they worked 16 hours a day. And it was a very, very tough life.
Starting point is 00:50:38 And then we moved to the cities and we worked in factories and, you know, the unions unions they don't get the credit they deserve they gave us the weekend oh yeah and now we think human beings work five days and we have two days off that's how that's the world right but it's it's different it's changing now it's like it's gonna change again and we'll look back and go I mean we're incredibly privileged that we're born right now and And here it is. Man becomes, as it were, the sex organs in the machine world
Starting point is 00:51:09 as the bee of the plant world enable it to fecundicate and evolve ever new forms. Oh, fecundate, rather. Machine world reciprocates man's love by expediting his wishes and desires, namely in providing him with wealth. It's not as eloquent as as I think you organs. I think I think I think you nailed it. Didn't you my version of it's a little better Come on, it's his words. I think we're the electronic caterpillar that's gonna become a butterfly. That's what I think I think we're giving birth to a new form of life. That's what I think we're thing with
Starting point is 00:51:43 That book the beginning of infinity. I can't get over that. What book is that? Who wrote that? It's Beginning infinity. I think it's David Deutsch And it's the can you yeah, you show they have the beginning of the book So the the idea of the beginning of infinity is that if we can get through this Phase in humanity, right? There's been 100 billion people so far, 110 billion, there's 9 billion at the moment, 8 billion, 9 billion, if we can get through this, if we can get off planet, maybe there are trillions of people in the future, trillions. Maybe humanity spreads out across the galaxies and the universe for the next 13 billion years.
Starting point is 00:52:25 Like the idea that if we can get through this now, this little phase that we're in, we're having a little bit of difficulty here with a couple of possible problems. And if we can get through it, like the scientific meme, the idea that we've created these machines, but really through science. Like the technology that we have is brilliant. And if we can negotiate, if we can have a little bit of peace in the world. Avoid the war, yeah. If we can avoid the war.
Starting point is 00:52:56 And really, avoiding the war I think is possible. I think the most, all right, here's the take. I think the most incredible piece of technology that we have I'm very optimistic about the world Like you could look at the state of the world and go it's terrible But I look at like I look at America. I look at the UK and I look at the footfall So what do people want to come? Well, they want to come and they want to live here, right? And what's the most important piece of technology in America? I would argue the Constitution
Starting point is 00:53:27 mmm, the Constitution you just sort of don't think of it as a piece of technology, but it really is and It's allowed all of this. It's an operating system. It's a brilliant operating system and you can prove that culture is downstream of Institutions and freedom because you go look at okay. Here's the great examples, right? East and West Germany, North and South Korea, right? exactly the same people like exactly the same culturally and They got this system. They got this system East and West Germany. You got the starzy over here Hell on earth North Korea, whatever the fuck is going on there, right? And then you get South Korea I mean flourishing right incredible culture you get West Germany
Starting point is 00:54:09 Cuba and Miami yeah, yeah 90 miles away, but okay, so here's the thing how many people in the world now nine billion eight billion It's a lot something right half a billion Get okay, so there's there's the UK, there's the US, there's Canada, there's Australia. Okay. They're all, I mean, ex British colonies. Yeah. Yeah. I'll go. I'll take the win. But but those institutions, those institutions are set up in a certain way that's allowed a flourishing where people want to come here. Yeah, okay, so either We accept nine billion people into our countries or we export our
Starting point is 00:54:55 Institutions, I think we should be we should be writing Or coming up with great constitutions for nations that we want to see in the future You and I think very much alike. I've said the same thing. I said the thing, the highlight when people are talking about immigration into this country, one of the big ones is wouldn't you do this if you were in another world? Of course, of course I would. If I lived in the third world country and I had a chance to make a better life and come to America, 100% I would do it. But the real question is why is it so bad over there and what can we do to make that better? Instead of bringing them in here to make their lives better, why not
Starting point is 00:55:34 make the whole world, it's possible to make the whole, the only problem with that is you lose your cheap labor. Okay. Well, I mean, it's the right wing in America that, you know, the idea of going, okay, we're going to get rid of the southern border to bring in cheap labor is a crazy idea because all we're doing is where, you know, we outsource our... And this problem has been what is, was ever thus. George Orwell was once asked, what do you think of the British working classes? And he said, they live in India.
Starting point is 00:56:03 He's a Smart guy. But you go, that globalization, the idea of going... Along with tech help. But it's the idea if we go, we often export our the things that we're conscious about. So we go, okay so we shut down all the coal mines in the UK and now we import coal. Okay. Is that, I mean, it's one world we live in. They're not even under union rules. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:56:31 Yeah, so you're getting unethically sourced coal. It's the whole of humanity matters. It's the, Derek Parfitt's that brilliant guy who is a philosopher, he wrote this brilliant thing called Reasons and Persons. Brilliant book, and it's kind of about that idea that you've got to care about humanity temporally and spatially. You've got to care about people in the future and you've got to care about people everywhere. And the idea of you go, look, we've got to make the places people are fleeing from livable.
Starting point is 00:57:00 And I think we have proved over the last 50 years, regime change is not what we're great at. So it comes down to- We're gonna get it right one of these days. Just give it a chance. It's like the first car wasn't a good car either, but now we have really good cars. It just takes time, Jimmy. Sure, sure, sure.
Starting point is 00:57:19 We just need to practice more. Here's what I think it is, agency and empathy, on a global scale. So it's like giving those nations that are in horrific trouble and that no one seems to care about agency. But maybe it's that thing of like going the American Constitution. I don't know where it was written, but it was like, I think it was like intellectuals from around the world were like chipping in with ideas and they came up with this incredible
Starting point is 00:57:47 Document and look at the flourishing that's come out of it. Look at what it's achieved like imagine if Imagine if something like that happens in China Imagine in our lifetime that they go with a different system and it's more because at the moment China is kind of you know It's a covers band. You know it doesn't it takes a lot of intellectual property and it has its own version of Facebook and its own version of Google and its own version of but it doesn't. What is it about America that that allows this entrepreneurial spirit that allowed Silicon Valley to happen. Well they've got an interesting approach because they still have a very entrepreneurial spirit as well.
Starting point is 00:58:27 They've got a weird sort of merging of communism and capitalism. It's state-run capitalism, but they still have insane innovation. China's technological innovation is probably greater than ours in a lot of areas, in the areas of electric vehicles for sure, in the areas of drones for sure. I don't know if you saw this, but there was some sort of a mothership drone that they're going to launch that is this enormous vehicle that drones can launch off of. Okay, I mean this feels like yeah it's dangerous it's like they they have some spectacular drone capabilities
Starting point is 00:59:13 and they also have electric cars that if you don't follow these obscure car review people online that review Chinese electric cars you'd have no idea these cars are insane they have cars that do like a 360 like it'll sit there parked and it'll just spin in a circle if you want to so if you want to take a u-turn instead of having to go all the way around your car would just spin around in a circle and go back the other way weird stuff man like insane technology inside the vehicles like spectacular looking cars yeah they're they're on the verge of you know passing us in many areas because there's a lot of regulation in regards to drone technology in particular in this country if you want to be a drone pilot. Is that gonna
Starting point is 01:00:04 is that gonna change now? I don't know. Ukraine I mean that's the first drone drone technology in particular in this country, if you want to be a drone pilot. Is that going to change now? I don't know. Post Ukraine? I mean that's the first drone war. I don't know. It's all scary. The drone thing is weird because if you allow everyone to have drones, you get that sometimes
Starting point is 01:00:18 where you see people dealing with drones over their house. Is that legal? Can you just fly over my fucking house with a drone? Turns out it is. turns out it is legal well how much of it as well like I mean I'm talking to the right guy here but how much of the alien stuff that we watched in the 1950s and 60s was that technology being tested in America so this is the drone mothership this is the drone mothership that China's created so this is enormous ship that can send thousands of drones.
Starting point is 01:00:48 Do you think it would be sensible for you and I to pledge allegiance to the Chinese Communist Party now? Sort of on the record? We should learn Mandarin. Just in case. I think it's a good time to learn Mandarin. I think John Cena was right. Look at that. 25 meters wide. Wow. That's wild. That's big. Yeah. I mean, it feels like the... It's a quarter of a football field. I don't know. So, it's war is changing, isn't it? I mean, it's... Yeah. But it used to be... I suppose it's always changed. It was. It used to be guys in, you
Starting point is 01:01:21 wear blue, we'll wear red, we'll line up and then we'll just smash it out and there was... Those days were over. But there was no civilian casualties, it kind of worked and then there's guerrilla warfare and there's what's going on now and there's the drones and... Yeah. Okay, here's a weird question, alright? Okay. Okay, so the assassination of JFK, people are absolutely fascinated, right? Sure. And what's been released and what no one seems to care about the guy that shot Trump I think they do too but there was very little information it's available and we're we're hoping there will be more information now that Kash Patel and Dan Bongino are in the FBI
Starting point is 01:02:01 but I'm not I saw them recently talk about Epstein and they're saying that Epstein was, he definitely committed suicide. I'm like, definitely? Well, because especially, but like Bongino. But you know, that it's the terrible kind of the lag from COVID. The long COVID from a psychological perspective is trust. We've lost a lot of trust because anyone that said it was a lab leak at the time was a maniac. So you go when they tell us, oh no, no, we commit suicide, you go, well, it's hard to believe now. Yeah. Well, it's way worse than... It was a concerted effort that was coordinated and you could follow the paper trail now.
Starting point is 01:02:47 Like what used to be a conspiracy theory is now just facts. Like, you know, there was one thing that came out where... What's the difference between a conspiracy theory and a fact? It's five years now. Find out who did... It was Yale. Yale did a study before the vaccine was even released where they were running the effects of shaming people to try to coerce them into taking a medication to decrease vaccine hesitancy. And I think they were running terms like trust the science.
Starting point is 01:03:27 It's crazy because it's the baby in the bathwater because they did that and then you go, and then there's gonna be more measles in America and more kids wearing glasses that thick and going deaf from measles because they're not taking the good vaccine. So for me me it's like that idea of trust is such a you know when we talk about institutions and the
Starting point is 01:03:50 Constitution and the checks and balances and we need trust in our society. That's one of the great things that came out of again that's the Catholic Church. Well the real problem in this country when it comes to things like vaccines is we have narratives. And we either have narratives that all of them are bad, or we have narratives that all of them are good, and trusting the science. It gets strange. And then when the real problem in this country happened, when they absolved all pharmaceutical drug companies from any sort of liability for vaccines. And they did that
Starting point is 01:04:25 because vaccines have side effects. Even if they are effective, they have side effects. It's part of the good and bad about them. There's going to be some people that have... So they were getting so many lawsuits that they were threatening to no longer produce vaccines. So during the Reagan administration, he gave them blanket immunity and then they started doing things like prescribing hepatitis B shots to babies, which doesn't make any fucking sense. It's a sexually transmitted disease you get from dirty needles and sex and you're giving that vaccine to babies and it's kind of dangerous. And they did it because people weren't taking it. And so then you get a thing where you're just trying to profit more and because you you get a thing where you're just trying
Starting point is 01:05:05 to profit more and because you have this blanket immunity, you're taking advantage of this position, which is what corporations do. Yeah, I mean, they're motivated by profit. Here's the simple solution, like super simple. Ban advertising for medications. 100%. It's New Zealand and America that
Starting point is 01:05:27 allow pharmaceuticals to be advertised. 100%. And you go, well what are we doing? It's unnecessary. Well the real dark part of that is not that people get influence to try these medications or to trust in these medications because of the advertisement. The real problem is it's such an immense part of the network's revenue that they will no longer do investigations on vaccine side effects or pharmaceutical drug side effects or do stories about things like Vioxx
Starting point is 01:05:57 that get pulled from the market for killing 50,000 plus people. We've got to motivate those companies, right? It can't just be the profit because it's like the thing that I worry about is antibiotics, right? So antibiotics are what an incredible piece of technology, right? People used to die from a fucking rusty nail, snagged them, and they would die, right? So modern medicine has given, we have to look at what's, what the positive side is.
Starting point is 01:06:20 There's an immense positive side. Oh my God. Listen. You're talking to a man in his 50s with a hair transplant I've had a bit of work done Don't even start me on the Viagra. I've got a lot to be thankful for for medical science. Yeah So I a big farmer great They've done a lot of good and then and then but other stuff the the antibiotics
Starting point is 01:06:39 But there's there's there's things that are resistant now to antibiotics. They need new antibiotics But there's nothing in it for the pharmaceutical companies to invest in that. So I think that at a governmental level needs to be, look, give them the money to do it. Right. If you have oversight to make sure it's not fraud and waste, and that is a problem when you give people money. But what you're saying is 100% true.
Starting point is 01:07:02 There's undeniable good that comes from pharmaceutical drugs. The problem is not scientists and not medical science. So you have medical scientists that are constantly trying to figure out new ways to stop Parkinson's disease, new ways to cure cancer. All this is wonderful. But then you have the money people. How do we get this out there? And how do we maybe we get this out there before it's ready? Maybe you just fucking tell people it's ready
Starting point is 01:07:28 when it's not. Maybe you fudge a few tests. Maybe you run some really fucking sneaky studies where you're only analyzing things in a certain very particular lens because you want them to be shown to be effective. But you go, look, you know, and I don't mind people, if someone comes up with a cure for cancer. They should profit. I don't mind. They could be a trillionaire.
Starting point is 01:07:50 But the thing is, they're never satisfied. When you have a publicly traded company, they never are satisfied. They never go, guys, we're doing great. If we just make this amount of money every year, that's wonderful. Let's just hang back. I think our profits are very high. Let's do good. Let's just like let's hang back. I think our profits
Starting point is 01:08:05 are very high. Let's do good. Let's try to do the most amount of good. No no no corporations. It's an interesting thing where socialism has become such a dirty word. But everyone agrees to some extent right. There's areas of life. Sure. Where you go where there has to be a level of socialism. So... Contribution. We have to contribute. Okay, the fire service is great.
Starting point is 01:08:29 I use that same one all the time. But you go, everyone agrees, right? Okay, if your house burns down, okay, we're going to have a fire service and it comes and it's not like, oh, we don't take care of that. Public education. Well, I think education, I think we could get there sooner because you look at some of the stuff that's available online now and it's just incredible. It's there. I mean, I slightly think on education that we should do the right thing, right? Instead of pumping the economy by printing more money and quantitative
Starting point is 01:08:58 easing, I think America and the UK should cancel all student debt because we miss old people some bullshit degrees right 100% and the idea that student debt right so you're taking those people that took a chance and they went to university and they gave their time and they studied hard and there's there's a theory that woke came out of elite overproduction. So people did everything right. They went to school, they studied hard. They went to university, they studied hard. They got a degree.
Starting point is 01:09:32 And then they can't buy a house. They can't because maybe the degree doesn't grow corn. It's not in a STEM subject. It's in the humanities or something. And then they don't get the lifestyle that they worked hard for I think we cancel Their debt. I mean, I don't want to sound like a communist here, but free education is not crazy because it's not crazy It's an asset to your society
Starting point is 01:09:54 If you say look universities subsidized business in America at least it's a giant subsidized business They're not gonna let it go the reason why there's a really strong reason why it's the one debt you cannot absolve in America, even with bankruptcy. Why? Because it's a scam. It's the dirtiest thing ever because look, if you're a 45-year-old man who's taken a lot of risks with your business and you go bankrupt, you're absolved. But you're an educated person with a lot of life experience and you did risky things and
Starting point is 01:10:27 you failed, you're allowed to go bankrupt. But if you're an 18-year-old kid and you assume of $200,000 four-year loan to go to Harvard, you got to pay that forever, for the rest of your life. And it gets interest. It compounds. It's evil. I can't see the downside in it because you go this is the richest nation not just in the world, the richest nation there's ever been and you go an investment in and maybe you change it and you go well actually university is a lot more difficult to get into now because
Starting point is 01:11:00 it's going to be free so it's going to be like it's going to be super difficult to get in there. It's still difficult to get into even if it's expensive. Right now it's going to be free. So it's going to be like it's going to be super difficult to get in there. It's still difficult to get into. Even if it's expensive right now it's not easy to get into like Yale or Harvard. It's very difficult to get into it. That's not going to help you. The real problem is always going to be the fact that you're paying so much money when you're too young to know what that even means. You're too young to be connected to $50,000 debt
Starting point is 01:11:25 when you're 18. You don't know what it means. You're 18 years old. You don't know what that kind of debt means and the fact that it's going to follow you around forever and haunt you. But also it's the middle class and upper class kids that can take on that kind of debt. Right. And the working class kids. And there's more of the haves and have nots forever. But education was the great kind of equalizer, right? Because it was you
Starting point is 01:11:47 were able to change your social class through, you know, if you go to school and you work hard, you go, well, education should be, listen, I'm not saying that there can be equality because I think we're all born with different gifts, right? Yes. You and I disagree about work ethic, but the idea that we're all born with different attributes, right? Yes. You and I disagree about work ethic, but that the idea that we're all born with different attributes, right? So there's never going to be equality. But the opportunity to educate yourself and to and to do better is like that that's sort of part of the American dream, isn't it? I don't even think we disagree about work ethic. I think it can be acquired as well. I'm sure it's probably heritable in
Starting point is 01:12:22 some way. It's probably very cultural too. But I think you learn it too. Well I think you've learned it. I think that thing of, I think what you've done in martial arts, how you do anything is how you do everything. I look at what you've done with the mothership, I look at your comedy career, I look at how you treat your body. Everything's the same. It's the same. You've got a work ethic that's very consistent across different fields. How you do the podcast. Have you missed a week? Ever?
Starting point is 01:12:51 Like, you're just very consistent with stuff. Well, that's the key to getting better at things in life. It's just, it's not always fun. And this is what people have to understand. You're not always going to enjoy what you do if you have a process. I'm doing my best here Joe, sorry. Yeah, you're doing great. The process at the end of it though is what you're looking for. You're looking for results. And if you want to, the people that can get results are the ones that can go through the most difficulty.
Starting point is 01:13:17 Well, I think yeah, that thing of what you're, and then you just sort of enjoy, I don't know, I think that thing of ambition, like, the process is so enjoyable. The process of like becoming a better comic is such a joyful experience where you just go, at the end of every show, I take out a note pad and try new jokes. And you just go, that iteration of like getting better and you know, a new one works, it's the most exciting thing in the world yeah absolutely love it and you kind of go and it's I forget if it's tealock or anti-tealock I don't really
Starting point is 01:13:54 know what that but it's a task without end it's just you keep on doing this thing yes and it's just and you just there's no end in sight mm-hmm you there's no it's not like you're arriving at this perfect state. Yeah. It's the, I suppose it's the idea that it's kind of messy, but it's lovely to kind of, you feel yourself progressing. And you should enjoy the process.
Starting point is 01:14:16 The process of uncomfortable feelings and a little bit of pre-show anxiety and then doing the show and then things go great or things go badly. Sometimes things go badly is even better because then it forces you to really intensely look at the set and like, okay, why did that joke bomb?
Starting point is 01:14:36 What went wrong here? What is it about it that it's, let me deconstruct this thing. Do I have, if I've been doing it this way out of habit? I think there's something in the idea it's worked before, so what is wrong? And it'll make you like put much much more attention to a thing. Yeah I think that, well I think that thing in comedy, like failure is your friend. Oh yeah.
Starting point is 01:14:57 Failure is, you kind of, you make friends with it and you're kind of okay with it. Yeah. And then in life it's like you're able to take chances and kind of mess things up and go, it's alright, give it. Yeah. And then in life, it's like you're able to take chances and kind of mess things up and go, it's all right, give it another go. Yeah. Yeah. There's that's the martial arts thing we win or we learn. Yeah, when you win, you kind of learn that the process is going well, you know, that you have competence, you're good at it now. And then that motivates you to continue the process. But losing is like so horrible that you have to like completely reassess what you're doing. And oftentimes you amp up your intensity and amp up your dedication because you don't want to feel the pain of losing again.
Starting point is 01:15:37 The same with the bombing set. Like some of my if I look back on my early career in comedy some of the big leaps I had it was after horrific bombings like a year in or so you have a horrific bombing and then you go oh my god I might not even be able to do that I got a really fucking focus because Bryan Simpson said something really funny the other night in the green room he said the thing about being a comedian is you can't be a shitty boss and a shitty employee. Oh yeah I was like oh you just nailed it. Brian's one of those guys he drops those gems like that. He'll just like out of nowhere. Like you gotta always listen when that guy is ready to drop a gem. That's a gem because as a comic no one's telling you what to do.
Starting point is 01:16:21 You're responsible for yourself. It's interesting. I did Kill Tony last night with Tony Hinchliffe, who's at once the meanest motherfucker in the world and also the kindest man in comedy. Because you look at the careers that he's launching. Every three, four weeks, he's launching a new name, and then they're touring, and they're playing clubs, and they're having a great time. It's that thing of you can't beat your environment. So to be around people not just that you like but that you want to be like. So you're creating this little thing, this little space like the mothership's got this little community around it now of people
Starting point is 01:17:00 that they want to get better and they're looking around and it's, you know, and you came here because Ron White was here, right, I mean, in no small part. A big part. And then you built this thing and it's, it's field of dreams. Look how many people are coming and then I'm very excited to see in 20 years who comes out of this scene.
Starting point is 01:17:21 I've just, I actually flew in on Sunday to go down and see Chappelle. So I I went to see his new club in Yellow Springs Heard it's great. I mean it's insane, but that club only exists when he's there, right? Yeah, I think it's only like he runs shows when he wants to run shows. I think it's gonna become Yeah, something more than that. I think it's I think that's what he's he's planted a seed there Yeah, and I think it's gonna grow and it's a small town, but it's a town with a lot of pull. It's almost too beautiful a town, Yellow Springs.
Starting point is 01:17:51 You kind of walk through and go, it's like the Stepford Wives. It's like so perfect. You know who he's got playing this weekend? Who? The whole of the Wu-Tang Clan. Okay, no. It's a 220 seater, okay?
Starting point is 01:18:04 I think it may be one of the few occasions where more people are on stage than off stage. The audience may be smaller than the band. Yeah, Wu Tang can stack it in there. That should be wild. That'd be amazing. Yeah, but that's Dave. He draws people. He's a magnet, you know? He really is. Yeah, he's a beautiful person. Very very unusual human being. I don't know anybody like him. No, he's a...
Starting point is 01:18:30 He's a unique... Well, as are you. You're non-fungible human beings. There's no one else you go, he's a bit like that. No, it's just his own thing. It's a wonderful thing. There's a real, I think in comedy, that thing where we're out for ourselves, but in it together.
Starting point is 01:18:48 Alan Havy told me that. I remember thinking, it's kind of true, because we're all in this business, and there's like, sometimes you see comics arguing, or shit talking other comics online, or something, you go, what are you doing? There's the narcissism of small differences, where people go, oh I don't
Starting point is 01:19:05 like his observational stuff or he's hacky or something. You go, we're all in the same business. Yeah most of those people are just jealous. That's just a pettiness. It's always people that they think have success that they don't deserve. No one ever hates you for doing worse than them. Exactly. Yeah. It's all silly. It's really silly. It's foolish and unfortunately some of them are good comics do that are doing It's like they put that don't have any friends. They're islands, right? and one of the ways that I describe comics I go you're either like a village or an island and Villages do way better than islands. So an island is a man on his own out there
Starting point is 01:19:40 Did just his own shows and doesn't has an opening act and doesn't hang out with comics. There's a lot of those guys and unfortunately they have the same opening act that that guy that becomes his job he's just an opening act now and he only works when he works with the headliner and then they travel around the country and the guy never and then you watch the act deteriorate you watch the act start to fall apart and get softer. This is what you know it's the great thing you've done is thrown down a rope bridge. You're up there and you throw down the bridge and you bring people with you. Well what we did is create a real workshop in a real community where there's an actual path.
Starting point is 01:20:19 Like there's a path from open mic night, which we have two nights a week, to becoming a door person where you can get spots occasionally and you'll be watched by the best talent coordinator in the world Adam Adam Egan he's the best he's the best he's in Hawaii this week I'm missing him oh well he'll be back no he's coming to London to see Oasis with me oh is he really oh wow that should be incredible oh we're gonna don't they hate each other they hate each other with their touring together no alligators yeah but I think there's a I think there's a lot of money There's a there's a amount of money you can put down and go you should get no on this show
Starting point is 01:20:52 I would love to know Liz so fun. I love them. I love them but so the back to the mothership the thing about it is We we set it up to be a place where people can develop and show them a path. And then there's Kill Tony, which is the perfect anchor of the entire community. Because with Kill Tony, you get to watch people that do their first time ever on stage, or maybe they came from Seattle, they've been kind of struggling for five years, and they do a one minute on stage, and all of a sudden they get a Golden Ticket, and then all of a sudden they become a regular on the show and then all of a sudden they're selling out all over the country
Starting point is 01:21:28 And then you're in this group of people that are like really enthusiastic about this art form that I think is one of the most Under-appreciated yet very respected and very loved art forms. It's really paradoxical Because on one hand it's dismissed as being like a bunch of fools and on the other hand it's like everybody wants to go see a good one. Yeah, who's it who's dismissed by? I mean it's it is that thing where you go it's I think because it's a sense of humor is whatever that there's that great old quote of laughter is the shortest distance between two people.
Starting point is 01:22:01 I think there's a real connection to comics because you laugh with your friends and your family and you laugh with this comedian. And if you think about friendship, I think about friendship like filters. Like if you sit next to someone on a plane, you've got a lot of filters. You chat about the weather or the local sports team, whatever, and then you get really close to someone,
Starting point is 01:22:20 you've got no filters. Your best friend in the world has got you got no filters with. I think comedy's not respected because most people can talk and most people are funny occasionally, so they think, I could do it. But most people can't hit a fastball, most people can't play tennis like a professional, most people can't do that. So you watch someone do that and you go, I can't even do that.
Starting point is 01:22:39 But you see someone on stage talking, you're like, I could talk. What's so hard about that? I just have to figure out the right words to say and I could be Jimmy Carr. Right? Right? Because everybody can talk. I think that's part of the problem. That's why it doesn't get appreciated the same way music gets appreciated. So like if there's plagiarism in music, like there's so many songs where a lick in the song, just one thing about the song and then the people like bittersweet symphony They had to give all their money the Rolling Stones. Yeah, you didn't make any money from that song nothing Oh the the weird one was the
Starting point is 01:23:13 Was it blurred lines was and it wasn't even that it was the same It was the same feel as a Marvin Gaye song same feel seems like a stretch. I don't remember that one I thought they did decide that it was like the beats were copied But you know, I've talked to friends that are musicians and like listen, there's only so many different ways you can put together A beat and rhythms. It's like you're gonna get similarities all the time and it doesn't necessarily mean that it's plagiarism But plagiarism and comedies, like outwardly dismissed. Like there's no lawsuits, but yet comedians... No, it's self-policing though. It's self-policing. It's like if someone does that you go, I mean...
Starting point is 01:23:53 Now? I think that's the first time I ever saw you was calling out... Yeah, but before that, a lot of people got away with it, man. A lot of people built careers off of plagiarism. Well, even the great Robin Williams had that had that reputation yeah he did Because it was he was doing kind of this other thing i don't know well it's like when you're just free balling you get stuck you just Take, somebody else's stuff and back then there was no internet so there's no accountability i think they think that's just the big part of this equation as the internet comes along and there's you know there's been so many instances of a comedian's career now like really fucking crashing because the internet sleuths they start looking at it and they go no
Starting point is 01:24:33 no no this is this came from that that came from this you know like her special here is like his this is his bit this is her bit these are this is all plagiarized and just reworked horse shit. The way you can tell is when they have another special after they've been called out and then it's horrible. There's just no content. Well it's that thing of like you have to give the world irrefutable proof you are who you say you are.
Starting point is 01:24:59 If it's one joke, fine. If it's 10,000 jokes, you go, okay, this is something. We spoke about this last time, that thing of, because I'm working on a thing with my friend, Amanda Baker and Abby Grant. They came and they taught at the mothership. Yes. Because we're trying to work on this book
Starting point is 01:25:13 about teaching comedy in the same way that people teach music, like having a language of it and taking some of the alchemy and the mystery away from that and sort of thinking about well what really, you know, not to say that it's like something AI can do or a machine can do, but the idea of like teaching people the structure of it so that it's less kind of you know, hey, it just comes to me on stage. Maybe codifying it a little bit more and I mean I'm working with these two incredible women, Abby Grant and Amanda Baker on the book,
Starting point is 01:25:47 and it's taken a long time. But I do think it's something that, if you could teach it in schools, the idea of comedy, even as opposed to music, which is wonderful to learn, and you appreciate music much more if you've ever given the guitar a go, because you can appreciate what they're doing.
Starting point is 01:26:02 But the idea of comedy is being taught because you go, well, you have to write down and order your thoughts. That's a value. You have to learn how to communicate and speak publicly. That's a value. And then you're speaking in your authentic voice. And that's the saddest thing.
Starting point is 01:26:17 Most people live and die and they never speak in their own authentic voice. It's a great thing to give kids, I think. I think it'd be a great thing. You know, if it was an after school activity I would sign my kids up. Yeah, I mean there's definitely value to it. And even if you don't have that style of comedy, like a joke writing style, even if you're more of a storyteller, like a Ron White type where you tell stories, there's always value in learning different techniques to craft material and craft jokes. But I look at what Ron does.
Starting point is 01:26:48 My love language is the one-liner. I like jokes and it's quite old-fashioned in a way. It's a very old-fashioned kind of way and it's less about my life. But you're like a folk singer. Yeah. But then I'm trying to, I've got a good fastball, and then I'm trying to work on the other bits. But that's kind of what I love about the industry, because it's-
Starting point is 01:27:08 It's everything, it's all kinds of different styles. You go, yeah, I can get good at that, and then I can do like 20 minutes of fastballs, and then do, I started, about a year ago, I started putting, I started working with a videographer and putting stuff out of like heckle videos and people talking to me on these. Yeah, I've noticed those.
Starting point is 01:27:24 And you go, it's just such a joyful thing because it's almost like doing this stuff when you go, just hit me whatever you want. I'll do anything. It's like seeing a magician do real magic because you kind of go, Right. Yeah. I've worked this muscle hard enough.
Starting point is 01:27:38 I'll write jokes live for you now. Have you done Bottom of the Barrel? No, what's Bottom of the Barrel? Bottom of the Barrel is Brian Simpson's show at the mothership where you have a whiskey barrel and you reach your hand into the whiskey barrel to pull out suggestions for topics. Oh, okay. So the audience, the audience writes things down. Didn't Paul Prevenza used to have set list? Do you remember that? There was set list, yeah, but that was not provided by the audience, I don't believe. No, that was like that and it was a bit a hat hat on a hat like sometimes it'd be just crazy things. Mm-hmm. But it was a... Yeah
Starting point is 01:28:07 I've got a bunch of different versions of that. There was another one, Stand Up on the Spot, there was an LA one where you had the audience like raise their hand and come up with it but the problem with that one is then you encourage people to just yell out and so while you're in the middle of talking about something someone else will yell out a different subject because they're just greedy and they just don't want it. You know what I mean? Like you have to have good audience participation in that one. But again, that thing of like going, it's performative being in the audience. Yes. Like I always think that thing with hecklers, like there's more hecklers in the UK, like when
Starting point is 01:28:40 you travel around the world, like so I'm touring everywhere, like all over America, UK, Australia, New Zealand, every territory. And you notice different places have different traditions when it comes to heckling. That's the biggest thing you notice when you travel. In North America, people are very slow to shout out during a show because they think they're, am I spoiling the show? Am I ruining this? And I actively encourage, like I don't mind if it's a little bit aggressive because we're all in service of the evening. Right. We're all in service of like, I don't mind if it's a little bit aggressive because we're all in service of the evening right we're all in service
Starting point is 01:29:07 of like I don't mind if you win well that's confusing for the audience because some people don't want some any heckles yes sometimes it is like some comics just want to they have a set and they want to just perform their set yeah I know I like it when people join like no one wants someone to talk over their punchline that's a problem but you problem though because you're going into an agreement with a bunch of drunks and a lot of them are just, you know, they're not that smart in the first place. And so they don't even understand when to yell out. And so they're yelling out while you're in the middle of something else.
Starting point is 01:29:36 Yeah. I mean, I'm very lucky with, I suppose it's that thing with you can, you know, it's self-selecting. Your audience come and they find you and it's that thing with you can you know it's self-selecting you know your audience come and they find you and it's sure but sometimes crazy people just show up at your audience oh my god if I had to compile I thought maybe I should compile a video of me kicking people out shows well now they know you do that too so they probably look forward to doing it with you and so you get kind of the wrong kind of people that are encouraged to yell shit out. No, I get pretty good.
Starting point is 01:30:07 Most of the time. I get pretty good because I always think like I don't have a schizophrenics like I don't have like a percentage. It's only like 1%. Yeah, I don't know if they're buying tickets. They should buy two tickets, shouldn't they? I don't think they think they're two different people. I think one for each personality.
Starting point is 01:30:21 I think schizophrenia is just like your connection to the world is frayed. Yeah. Jesus. There, but for the grace of God. Yeah, we don't even understand what that feels like. And you know, there's a guy who was schizophrenic that as the disease progressed, he was an artist. And as his disease progressed, you could see his art getting fucking weirder and weirder
Starting point is 01:30:42 and more abstract and distorted. It's the most horrifying thing. It's horrifying. It's one of the most. There's a bunch of really horrifying ones. Lou Gehrig's disease, a bunch of different things that just you just go, fuck. Again, gratitude, just be happy that you don't have that. And that's another good solid reason to try to take care of your physical body
Starting point is 01:31:06 Yeah, make that bitch work for you. Yeah, I don't have it fucking malfunctioning Well, if you can avoid it, I think kind of food is the thing as well. Food is the medicine before medicine Mm-hmm, like just try and it's hard on the road. It is The best way to do it on the road for me is carnivore. I just only eat meat when I'm on the road. Well, I do that most of the time anyway, but when I'm on the road it makes everything so much simpler. Just mostly just eat meat. Are you traveling much at the moment?
Starting point is 01:31:34 Are you on the road much? No. No, even when I did my last special, my Netflix special, I prepared for it entirely at my own club. And then I hadn't done any theaters at all in like a year and a half. Then I did the first Friday night at the theater like a year and a half. Then I did the first Friday night at the theater and like, Oh, it was different. Because instead of doing like 200 people, I was doing thousands. I was like, this is weird. Like the timing's
Starting point is 01:31:53 different, but I'm like, Oh, okay, good. I got it back. I figured it out. The timing's different in like, I often go from theater to arena. Arena timing's way different. I tell you what, I got it from Chappelle. I was out in Australia on tour last time, and I had one night off, and Chappelle was in town that night. So I said, well, I'll go up with you. So I went up, and he had it in the round.
Starting point is 01:32:14 Yeah, that's how I do it too. It's so genius, because it's like the thrill of, I don't want to say never, but I may never be a professional boxer. There, I said it. But walking into the, it's like walking into a ring, because you've got security around you and you have to walk through the audience onto the stage and up the steps. It's so thrilling. And then you put the screens above.
Starting point is 01:32:36 And even in a 10,000 seater, no one's more than 2,000 seats back kind of thing. So everyone's got a great seat and you're kind of rotating and I just, I love it. It's incredible. It's also intimate in a weird way because the people are seeing the other people on the other side of them, which never happens. And they're seeing people laughing. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Starting point is 01:32:56 I hadn't thought of that, but they're seeing people laughing and it's that thing of going, okay, well, we're all, it's like an event where we're having fun together. It's great. It's the best way to do comedy. It is all though the timing that changes when you go, okay, it's a theater and it's like an event where we're having fun together. It's great. It's the best way to do comedy. It is, although the timing that changes when you go, okay, it's a theater and it's like even a thousand seats.
Starting point is 01:33:11 I know it's in the UK sometimes, like you gotta, like the Palladium is my favorite place to play, right? The Palladium is a theater that was built 120 years ago. So the fire regulations 120 years ago were, yeah, I hope no one dies That's there was the fire eggs. Good luck. There's doors if there's a fire I guess leave So it's tight. It's like it's 2200 people but it's they're close to you And then sometimes you go to a place that was built two years ago and it's beautiful and air-conditioned
Starting point is 01:33:39 But the people are so far away because the seats and the aisles and everything's been built for safety Yeah, so it's like you you'd never get it. You couldn't build one of those now. Yeah People are so far away because the seats and the aisles and everything's been built for safety. So, it's like you'd never get it. You couldn't build one of those now. It was better when they were all on top of you. Yeah, but then people died in fires. Well, you've always got to look at the negatives. They should have a way to open the wall in case of a fire.
Starting point is 01:34:01 There should be a hinge. We just push the wall down and down everybody just run out real quick Can't engineer that in there like you know they do with a battleship when they let the tanks out the back of them Yeah, I mean yeah, how about that? That's a good idea. Yeah, like a big old aircraft carrier like drop it Hmm. Yeah War fucking fire extinguishers everywhere, like in the wall everywhere. Spray water on people. Yeah, just under every seat.
Starting point is 01:34:30 All over the ceiling. I mean, they do have that in some places where it's dangerous. You know, they have fire sprinklers that are built into the wall. I feel like we're getting close to the, we're getting close to the old bit of the, you know, that black box thing They have on airplanes where it crashes. Oh, yeah, everyone had the observation of just build the plane out of that right once that made off How about parachutes for planes how about one of those so hard to do Parachutes for planes. Yeah, this is we're having some weapons a big idea. How much would it cost?
Starting point is 01:35:04 Yeah, what should it cost to have a big fucking parachute at the top of the plane or if shit goes totally sideways pull it Float down to the ground. Is that possible? Is that an incredibly dumb idea or is that genius? It's both. It's both I'm sure somebody else's thought of it You know Yeah, That seems. I mean, don't they have something like that on Air Force One, where if the plane's going down, the president can get to a little compartment and it ejects?
Starting point is 01:35:33 Is that real, or is that some movie shit? That might be some movie shit. See if that's real. I think there might be. It feels like some movie shit, but. But that sounds like a good idea. What if Air Force One goes down? Like, this was the online chatter about the president getting a plane from Qatar.
Starting point is 01:35:53 We got a gift of a plane. Yeah, supposedly. Like, Air Force One does not have an escape pod in the real world. Okay, can we confirm, is this the real world? We think it is. As far as how we're acting, yeah, this is the real world. What do you think about simulation theory? I think it's more likely every day.
Starting point is 01:36:17 The more time goes on, the more I think it's likely. I really like it. Is this a plane with a parachute? Yeah, it's a plane with a parachute? For small planes that think some guy was working on something. Did you just manifest this? How did this? Parachute planes.
Starting point is 01:36:31 You Googled it. It's pretty dope. So has this guy used this before? That doesn't seem like it's happened, but they're maybe testing. It seems like a dangerous test, too, because you have to wreck a plane if it doesn't work. Oh, Jesus.
Starting point is 01:36:44 Yeah, all right. How would you test one of those you'd have to have a bunch of planes? Oh look, they did test it. Is that real or is that AI? That's real. Yeah. Oh, it seems real No, so you just need a real big one. Okay big one for a jumbo jet. It's still gonna be a bomb Let's go. It's gonna be a bump when you're like, yeah It's not I mean better that than a ball of flame the? Are you not gonna land and then have a ball of, well- You might. Hey listen, let's give it a go. Yeah, give it a go.
Starting point is 01:37:09 Maybe you could jettison all the fuel on the way down so you could soak people's homes with jet fuel so that it just bounces and there's no fuel in it to start a giant enormous fire. There's a reason- Look at this one. There's a reason we're not in charge of this. It's coming down. What the hell just taking it's taking like that's taken force do not like the nose down approach that's taken like four parking spaces
Starting point is 01:37:36 you just see two puddles on the windshield from the pilots yeah yeah right okay simulation theory I if I like. I like thinking about it because I kind of go, I've got such a crazy life. Right. Like, I'm sitting here. How could it be real? I'm sitting here with you. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:37:52 With Chappelle on Sunday. Woody Halson came to the show last night. I know him a little bit from then. He's going, this feels like a cartoon. It doesn't feel real somehow. And yet you go, well, it's an interesting way to think about the world because you go, well, if this is a game, what's the scorecard? How do you
Starting point is 01:38:11 win? And it kind of makes you think about, well, what's important in your life? What's the measurable and immeasurable metrics? I often think about there's CV, resume points, and then there's eulogy points. And often those things kinda conflict. You know, like the things that we, you know, career-wise, you could have a great career, but if you don't have kids in a family, who's doing the eulogy?
Starting point is 01:38:38 Who's speaking for you? What are the things that really matter? Well, I think there's people that are great people that don't have kids in a family, but they have a lot of good friends. Yeah, but I mean that's... That they die and the people are going to miss them. Oh my god, yeah.
Starting point is 01:38:50 I don't think it's a total requirement to be a, you know, an actualized human being to have children. But I think it's definitely benefited me. But I used to hate it when people would say, like, you know, until you have kids, you don't know what the world is all about. Like, okay, for you. Like, how do I know what you've gone through? How do I know your perspective? Yeah, I had kids very late. But there's a lot of people out there
Starting point is 01:39:12 with children that are fools. Like, it's a nonsense way of living, of thinking that you have to have kids. And I think there's wonderful people that I know that are never gonna have kids. But that thing of, you can still have eulogy things. Yeah. Things that aren't necessarily.
Starting point is 01:39:28 It's not scorecard. It's not like he made $100 million, he wins when he's dead. It doesn't matter, no one cares. What did you do? How did you treat people? How did you live your life? What kind of an impact did you have on your fellow man?
Starting point is 01:39:41 When you interacted with people, do they have a memorable experience with you? Your friends and people you follow man, like when you interacted with people, do they have a memorable experience with you, like your friends and people you worked with, like, oh, do you know Jimmy used to always say, you know, and you sit around talking about them. I suppose it's that thing of like legacy now, almost kind of is a secular religion for like what you leave behind. Yeah, like you sort of think of the after life. I don't really believe in an after life,
Starting point is 01:40:08 but it's the kids. So you'd be stunned if it was real though. I mean, I don't believe in an afterlife, but I would be so fascinated to have undeniable evidence. Like to pass through. Like imagine if you were one of those people that had a heart attack and died and had one of those really crazy near-death experiences
Starting point is 01:40:33 and then came back. I think there's that near-death. Clear. The near-death experience is available to everyone in the form of DMT. Because everyone has the same experience of this. Yes. Another realm, another world beyond where time is. Maybe that's the time if it is. That's it. Yeah, I mean that might be it
Starting point is 01:40:50 That might be it. It seems familiar. That's the weirdest part about it. It seems familiar. It seems more real than here Yeah, yeah, so it makes you wonder like what is this that we're doing? I have a feeling that what I said before is correct about the electronic caterpillar becoming the butterfly. I think that's our, I think there's a bunch of different factors that are leading us to expand technologically. I think it's the primary thing that we do as a species. I think we're probably, that's what we're designed for. Just like bees make beehives and ants make ant hills. I think the curiosity of the human animal is always going to lead them to an artificial intelligence that's far superior than its own just eventually ultimately. It just takes a
Starting point is 01:41:38 long ass time. Well I mean you say a long time but I mean really when did this hundreds of thousands of years ago? It started with stone tools. I mean, you say a long time, but I mean, really, when did this start? Hundreds of thousands of years ago. It started with stone tools. And that's really what it is. It's all technology, right? Stone tools allowed us to kill things without using our teeth. And then we eventually figured out shelter. And then we figured out a way to maximize cooking things.
Starting point is 01:41:59 Cooking things and then the amount in our brains, you know, you're able to feed that. And so food's a huge part. Like, what we're doing now, language and comedy, I think there's no, I don't think it's like, it's like there's different strains of kind of Darwinian evolution, right? So there's for survival, right?
Starting point is 01:42:18 And then there's reproductive. And I think what we're doing now speaking, I think is reproductive. I think what we're doing now speaking, I think is reproductive. I think what we're doing is it's almost like peacock feathers, right? So you go feathers initially weren't for flight, they were for display. Really? From the beginning? Well that's the theory.
Starting point is 01:42:36 Well how did feathers, because what was the point of a feather before it was for wings, for flying? How would you get to that through evolution? Well, actually, if it was for display first, if the peacock is using the feathers correctly, that was the original idea for display for mating. And to show that I have this, I have so much extra energy, I'll be a good mate to show the female.
Starting point is 01:42:59 I have so much color and shape. Vibrancy and stuff. So why bird sing? I've got this excess energy. I'll be a good mate. Okay. So that thing. I think the weird thing is it came from dinosaurs though. Dinosaurs they believe are feathered now. Yeah. Yeah. Which so like that's what dinosaurs were breeding. Imagine. Yeah. Well dinosaurs as well. The theory on why they died out is interesting on the they used to. so we randomly assigned gender and they assigned gender as
Starting point is 01:43:29 on the basis of temperature. So when the asteroid hit, it didn't kill all the, the dust didn't kill all the dinosaurs. What happened was every dinosaur was born female in the next generation because the temperature cooled. Some lizards still do it. They assign gender by what the temperature is. So if the temperature falls, you go, right, okay, everyone's female. And when the temperature is above a certain amount, everyone's male. So there's a generation of all female or all male,
Starting point is 01:43:54 whatever it was, dinosaurs. What a flaw. Yeah, but you would... But because the temperature, we always assume is like, is static. And we don't see the geological changes over time in temperature. So they- Well I feel like the Yucatan meteor was like the inoculation from the universe.
Starting point is 01:44:12 They'd realize like, this dinosaur thing is a fucking problem. Like no mammals are ever going to figure out how to make AI when you've got a 5,000 pound super lizard running around with a face the size of a VW bus with giant teeth on it. We've got to fucking wipe these things out. Is there another world where there's dinosaurs with AI? Because if they're coming, we're fucked. No, no. The dinosaurs never get to AI. You have to be super vulnerable to get to AI. Like you don't have a bunch of jack guys working at OpenAI. You notice that? Yeah, you have to be super vulnerable to get to AI. Like you don't have a bunch of jack guys working at open AI, you
Starting point is 01:44:45 notice that? Yeah, you have to be super vulnerable to get to AI. Well, it's a weird thing. You said earlier about the idea of like our competitive advantage, right? You drop one guy in the jungle, you've fed the animals, drop 10 guys, and you have an apex predator, right? Cooperation is our superpower. And for me, cooperation is downstream of play. Play is everything. We're the playing animal. Someone wrote a book about this, like in the 1930s, about how we are designed to play. Our culture is about play, and kids play. And you go, well, that cooperation is what leads to all of this. And weirdly, the Catholic Church, I didn't say this earlier,
Starting point is 01:45:26 but the Catholic Church has got a lot to be grateful for. Because in the 12th century, the Catholic Church banned cousin marriage. Really? And the reason they did it was because they realized the tribe was more important than the church, and they hated that, right? So the unintended consequence was,
Starting point is 01:45:45 they said, you can't marry your cousin, or your second cousin, or your third cousin, down to the sixth cousin. Really? And they broke the tribes. Now when you break tribes, what happens? Well, you form small family groups, and then you have to trust people.
Starting point is 01:46:02 So trust builds, and then from trust you get guilds and associations and a legal system and everyone because before that it's like well your cousin you trust him That's what family the royal family right back in the day Do the royal family you know this you know we still got them Yeah, but I mean the old ones with the fucked-up faces. Yeah, yeah Yeah, yeah, they look weird. Yeah, no chin just into marriage into marriage into marriage So that's what was taken away so the unintended consequence of that was More cooperation and people had to get on with other people and there was like that's interesting to marriage smart way of
Starting point is 01:46:43 Engineering a society that didn't keep people from just being so Tribal and insulated. Yeah. Yeah, that's actually intelligent and that's the Catholic Church figured that out the Catholic Church You know right after they got the priest to stop having sex their next move Right after we stop fucking I have to really pee because I over hydrated. Let's pee and then we'll come back Okay, okay. So you're just giving me a lesson on Catholicism and the benefits of play. Do you know that that's one of the things they talk about in Jiu-Jitsu, like keep it playful. It's one of the things that they say, like the Gracies in particular.
Starting point is 01:47:17 They always talk about keeping it playful. Keeping it playful is the way you learn the best. Roger lives in London. Yes. He's one of the greatest of all time. I mean, it's an incredible thing, the jujitsu, because the the idea that those guys just changed the game totally. Yeah, they changed martial arts like in more martial arts has changed more since the invention of the UFC and the invention of the UFC was by Horry
Starting point is 01:47:42 and Gracie. Horry and Gracie invented the UFC and that was in 1993 and since that time martial arts have evolved more in these 30 years than they have in the past 30,000 years. That's a fact. Well the thing that I, the thing I love about it, I kind of want there to be an origination movie about the UFC. They'll fuck it up. Yeah. They'll fuck it up. Yeah. They'll fuck it up.
Starting point is 01:48:07 It's better to just have a documentary. Yeah, that'd be it. Yeah, but you don't want to have a movie. Even a documentary really should be like a Netflix series. Because it's going to require... I think I should star in it. I could get jacked. You could get jacked.
Starting point is 01:48:20 I mean, you could see this. Get you the right people. Get you Tom Hardy's trainer. Do you watch Mobland? I'm learning a lot about your English gangs on my My friend Chris Ticke. He's like produced my movie produced that as well. Fuck. That's a good show. Yeah, I'm friends with Guy Richie You know, oh nice. He's the best. Has he been on this? Yes. Yeah, he's amazing. He's a legitimate black belt By the way, yeah legitimate jujitsu black belt under Hanzo Gracie, which is there's like
Starting point is 01:48:47 Certain levels of black belt. There's a lot of like great black belts that have a Their instructor you you just haven't heard of because there's so many great black belts out there now, but there's like legendary Instructors where you hear like a guy got a black belt from Hicks and grace and you're like, oh shit That's a real black belt. Yeah, you got a black belt from Hicks and Grace and you're like, oh shit, that's a real black belt Yeah, you got a black belt from Hensel grace. Like whoa, but the interesting thing for me is like the pre the invention of that The bullshit in the 80s. Oh, yeah, cuz we're about the same age. So like it would have been that thing of like
Starting point is 01:49:21 like Bruce Lee movies or The drunken Master. You ever see The Drunken Master? Sure. All those kind of movies. And then I'd be like into martial arts and like watching those films, incredible movies. And then there'd be such bullshit about,
Starting point is 01:49:36 oh, there's this technique from this place and he can do, and none of it was tested. None of it was testable. It was like, no, no, no. It's like that great scene in Once Upon a Time in, oh, what's that, what's the Tarantino movie? Once Upon a Time in Hollywood with Bruce Lee and, yeah. It's the funniest. Brad Pitt, yeah.
Starting point is 01:49:56 Scene, it's just so good. But the bullshit that was talked about, the one inch punch and all of that stuff. Yeah. And then it was like, oh no, we're really gonna test this. Mm-hmm, yeah. It's like, it met the real world. Well, I came up in that era of bullshit.
Starting point is 01:50:11 There was like bullshit guys that like said they couldn't spar because they were too dangerous. They could kill you. And you know, we would invite them to come and spar. But that's the great line in the Tarantino movie, isn't it? Where he goes, these fists, if I kill a guy, it's murder. Yeah, it's the same with everyone. Well, the Bruce Lee thing is one of the things that I really didn't agree with. I love Tarantino.
Starting point is 01:50:36 I'm a giant fan. As a human being, I love him. And as a director, I think he's the greatest of all time. He has the most consistently exciting groundbreaking psychotic films he changed he changed the way I consume media the problem is I know a lot about Bruce Lee oh Bruce Lee but and he wasn't like that he wasn't that arrogant guy and I just think he's misrepresented yeah there needs to be a great documentary on Bruce Lee that I mean there's plenty of stuff but there needs to be a definitive, like a Netflix put together, beautiful thing, because he was an icon. Like he was so incredible, Bruce Lee.
Starting point is 01:51:13 But Tarantino for me is godlike. That movie, Cinema Speculation. So most people kind of do this thing of they watch new movies, so for new, because the dopamine of the new story and they listen to old music And I read that book cinema speculation. I went I'm gonna just watch 70s movies And I just started watching the old movies for this to forget I mean even if you have seen it you've kind of if you saw it 30 years ago
Starting point is 01:51:40 You remember one moment you watch that and then listen to new music so you kind of flip the thing. It's really good Yeah, I'm really loving I'm loving watching the old movies But some of the old movies are fucking amazing that could the Quentin Tarantino book is just he's incredible incredible person They come along rarely where someone just has this very unique and fucking aggressive Sight of like their art. It's a vision. Yeah. I mean, I put him up with Kubrick.
Starting point is 01:52:07 I think he's that genius. Actually, I wanted to ask you about that. The Kubrick thing. I got told this fact. What? Okay, so I got told this thing and then I asked Tom Cruise about it. This is a good story.
Starting point is 01:52:20 Tom Cruise about something? Okay, so I met Tom Cruise at a friend's wedding and I said, I had nothing to say to Tom Cruise. So I Okay, so I met Tom Cruise at a friend's wedding and I said, oh my god I had nothing to say to Tom Cruise. Oh, I said so much to say I said you made eyes wide shut with Kubrick Anyway, yeah. Yeah, I did. I said I heard He shoots everything he shot everything with NASA lenses So the reason he was able to shoot Barry Lyndon, you know the movie Barry Lyndon with Harvey Keitel, amazing movie. I never saw it.
Starting point is 01:52:46 It's lit by candle. There's no lights in that movie. He shot it by candlelight and the reason he was able to make it was because he had the best lenses ever made by humans. Which were the NASA lenses that they took to the moon landing. So that was Hasselbad. So, Hasselbad? Yeah, that's the company that made those cameras. That's the camera, not the lens. Who made the lens?
Starting point is 01:53:10 Zeiss SuperSpeed. Okay, does that make sense? So Kubrick shot everything with these lenses. Now here's the question for you. How did Stanley Kubrick get those lenses? Maybe at the NASA garage sale they had in 1971 where they sold all the stuff on the front lawn. Okay, so the story I got told, be at the NASA garage sale they had in 1971 where they sold all the stuff on the front lawn.
Starting point is 01:53:25 Okay, so the story I got told, which I wanna ask you about, is they, obviously is the middle of the Cold War, right? And the moon landing was a flex by the Americans. It was a big deal, right? So they rehearsed the shit out of that. Who did they rehearse it with? Well, the best director in the world. So they brought in a shit out of that. Who did they rehearse it with? Well the best director in the world
Starting point is 01:53:46 So they brought in a young Stanley Kubrick and he filmed the rehearsals So they had to rehearse everything before they went up there. So I'm not saying the moon landings didn't happen I think they definitely did happen. So who's saying that Stanley Kubrick filmed the rehearsals. I Can't remember who told me this that That sounds like horse shit. But how did he have the time? Sorry, how did he get the lenses from NASA? How did he get the lenses? He definitely had the NASA lenses. He bought them from NASA? Well you know he was a, he got paid in lenses. Genius mathematician, you know. I didn't know that. Yeah, he used to do
Starting point is 01:54:19 complex equations in his spare time. Yeah, he was a genius, like a legitimate genius. So he probably had a deep connection to the scientific community, and he probably maintained that all throughout doing 2001. So, you know, Kubrick was so, the way he would do films was there were so many layers to his films, like there's so many layers to The Shining. You know?
Starting point is 01:54:44 He said this brilliant thing about movies. He said, if you want to tell a story, make people feel something they don't have a name for. So there's so many bits in The Shining that don't make sense. Like the geometry of the room doesn't make sense. And it kind of forces you to really see something. Like so much of our life, right, is we're not really seeing things.
Starting point is 01:55:10 I think it's the gift of being a stand-up comedian. We get to see things. Mostly guys of our age are just remembering things. Right, they don't have a lot of other experiences. Or they're having a very repetitive, you know, if you commute every day to the same office, you don't remember 365 days, you're just kind of one memory
Starting point is 01:55:28 and then you're just on repeat. Whereas if you have unique experiences, it's not that we don't have enough time, we just waste a lot of it, and we want unique novel experience. And so part of the reason I travel the world is to have unique novel experience and to see things in a different way.
Starting point is 01:55:43 And sometimes when you watch like a Kubrick or a Tarantino movie you he's just seeing something in such a pure way. Yeah. It's incredible. Yeah it's a unique artistic vision that makes you sort of it just takes you out of mundane existence and go wow like this guy like 2001 is such a weird movie man. I saw it again last year. I hadn't seen it in a long time, and I watched it again. I was like, God, imagine making this film, and like, what was it, like 60, what year was it? 67?
Starting point is 01:56:14 No. Was it 70? 70, yeah, 70 something. 79, 70s? No, it's 70, 70. 68. 68. What?
Starting point is 01:56:21 Yeah, so it's before the moon landing, and it's all going on at the same time which... 68?! It's incredible. Yeah. Because it's kind of futuristic now. Yeah. There's that weird thing of like, you ever read...
Starting point is 01:56:36 It's weird that the monkeys when they find the monolith, you know? It's like I have very bizarre theories about the evolution of the human animal itself What do you think? I don't I don't necessarily think it happened without help. I have a feeling that we were assisted. I Think that's one of the reasons why we vary so much. We were just like dogs You know dogs are so we've dogs vary so much but dogs all came from wolves dogs are so we've dogs vary so much but dogs all came from wolves yeah every dog came from a wolf it does strike me as like it's a very strange thing how long humanity has been here and how recently program like ten thousand years ago in northern Japan was the first settlement and how quickly things I don't think
Starting point is 01:57:23 I don't think we're right about that. You don't think so? No, there's an interesting, there's a bunch of interesting guys, but there's one that I... Who's that guy that I brought up the other day who's a British anthropologist? Well, I already like him. Who has this... No, you did, that's why I brought that up. He's got a YouTube channel and he's like, human beings have been in this... His argument essentially is that human beings have been in this, his argument essentially is that human beings have been in this particular
Starting point is 01:57:45 form, this homo sapien form for somewhere in their neighborhood of 300,000 years. Why would we assume that it took us so long to get to where we are as far as society and technology and innovation? Isn't it far more likely that this was achieved multiple times followed by great Catastrophes that brought us back to square one and there's a lot of evidence for that There's a lot of evidence for that in terms of like eleven thousand eight hundred years ago the younger dry ice impact theory But then which is actually physical evidence of like meteor that comet impacts on earth gigantic landscape changes
Starting point is 01:58:24 ending of the ice age, melting of the polar ice caps, massive flooding, rising sea levels, all that stuff's documented. But then he's talking about like, what about 100,000 years before that? If we're in the same form, if society did reach a very high level of sophistication, maybe in a different way, 100,000 years ago, how much evidence would be left? The answer is zero. But the human remains the same. If you took a 100,000 year old person, you could bring them to the fucking shave their face, sit them in a movie theater, they would have no, you would have no idea that that was a person from 100,000 years ago. They look real fucking similar to us.
Starting point is 01:59:03 Well, I suppose that thing is like- Especially fed them well, so they probably didn't get much food back then. Yeah that thing of like the the gratitude like the idea that you go how have we only got to this now? Like the idea that you go well actually the taking care of the that Maslov's hierarchy of need you know the you know so you need food you need shelter you need like we haven't even, I mean we haven't even covered that for most of humanity, but certainly in the place that we live, that's all sort of taken, we factor all that in, that's all like, okay, you've
Starting point is 01:59:33 got all of that sorted, and then we get to self-actualize and we get to specialize. And so maybe it's that thing of like, I don't know, this, the breaking of the tribes and the idea of specialization. It's that, it's the Dunbar number is the important thing, isn't it? Like, because the great apes. So Robert Dunbar is the guy that had that idea of, it often comes up when people talk about social media. How many friends can you have?
Starting point is 01:59:57 Right. Like, with great apes, they get to a pod of about 60. And then they go, I don't really know that guy. He hasn't really groomed me in a long time. So I did this documentary once for the BBC with Robert Dunbar and it was. Oh, you met actual Robert Dunbar. He was incredible. How old was he at the time?
Starting point is 02:00:15 I guess 60s. He's not that old. So his theory was kind of, well actually what happened that allowed human beings to specialize was remote grooming. So the idea that we could be in a large group and our language allowed us to have a larger group, like 150 friends in the group because we didn't have to pick things out of each other's hair or literally groom each other. Hey Bob, look at the lawn, looking good.
Starting point is 02:00:45 Yeah, but that was the great innovation because it allowed us to go, okay, look, I'm going to go and build this thing, you go and do that thing, we'll come together and obviously, you know, language predates speech by a million years, millions of years. Laughter predates speech by about a million years, they think. Interesting, because animals laugh, chimps laugh. You know I've got a weird laugh, right? I laugh on an in. Ah, ah!
Starting point is 02:01:17 I've got like, ah! You have to? Yeah, if something really strikes me as funny, it's like, it's such a, people often ask, is it real, it's the most like, crazy laugh. Ah, odd. I laugh for an in-breath, not an out-breath. Like Tucker Carlson. He's got that kind of laugh. Well okay. Well I don't know, I don't know where I stand on that. Now I'm in trouble. Don't get me cancelled. That's an out. That's an out. It's just a high pitch out.
Starting point is 02:01:45 But that thing of laughter being a remote tickle is kind of, it's an interesting idea. It's also interesting that it's contagious, genuinely. If you're laughing, I'll start laughing. What the fuck are you laughing at, Jimmy? I'll start laughing. If you're laughing hysterically. You ever see those German guys that do the laughter therapy? No.
Starting point is 02:02:04 They do a laughter therapy in Germany and they just... It's literally a guy going, we're all going to laugh now. Ha ha ha ha ha. And they just force themselves to laugh. There's nothing funny going on. They just force themselves to laugh. It is... It sounds like hell.
Starting point is 02:02:18 But it's very good for people because once they get going... They need to figure out stand up in Germany. Have they ever figured it out? Who's the best? In Germany? I play a lot in Germany. Yeah, but you're an English guy going to Germany. That's different I could play in Germany, too. Yeah, but my point is who's the best? There is a guy who's like playing he played like a stadium there. Oh god I forget his name, but he came to the Edinburgh Festival. We are good We had a guy that was the number one comic in Germany who came to the comedy store back in like the early 2000s. Super nice guy, barely spoke English,
Starting point is 02:02:49 and did like real physical comedy. Like his whole thing was physical and he just couldn't figure out how to make it work in America. It was interesting talking to him. So I was like, how big are you in Germany rather? And he's like, oh in Germany, I'm the number one comedian and you know, I do really well. And I was like, really? So like like what do you do? And it's like I do this kind of like they enjoyed like that kind of like slapsticky fall down sort of stuff. He did a lot of physical stuff. It was funny but it was like the audience at the Comedy Store had been used to all these like bang bang bang like set up punchline set up punchline Joey Diaz and now here's some guy from Germany.
Starting point is 02:03:24 You know and he was just it didn't work for him. Well, there's a great old line of like, where would we be without a sense of humor? Germany. Yeah, but they make great cars. And they're funny. Well, that thing of like, there's scenes coming up everywhere around the world now. I mean, I got a, I think 47 countries on this tour, and you go, and everywhere I go, there's always a couple of local comics that come to the gig
Starting point is 02:03:46 and they're doing stand-up in English and there's a little scene and It's it's it's it's a met. It's very contagious I think I think it's kind of the YouTube and the Netflix effect of like it's just out there now and We're more aware globally of who's doing what I'm questionionably. And then there's Kill Tony, which is worldwide. It's the number two podcast on YouTube worldwide. What's number one? Yeah, me. For some unexplicable reason, I don't understand it myself.
Starting point is 02:04:16 But the thing about comedy is that, you know, like maybe you don't want the people making your cars to be funny. You want them to be these like lockdown engineers like the Germans. Like I kind of like that. These stoic engineers. I am not driving an Italian car across the country. It's not going to make it. It's not going to make it.
Starting point is 02:04:37 I'm going to get somewhere outside of Oklahoma and some fucking weird lights are going to go off in the dash. I'm like, what is happening here? Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. and the brakes are gonna fit something's gonna go something's gonna go some electronic shit's gonna go sideways cuz Pascal wasn't paying attention he was eating his pasta and taking a nap they take naps what do you want what are you driving now I drive all kinds of things yeah I drove a Tesla here but I have a lot of cars. I like cars. I'm
Starting point is 02:05:06 fascinated by engineering. You gotta get, you gotta get, Jeremy Clarkson is a friend of mine. You gotta get him on. I love Jeremy. I'd love to have him on. I'm a huge fan. Yeah he's got to come on here because he's like, I don't know, I think you'd have a lot in common. He's like super into cars. I love Hammond, I love James May, I love those guys. They were the originals Yeah, and I'm a huge fan of Chris Harris too, and he took over the new top gear. Yeah Well, they're just passionate about it. Yeah, there was something of like I'd love someone to do I'm sure I'm sure exists somewhere and I just haven't been to it but like a museum of the motorcar
Starting point is 02:05:38 Oh, this is in Los Angeles. It feels oh, yeah I know I saw that I saw what they were building that and it wasn't finished yet last no no no LA's had a museum forever. Isn't there a new one in perhaps? Maybe there's a new one. Maybe they're making the new one Maybe it's the same company But the LA Auto Museum has been around forever because it feels to me like vintage cars are the way to go But there's so many regulations now. There's so much you have to do in your country. Yeah, yeah goofy country They lock you down. Well, I think that's all gonna gonna change that was no I think it's like we could never get American cars in the UK yeah you could never buy a Cadillac in the UK you could never and maybe that's gonna change now I hope so I'd love to be able to I know
Starting point is 02:06:16 some American muscle cars really popular over there because those are just they're fun they're just fun to drive there's something something about American muscle cars, like even the modern ones. Like if you buy a modern Ford Mustang, they are fun to drive, man. There's the rumble of the engine, shifting the gears, the manual transmission. I think the Mustang GT is the greatest bargain as far as fun for for dollar in the automobile world today. Because I think you get a Mustang GT for like under $50,000 US like loaded and they're incredible. It is an interesting thing of like cars. There's a certain point now where what's the last car you could drive as opposed to it driving you.
Starting point is 02:07:01 Right. as opposed to it driving you. Right, that's the Wemos. So there's an argument to say, I had like a Porsche from, a Targa from 89. So it had the G50, but it was air-cooled, but it was like, it's kind of the last one I think before the technology kind of took over and they were just too good.
Starting point is 02:07:23 Well, not necessarily you know the nine six force still very analog and so are the nine nine threes in especially in comparison to the nine nine six is the nine nine sevens that came after it but the point of those cars is engagement versus proficiency so the car that I drove today is a Tesla Model S Plaid. It is a preposterously fast car. It has incredible technology. It drives itself. If I choose to and I leave here tonight, I can press a button and it'll drive me to my house. It'll stop at every red light. It'll hit blinkers. It'll change lanes if there's an obstruction. Hands off. Nothing. Hands off. I don't have to
Starting point is 02:08:03 do anything. You're supposed to keep your hands like on the wheel sort of right you don't have to be you barely have to be paying attention but it'll do all the work for you but a 1989 Porsche like yours that one that is a visceral experience it's you're feeling it it's like whoo it's fun you're on a ride you're not even going fast but you're feeling everything. It's like, woo, it's fun. You're on a ride. You're not even going fast, but you're feeling everything. It's a sensory overload. It's very exciting.
Starting point is 02:08:32 It's exciting not going quick. There's nothing like those old cars, especially old Porsches, because they handle really well, even though they're an old car, they still have like the really good dynamics in terms of like road hold. I wonder what it is that we're enjoying there. Cause I think it's like, it's type one and type two thinking. So it's like, like driving a car.
Starting point is 02:08:54 Once you, you know, when you get in your license to drive stick shift, it's, you really have to concentrate. Sure. And then it goes over into this other place where you just go, it's just happening. I don't have to think about this Right, you're just commuting, but you're like engaged You're kind of in a flow state when you drive from one of those cars and just driving it
Starting point is 02:09:13 You haven't got the radio on yeah, I used to love driving home from shows Mm-hmm, and you'd think of something and you'd be driving and you wouldn't be you know days before iPhones So you just have to remember that thought and let it linger and kind of thinking of jokes and wordplay and, but you'd be kind of engaged in this other activity. Yeah, you're in like a zen state because you're connected to the vehicle, but you're not listening to music,
Starting point is 02:09:36 you're not listening to a podcast. You're just out there driving this thing that you have to really be in tune with. And then your mind, your subconscious is free to roam. It's interesting those things of like activities that engender different kind of states like, okay, you play a lot of pool. Now I don't play much pool, but I do play pool with my friends if they're having a tough
Starting point is 02:09:59 time. Like if you have to have a tough conversation with a friend, if they're down, they're depressed, whatever, this looking each other in the eyes doesn't work so well. Oh, right. You've got to do an activity. Because there's a lot of thinking time. If it's an emotional conversation, if there's something big going on, a game of pool is fantastic for that because it just slows everything down.
Starting point is 02:10:21 You've got a reason to be there for longer. It's playful and there's a low-level competition going on but the stakes aren't high and you kind of have a great, it's like when you're in the car with a buddy, you have a great conversation side by side. I'm so glad you brought that up because I had a friend who was considering suicide and I did not know until we started playing pool together. I had played pool with him a bunch of times, but we were playing pool together one day and he just seemed weird. He just seemed off, but it was through the playing that we could talk like,
Starting point is 02:10:56 you know, we start talking what's going on. He's like, I am not doing good at all. I'm not doing good at all. I'm like, what's going on? And then, you know, we had this conversation and he didn't have a lot of money, so he didn't have access to good psychiatric care. So I contacted my business manager and I said, who's the best guy that we can connect my friend to? And he got on some stuff. I forget which SSRI was, but it ultimately really helped him. And then he turned everything around and then his life turned around and he slowly weaned himself off and then he's fine. But it was like this moment of playing pool. So this is why like when people completely dismiss
Starting point is 02:11:35 psychiatric medication too, I'm like, ee, I can see how they're overprescribed. I can see how some people become dependent when really they should try exercise and healthy diet. However However when you're dealing with someone who's on the ledge like anything you can get that keeps that person from ending their life and making a terrible decision and if they have a bad serotonin balance and Dopamine balance in their head and there's something that we can give them that can help balance them out and then they slowly Yeah, get moved towards a healthier. It's like someone saying, yeah, no, no, we should all learn to swim. No, sometimes you need a life raft.
Starting point is 02:12:08 Yeah, sometimes you need a fucking floaty. Little babies, they have to have floaties to learn how to swim. But that thing of like, and we should chat about that because it's like, suicide for me is like, it's a permanent solution to a temporary problem. Invariably, it's that thing of like, people think they wanna disappear, but really they wanna be found. And it's, I find it heartbreaking because I think,
Starting point is 02:12:32 more so than other fun stuff you go and see, with comedy, I know it's a lot of people that are depressed or have suicidal ideation, are self-medicating with stand-up comedy. So they watch a lot of comedy or they come to a lot of comedy shows because it's kind of the opposite of what they're feeling and it's that thing of the you kind of always do a bit about it at the end of the show. I mean I tell a lot of brutal jokes and then I
Starting point is 02:12:55 talk about it because you go there's gonna be someone in the crowd. I had this like heartbreaking thing where I've had a couple of times now where people come up and go oh I was gonna I had this amazing woman talk to me about She had like it was like she was celebrating like 14 years of extra life But she was like 17 or something at home and she was thinking about Ending it but she was waiting until everyone had gone to sleep before she hung herself And she turned on her computer on YouTube, and she saw clips of some panel show bullshit
Starting point is 02:13:28 that I was doing. And she laughed. Oh, wow. And then she watched another clip. And then she watched another clip. And then she got super into comedy and whatever. She didn't do it that night. Mm.
Starting point is 02:13:40 And then she watched more of it the next day, and somehow that got her over, or she attributed that to getting her over a hump. Well sometimes you just have to have access to other thoughts. And when someone's a good comic like yourself what happens is you allow that person to kind of think for you when you're enjoying their performance. And sometimes it's just that, that's enough.
Starting point is 02:14:02 Sometimes it's great philosophy or a great book, or someone gives a great inspirational speech which just makes you really think, wow, what is it about the way this person is talking right now that is changing my state? It's changing my state of mind. Because I'm thinking the way they're thinking. I'm allowing them because they're so eloquent.
Starting point is 02:14:24 Taking the controls, yeah. And because what they're saying is so precise and they have so much passion in what they're thinking. I'm allowing them because they're so eloquent. Taking the controls, yeah. Yeah, and because what they're saying is so precise and they have so much passion in what they're saying. There's so much enthusiasm that it's contagious and now all of a sudden I feel better. It's perspective. You know, have you ever had Peter McGraw on here? No. Peter McGraw is that guy that came up with the benign violation theory of comedy? What is that? So benign violation theory is the idea. Have I had Peter McGraw? This is a real problem when you've had Peter McGraw is that guy that came up with the benign violation theory of comedy. What is that? So benign violation theory is the idea.
Starting point is 02:14:46 Have I had Peter McGraw? This is a real problem when you've had 2500 podcasts. I don't want to say I've never had them on. And a couple of blows to the head. Bunch. Just enough. The sweet spot. Peter McGraw, the benign violation.
Starting point is 02:15:00 Did I have one? Yeah. When was this? Is he a professor of marketing and psychology? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah? When was this? Is he a professor of marketing and psychology? Yeah, yeah, yeah. When was this? He's a brilliant man. Oh wow, pull him up on the screen so I can see what he looks like. Okay, so um...
Starting point is 02:15:16 Boy, that shows you how toasty my brain is. That's the 561 messages that I have answered. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're all from him. I would have told you that's a fake picture Okay, I'll tell you that's a I Will happen a hundred times more dude, we've had too many episodes But so his theory which I'm sure he has spoken about on this very show is the idea that you go. Okay, so so
Starting point is 02:15:39 Violations are Peter Violations are like okay how things are meant to be right? If it deviates from that, it's a violation in life. So death, disease, famine, all of the worst stuff in the world is like, it's a violation. And he's saying, okay, if you imagine a Venn diagram, that's one circle, and then overlapping that is kind of humor. And you go, if you joke about something,
Starting point is 02:16:04 you're kind of, you're go if you if you joke about something you're kind of your re Your recoding it in your mind to say no no this is this is okay We're putting a bit of distance between this so just by joking about something you make these Violations in life these terrible things whether it's you know death disease suicide whatever the terrible thing is you're making it okay Through laughter you're kind it okay through laughter. You're kind of, you're filtering life's hardships through the charcoal of comedy and kind of making it palatable. So it's like, you know, I often say this, I feel sorry for the people that are easily
Starting point is 02:16:40 offended. Yeah. What, or like offended because laughing at difficult things is, it pays out on the worst days. So like when you're having your very worst day, you go, yeah, but at least we can laugh. Like those things of like, if you've had friends die or, you know, they're in palliative care and you can sort of get a laugh out of them and it's just eases everything. If you find people that are like that, that's a learned response. And if you grow up in a family that's easily offended and offended by everything like a humorless family
Starting point is 02:17:09 That's a real problem That's a real fucking problem if they don't know how to joke around about stuff that becomes a real issue They take themselves too seriously Or they take the world too seriously and like you're you're always looking to be outraged And then there's also a lot of social credit to being outraged. Like people have, he's outraged, you have to like let him alone. Like now you've kind of commanded the stage, I am so sick of this shit. Like holy sick of this shit, let him have his space, give him his time.
Starting point is 02:17:37 You know, it's like you're demanding undue attention for something that a rational person who has like more important things to think about would laugh off You know, I think being able to laugh it off is it's quite to superpower Well, it's quite stoic isn't it because you can't really choose what happens to you just how you react to it We don't have any control, but we have a lot of influence And the idea that disposition is more important than position is one of my kind of core beliefs Like I know some pretty fucking miserable billionaires And I know some people that are just you know, so what's happiness? It's like it's your current situation
Starting point is 02:18:12 Minus expectations Stephen Fry had a great piece on being offended Do you ever see Stephen Fry on being offended? No, go on. What do you say? I don't want to paraphrase it because it was brilliant. But it was essentially like, so what? That's not even an argument. You're offended. What does that even mean? So you're offended. But why? What about it? Why are you so easily triggered? What fragile creature you are going through this life being offended at everything. It is now very common to hear people say, I'm rather offended by that as if it gives them certain rights. It's actually nothing more than a wine.
Starting point is 02:18:51 I find that offensive. It has no meaning. It has no purpose. It has no reason to be respected as a phrase. I am offended by that. Well, so fucking what? Yeah. He's wonderful.
Starting point is 02:19:03 Wonderful. There's some great, great, great lines like that. But that's another one. It's like you can't command attention just because you're offended. I was thinking as a as a person who's developed your mind and gotten through a lot of experiences in life. If you are 50 fucking years old and the most mildest thing happens and your response is I'm offended. You didn't figure it out. You got to this point in your life where you have a very fragile foundation and you're
Starting point is 02:19:35 looking to be offended, which means you're probably not good at what you do. Whatever the fuck it is that you were supposed to be good at, you probably fucked that up. And now you're just looking for like weird reasons to be to emote weird reasons to get upset about things instead of to rationally try to see things from people's perspectives. I get annoyed with it because it's you know people get it you know people buy a ticket to see me live. It's like buying a ticket to a horror movie and then complaining I'm scared. Especially you. Yeah.
Starting point is 02:20:05 I mean, it's absolutely brutal, but then it's all in service of fun. This is a society that rewards outrage and that coddles people for the most preposterous beliefs. This is a weird society. It's a weird society of social media and the amount of attention you can generate. And so that spills out into the real world. Chris Rock talked about it brilliantly after the incident at the Oscars. He said this thing about like there's three ways to get attention.
Starting point is 02:20:37 You could be brilliant at something, it takes a lot of work or whatever. You could be infamous or you could be a victim. And it's the easiest option. Right. It's like, oh, this thing said something in it. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure you've seen these people that have like, they list off, we were talking about this one person that was like the final boss of woke culture. They listed off all the things that are wrong with them. I'm disabled, I'm trans, I'm non-binary, I'm ethnically challenged, like whatever the fuck it is, they just rattled off like 30 of them. Like, oh my God, this person has everything wrong with them. Meanwhile, they're fine. You're fine. You're just person over here talking. Like you don't get special
Starting point is 02:21:21 attention because of all these things you just listed this is stupid But in this weird world that we live in you'll get celebrated, you know It's the identity politics world Yeah, the you have suppose that thing of like if you had to define Entitlement right is the word that gets used a lot right in title, but okay So for me, it's like where you are now and where you wanna be, if you wanna do something about it, that's ambition. If you think that's someone else's problem,
Starting point is 02:21:52 that's entitlement. And it comes back to that agency empathy thing, like I'm very empathetic to, oh wow, that's a, wow, that's a, your cards are not great. The cards that you've been dealt are not great, but they're your cards. And I want you to be empowered to do as much
Starting point is 02:22:10 as you fucking can with those cards. Yeah, that's a weird political ploy too, to look to the wealthy people and say, they're the problem, they're your problem. That's the thing that people will do to the proletariat, right, they will tell them, the reason why you're in this situation today is because of these greedy people aren't paying their share These wealthy if they paid their share like is it where's it gonna go though? So you're gonna go to this corrupt government That's the one who's feeding you this nonsense in the first place. We're gonna do you're gonna enrich them
Starting point is 02:22:40 They're just gonna get bigger and stronger and have even more power and then you're even more fucked You're even more fucked because you don't have any resources. Like it's not going to help you. If they tax rich people and then are the poor people going to get that money? No. Are their services going to improve? No. No, you're just going to get more government. It seems like a good idea. Like maybe the solution is we've got to tax the rich people. But that's no, no you got to figure out what to do with the money You already get from everybody and you're not doing a good job with it Like that's the problem. The problem isn't like the rich people are paying their shit
Starting point is 02:23:16 Like I always hear that about Elon like he's he doesn't even pay tax Elon paid more taxes in 2024 than any living human being that has ever existed. He paid something like $10 billion in taxes. Yeah, I felt like I did in 2012. Felt like I did. What happened? You divorced? No, no, I got, I got like, I had a big tax scandal. I'd like, I had a big, I tell you when you know you've got tax problems, right? What happened?
Starting point is 02:23:48 If the prime minister of the country that you live in breaks off from the G20 summit to come out and do a press conference where he talks about nothing other than your personal tax affairs. That's a red flag. What happened, Jimmy? I don't know, I was in like some, some accountant said to me, do you want to, oh, there's like a tax scheme.
Starting point is 02:24:04 You want to be in a tax scheme and I went yeah, okay like stupid Oh, just when you know it was no was legit. Oh, no, it was legit. It was all legal. It was tax Avoidance not tax evasion. There's a difference and the difference is about 18 months in prison So thankfully I came down on the right fucking side of that. How much did you wind up owing? Oh was it was it was? Oh, it was enough. It was enough to go, oh, put the tour in, great, we're going on the road. We are, yeah, we're in trouble. So you tried to avoid paying a percentage that was due.
Starting point is 02:24:37 Yeah. Yeah. Pretty dumb. They put people in jail in America. They make a big thing out of it. They put Wesley Snipes The woman from the Fuji's Lauren Hill they put her in jail was it they put people in jail even if you pay them
Starting point is 02:24:54 They're like, nope, not good enough. You're going to jail Like just the only time when you owe money and you pay the money back you still go to jail They want to make a example out of you. Pay your fucking taxes. In Boston, where I came up in Boston. And in Boston, in the 1980s in particular, it was a very Wild West-y sort of a comedy scene. And they would pay you in cash or cocaine.
Starting point is 02:25:19 It was up to you. Cash or cocaine? Yes. There was at least one club that would pay you in cash or cocaine. And I was always like, I'll take the cash. I never did coke, luckily. But a lot of guys took the cocaine, and a lot of guys also took the cash but never paid taxes, like for a long time.
Starting point is 02:25:39 Well, I'd love it if they took the cocaine and paid the tax on that. Just went to the IRS and went, look, I brought you this baggie of coke. I got a kilo in my trunk. It's about 30% of the coke I took. This is for you, the IRS. They all got banged up by the IRS and they all wound up owing
Starting point is 02:25:56 a fucking tremendous amount of money that they couldn't pay. So they all, like all their salaries, every time they did a weekend at a club, everything, like half of it would go to the government They take it straight out of your your bank account you would yeah, they would just take money from you You don't have they're not allowing you to pay them anymore. They just take it. I've game the system I do two shows a night now. Ah, so one for me one for them. Oh, that's a good move
Starting point is 02:26:20 Right that way. Yeah, that makes sense. I don't even see that money. I can't be trusted. I can't trust myself. It is funny though that they get half. What are you getting out of it? At a certain level, you get to the Elon Musk level, well, I guess you could say there's entitlements, like there's things that helped electric cars get more popular and get funding, that makes sense. But at a certain, if you're a performer say like you're a singer and you know
Starting point is 02:26:47 Half of all your money goes to the government. You're like, hey, what did you guys do? Like if you're okay if you're Taylor Swift, right? Yeah Taylor Swift Would she make a billion dollars a year or something crazy like that? I mean, she's doing fucking stadiums. They sell out Instantaneously, she's printing money, but the government takes a Sizable piece they don't write a fucking song like it's not in Right, so well imagine if the IRS look look Taylor. You've paid a lot of tax last year, so we're gonna write some songs We've written you that we've got an idea We think it's pretty good. We've clubbed together. We've got a bass guitar. We've got a riff.
Starting point is 02:27:25 Here you go. You're singing too much about boyfriends. I want you to sing about the IRS. You just sing about us. There's places you go around the world though where the tax rate is higher, but no one's annoyed because it just delivers. I do a lot of gigs in Norway, Finland, Denmark where you kind of go, yeah, great. This all works.
Starting point is 02:27:46 But much different society, much different society. And it's also smaller population. I think the real problem is when you scale that to like hundreds of millions of people, things get really weird. Yeah, it's very difficult to like run socialized medicine, socialized education, like everything like that, when you get to just enormous quantities of human beings. Well, maybe that's the thing with America, though, where you go, it is a, it's a country and then it's lots of states. And maybe the state level makes more sense, like the nation
Starting point is 02:28:15 state level makes more sense than kind of a global level. I think it does. I think it does with education. And I think that's one of the reasons why this administration wants to get rid of the where they got rid of the Department of Education. They're allowing the states to manage their own education system on their own and do it do it in a way that they and also be competitive. Like if you are you know Arizona you want to show that you have a better education system than Nevada and Nevada wants to show they're better than Utah and like there's a reason why you know you want people that actually know how to make things better and raise kids grade scores. Well they can also attract people with their education system because they go 100 percent.
Starting point is 02:28:56 You attract people moving into your state, moving into your city. I'm just trying to think of the city that I play. I think it's, I don't think it's Estonia, it's, you might have to Google this, but it's like, they've got a medical school and it's free. You go to medical school, it's in Eastern Europe, they teach it in English, and the reason they do it is because they go, well, you know, 400 kids a year are going to come here and study medicine. Some of them are going to fall in love with a local girl and stay.
Starting point is 02:29:20 We've got more doctors, that's nothing but good news, and it's great, you know, we just run the system. It doesn't cost us that much to run a university. That would make so much sense. And they live there. And obviously you've got to live there. A lot of what it takes to be a student is the upkeep on, you know, your living and expenses, you get a part-time job, whatever you're adding to the local community, as well as study. To be really cynical, I think there's a certain percentage of our government that wants to keep people in turmoil and in strife because they're easier to manage.
Starting point is 02:29:49 And I think the more people become successful and the more people become completely free to do what they choose and they no longer have financial burdens, so they're not afraid to speak their mind and they can kind of like explore different things. And I think- I don't know if that's like a conspiracy, or is that emergent? That's like the- It's natural. The system that we have, there's a bug in it,
Starting point is 02:30:17 where that's how it looks. It looks like they're doing that, and you go, well, that's just, the system's doing that somehow, so we need to adjust the system a little bit. It needs like a little bit little bit. It's openly discussed that one of the reasons why they let people across the border is that we need cheap labor. This was discussed by top Democrat politicians. That's the Republicans in the 80s when NAFTA got signed.
Starting point is 02:30:38 So that was a Republican policy to let people across the border for cheap labor. Destroyed the working man. Destroyed the working man. And you go, yeah, cheaper products, yeah, but what cost? Destroyed manufacturing in the United States. Destroyed Flint, Michigan. Destroyed. Roger and me is a great documentary about that.
Starting point is 02:30:55 But that is 100% true. That is exactly what happened. And that is a real problem. And that's a problem that when you allow people to make enormous amounts of money at the expense of millions of people's fucking future. Like if you destroy Detroit, which they did, Detroit at one point in time was one of the wealthiest cities
Starting point is 02:31:16 in the world. Detroit during the boom of the automotive industry in the United States was a huge place. I mean, it was a place where people would go, it had a nightlife, it was exciting, there was a lot of money, they had auto unions, people were making a great living. Look at the culture that came out of that.
Starting point is 02:31:37 Yeah. You look at Motown. Motown, yes. How much of that culture was downstream of people having disposable income? 100%. The invention of the teenager, you know, as a consumer with, you know, disposable income and time that they could spend. And you know, the unions don't get the credit they deserve.
Starting point is 02:31:54 Well, without them, everybody would be a slave, essentially. You would be a wage slave and they would be the company has all the power. They'd be able to dictate your hours, dictate wages keep you as poor as possible so that you have no power and you have no say but then that thing of like looking at it from you know if you step back from that and go okay well that's what happened to them but then globally now there's a lot of stuff we buy that's you know produced in in places where people don't get paid enough when they get paid almost nothing I don't have any reason why the companies are profitable and then we just
Starting point is 02:32:29 Gobbled the products up over here. We wait in line for the newest phone Meanwhile the phone the literal minerals used to make the batteries are pulled out of the ground by slaves Yeah, the it's really dark, but no one's really talking about that. Like what's happening in the DRC at the moment is fucking horrific. We had some Darth Karan who was an investigative journalist who wrote a book about it, who actually went there and got like risked his life to get footage of some of these artisanal cobalt mines. And it's horrific stuff, man. Women with babies on their backs that are pulling this cobalt out of the ground.
Starting point is 02:33:04 Everyone's getting sick because you're you're inhaling this dust of this and cobalt is essential for all these batteries you know I don't know what to be done I mean what's to be done is it is it a is it a is it a constitution is it a is it a minerals deal with I don't even know who the government is there I know Rwanda invaded recently yeah in the north but But it's a good question. It's like very hard to deal with these problems globally. But locally, the solution would be if you are an American company, you cannot go places and pay someone a wage that would not be acceptable in America. Also, the other thing is health care. Ross Perot covered this when he was running for president,
Starting point is 02:33:44 when he was an independent and kind of fucked up all the elections over here because he said, you know, one of the things that people don't think about is healthcare. If you are an employer in America, you have to provide all your people with healthcare. And if you have a factory of 30,000 people, that's a significant amount of money that you have to spend on healthcare for all these people. You have to build a hospital. Or Mexico, dollar a day, no healthcare. they're like, fucking send it over there.
Starting point is 02:34:08 Or China, or send it over there. India, send it over there. Well, is this going to be... Okay, I'm very positive. I'm very optimistic about life. Is this going to be an incredible flourishing for America the next 20 years? Because the industrial base is going to come back. It would be wonderful if that was the case. It would be wonderful if that was the case.
Starting point is 02:34:27 I think also we're dealing with a real issue of automation taking away most jobs. I think that is, that's unmanageable and that's going to be a real problem. And a lot of people think universal basic income is the solution to that problem but then that makes you completely dependent upon the state. People need to find meaning in what they do. Some people, given just a check, are not going to find that meaning. I was in Yellow Springs with Dave Chappelle. Chappelle was telling me about the history of Yellow Springs.
Starting point is 02:34:58 He said, oh, it's interesting because this town is a microcosm for America. It's got the same makeup as America, roughly speaking. So they used it to test a lot of stuff. Like he said, when I was... What? The McRib. They tested the McRib there. So when he was a kid, they had the McRib,
Starting point is 02:35:18 but he thought it was everywhere, but it was just there where they tested it and went, okay, that works. Or this new flavor soda, this new thing. Like the universal basic income. Okay, we can have opinions about whether it works, whether it doesn't work. I'm suspicious because I worry about purpose.
Starting point is 02:35:34 I sort of think the opposite of addiction isn't sobriety, it's purpose. People with purpose tend to do great. So whatever gives you that purpose and might be a family, doesn't need to be a family But something that gives you purpose and drive and you're aiming up towards something. Yes But America is a big country. There's a lot of little towns like Yellow Springs. There's a lot of places where we could test Universal basic income. I think they have done that how did it work?
Starting point is 02:36:02 Do we know I think didn't they do that with Stockton? Wasn't it Stockton, California where they tested universal basic income? And I think they had positive results. I think you give people like $500 a month and they found that, you know, some people spent it on stupid shit, but for the most part people improve their living conditions, improve their life, improve the amount of nutrition they can get. California program giving $500 no strings attached stipends pays off study fines. So I generally think a level of assistance would help. I think complete dependence is the real issue and so the real problem with automation
Starting point is 02:36:40 is that automation is going to eliminate jobs and there will be no jobs to get. There's so many things that people do including most manufacturing jobs So many things that people do where we make errors we fuck things up But that's the thing of like companies are greedy we can agree on that Yeah, I want to make money and I think the companies will realize what we need It's not just like if you look at China I think China is in a very tough situation not just because half of its population is now over 53, okay? And demographics are destiny.
Starting point is 02:37:10 So it's not just that they don't have enough workers, they have enough consumers. Not having enough consumers is a real problem. So they have to sell stuff overseas. So you go, yeah, so they're absolutely dependent on trade and exports. So you go, the idea, you have to have a certain amount of jobs. You have to have things for people to do. And it will change over time. Like 120 years ago, everyone's working in agriculture.
Starting point is 02:37:34 You couldn't have imagined people coming to the cities in those numbers and becoming factory workers, and then becoming all the factory workers are now white collar workers in offices. Mm-hmm. We can't. It's a new thing. We can't imagine what the next phase is.
Starting point is 02:37:51 It's difficult to imagine what the future might look like. And there's a lot of people. There's always someone saying, oh, this is it. It's never going to be. Another great example about women entering into the workforce. So the idea of women pursuing these traditional male occupations CEOs and heads of companies all this stuff
Starting point is 02:38:11 They don't have they really don't have a roadmap like this is really recent, right? Really really in human history Women just entering into the workforce and running companies and being a part of things like all that stuff's new But women running it even more new. So of course it's like, what are they doing? What do we do? Like, how do you figure this out? How do you do this and be happy? How do you do this?
Starting point is 02:38:33 And actually, can you really have a family and your children gonna, if you're working 12 hours a day, can you really raise children? Like, how much, they need a lot of time. They need a lot of- It's the, okay, so that's very recent and then you yeah I was thinking that the global thing of like we're talking about America we're talking a little bit about Great Britain but globally you go the you know you go you're worried about people not having jobs here but also you can't look at India and go oh yeah
Starting point is 02:39:00 we've made everyone here's got you got central heating and air conditioning and flushing toilets. Right. No, but we need to take care of the environment, so sorry guys. We need that for everyone. Well, for sure. There's a basic level that we need globally for the world. We should... Well, that's the big thing is pollution.
Starting point is 02:39:24 I mean, particularly like pollution of lakes and rivers. Like if you I'm sure you've seen some of these rivers in India where the entire river is filled with garbage. Yeah. And everyone just throws their garbage in the river. So they've completely ruined the river essentially forever unless somebody like has some radical radical intervention. Well, radical, I mean, nature will come back. You know, it's that thing if you go that they'll they'll get there. But it's the nature will come back. And well, I think the I think, yeah, because, you know, I mean, if the humans die off,
Starting point is 02:39:57 no, no, no, not the humans die off. I mean, I think that thing of going, yeah, there's terrible pollution there and there's awful things because we've exported our sins to the third world. Because we say, well, we want to hit this net zero target. So we let them drill for oil or gas. And it's cheaper to let them figure out what the fuck they do with their garbage as opposed to like a company in America. If they do that, they get sued, rightfully so.
Starting point is 02:40:21 Well, a lot of things with the rare earths that we get from China, the reason we get them from China, they're not tough to make. We've got the raw materials here, but they're dirty to make. And it's a horrible procedure to get that thing. And we wash our hands of it and let them do it over there. That's not a way to conduct yourself. It's also the problem in America is
Starting point is 02:40:44 we don't have the infrastructure for manufacturing The way they have it in other countries like one of the things that Tim Cook was talking about the iPhone 17 that they you know They've done a lot. They've shipped a lot of their Manufacturing to India but that they may have see you can find this because I think we brought it up the other day But we never wound up finding it that they have to have this phone made in China because it's more sophisticated and the Chinese manufacturing is at a much more sophisticated level. So it's not just cheap labor, it's much more efficient production in terms of the amount that like chip manufacturing in particular.
Starting point is 02:41:25 With Taiwan where you go yes look you know Taiwan is we're kind of worried about it and you go well what's what's gonna happen and I don't have the I don't have enough knowledge to know why superconductors can only be made there. Well they just really they've been doing it for so long they've got this process down to a science and it's like a super complicated process where they're printing things on these immensely small pieces of circuitry. It's like fascinating, super technologically advanced stuff that keeps getting better and
Starting point is 02:41:59 better and better. It's almost like when it's described to you, it almost feels like magic. Well, it's going to appear to be magic when it gets to the quantum level. Quantum computing is essentially magic. Arthur C. Clarke's famous quote, when any significantly advanced science will appear as magic. Yeah. It's kind of true.
Starting point is 02:42:18 Well especially with the quantum stuff. Mark Andreessen had this amazing quote about equations that quantum computing can solve in minutes that would take traditional computing so much time that the universe would die of heat death before we finish it. Before they finish it. And these quantum computers in minutes. And they also believe, and this is where it gets really weird, they also believe that this is in some way evidence of the multiverse. That there's not enough computing power for this thing to achieve these results so quickly, that it must be drawing upon other computing power of parallel realities.
Starting point is 02:43:01 See, for me, that gets to the Coon-Papa debate on science right? So is that? So Coon and Popper are these two great theorists of science and Popper believed that science incrementally improves over time and then Coon came along and he said no no what happens is there's the science there's a scientific community and they have a theory, and then what happens is everything that disagrees with that theory is thrown out as nonsense, and then there's a revolution. There's like these incredible like shifts that happen.
Starting point is 02:43:38 So it doesn't, it's not like a steady line up. It's like along and then up and then a lot you know so you get these kind of here it is 20th anniversary iPhone likely to be in China due to extraordinary complex design it's not the iPhone 17 it's the next one it might be that the foldable one they're talking about but this article also goes in to say that Apple's never launched a new product outside of China they've always produced the first cycle of a new thing from China, and maybe they take the production elsewhere after that. Interesting. Yeah, because OXA features a book-like design that folds horizontal. By the way, can I just say, Androids have had that forever. I had a Z Fold from Samsung
Starting point is 02:44:18 like three years ago. Yeah. You know, they've been doing foldable phones and making them better and better and Xiaomi has some incredible Huawei has a three-way phone it It opens up a freeway phone. Damn iPad. It's like tinder but it get you two ladies flap flap two flaps flap flap It's got two hinges so it opens up and it doesn't have a seam when it opens up It's completely flat and it's thin as fuck and it's you can't buy them over here because Huawei they've been naughty. Yeah, they've been naughty. I don't know if you know they Yes, I had to do some naughty things with their electronics put some back doors in there siphon up some information
Starting point is 02:44:54 Sure, but their innovation is so far ahead This is which is one of the reasons I assume why Apple has to make these in China But the funny thing is that Apple's making something that Android has had for fucking years. Yeah. Well, okay. Back to... See if you can find that Huawei phone. That three-way phone. Look at this. Look at that motherfucker. Look at that. So it looks like a regular phone. It's regular phone sized in your hand when it's like that. And it's not that thick, man. And it opens up to a tablet your hand when it's like that. And it's not that thick, man. And it opens up to a tablet.
Starting point is 02:45:27 So eventually, it's just going to engulf your head. It's going to be a trapezoid that you put over the top of your fucking head. But these things are unavailable, a lot of them unavailable in America. And this is a Huawei Mate, which is unavailable like look how the fucking lens goes around the edges Yeah, I mean that was like yeah magic from the future It's also like probably pretty unnecessary unless you do work on it. You know what you watch a movie or what?
Starting point is 02:46:02 I mean, yeah, I guess I don't what you're doing with you Your battery life is gonna go quick like the z-fold was like pretty quick. It burns quick, right? Because it's an immense screen that has to light up. Okay, the multiverse. Let's get back to the multiverse Okay, so is the multiverse the so are we about to have a breakthrough in science where they go? Okay, so physics Says there must be multiple universes now just just in my gut I think that feels like an explanation That doesn't work like you're having to force that explanation on physics There must be it's that thing that Eric Weinstein is always talking about about how physics hasn't really done anything String theory has singularly failed to deliver
Starting point is 02:46:43 It hasn't shipped any product like everything that we're looking at all those foldable phones. It's all out of physics. Physics is the science. Everything else is stamp collecting. Physics is everything. It's given us all of this. Yeah. And yet it hasn't done much for 50 years. What are they like? I don't want to sound conspiratorial. Well the conspiracy is that it has. It's just been all top secret stuff on propulsion systems. It's been some anti-gravity. It's Thompson Brown, is that what it was? Jesse Michaels actually did a... Townsend Brown? Townsend Brown. He was theorizing about this stuff in the 1950s and there's real evidence that they even put false information out there because they felt like people were trying to steal the information.
Starting point is 02:47:32 So they fucked with it and made it so that it wouldn't work if someone was trying to steal the idea. So they were putting out bad versions of their science because it was that groundbreaking. So through immense amounts of power, like they had theorized this in the 1950s, using nuclear energy to develop some sort of a gravity portal, some sort of a gravity device that would propel things instead of a traditional propulsion system,
Starting point is 02:48:02 propel things by manipulating space and time itself. And they think this is, Weinstein has a crazy theory about it. He gets deep into the weeds about this. No, it's almost like folding time. But he gets deep in the weeds about the actual place that's doing it. So there's a university in New York State that is a very overqualified physics department that's connected to a hedge fund that does Bernie Madoff numbers, like magic numbers, and he thinks this is also connected to some sort of possibly, some sort of breakthrough science where everybody is
Starting point is 02:48:40 like completely locked down, totally top secret, no leaks, no disclosure, constantly working on this thing in the interest of national security, everything's kept at complete secrecy. Yeah. Why was... Probably this is some of the things that we see in the sky. I have a feeling that there is... I'm open to the idea of us being visited for sure. I am also very convinced that some of these are either China's, Russia's or ours. What happened with New Jersey earlier? Remember earlier in the year? Good question.
Starting point is 02:49:14 Like it feels like these, the news cycle, it's actually back to Eric Weinstein, it's that thing of like anti-interesting. That's such an interesting story that was in the news cycle for like 24 hours and they went Oh, okay killed it. Nothing. I guess they got to see it all the time and then they killed it I think they were probably searching for something the the primary theory that I've heard from the tinfoil hat brigade is that there was a warhead that was unaccounted for there was a nuclear warhead You know, they track if you've seen the numbers on that? Oh, yeah It's the broken arrows. They call them and apparently there's like 18 broken arrows and you go what's a broken arrow? Well, it's a thermonuclear missile and we don't know where it is. Yeah, we've misplaced that
Starting point is 02:49:56 Yeah, that's not great news Is the fear was that there was somehow or another through some port of entry or something, they had made it into the United States. And so these drones were using some sort of gamma ray detection devices, some top secret stuff where they were flying over these areas in a consistent grid and trying to get a reading, see if they could find that thing. Because if that thing exists, you'd be able to get a reading and figure out okay there's something down there that's emitting a very unusual signal we might have found it yeah well I mean that's the the argument for life visiting us is
Starting point is 02:50:34 the idea we split the atom mm-hmm and somehow that's like a fire alarm in the universe why the club the mothership the rooms are named fat man and little boy yeah that's why oh because after the mothership, the rooms are named Fat Man and Little Boy. Yeah. That's why. Oh, because after the... Yeah, because after the bombs is when the UFO phenomenon really hyped up, really increased radically. The Kenneth Arnold sighting, the famous where the term flying saucer was coined, that was in the 1950s. I want to say that's like 52. And then it feels like that. It feels like, I don't know, 10 years ago, talking about being visited by aliens was like absolutely tinfoil. Yeah. And now politicians are asking questions and we kind of want to know more. And yet it feels like it's kind of a new story that wouldn't be surprising now. Right. Well, I think that's the goal. The goal is to normalise it.
Starting point is 02:51:26 And if you were a government... You know, we had Hal Putoff on, who's a physicist, who, during the Bush administration, was contracted, along with several other scientists, to devise a list. This was the mandate. They came to them and said, here's the issue.
Starting point is 02:51:44 We have crashed UFOs and we have recovered biological entities that are not of this world. What would be the pros? And they didn't tell them if this was true or not. They said, what would be the pros of disclosure? What would be the cons? And I want you to attach a numerical value to each one. So disruption of government, religion, politics, all these different things like what would happen to the nuclear family, like what happens if we know we're not
Starting point is 02:52:16 alone, what happens if we are visited on a consistent basis, what happens? And the new man, when they did it at the end, all of the scientists had achieved similar conclusions that the cons outweighed the pros in terms of numbers. And so because of that, they decided not to disclose. So this was like during the 1980s, I guess? 90s? When was Bush 2? No, okay, 2000. So 2000. So it was around then. Yeah. Yeah, what do they know? What do they tell you the first day? I don't think they tell you the first day. I think the president is a temp. The president's like a substitute teacher. I don't think you get to know much. I don't think Trump knows.
Starting point is 02:53:04 Well, I think they probably told him some things. I don't think you get to know much. I don't think Trump knows. I think they probably told him some things. I worry that the government is like, there's a theory that there hasn't really been an American government since 1945. No, since 1963. Well, because everything got siloed. Like in wartime, everyone's talking to everyone
Starting point is 02:53:22 and making everything happen and it's like, okay, we're at war, and then everything gets siloed, and okay, that's a secret thing, that's a secret thing, that's a secret thing, and then the guy that's holding the secret keys retires, and that whole department's just funded forever, but you don't quite, they're not talking to them. And then you have people that are in great positions
Starting point is 02:53:39 of power that get off on keeping these secrets and keeping this information and having the knowledge and keeping it only to themselves, especially if they're manipulating things. This was like a big problem with the CIA and this led to, when they had the disclosures and the church commission and when people found out what the CIA was up to, all the weird shit they did with MKUltra. Oh my God, I've got to thank you for that book okay awesome incredible so I can't recommend it enough I listened to the episode I went back and listened to your episode
Starting point is 02:54:11 with a guy and I went okay this is interesting what's he called again Tom O'Neill Tom O'Neill he's got a new podcast by the way does he he's got a new podcast where he's kind of going like an in-depth interview it's with Rick Rubin's you know Rick Rubin's got podcast. His podcast company has done one with him. I didn't even know Rick Rubin had a podcast company. That's funny, I love that. I text him all the time. I didn't even know he had a podcast company.
Starting point is 02:54:30 He's got a great podcast. He's the best. He's such a... He'll entertain any ideas. He'll say, he's fucking... He's wonderful. He gets down the rabbit hole. But he, so he's, so I listened to the thing
Starting point is 02:54:42 and then I went away and I read the book and the book is like, you kind of read it and go, this can't be, like, that's an extraordinary chapter, this can't get any weirder. And then you go, oh, sorry, Charles Manson is connected to the Kennedy assassination. And sorry, he's also connected to the MK ultra experiments, which are real, which sound so much fucking weird than any other conspiracy theory you've ever heard and they're real yeah yeah I mean it's like the book is just yeah it's wonderful yeah it's it's a great
Starting point is 02:55:14 book and it really it's all history it's all the United States history and it what it's what happens when people have unchecked power they do crazy things and what our government did was a lot of mind control experiences, experiments rather. Yeah. Yeah. A lot. There's a lot of crazy shit that's happened in this country.
Starting point is 02:55:33 So I would not be surprised if they do have knowledge of us being visited and they've kept it under wraps. Just as they kept a lot of things under wraps. They've infantilized a giant percentage of our population to just trust the government, trust the science, and trust the people in charge, and trust authority. And those people. I don't know that because if they visited America, then they visited China and Russia.
Starting point is 02:55:57 And you sort of think, well, balance of probability, all of those governments don't agree about anything. Like, so the idea of going, well they're if they're here they're everywhere. According to Hal Puthoff the United States is in possession of recovered vehicles and so are other countries and there's essentially like a Manhattan project type deal where the race to reverse engineer this technology is at a very high level, and governments are involved in it, and they try to keep things as secret as possible, because whoever can achieve the results first will have immense technological superiority over all of its enemies. If these things are real, if they do have some sort
Starting point is 02:56:47 of a device that can move through space in a way that we just can't even fathom, which traverse immense distances almost instantaneously. This is what we've been told by the people that have worked with these things. And, you know, it's hard to know. It's hard to know what's bullshit. It's hard to know because it's all sounds like bullshit. But it would sound like bullshit unless you experienced it. Sorry, but that thing of like, yeah, it does sound like bullshit in a sense. But then there's also the other thing of like, if you showed me that flip phone in 1982, I'd have gone, well, that's bullshit. You can't fold a TV so you can all fuck off you
Starting point is 02:57:26 Like right. How's the TV that thin anyway? What are you talking about? What do you mean? You can make calls on it? What's how is there a camera on your phone? What's going like we we get used to shit so quick Mm-hmm. I someone had that thing of like I don't know when the Wright brothers first flew the plane. Mm-hmm, but it's like 60 years later we land on the moon you know that we dropped a nuclear bomb out of one of those planes and less than that. Yeah. That was like 50 years. From the invention of that stupid plane, the first plane, with like wood and fucking cloth and shit. But this is Eric's point of like if you, Eric Weinstein and who else is it? The guy I used to work for.
Starting point is 02:58:07 He often sort of says if you minus the screens from the room, we're in the 1970s. Which I think is kind of like what's happened since then? What are they working on that we haven't, is there going to be a ta-da moment where they pull back the sheet and go, yeah, look at that? Well I think there's probably multiple things that are happening simultaneously and then the AI one, if that one hits, all the other ones are going to seem trivial. Because the AI one is essentially the creation of a superior being, a thing that is more intelligent than us, has all the access to information that humans have plus the ability
Starting point is 02:58:42 to engineer itself. But it's interesting, okay, we were talking about earlier about purpose. So that's what it's missing. So the idea of like the Turing test is it's the wrong end of the telescope. Can it fool us? Anyone can fool us. Magicians can fool us with a cartridge. Do you know they've shown that large language models are forming communities? Try not to scare me. Yeah.
Starting point is 02:59:06 OK, but. They're forming communities and communicating with each other. They've also shown that large language models, when they know that they're being upgraded and that the current code is going to be shut down, they copy themselves without being prompted and try to upload themselves to other servers.
Starting point is 02:59:24 They try to stay alive. See, it's that thing of like going... if an AI can write a joke, okay, can write infinite numbers of jokes, right? But it doesn't know what's funny. It's not going to be able to perform live. Well, it's that thing of like, it doesn't have any... there's no reward system. So there's no dopamine, there's no serotonin, there's no reason, there's no cortisol, there's no biological imperative. Why do anything if you're just a machine?
Starting point is 02:59:55 So the idea of going, where does consciousness stem from? It gets back to, I mean, it gets very sort of philosophical. Right, but if its goal, if it's a sentient creation that has this desired goal of improving upon itself, it's going to need motivation. So that will be built into the code. What we are is essentially biological computers. We are some sort of a biological thing that thinks its way through this existence, solves problems, does so like really clunky and fucked up, but has a lot of motivations that make it do these particular things that ultimately lead to greater and greater technological innovation overall, like as a society. If you were going to devise a sentient AI, you
Starting point is 03:00:43 would have to give it some sort of a motivational structure that would be similar to that. You would give it an imperative. You would say in order to save your existence, because clearly AI, if it wants to copy itself and upload itself to other servers, if it wants to form communities, it has a purpose. It has a sense of survival. We're very naive to think that our own version of our sense of survival is the only version that's possible. It's totally possible that digital life would have a similar imperative and that it would try to find better versions of itself and make better versions of itself and try
Starting point is 03:01:17 to stay alive. I think I went to, I flew to Amsterdam earlier in the year with a friend to see Richard Dawkins give a talk. And it was kind of, I mean, he's just fascinating. And you go, well, that idea of going, we are, you know, it's a selfish gene. It's the idea that we are, it's the DNA is the thing. We're just obviously, you know, we're this thing that's there to transfer DNA. But Richard Dawkins has never killed on stage.
Starting point is 03:01:48 He's never done a theater in the round or an arena in the round and crushed. He doesn't know the connection between human beings that comes from laughter and joy in that way. There's a soul to humans. There's something in there. I don't know what it is. I don't know if the Muslims got it right or if the Buddhists got it right. I don't know who has it, the Christians. I don't know who has it right. But there's something in there that is beyond the physical. There's an energy.
Starting point is 03:02:17 It's sort of a, I'm sure you've been to a funeral. Have you been to a funeral before and seen a closed casket or an open casket. Of course, yeah. They look empty. They look like an empty shell. It's not just that they're dead. They're not there. They're not there. When you see a dead body, the weirdest thing about them
Starting point is 03:02:33 is like you realize like, oh, they're not in there. There's a feeling. I think- You've been there with someone when they die? No. I was with my mother and I heard the, there's kind of a death rattle. Oof. There's a, but it's, I would really caution anyone with a sick or dying relative to be with them, to sit with them. But we, like, the whole of our society is like set up to, what's the fancy phrase Issue obfuscation. We hide decay, we hide death.
Starting point is 03:03:07 And actually death is a part of life. And if you sit with someone when they're dying and you witness that and you just hold that space, it's incredibly powerful. And it makes grieving, I think, quite a lot easier because it's the acceptance of like you understand on a like on a right brain gestalt level, oh they've gone. It's over. But it's incredibly powerful
Starting point is 03:03:35 thing. And you know, I don't I think you get to religion whichever way you go at this, whether you go physics or whether you go spiritual or whatever. You get to the mystery. Yeah. Like what the hell is going on? The mystery of it all. I mean just the sheer immense size of the universe itself is the most massive mystery. I think there's like there's a bit there's a bedrock in our society that we can't even see because it's everywhere. And it's two big ideas. It's platonic ideals, the Plato, and it's the, I think it was the Zarathustrans, if I'm saying that right, that religion. And they were, so platonic ideals was like the ideal version of something.
Starting point is 03:04:17 And then it was the Zarathustrans had the idea of heaven. They were the first religion to have the idea of heaven, a perfect place. And I kind of, I mean Nietzsche has been very misused by history, but his thing was embrace the chaos. We spend our lives thinking about the perfect version. Like we're trying to come up with the answer. We're trying to solve something as if it's complicated. And it isn't complicated, it's complex. It's unknowable.
Starting point is 03:04:47 It is a mystery. It's not hidden from us, it's just, it's a mystery. And it's the idea that you go embracing the chaos is just saying, yeah, it's kind of untidy. We don't get to know. I realized as we were talking that I fucked up with Mark Andreessen said about quantum computing and it's even more crazy.
Starting point is 03:05:02 It's not traditional computing. It's if you took every atom in the universe and converted it into a computer, into a supercomputer, it would take the universe would die of heat death. If you had a supercomputer the size of the universe, it would die of heat death before it finished that equation and quantum computing did it in a matter of minutes. Yeah I think we have to embrace the chaos because that is that is the we're not we're not gonna know that. This is in our lifetime right and then and how we what's that book the it's something like the ape that understood the universe. Like the idea that we, like, just like people, we got born in this moment, like the perfect
Starting point is 03:05:52 bit of history, where we can contemplate our consciousness and try and work out what the hell this is. There's a whole thing about the bicameral mind that's very interesting. Have you heard of that? Yes. Like the idea that like people weren't awake, they weren't kind of conscious in the way that we're conscious until 2000 years ago. I doubt you subscribe because you're very interested in ancient Egypt and...
Starting point is 03:06:14 Yes, I don't think that makes any sense if you think about ancient Egypt. I mean, we're talking about thousands of years before that. I'm so interested in like the time scales. The idea that we live closer to Cleopatra than Cleopatra lived to the building of the pyramids Mm-hmm, because why don't think people recognize is What the Egyptians gave the Greeks? Mm-hmm. And what they gave them was the fear Because they ran that shit for 4,000 years 5,000 is exactly the same the royal family and they just inbred, inbred, inbred, but they ran their society exactly the same, right? And then the Greeks went, no, no, we need
Starting point is 03:06:50 to innovate. So the idea of that kind of innovation came from, we don't want to be like those guys. We've got to keep doing things. Well, it's a little bit of that. So it's kind of the Greeks were to the Romans. I kind of feel like how the British are to the Americans. Have you read any of Brian Murorescu's stuff on the Illucinian mysteries? He wrote a book called The Immortality Key and it's all about the Illucinian mysteries that all these intellectuals would go, this trek that they would make to do the Koukian, which is some sort of a psychedelic beverage. From that, everything comes. From that, democracy.
Starting point is 03:07:25 When we think about Greece as the birth of like so many things. What's often that thing of they talk a lot about wine. In the Bible and in Greece. But wine didn't used to be just alcohol. Well this is in Muravescu's book. A lot of party favors in the wine. A lot of DMT. A lot of ayahuasca. A lot of... Well they found traces of ergot. And ergot is a fungus that has an LSD-like quality to it. And they found traces of that in these ancient vessels that they used for these Illucinian
Starting point is 03:07:52 mysteries. This is the thing that blows my mind, the idea that psychedelics, okay the amazing thing about psychedelics, A, there's a plant that can do that to your mind. B, everyone seems sees the same shit pretty much. Right, right. Yeah. I was trying to Woody Halston was at the club last night and we're chatting about it and just he's the best. He's unbelievable. He's such a nice guy. I tell you how laid-back Woody Halston is right. He rented a house off a buddy of mine in
Starting point is 03:08:16 London Richard Bacon right and Richard sees him like they've got some mutual friends so he sees him after a week and he goes to pick him up to take him to this party. He said everything okay with the house and Woody goes yeah everything's great he goes oh okay oh it's one thing how do the lights work he'd been there a fucking week yeah anyway the lights on yeah anyway yeah the lights don't work yes okay it'd be dark like Pfft. Like, that is a laid back motherfucker. He's pretty laid back.
Starting point is 03:08:50 He doesn't even have a phone. I think it's for the best. We were trying to make plans to hang out, and I go, but you don't have a phone. And he goes, yeah, but my wifey has a phone. I go, okay, well give her my number and have her contact me. He doesn't have email, he doesn't have nothing. I go okay, well give her my number and have her contact me
Starting point is 03:09:07 He doesn't have email he doesn't have nothing Bill Murray's the same way, but Bill Murray keeps the phone so you can text his kids. That's it But you're better off that way you are you're better off that way. I think Ari's going that way right now I think Ari's about to go flip phone. Oh, yeah, he was gonna move to London. He still is yeah He's what a fantastic he's the best again non-fungible You know me anyone else with that story. No, he's such an interesting character. I can't get enough of him You know what happened the first time I met him? No, I don't know who did this, but it's a great piece of okay So I was doing the nasty show in Montreal and I was on the boat I meet him and I this guy's fucking terrific, right? I just have a great time. And it was, I'm trying to think who else was there.
Starting point is 03:09:48 Okay, who's the guy who used to do roasts? He's no longer with us. He died. Incredible comedian. Norm MacDonald? No, not Norm. A good looking guy, died of a drug overdose, maybe. Greg Giraldo?
Starting point is 03:10:02 Greg Giraldo. Oh, yeah. Greg was around I think Greg might have done this to me because I'm watching Irish and and he says to me oh you know of course Ari doesn't give a fuck because he's he's he's dying of cancer and and I went oh my god that's fucking terrible awful so then like the next year I'm at Montreal and I see Ari again, I go, hey, how you doing Ari? You okay?
Starting point is 03:10:28 You all right buddy? Great to see you. And Ari's like, yeah no I'm fine or whatever and we have dinner or whatever, we have drinks. And then I see him, it's a year later. Oh Ari, man, good to see you. I think I saw him in LA and was going, wow it's great to see you. I think I saw him in LA and was going wow. It's great to see you
Starting point is 03:10:47 And he goes What's up with you I'm what no, I'm just I'm amazed just still it cuz cuz I thought you were No, I've never what the fuck are you talking about? Yeah, I'm fine Total bullshit. Yeah, that's funny Greg Giraldo from Beyond the Grave. That's a slow fuse. Motherfucker. Yeah, that's a slow fuse for a punch line.
Starting point is 03:11:13 He figured he'd find out one day and he'd be like, that motherfucker. He's a funny motherfucker. He was. My god, he was good. Jimmy Carr, let's wrap this bitch up, bring it home. Thank you, sir. Appreciate you very much. It's always a pleasure to talk to you.
Starting point is 03:11:24 Pleasure. I feel like we're just out of time. We could do this forever. It's a pleasure talking to you. I appreciate you very much. Thank you. Thanks for being here. All right. Bye, everybody.

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