The Joe Rogan Experience - #447 - Cara Santa Maria

Episode Date: January 28, 2014

Cara Santa Maria is a science communicator, writer, producer and television personality. She is the host of "Take Part Live" on Pivot TV and "TechKnow" on Al Jazeera America.

Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out! The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day! Well, the last time you were here, you coined a phrase, or you used a phrase that I have stolen and used over and over and over again. I give you credit, but it's Woo Peddler. Oh, yeah, yeah, love that. Deepak Chopra. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I definitely didn't coin that, but I love it too.

I use it a lot. Every time I see that dude, I just think Woo Peddler. Yeah, didn't we have a little kind of Twitter thing? With him? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was calling him. I asked if he Woo Peddled much. Yeah, and then it was something about he was saying, like, I am a god, and you were like,

Woo Peddle much? And he was like, oh, it was really funny. I favorited it. Yeah. He was actually like, he had a good sense of humor about it. I don't think he takes himself totally seriously. Yeah.

He's not like cult leader seriously. I think he gets ahead of himself and he says some really ridiculous shit and then when people call him on it, you know, he just starts using the word quantum. Yeah, I think that's true. Throws that shit in there.

Quantum consciousness is ruined. You know, I think better him than a lot of other people in his position. Better him than, you know, that Kevin Trudeau guy that's selling you weight lock secrets that they don't want you to know about. That's true. It doesn't seem like Deepak. I mean, Deepak's trying to sell his books. But outside of that, I don't really feel like he is that much of, you know, like a predator, like he's not using this kind of pseudoscience. And truth be told, there is a little bit of truth to some of the things that he talks about, but he does kind of, I think, step way outside of the boundaries of what's reasonable and healthy. But you're right, I don't think he's actually trying to take advantage of people. Fundamentally, I think that Deepak Chopra thinks what he's talking about. I mean, he believes in what he's talking about. And I think that he actually thinks that he's

helping people. Maybe he is helping some people, but he's also peddling a lot of woo. I think he probably is helping a lot of people. I think he's definitely peddling a lot of woo. And one thing that I always get out of him is that I don't think even he knows what he's saying. that I always get out of him is that I don't think even he knows what he's saying. I think there's a lot of times where people will try to impress upon you that what they're saying is important. And one of the ways they do that is by using these like really kind of like vague terms that sound fantastic. Yeah. I mean, that's really, I think, where that term pseudoscience comes from. It's not real science. It's fake science. It's bad science. But it sort of sounds like science to an untrained ear. And that's the dangerous thing is if you throw around a lot that it all does or you mush it all together, you create this really cloudy atmosphere. I'm not sure what the fuck you're saying and I'm not sure if it's true.

And it's really hard for like an everyday person who goes, OK, well, I've heard that before. And, you know, my doctor told me that. And, you know, that seems important. And then they throw in all these other things. Well, I mean, if you're an authority figure and you're saying all these things that are true, I guess I should believe you when you say all these other things. It's a really dangerous, you know. That's it right up there. He says, I was an atheist, hashtag, until I discovered I was God. And then I said, son, don't make me smack you, woo pedal much. And then he responded. He responded something really funny. I don't know if you can find it. Yes, we're all God in drag. Yes, we're all God in drag.

Yeah, we're all God in drag. That actually is very funny. I know. I was like, oh, that's pretty awesome. Well, you know, he did a thing with his son where his son followed him around with a camera and completely exposed him. And he went on tour, like promoted this with his son and did like

interviews on like opie and anthony and all these different places but one of them was like his son like caught him sleeping when he was supposed to be meditating i'm going to the temple to meditate and they go into the temple he's he's completely out cold light on his back and it's it's it's quite funny because his son sort of you you know, grew up with him. And sons and fathers have notoriously contentious relationships. I'm always incredibly impressed when I meet a daughter who gets along great with her mom or a son who gets along great with his dad. Because somewhere along the line in those male-male, female-female relationships,

there seems to be this, like, changing of the guard something like that, or this need to be your own person. And Deepak's son has that shit in buckets. He's got buckets full of that. But it's cool that Deepak doesn't really take himself too seriously. It's cool that his son catches him asleep and he's like, yeah, put it on the internet. Put it in the movie. It's quantum. I was not caught.

I was traveling. It was a way. My third eye was open to the possibilities yeah he did a an interview or a debate rather with Richard Dawkins fairly recently on

I think it was he was challenging Dawkins on the concept of atheism and you know and Dawkins was just being his codgery old cunty self. But it actually made him, Dawkins, look bad. Yeah, and I mean that's the thing. It's when you engage in those kinds of conversations with people who can really hold their own,

you've got to be really careful because Dawkins, I think his take, and I respect the man immensely, his take is very much an educated, I'm an evolutionist, I'm an evolutionary biologist. These are the reasons that I don't believe in God. But he's very hard lined about it. And there is something about being this kind of ivory tower British elite that just kind of makes you seem like a dick, even like he's not a dick. He's a really sweet man. I've met him before. He's soft-spoken. But the truth is, you put those two men in a room together. I mean, Deepak knows what he's doing. He knows that part of a debate or part of a conversation is about bringing out certain aspects of somebody's

character. It's about likability. And I think it's easy for people who aren't already kind of hard-lined atheists and who aren't already big docking supporters to be like, that guy seems mean. Well, I think he is mean. I disagree with you. Really? I think he is a dick and I think he is mean. And I think that's because he's had to deal with idiots over and over and over again. And he's an extremely intelligent man.

And he's tired of it. Could be that. And he gets this quivering in his lips when he talks to people. No, that is not what's going on. And he gets so furious about defending science and defending the truth. I don't think he's a dick in an unjust way. I think he's a dick for a reason. He's a dick because he's a normal guy.

And I think he's also a dick because he's a normal guy with a lot of knowledge that doesn't have a lot of release in his life. Probably. because he's a normal guy with a lot of knowledge that doesn't have a lot of release in his life. Probably. And he's also, I think he's also sheltered a little bit because of his position, because of, you know, when you work in academia and you're kind of surrounded by like-minded people a lot and only periodically do you go out into the real world where there's a lot of people

who don't have the education that you have and who have totally different values and belief systems, I'm sure it can be really, really frustrating because you're constantly having to defend a position that's the rational position that like anybody else who's come up through the ranks that you came up, you know, 97% of practicing scientists or something like that don't believe in God. And maybe it's not that high, but 97% definitely, you know, know that global warming is true. And maybe something like 75% in America don't believe in God. But we're like a very religious country.

But when you kind of go through the motions and you just come to these logical conclusions because of all of the different life choices you've made, but then you interact with people who are from such a different background, who have never studied evolution, who have never studied, you know, global climate change or whatever, it's like talking to a wall sometimes because you almost can't have the same kind of reasonable conversations because when you're talking to a wall sometimes because you almost can't have the same kind of reasonable conversations because when you're talking to somebody who's not coming from a rational evidence-based place, who's coming from kind of appeals to emotion or who's coming from folklore or whatever reason they have to defend their kind of belief structure, their faith position, it's really frustrating because you don't really have a lot of ammunition at a certain point. But especially when you're talking to somebody like Deepak Chopra, who has like made

a career kind of being good at debating, who knows exactly the way to twist your words and to make it sound like what he's speaking is the truth. And then he's got this like very benevolent, kind of kind and calm demeanor. And he's going to make Dawkins look like a dick. Oh, see, I didn't think that he did any twisting of any words at all. Oh, really? No, no. I think, you know, he seemed like a woo peddler. I mean, to use your term.

That's what he seemed like. But Dawkins was just getting so angry. Yeah. And it's that old saying, you know, never argue with an idiot because people won't be able to tell who's who. Or I don't know. That's not the saying. I don't know.

It works for me. I would never like i would never debate a creationist like people talk oh you should blah blah blah and i think like bill nye i don't know if it's happened yet but bill nye's supposed to debate ken ham that's insane i don't know why he's doing it i mean i i have friends you know i'm friends with sean carroll who's a physicist at um caltech and and writes these really great books about time and about quantum physics. And he does periodically debate creationists. And I'm always like, what are you doing? That sounds like such a bad idea.

You know, like, because these people are skilled just in the art of conversation. They're skilled in the art of debate. Even if what they're saying has no weight, they know how to argue these positions and try and trap you and get you on the defensive. They have all of these different kind of skill sets. But he always says it's not for me. It's not to try and prove him wrong.

It's not to try and convince him not to believe in God. You know, like this guy is Ken Ham is like a hardcore fundamentalist Christian. We're never going to change his mind. So they say the reason that we do these debates is for the people who are sitting there watching who may be like, well, I don't know the difference between evolution and intelligent design. I've never thought about it. I've never really looked at the evidence that maybe even a small percentage of the people who decide to tune in will be given some sort of information that they didn't have before that they can be armed with to make better decisions. But I don't know. To me it just seems like, I mean, I think it's a noble pursuit, but at the same time I'm not sure how effective it really is to debate a creationist. I disagree with you. I don't think you're going to convince the creationist.

No, not at all. But I do think that there's value in someone who's good at it if someone has the ability to speak and speak well and also they have to have a certain amount of charisma they do you absolutely do the issue the dawkins issue is that he gets so emotionally invested in this fucking horse shit that depak spewing that he gets angry and furious instead of mocking him. Like there's a brilliant exchange with a, there was a scientist,

there was a, a panel and Deepak was on the panel and this, this scientist stepped up and, uh, asked Deepak a question. And, uh, Deepak clearly didn't know what the fuck he was talking about,

but the way the guy handled it was very sweet and he was smiling while he did it and explained that he was in the process of writing a book with stephen hawkins and that he was in the middle of this and then that i don't he's like i understand those words you said but uh i'm not sure if they mean anything like the way he said it was it was adorable like because the guy didn't lose his cool and it made Deepak look like a fucking idiot whereas if the same guy got up and said you know what is this quantum talk you're talking a bunch of fucking bullshit and shut up you don't know it then all the sudden you know Deepak is this pudgy Indian man that you're picking on screams of racism and all these other fucking hot buttons get

pushed yeah I think the same thing can be done skillfully with these creationist fellows like sure I think the same thing can be done skillfully with these creationist fellows. Sure. I think the idea behind creationism is so preposterous in the form that we see it, in the form of, you know, not in the form of something created the universe, whether it's some sort of a universal force that creates stars or the reason why atoms exist in the first place. All these like fundamental questions that scientists have as to why the structure of the universe is what it is.

There's that. But then there's this book that has been translated from other books and then they're sticking to this fucking crazy book. Just point out the other shit in the book that's ridiculous. Like the shit in the book about not being able to wear two different types of cloth. Yeah. And they do that usually. They'll point out the shit in the book that's ridiculous and they figure out, you know, and point out how if the book says this, you truly believe this in this

century and science has unequivocally disproven what it is that you believe. You know, it's one thing to talk about, like you said, you know, these big questions like what came before the Big Bang or, you know, what a lot of, I feel like, intelligent design advocates confuse, for example, evolution via natural selection with abiogenesis. So they confuse the idea of how organisms have evolved over time with how life began in the first place, which is a fundamentally different scientific question, different topic, totally different field of inquiry. And so, you know, a lot of times what they do is they appeal to these two questions. They say like, well, you

don't know what existed before the Big Bang, therefore God, done, mic drop, you know, every time. And instead of kind of allowing that, it's to say, you know, okay, neither of us know why is God the first, you know, answer that you jump to. Let's look at all the other times when you're saying that the answer is God, and we've disproven it over and over and over and over. And just because we don't have all of the answers to every question right now using the scientific method doesn't mean that through new tools, through new lines of inquiry that we might be able to answer those in the future. It doesn't mean that just because we the future. It doesn't mean that like,

just because we don't have that doesn't mean that there aren't other philosophical answers to these questions that don't rely on this like very fundamentalist view. I think personally that for example, Bill Nye is going to be able to hold his own. He's a total badass. He's not going to lose his cool. And Ken Ham,

if you've ever watched him in, I mean, he's a nut job. Like he's a total, he's a total nutter butter, he's a total... Pull up some videos on him. He's a total nutter butter, and he will lose his cool, and he's totally not likable. Like, nothing about this guy is likable.

So I think that maybe that's why Bill Nye was willing to do it. Because I've seen Bill Nye, right, go on, like, Bill O'Reilly a million times, and there's kind of a mutual respect there. He deals with Bill O'Reilly very well, and I'm always impressed at those exchanges. You see the one where Bill O'Reilly very well. And I'm always impressed. You see the one where Bill O'Reilly is like, the tide comes in, the tide comes out. Why does he do that? Yeah, you can explain that.

Yeah, he's with Steve. Going with God. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was so fucking funny. I'm putting my chips in God's corner. Such a facepalm. Well, he's a bullshitter, I think. I think he's a panderer.

I think what he's doing is he knows that there's a bunch of fucking scared old ladies with Bibles in their hand that listen to his show, and he's on their side. Totally. And he's honestly not even as bad as Rush Limbaugh and fucking, who's the other guy? The Mormon guy. Glenn Beck. Glenn Beck. The late in life Mormon guy. Yeah, exactly.

Which is even better than being a Mormon. So tough. You know, I was Mormon. Did we have this conversation? I don't know. Last time I was on? I'm not sure. I was raised Mormon.

Really? Yeah. My folks are still, well, my dad's still Mormon. His whole side of the family. Yeah. Are you from Utah? No, I'm from Texas. Wow.

Mormon in Texas. Yeah. There's a lot. I mean, they're fucking everywhere. They're everywhere. But yeah, born and raised. Left the church when I was 14. Wow.

When you were 14, what was it that got you to? I just didn't like I was. It's so funny, too, because I hadn't found science yet. It's not like I knew, you know, I didn't have like all these answers available to me. I just probably around like 12, maybe 11. Like when you start questioning things, I really started questioning things. And a lot of things weren't making sense for me. And, you know, just a lot of the answers that they give you in the church like weren't sitting well with me.

And so I was studying and I was trying to figure out like, you know, I've been taught this my whole life, but it just doesn't make sense. It doesn't sit well with reality. And I remember going to my father and saying, you know, I have all these questions. I'm very confused. I'm not sure I believe. And the answer they always give you is just to like really pray about, you know, it's like they give you all of these answers that aren't helping at all. They don't they don't really improve your confusion at all. And so ultimately, I finally just came to him and said, like, I'm pretty sure at this point that I really don't believe in God and attending, which is a huge part of your life when you're 14.

I mean, when you're in high school and you're Mormon, you go to church for three hours every Sunday, you go to youth group every Wednesday night, you have all sorts of family things like family home evening every Monday night, and then you go to seminary, which is either Bible, Book of Mormon, and then like Pearl of Great Price and Doctrine and Covenant study. Every morning before school, I would go at 6am for like an hour before school. And it's I mean, it's really intense. It takes up a huge part of your life. And when you don't believe it's kind of I mean, you have to come out, you have to come out like it's it's so painful, like you're stuck in this skin that's not you. And I mean, obviously, I don't know what it's like for somebody who is

gay, who's like, you know, scared to come out in their community but um i would assume that there's like at least a faint similarity to that feeling of like i can't live like this because i'm lying to myself every day so i finally came out to my father and it was like not good it was a difficult situation it was hard for the family and i didn't end up like i ended up actually not having a relationship with him for many years it's it's now. But at the time, it was like a really intense thing, like as a 14 year old kid to be like, oh, I need to make this like really intense life decision. So your dad didn't want to interact with you because, or you didn't want to interact with him because of the pressure? It was like, so my parents were divorced. So I went to my dad's house every other weekend. And then like, I think like a month in the summer

or something like that. But we also went to his house on Sundays to go to church together because my mom wasn't attending after they got divorced. And so he basically told me, I remember the quote to this day, I have a moral obligation to God to force you to go to church until you're 18 years old, as long as you're living under my roof. And I was like, I'm not going to go anymore. And he was like, well, then I guess you're not going to live under my roof anymore. Yeah. So it was a really tough decision. It was kind of like me or me or your atheism. And at the time, I just felt like I can't not make this decision. So we didn't speak for a long time and I didn't go to his house for a really long time.

We didn't have a relationship, but it improved over time. It improved. You're a very smart person. I always assume that that's genetic. I always assume that there's at least I always assume that that's genetic. I always assume that there's at least some element of that that's genetic. I mean, intelligence is a really, really complicated topic in neuroscience and psychology. And so there's really not a lot of evidence available that says that intellectual ability is hereditary. Let me tell you something. a friend he's dumb his wife's dumb their kid's stupid as fuck okay there's something there

there probably is something there it especially in terms of especially in terms of environment so a lot of times what can happen is that let's say that you have two you they do these twin studies all the time it's one of the only real ways with human behavior to understand pure genetics. Because my sister and I have very different lives, and we have very different personalities, and we have very different intellectual abilities. But my sister and I are genetically different, even though we came from the same source DNA, right? Half mom, half dad. It's all shuffled together. You didn't get the same alleles on your genes.

And we are literally night and day. But if you took two people who were monozygotic twins, who were identical twins, and those two kids got adopted out when they were babies, and they were raised by two totally different people. And this happens in nature a lot, or not nature, but you know, it happens in society a lot. And you study those two kids, you'll find that the kid who grew up in an impoverished environment with, you know, who wasn't getting appropriate or adequate nutrition, whose a huge part. Same thing with mice. I mean, you see it in animals too. You put a mouse in a cage with nothing there and you put a mouse in a cage with all sorts of amazing things for it to interact with. Its brain is going to actually grow larger. You're going to see more kind of neural interactions, much more intense branching of different neurons. So now that's not to say that there's not a genetic component. It's just very hard to pinpoint what the genetic component is. It's been kind of an enigma to be

able to chase that. It totally makes sense. I mean, there's so many different variables. So many. And like, let's say you have a friend who's dumb and his wife is dumb, their kid might be dumb because they don't know, you know, it's like they're not speaking intelligently to the child. They don't, they don't have a really great grasp of the English language. They're probably not reading very challenging books. But sometimes you do see parents who maybe are limited, but they so desperately want everything that their kid deserves. And the kid, you know, shines intellectually from the time they're a kid. And they really foster that, even though they might not even be able to have an intelligent conversation with their kid.

They're going to put their kid in a great school and they're going to, oh, he's so gifted. I want to make sure he's always taken care of. And that kid might grow up to be, you know, just a little genius. And you see it a lot. You know, you see it where a child grows up to be this really, you know, academic star and his parents maybe weren't exactly on the same page. Yeah, it is such a crapshoot when you deal with life experiences and then you deal with education. I mean, just the teachers that you get, the school that you go to, the books that someone just by chance made, hey, you might be interested in this.

Exactly. And then, boom, a light bulb goes off, a new door opens up to your mind, and then you start pursuing that path. And then there's even silly things like, are you eating well? Are you exercising? Are you doing drugs? Like, like those kinds of, yeah, exactly. But those kinds of things, they're actually the most fundamental, you know, because if you are, there's actually a really high correlation between intelligence and, um, or a high inverse relationship between intelligence and poverty, because it's just when you're growing up and you don't eat enough

and then you're going to school, you can't focus, you can't pay attention, you don't sleep enough, you're working an extra job. It's just so hard to get ahead of the game that way. And so there's so many different variables. And that's why I think fundamentally whenever you have these conversations, like is it nature, is it nurture? Well, it's always both. Almost everything is nature and nurture. There's some things that are very heavily genetic, like, especially when it comes to deficits. Like, if you're, you know, if these two genes didn't split the right way, or if this cell migrated in this direction, and it didn't work that way, and then you end up, let's say, with some sort of intense genetic difficulty, you end up with Down syndrome, for example.

intense genetic difficulty, you end up with Down syndrome, for example. There's only so much you can do. You can do a lot environmentally to improve your life and improve your abilities, but you still have Down syndrome, right? And so you still might be dealing with something of a ceiling, even though I think you can push that ceiling up. And vice versa, you know, you can do a lot kind of environmentally to improve or whatever. But there are still always going to be some sort of, there's always going to be some sort of like genetic component, but it is very difficult. Sometimes the lines get really blurred and it's so hard to tell from the outside. That's why we do experiments with animals. I mean, it's a really heavy reason that geneticists so commonly use animals in the lab because you can clone a bunch of animals.

You can have a very specific line of animals, and then you can do something where you change some sort of environmental component or some sort of drug or you do something with the brain of these 10 different mice. Well, all the mice were clones, so they started out genetically exactly the same. So you can't do this in humans. You can't make sure every other variable is kept the same and then only manipulate one Variable because we just grow up with these rich intense interesting lives, but you can do that with animals

Which is why animal research is so important to answer a lot of fundamental questions It's really kind of fucked if you stop and think about it. There's like 300 million experiments going on in this country I mean, that's what humans are. We're all experiments. We're all like, this is what happens when someone plays soccer from the time they were five. Exactly. This is what happens if they only eat cake. This is what happens if your dad beats you. This is what happens if your parents ignore you. And can you imagine if like your dad or your mom was a really intense kind of a cognitive psychologist or experimental psychologist? Like, you know, there's all these, I don't think that they're necessarily true or I'm

not sure how much truth there is to it, but there's all these like tales about like B.F. Skinner, who's probably one of the most famous behaviorists in history. Every psychology student learns about Skinner. You know, like Skinner has a kid and then like all of the things that he might do to the crib that his daughter grows up in and exactly how, oh, I'm going to do an enrichment experiment with my child. Like, I cannot imagine. Yeah.

That would be really intense. Yeah. There's a lot at stake when you do something like that. Your kid might resent you for that. Yeah. Well, you know, we all resent our parents for some reason or another, don't we? I guess. Some do.

There's a story about a woman who owned a comedy club and had a son who was a comedian. And when he would cry when he was younger, she would ignore him because she felt like if she ignored him, he'd grow up funny. Oh, no. Yeah. And that probably is true. No. Not funny. Didn't work.

He wasn't funny. Didn't work at all. He grew up to be a cunt. Yeah, he grew up super depressed. Just a shitty human. But there is kind of, it's interesting, you know, there's a recent study actually, and I don't know how much stock I put into this, because whenever there's like a single study that gets a lot of media attention, that's how we do it in this country specifically when it comes to the media and science. We're really bad about picking up, oh, that study is really interesting. so let's um let's pick it up and all the different media outlets are going to talk about this one study where we got one you know uh dose of results and we're going to say it like it's truth right

but there was this recent study that uh where all these different comedians i guess i think it was in the uk actually were yeah like answered a self-report questionnaire and they found that there's a really high uh percentage of um it wasn't psychopathy it was uh it was psychotic uh personality traits in comedians and so it's actually kind of interesting and almost every comedian i talk to is always like most comedians are kind of fucked up like it's like you know their their anecdotal kind of stories are a lot of comedians deal with this or they deal with that. And, you know, that humor is kind of a tool that a lot of comedians develop over their lifetime. I think especially comedians who specifically have like a shtick. Like, you know, I deal with weight issues.

So all my jokes are about my weight. I deal with my bad relationship with my parents. So all my jokes are about that. And, I mean, I don't know. I don't think you can make any sort of blanket statements. There's probably like incredibly high-functioning people who have never dealt with mental illness at all. But I think there is some sort of like really beautiful truth in comedy where, you know, there are a lot of people who are very highly skilled at taking these fundamentally human challenges that we all deal with, whether it's mental illness, whether it's feelings of regret or feelings of loneliness or feeling like you don't fit in and using humor as a tool to really deliver these kinds of very universal messages. And there's a skill in that. And I wonder if it's that maybe we all deal a

little bit with psychotic personality traits. We all deal a little bit with depression, with anxiety, you know, pick your poison. And that a lot of comedians are much more in touch with that. They figured out a way to have this vehicle for talking about these very human experiences. And they do it in such a way that we can all kind of share in it and laugh together about it. I mean, I don't know. But well, I read that study. And I thought one of the things that I found issue with is they found 500 funny people in England. Yeah. Seriously, I don't see that. Maybe for England.

I've actually never been to England. Have you been to England? It's great. I want to go. I'm fucking around. I love it over there. I've been all over Europe, but it's so strange. I've never been to the easiest country to travel to because we speak the same language.

Yeah, they're great. They're fantastic comedy club audiences. They love American stand-up too. Their type of stand-up is very different. But they're huge fans of American stand-up. They tend to be witty and a bit more reserved and great wordsmiths,

great writers. But they studied 500 comedians. This is the thing. There's not that many comedians. If you took America, which is 300 million people, and you said, okay, how many comedians are there? There's maybe a thousand professional comedians out of 300 million. Out of those thousand, how many of them are actually good? There's maybe 250. There might be 250 comedians in this country that are worth a fuck. Yeah, it does make you question, are they self-described comedians?

Like, how do they find these people? How do you get 500 in England when you only have 250 in America? I mean, I just don't, I don't buy it. And maybe they weren't professional comedians. Maybe they're just people who found themselves to be funny. Well, it's also, I don't know if their circuit is as deep and wide as ours is. I mean, you go to, like, New York City has 20 comedy clubs. You know, I mean, Los Angeles has God knows how many.

I mean, we could just sit here and just count, especially when you count the greater L.A. area, you branch out to places like Brea and Irvine and Ontario, and L.A. might have 50 fucking comedy clubs. And it's not just L.A. and New York. I mean, every major city has at least one or two comedy clubs. And, you know, comics go on tour all over the country. And really big comics don't even play in comedy clubs at a certain point.

You know, they're packing theaters. We still do, though. We still work our shit out at comedy clubs. You have to. At least for me. I find that there's a certain amount of the intimacy that you get in a comedy club is you can't get that anywhere else yeah you in big theaters the big theater shows like I did the Chicago theater this weekend which is like 3,000 plus seats but like

then I'll do the ice house like the little room which is 80 seats but that 80 seat room is like you're I'm sitting like as close as I am to you and you if they're laughing it's because it's funny. It's a real intimate sort of a thing. Comedy, to do it correctly, in my opinion, and to be really in touch with what you're doing, you need a lot of different environments to do it in. I think that's smart. I mean, to have kind of a lot of different experiences

so then you can really tell what sticks and what works with different audiences. It's not just that. It's also how you feel about saying it to these people, how they react to it and how that resonates with you. Because what a person says is not just like, this is what I have inside of me and this is how you react to it. Comedy is one of the rare art forms where you can't even practice it

without other people's input yeah and so it's not just what you're saying it's how like this conversation that we're having would be very different if you were your dad if you were the guy who's the mormon who's still sticking to you so like the way i say things would be different the way we would interact would be different and much like you know we're talking about all the variables that go into creating a human, there's also massive variables going into just creating conversations. Totally. A conversation. I mean, one of the things that I'm finding about podcasts is that a conversation really is kind of a piece of art.

If you can listen to it and it's really interesting and it becomes like something that's enriching to you and inspiring to you and and the person and the people that are engaging in this conversation are careful with the things that they say in terms of like they're intently focusing on what they're saying and not just just spitting out word salad there's an art to that. And that art gets to you and it sort of enriches you. I think that that conversation and stand-up comedy, they're very similar in that way. That stand-up comedy is like, it's dependent almost entirely on the environments that you do it in and the people that are experiencing it. And it seems like there's kind of always a goal, whether it's spoken or not, of this sort of sense of universality

the sense of like just because you and i are having a conversation right now doesn't mean that everybody at home who's listening isn't a part of the conversation you know what i mean i think it's so important that the the topics that we engage in the things that we you know the emotions that we share have uh they resonate with other people. And that's so important in comedy too. Like there is, I think there's something to be said about just like a wacky person who says all sorts of wacky things that are totally out of step with everybody. Oh, that's so weird and different.

And that's funny. But I think that would lose its shtick after a while. I think part of what's really important in comedy is that there's these like universal kind of themes that are touched on that people really relate to. Because when you're like, ah, you're totally talking about me right now. Because we're like fundamentally selfish. And I think it's important that when we watch TV, when we sit down and, you know, pay money to be

entertained, that it feels like you're talking to me, you know, not the person next to me, but me, that I'm engaged in this conversation. It's a part of our nature. And so I think that there is, like you said, a big art to that, to reaching people, especially people who maybe sometimes don't feel like they're reached. You know, I can't watch Two and a Half Men and feel like it relates to me at all. Like, it's like the worst fucking show on television. It's so not funny. It so does not speak to me. And I don't get it because it's like the most popular show.

You know, everybody loves it. Or like Duck Dynasty, for example, is like one of the highest rated shows of all time, which is fucking insane to me. But there is something,

I mean, there's a reason that these things do really well is because there's a whole cross-section of people that they find it to be like really relatable for them. You know what I mean?

And I think that there's an art in that. There's an art in creating television. There's an art in doing radio. There's an art in doing comedy. Any of these kind of spoken word kind of avenues. I think shows like Two and a Half Men especially, Duck Dynasty is sort of a trick. Because what Duck Dynasty is pretending is that you're looking into the lives of these wholesome, God-fearing, you know, duck call creators. Homophobic.

Massively now. But what we find out now is that they're just idiots and that also they've been doctored up. They've talked these people into growing those fucking beards and wearing camo indoors and all the stupid shit that they do is contrived. And also, yeah, I do think that there's a difference between feeling like, you know, I'm a part of this and they're speaking to me. And then there's this gross kind of base human desire to like be a voyeur, to like look in on somebody else's life who has it worse off than you do so that you can like, okay, no matter how hard I have it, no matter what kind of shit I'm dealing with, these people are fucking freak shows and they make me feel better about myself, which is such a gross, like, that's one thing, you know, I work in television, but I've also done, you know, work in journalism. And, you know,

I'm still, you know, I'm 30 years old. I'm on my course, my career course, I've been successful. But at the same time, you're always kind of reinventing yourself and trying to figure out your track in life. And one thing that I've, you know, I go to, I take a lot of meetings in Hollywood, I go to a lot of, you know, this person pitches this science show, and I really want to do this thing, and it sounds like, okay, cool, that sounds interesting. Let's talk about it. We could take it to this network. And one of the things that I fundamentally always say no to, I do draw a line in the

sand. I don't have the luxury of, oh, I don't have time to take that meeting. You know, like, I'm not there by any stretch, and I don't think that that's even a goal. That's my goal. Yeah, just to be able to say,'s not, I'm not there by any stretch and I don't think that that's even a goal. But- That's my goal. Yeah, just to be able to say, fuck off, I'm better than, yeah. But the one thing is,

if I do go to a meeting, my fundamentals that I don't do, what I have dubbed kind of humiliation television, it's not something I ever want to have anything to do with. You know, in the industry, they might call it conflict reality. There's all these different euphemisms for, because what I do fundamentally is reality TV because it's nonfiction programming, right? I'm mostly into the edutainment sphere. I'm really interested in,

you know, science-based programming or political-based programs. So it's all nonfiction. So it's reality in a sense. It's not scripted. How crazy is that though that that and Duck Dynasty are in the same genre? I know in the same, I know, genre. So for me specifically, I call that kind of TV humiliation TV. A lot of producers call it conflict reality, which is not a place I ever want to be, which sucks because that's where TV's moving. Like, that's where the jobs are, but I won't do it. You know what I mean? I don't see it.

I don't think it's moving there. Oh, come on. Like, all the most popular, highest rated shows are like that. It's just a trend. I really believe that. But it's trending down. You know what I mean? Don't you feel like we are well on our way to idiocracy?

Like you watch that movie and they're literally watching a show called Ouch My Balls. Like the whole movie they're watching Ouch My Balls or yeah, Ow My Balls or something where they just follow each other around and like punch each other in the balls. And then the people, oh, it's hilarious. It's punching them in the balls and it's like wasn't that jackass like isn't that

what we're watching now like oh it's so fucking you know speaking of the UK and TV have you seen this show Black Mirror I've heard of it

I have not seen it but I've heard it's so fucking good and I'm super depressed because I watched it I like binge watched it all in a weekend and then realized that

it was an anthology but they only made three in like 2011 and like three in 2013. So it's done. Like there's only six episodes ever, which is super depressing. So those of you at home who want to watch this like morning, there's only six episodes, so make them last. It's like a modern day Twilight Zone. It's really well done.

It's super dark. But one of the really interesting components about it is that it has this sort of dystopian technology angle, right? It's like future, but not too far in the future. So as you're watching it, it's very relatable. Like they use technology really smartly. But just like we are, you know, just like I was talking about this idea of Ouch My Balls being the way that television is going you watch this this show and they're all on their phones they have these you know these implants in their heads or in their

each episode is different but it's like so believable and so sad that this could potentially be the direction that our culture is going because i I mean, now I'm driving, you know, I was just driving here, which is a kind of a hike from Hollywood. So I'm on the freeway, like for quite a long time. And I'm looking, there's a little bit of traffic. So when we're stopped, I'm looking into cars, especially like city buses, you look in the city buses, and literally every single person, headphones in on their phone, like no interaction between other people, so dialed into their phones and what this show does really well is take that component and like what happens when we push it

what happens when we go into the future where nobody even cares about one another anymore and they just live in this like weird digital world and their avatar is who they are and they they they spend all their money like buying their avatar a new hat or something like they don't like The concept of wearing a hat in life wouldn't make sense because who gives a shit what you're wearing because your avatar is wearing this hat and all the avatars interact, but you don't interact with it. It's fascinating because there's a fear that that's kind of the direction we're going.

As far as, that was a long, interesting rant. As far as, like, that was a long, interesting rant. As far as television, like television dumbing down and becoming a part of idiocracy, I think one of the issues is the delivery method of television in the first place is massively flawed. Because first of all, you're dealing with censorship. Censorship fucks everything up. You're dealing with a gang of people that you're getting involved with that don't want to offend anybody. They want to make sure that you promote whatever values that represent their sponsors. It's all about the sponsor. You're fundamentally beholden to your advertisers in television.

And then you have those advertisers to consider because that's going to intersect into your program. Every X amount of minutes, boom, your show's going to shut off, and then there's going to be dancing fucking lizards that are selling commercial insurance. And that's the most important thing to consider, right? Because if you can't get the advertisers to come in, you can't get the budget to make the show, which means that you can't build an audience, which means that you're not going to get the ratings that you need. But fundamentally, you've got to keep the advertisers. So I think the bottom line for most TV is being beholden to those advertisers.

But then you have something like HBO that produces something like Game of Thrones, and it becomes massively popular. It's a brilliant show, incredibly well done. And then you say, oh, wait a minute, there's that too. But that is not being represented. That type of art form is not being represented on regular television because of the restrictions. Oh, it couldn't be. Exactly. The delivery method is just so fucked up. That's, I think, more of the issue than the dumbing down of people.

Because things like podcasts are a perfect example of why that's not the case. It's just you're not reaching those people. You're not stimulating those people. Like podcasts are reaching more and more people every day, and one of the reasons being is that they're completely uncensored. But I still, I mean, this is my fear, and I don't want to be cynical, and I don't want to be negative, but, like, you take the number of people that you reach in a podcast and compare it to the number of people who tune in every night to fucking two and a half men,

and it's, like, depressing to see the difference in the just sheer quantity of people tuning in and i completely agree that the world of podcasts and the world of hbo which is this beautiful kind of you know only subscription television so we don't give a shit about the advertisers the way that the hbo model right is to hire production somebody pitches them a show they love the show the production company believes in it hire them, and they're very hands-off. They're like, you sold us a show that you thought would be brilliant, we want to give you a chance, show us how brilliant it is. And it works. I mean, it very much works, because they don't

get in there and fuck everything up like they do on most networks. And yes, there's a small portion of the population who just eats that up. And I think that we are probably those people, I think that your listeners are those. I think everybody listening to the show right now is like, oh, fuck yeah, I loved Breaking Bad. And Breaking Bad is actually a really interesting example because it was on cable television. Walking Dead used to be that example.

I think the first season was just absolutely amazing and brilliant and also on television with commercials. Now it's kind of shit. I don't watch it, so I don't know. It falling apart i know but a lot of people still love it so well i i still i'm a like a person in a abusive relationship i'll still tune in when it comes back again i'm the same way with like there's a handful of shows like that i'm like that with girls i watch girls on hbo even though i'm like i don't even know if i like this but i'm gonna keep watching it i think the delivery method is just what's really flawed. And I think there's also the non-interactive quality of television where you just sit there.

And the best you can do is go on a blog somewhere and bitch about it. No, I know. I feel like the networks have to understand that second screen viewing is like the way of the future. If you want for television to actually work, because as we know, it's sort of dying and like the web is really kind of, I think, picking up that slack. But if you do want to maintain function in the television sphere, and this is where I work, like obviously, I want to maintain function in the TV sphere, even though I'm perfectly happy to do a lot of cool stuff in web too. I have a lot of fun. I like to kind of balance my time with it.

You've got to understand how to integrate those two things. You've got to understand that most people nowadays, while we're watching TV, we're multitasking. It's very rare. There's a handful of shows where like True Detective now, right, on HBO, it's like the new, there's three episodes so far. When it's time to watch True Detective, I hit play on my DVR and I'm like pissed if the phone rings. You know what I mean? I'm like focused. I'm not picking up my phone and checking my email every five seconds. I'm really focused. But that's like one hour every week.

The rest of the time, if I am watching TV at all, I'm on my phone. I'm on my laptop doing work. I need to be able to do other things at the same time. And so if there's a way to have the second screen functionality, I'm watching TV and then I have like things on my TV or things on my phone that will contribute to my experience watching this show. I'll engage in that. What do you mean by that? Like a show? How could you ever have that?

So like let's say that, you know, like my show on Pivot TV. So I do a show called Take Part Live and it's nightly. And up until yesterday, actually, we were shooting it completely live. on Pivot TV. So I do a show called Take Part Live and it's nightly. And up until yesterday, actually, we were shooting it completely live. So we're shooting at 9 p.m. on the West Coast, midnight on the East Coast.

And because of the live component, people can tweet us, people can interact. We have these panel discussions. We can like in real time, like look at social media and say, oh, so-and and so is saying this like how do you respond to that which i think is really cool because we're all living in a world now where like we want more customized entertainment you know what i mean because it's capable we we

have a capability for it now and so i think watching tv and knowing that tv is going to reflect the questions that we have is really interesting and now we're shooting live to tape which i think even actually allows more flexibility so we shoot a little bit earlier in the day by the time it airs we've already shot it but we can have sourced all of this cool social component so like one of the things that we do is a segment called viewers like you where uh let's say you watch an episode and we have this really great panel on like guantanamo bay and then you know somebody's watching is like you never answered this one question that's always bugged me about Guantanamo Bay. So they like Skype in, they record a little question, then we have the expert on the panel who can answer that question

directly, and we can pop it on the air. So just even baby steps like that, I think are really important when you're watching TV. But I also think that there's a way to do it wrong. And I think that's what a lot of these talking head like news networks do like CNN and MSNBC. Like it's not social interaction if you just have a Twitter ticker on the bottom of the screen. That's like the laziest way. It's noise. It's just noise. It's just there's like tickers everywhere. Sorry. There's tickers like everywhere. And I just I can't even focus at that point. Yeah. The ticker thing drives me fucking crazy.

They do that on sports shows. If you're watching fights, a lot of times while the fights are going on, there's a ticker underneath that's showing football scores and baseball scores, and this guy's out because his knee's hurt. And then also you've got Joe Schmoe, number two, says, I can't believe he blew out his knee. And you're like, I don't give a shit. Oh, the tweets?

Yeah. It's like, I don't care. But I think we're talking about completely different genres because that wouldn't work with like a sitcom or that wouldn't work with a drama. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, scripted entertainment is a completely different arena. And that's an arena that I don't work in. You know, I work in unscripted television, which is a totally different thing. I work in unscripted television, which is a totally different thing.

I think that the problem with scripted television right now is, like you said, if you are beholden to the advertisers, you're basically beholden to fear. And there is a bad habit, I think, in television right now where a network executive wants the third, fourth, and fifth version of the same show. Oh, that worked one time. Let's try it again. Let's try it again. And then they, like, run it into the ground. instead of we want something that's new and innovative and out of step with what we all see because this it's too expensive of a risk to take if this show fails we're out millions of dollars and it's just it's not feasible for their network so there's a lot of fear that comes along with taking intense risks whereas HBO doesn't even give a shit about any of all they need to do is maintain their subscriptions because they're much more interested in how they're received critically they would much rather get 20 Emmys than get you know x amount of viewers that

doesn't matter to them they have a set number of subscriptions they'd love it if subscriptions went up but for the most part they understand that only a certain type of person is ever going to be able to afford. They've got to already pay for cable. They've got to be able to pay for an expanded package. And, you know, they know the stats on their subscribers. So they want to make quality television. But like you said, you're beholden to the advertisers. You're beholden to, you know, network executives that are incredibly afraid to lose their positions at their jobs because they've got to bring numbers into the network and they've got to bring more advertising money into the network. And that fear, I think, in some ways is what fuels this fundamental dumbing down of America. Because instead of saying, we're going to create content from an

editorial perspective that we think would be beneficial, they say, what do you want to see? And this is huge in the news arena. This is the real problem in the news arena in America. Instead of saying, this is what's happening in the world, I'm giving you a platform so that you can see what's happening in the world. I've worked as a journalist for many years, so I have the editorial distinction or discretion to be able to say, this is what's important to share. The news people now are saying, what do you want us to talk about? What's interesting to you? And then you end up having this negative feedback of shit going down the toilet.

It's so dangerous. I was watching CNN headline news, and they had a poll. Who do you think is a better person, Britney Spears or Paris Hilton? It was a fucking poll. It's insane. They broke in. What do you think? Yeah, I saw that.

They broke in on CNN and MSNBC when Bieber got arrested. They broke in to actual news to give us this update because it's so fucking important that we know to the minute about Justin Bieber's arrest. By the way, all the charges were dropped. It was a complete non-issue. He wasn't drunk, by the way, and he wasn't speeding. Yeah, I have no idea. There's just cunts that arrested him because he's a crazy fuck.

Well, that's Florida. Look, also, you're dealing with a 19-year-old kid that has $100 billion. He's going to go off the rails. Well, and that's a more interesting conversation, I think. It's more interesting that we talk about, you know, income inequality in this country and we talk about how, you know, the sociology of having that kind of responsibility and what it's like growing up in the limelight when you put pressure on these people. It's a much less interesting conversation to say, oh, meanwhile, while I'm speaking

to you about Syria or while I'm talking about tensions that are rising in Sochi around the, whatever the fuck, you know, talking about the state of the, like, can you imagine? And then breaking it, oh, more on Bieber. Well, I believe the CNN one or MSNBC, I think they were talking about the NSA. Oh, my God. It's hilarious that they broke in. It's the ultimate distraction. Yeah, seriously. Here's a little hairless boy. And that's the thing that's like so it's so funny that I feel like anybody who was alive in the 50s who is still alive to this day, who was reading the sci-fi authors that I now love like Vonnegut and Orwell.

And they were warned about this dystopian future. How many of those things are just coming to fruition all the time? You know, this big brother mentality, this like fundamental, we're going to keep you distracted and keep you lazy and try and like eliminate any sort of ability for massive revolution. It's like, it's just so scary. Do you think that's engineered? I don't think so. I don't think distractions are engineered. I don't think that there's some like mass conspiracy that there's like five people at the top with like nefarious mustaches, you know, saying this is how we're going to control everybody. But I do think that what happens is that money, money comes into it and power comes into it. And people desperately people with money and power desperately don't want to lose it. People who don't have money or power desperately want to gain it. And so the system is really fixed in a fucked up way where egalitarian values and socialist values are not respected in this country because, you know, you see it all

the time, people voting against their own interests because not because they fundamentally believe that, you know, this fat cat politician who's trying to pass policy that keeps the little guy down and that like really intensifies the income inequality in this country. They don't believe, oh, that's like morally the way we should go. They believe, well, one day I'm going to be rich and I want to make sure that the laws protect me. It's horrible. And I think that the one thing that maybe we can say is more engineered than other is this concept of the American dream, this really fucked up concept. And don't get me wrong, it happens for some people. There are rags to riches stories out there and they're great, but they shouldn't be a template for all

of us to live our lives by. We shouldn't all be like, you know, hoping and praying that one day we're going to strike it rich and we're going to go from, you know, this place to that place. It should be much more piecemeal. We should be living in a country where it's plausible that you can work really hard in your life and you can actually make a life for yourself and maybe get out of a shit situation, get in a slightly better situation. I think that that's a real goal and it should be a reasonable goal. But in this country, it's getting to the point where it's very hard to climb that social ladder. And I think a lot of it comes from this idea of like keeping up this narrative, this rags to riches American dream narrative, the kinds of policies that are put into place because that narrative is what fundamentally underlies everybody in America is really dangerous. It's a really, really dangerous point of view.

And it's something that I think that has gotten worse in recent years. How do you think it's dangerous? What makes you feel like it's a dangerous idea to think that you could pull yourself up from poverty and become a wealthy person? And that this anti-socialism ideal that we sort of, you find a lot of people that are vehemently opposed to the idea of socialism. I think a root of that is in laziness. A lot of people believe that socialism enforces laziness. And I don't even think it's about laziness. I personally think a root of that comes from racism, intolerance, and I think that religion is an easy tool for people to use to perpetuate these kinds of ideals.

Because I think what happens is that when most people who are wealthy were born wealthy. That's just the case. Is that really true? That's very much true. Most people who are wealthy came from wealth. Because social mobility in this country is worse than in most countries. And it's worse than it's ever been in the past. So it's very difficult.

I mean, if you look at the data, if you look at evidence, it's very difficult to move up in social class in any sort of real meaningful way. There are piecemeal, like I said, like stepwise elevations that do occur. But if you read anything by Robert Reich, if you look at, I mean, listen to Obama's State of the Union address that's going to happen tonight. That's what he's going to talk about is this growing rift, this growing income inequality, and how the rift between rich and poor has gotten worse and worse and worse. And so I think what fundamentally happens is that if you're born poor, you're very likely to be poor in life. That's not to say that you have to be, but you're very likely for your kids to be poor and those kids to be poor. you have to be, but you're very likely for your kids to be

poor and those kids to be poor. If you're born rich, you're more likely to be able to maintain some level of wealth. And I think what happens is that the wealthy people who have the money and fundamentally have the political power because they have the money and the social power in many ways have this like really bad sense of entitlement. well, we must have been somehow better. Because if we have more money, there's some sort of connection between money and morality. There's some sort of connection between money and some sort of positive valence. So if I have more money and I must be better, then people who are less fortunate than I must have done something to deserve that. There must be a reason that people who live in poverty live in poverty. And that's where you get these horribly regressive

social policies like that, that asshole in Florida who is trying to pass a law requiring people who are on welfare to all be drug tested, just like blanket drug tests for people who are on welfare to continue to receive their government assistance. Things where there's this fundamental fear of government assistance and of welfare when, you know, we know that we give more welfare to corporations than we even do to people. Right. welfare at this point are people who work full time and people who are supporting families, people who are not fucking lazy. There's like this fear that there's some sort of like social leeching of the system, that there's this like, I think there's a lot of racism in it. You know, there's the, you know, poor black single mothers who don't know any better and their welfare, you know, there's these terms that are really like invented by policymakers on the right, by like big PR machines like welfare queens and things like that, when the statistics show us over and over that that's the tiniest fraction of our population and that the massive, the majority of people who actually receive welfare throughout their lives use it as a stepping stone to be able to off of welfare, and that it actually ends up saving the entire country a lot of money. And so I mean, I feel very strongly that this rift comes from entitlement, that this this idea of like,

if I'm rich, it must be because I'm better in some way is a really dangerous idea. And that's where, like you were asking, why do I think it's dangerous? I think that's where it comes from. Well, I think for a lot of people, becoming rich or getting to a position where you're wealthy is a competition. So once they've achieved that, they want to say, look, I've won. And there's that old expression, people that were born on third base, but they think they hit a triple. And that's like, look, look, I've won. But how many of those people, yeah, exactly, really did win.

Like, I would be blown away if somebody could show me a high statistic of individuals who actually started off in an impoverished position and became wealthy. Now, there are a fair amount of people who really have pulled themselves up from their bootstraps and gotten an education. And most of the time, the reason that that's happened is because they've made use of public assistance that's been available. They've been able to use federal grants that have helped them get through school. For whatever reason, if you come from an impoverished neighborhood and you use education as a way out, right, and you do your undergrad, you do your graduate training, you're able to get the funding that you need to basically get the education to be able to get a really good job. That's one way that people get out. But these people aren't rich afterward. They're comfortable. There's a big difference between moving from lower class to moving from middle class. But as we know, the middle class in this country is shrinking. The majority of people who I think would probably say, well, I didn't, I came from modest means and now I'm wealthy. They probably didn't come from modest means. They're probably white already. They probably had

two parents at home who were really helping them. You know, mom was there and could make it easier for this kid to maybe not have to have a job when they were in high school, maybe not have to deal with a lot of the things that real poverty is not just about not having money. It's about all sorts of socioeconomic problems that come along with poverty. And so I think even growing up middle class at this point, we need to fundamentally understand that that's a privilege. You know what I mean? I grew up in the middle class. I grew up in a suburb of Dallas and it was comfortable. I grew up in a single parent home for the most part because my parents got divorced when I was like seven, but we were fine. My mom worked three jobs. I gave money to my mom when I worked in high school. You know, she did need that. We did need that. But I had it so much better off than a lot of other people. And I know that about myself. And I don't want to ever

forget that because I'm in a comfortable position now, but I didn't start impoverished. And I think that that is what made it easier for me to be in a comfortable position now. That sounds impoverished. I mean, it sounds poor. Like you had to give money to your mom when you were working in high school. But I don't think we, I think that if you actually look at what the poverty line is in this country, I don't think we would have qualified. Because of your contributions. But if it was just based on your mother. She worked three jobs. She was hardworking. She was an amazing mom. And I think that probably, I mean, the poverty line is very low. If you really think about where you have to be to qualify, for example, for assistance with Obamacare, like to be able to qualify with assistance on the insurance trades or to be able to qualify for certain government

programs. Like it's low. You have to make very little money. There's a lot of issues. I mean, there's a lot of what we talked about earlier when we were talking about the variables that go into creating a human being. That plays a part in who is your parents, where did you grow up, what is the environment that you're forced to be in. And the difference between welfare and subsidies is entirely in how we view it. We view subsidies as being an important part of maintaining business, whereas essentially that's a much more expensive form of welfare that costs taxpayers way more and oftentimes has dubious results. Exactly. Like when it comes down to subsidizing corn

and you find out about the fucking high fructose corn syrup and how it's been forced into everything. It's horrible, and it's in fucking everything, yeah. You're like, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. They're paying money? Tax money goes to that? Like, this is a weird thing. Well, the farmers, the farmers are getting help out. Sort of, kind of, but look what's going on.

Look what's really going on. It costs more to produce this than it actually costs to sell it. I'm not a fan of giving people money in order to make sure that they, you know, they do things like, I don't think you can give people money and make sure that they do drug tests. I don't think you can give people money and make sure that they are forced to apply to X amount of jobs per month. I think all of that time and energy that's spent enforcing that is probably, it's probably just going to create this sort

of authoritarian environment and it's probably only going to account for something like three to five percent of those people anyway that you're really like obsessing over whether or not because the vast majority of people for example on unemployment don't want to fucking live their lives on unemployment nobody's like woohoo i'm rolling in my unemployment they're like fuck this sucks but i can't find a job. And especially in California, if we collect unemployment, we fucking paid into it. It's our money. We earned it.

And that's something that I think we have to understand about the tax structure, too. When you spend your entire life paying into taxes, there are social programs that those taxes fund. And so when you fall on hard times, that's what that safety net is supposed to be there for. You've been paying into it your entire life. I have a question for you. I want to know what you think about this recent article that I read and we covered on my show in Utah, which is a very conservative state, right? It's a totally like overtly Republican state. conservative state, right? It's a totally like overtly Republican state. They are solving the homelessness crisis. And the way that they've decided to do it is completely evidence-based. And so for me, I look at this story and I think of it much more in scientific terms than in moral

terms, but I want to know what you think about it. So they looked at the average homeless person in their state, and they realized that in terms of medical treatment and social services, that the average homeless person was costing the state $17,000 a year. They were $17,000 burden per person. And that if they put this person into government housing and offered them a social worker, it only cost $9,000 a year. And so no strings attached. They're taking these individuals off the streets and giving them apartments. Now, they may check in with their social worker. They may fall off the grid. They may work on getting a job. They may resort to alcoholism. You don't know. And no matter what, they don't have any strings attached. That

apartment is theirs and they can live there. It's provided by the government. It's helping them clear the homeless people off the street. But fundamentally, when it comes to a bottom line view, which to me is a much more conservative Republican viewpoint, this is cheaper. This is saving the state money. Do you think that this is a good idea? I definitely think that's a good idea. I think also what's really important when you're dealing with the quote-unquote homeless people is to differentiate between how many people have had bad luck, how many people grew up in bad environments, and how many people have mental health problems. Which is the vast majority of them. Huge part of it. The Reagan administration changed the standards for people being put into mental health facilities.

And they allowed these people that were clearly ill to just fend for themselves. And a society that doesn't take care of its sick is a society that's sick. That's so true. I mean, yeah, even I love that you bring that up because even more than this issue, like we're talking about, which I agree, I think the homelessness, the way that they're approaching it in Utah is brilliant. I'm a very progressive thinker, but I think it's one of those interesting things where conservative thinkers may be on my team with this, but for different reasons. But fundamentally,

the fact that healthcare is a for-profit system in this country, I think is so amoral. It's such a disgusting system because it's built on a capitalist framework. And as much as I think that capitalism has a very important place in modern society, I don't think that capitalism is a moral framework. I don't. I think that's why we need regulation. Because I think that if it's all about trying to make money, it's very easy for greed and like really bad practices to come into play. That's where people get taken advantage of.

That's why we need fucking, you know, like meat regulation. It's like read Upton Sinclair's The Jungle. Like it's very important that this happens because if it's all about profit motive and bottom line, people are going to make disgusting decisions and they're not going to take care of the consumer. So what happens in a health care framework is that we have a healthcare system that's a for-profit system. The more sick people there are, the more money there is to be made. So there's absolutely no incentive to help people get well. And there's also no incentive for people to motivate their patients to seek non-surgical methods. Non-surgical, to seek preventative methods. I mean, at least with Obamacare, even though there's

lots of problems with this law, even though I fully think that if we had gone single-payer, it would have been a significantly better system. At least now, you know, I can get a pap for free. I can, you know, I can... That's pap smear, ladies and gentlemen. Yeah, sorry guys.

And you might be able to you know, get a prostate exam for free. And there's... Woo! Woo-hoo! And how much cheaper is it for the state to subsidize or the country to subsidize preventative... Actually, preventive is the right word. Preventative is not a word.

It's not? No. Isn't that crazy? Preventative is not a word? If you look it up, the dictionary will say that, like that it's now become a word because people use it so often. But technically, the correct word is preventive, which I know, but it's so natural to say preventative. Yeah, but read it. It'll say something like...

C, preventative, preventative, oh. Like most of the dictionary definitions say that like, however they word it, but like over time time it's been used so much that they've added it to the dictionary it's one of those i don't think there's anything wrong with that because all words are invented eventually that's so true originally rather yeah that's true um but anyway how much cheaper is it right to for the government to subsidize those kinds of things versus intense cancer treatment later yeah you know and and so many things if they can be caught early, are going to be cheaper. I can give you a personal story.

I hurt my neck doing jujitsu and I have bulging disc in my neck. And the bulging disc was causing numbness in my fingers. And the ulnar nerve was in, I was feeling pain in my elbow. It was going, and I talked to doctors

that wanted to cut me. They wanted to do surgery. They were like, you know, this is the best wanted to cut me. They wanted to do surgery. They were like, you know, this is this is the best way to deal with this. We'll do surgery. We'll do we can give you an epidural, which just numbs the pain. You don't you don't feel the pain anymore. And then the other option is you go in and they'll cut a piece of your disc off. This was a year ago. I treated it completely non non surgically with spinal decompression, rolfing, deep tissue massage. The spinal decompression was big. And then recently a thing called Regenikin, which is something that was invented in Germany,

where they take your blood and they heat it and spin it in a centrifuge and take out some aspects of the blood and then re-inject it into the area and it becomes a very potent anti-inflammatory medication. Yeah. It's gone. Totally gone. I had a new MRI, no bulging disc at all. No symptoms, no issues, no issues with exercise. I could have gone through a fucking surgery for nothing.

Yeah. I could have got my back cut open, pieces of my disc removed. And I think there's a real issue with doctors that are motivated to automatically point towards a surgical option because surgical options are fucking expensive and there's a huge profit motive in them yes because it's just man i mean for the most part it's just labor all they're paying for is labor maybe maybe some you know medical device that as we've seen over and over the marketplace doesn't regulate at all so like some surgery in you know this town in colorado

costs 10 times as much as a surgery in this town in Vermont only because of their medical regulations there. It's crazy. Like there's no bottom line at all. It's pure profit for them to do surgery. But I don't think there's anything wrong with giving someone an incentive to become a really excellent surgeon. And if a guy is an amazing surgeon and because of the fact that he's the best in the world, he gets paid more and that motivates him towards excellence. He should get paid more. Yeah. But it's that weird, there's a weird gray area there because that's capitalism. Yeah, but it's not the doctor's

salaries that are making all of this so expensive. It's the fucking profit motive at the hospitals and the pharmaceutical companies and the medical device companies. That's where all of the money is coming from. I think that the way that we pay, we probably still don't pay our doctors enough. If you think about how much they put into medical school and how much they put into professional liability insurance, I don't think the doctors are actually walking around like super wealthy. Well, some of them are, but the liability is also a huge issue because then you're dealing with predatory practices where you're dealing with there's people that absolutely did get fucked over and their doctor screwed up and their their lives have been changed like i read about some woman yesterday who was an opera singer who gave birth

and they ruined the you know the the wall between the vagina and the anus somehow or another during the operation they fucked it up and now she can't sing without farting. I read that story too and it's like ruined her career. I mean, it's like totally, it's sad. Yeah. I mean,

I can't, I'm laughing, but I can't help it. But it is really sad. It's just because farts are funny. Yeah, well,

I guess, I guess she can't sing. Well, yeah, you don't want to be on stage singing opera and like you're farting the whole time.

How can anyone hear it unless your farts are unbelievably loud? They're probably unbelievably loud. And you're mic'd. It's just really stinky, too. Yeah, but I think it would be the sound. Well, now that, well, I guess, but now that it's out, too, all the people in the front row are going to be like, they're going to be sniffing, waiting for her to hit the high notes.

That's so sad. But yeah, I mean, it's like that's, you know, there's a reason that she should be able to file a tort there. It is malpractice. But whenever you have that, then you leave open those fucking late night commercials. You know, like, have you been in an injury? Call James Suckerfuck. You know, and I specialize in getting people what they deserve. No matter what policies are passed, no matter what regulation is available,

there's always going to be a small percentage of the population that's going to figure out, that's going to try to take advantage of it. And that's why we need strong laws. And that's why we need a judiciary. You know, that's the point of having three branches of government. We need a judiciary who can watch out

for the rights of the people. That's always going to happen. And I think that when we legislate for fear of that happening, that's when we start to get into huge trouble. Well, let's explore that because why does that have to happen? It doesn't have to. I just think that people are fucking selfish. But why is that? Why is that a factor? And is there a variable that can be considered amongst the many variables that go into raising and developing a human being? Is there some way that we can engineer in. Now, fundamentally, if you want to go even beneath that, if you want to talk about evolution, for example, there is a survival instinct in all of us. And maybe you could make the argument that the survival instinct can downstream have something to do with a competitive nature, right? This like, I need to make sure that I'm eating enough. I need to make sure that I protect my family. I need to make sure that I don't die. There is probably actually an environmental or I'm sorry, an evolutionary

basis for that. But I think beyond that, if you compare, for example, our society to many societies in East Asia, what you find is a massive difference between what we call an individualist society and a collectivist society. Our society, and I don't know if it's based fundamentally on how we govern or if it's based on like massive cultural norms, but we are raised from the time we're very small to feel highly, to have a highly competitive nature. I got to get the best grades. I got to get the best, you know, I got to win in sports. I've, you know, somehow got to stand out as an individual. Me, me, me, I, I, I. And when you look at these collectivist cultures, it's all about we, us. We're only as strong as the weakest amongst us. They have these like huge families where,

you know, grandma lives with multiple kids and then all the, you know, daughters and sons of them live together and they help raise each other. And it's a very different culture. I don't know what the root cause of that is, but I do wonder if having that very individualist nature also contributes to having this cutthroat kind of approach. And sometimes what from the outside might look like a lack of empathy and a lack of fundamental caring for those that are less fortunate amongst us. It's also, I think, the type of society that thrives on innovation and the type of society that thrives on success and type of society, that's going to foster these sort of individual mentalities, whereas these other more family-oriented, more tribal community-oriented cultures,

they're not going to be so driven to succeed. Or more communist. I mean, these are also societies that have a history of communism. And we in America have never had a communist government. We've always been a republic since we started. And I think that there's this fear of the word communism. There's this fear of the word socialism. And even though we have a heavily socialistic society as it is, I mean, we're a capitalist society that has a lot of socialist values

and that has a lot of social programs that are available. The minute you start pointing that out, a lot of people get really squeamish. We don't like the word socialism. We like the word compassionate. Compassionate community. Like the fire department the word socialism. We like the word compassionate. Compassionate. Like the fire department, you know, it's compassionate. Yes. It's not something where we pool all of our income together and pay taxes and then have a public service

that's available to everybody. I found it interesting that you think that a lot of conservative people would agree with you that because of the bottom line would be less money spent on these homeless people. I say a lot of younger conservatives would agree with me because I think a lot of younger conservatives are much less concerned about conservative values when it comes to social issues. A lot of young conservatives, for example, are for gay rights,

but they're still fiscal conservatives. And that's why I would say that they'd be much more concerned about the bottom line, because they're fiscal conservatives. My take on it is if you really are a patriotic person who really believes in the idea of America as a team, the best way to strengthen the team is to have less losers. I agree. The best way to have less losers is to find the people at the lowest rung of the socioeconomic food chain

and help them. Simple. And think of them as children. Don't think of them as lazy adults because the lazy adults that you point out and demonize are just, they're the fucking factories that are making the babies that are

going to grow up to be human beings. That you're going to have to deal with and interact with on a daily basis in life. But whether they're lazy or not is outside of the question. Forget them. Concentrate on the fucking children. Concentrate on these children that have this horrible roll of the question. Forget them. Concentrate on the fucking children. Concentrate on these children that have this horrible roll of the dice.

And these children are going to become those people who are lazy. And when you concentrate on those children, I think you will understand that these people that you're pointing to and demonizing that have had this horrible roll of the dice that have been dealt this entirely

impossible to deal with hand, these are the fucking adults that you're demonizing. Exactly. They haven't had the easiest road. And taking that word lazy and really, like, what are you projecting when you think of these people as being lazy? Like, live a fucking week in their shoes and tell me that they probably don't work just as hard for no fucking income.

You know what I mean? I don't want to fucking be a fry cook. That sounds horrible. That sounds like a horrible fucking job. I've done it. It does not sound like fun. It wasn't fun, but it was all right. But I was a kid. But did you feel like you were? Exactly. And that's how it used to be. It used to be the case that that kind of labor force was taken up by young people. And now more and more, I think the average person that works in the fast food industry is like 28 years old. And like, is that person lazy? I don't think they're lazy.

I think they're, without a doubt, they're in a shitty road. They're in a shitty road and they're working a shit job that's hard and not fun. I don't know if there's a solution to that that you could universally apply. Like say, oh, well, the reason why all these people have these jobs is because of blank. Let's just fit that into the system and then we won't have 28-year-olds. It's about a lot of policies across the board. The problem is when you actually are filling legislation with a lot of policies that keep income inequality where it is and that keep the little guy down and that keep the rich people getting richer did you see that recent study oh god i hope i get the numbers right there's something like 85 people the top

85 people in the world have as much wealth as the next 350 million it's a problem when you try to bang numbers i think it's true i know's true. I know what you're talking about. 85, 350 million. What the fuck? That's never happened in the history of our global society. I mean, it's insane. It used to be something that the average CEO made 40 times the salary of his lowest paid worker, and now it's skyrocketed to like 400 plus. That's insane. Here here it is 85 richest people oh my god three billion yeah not 350 million 3.5 billion yeah it's wow it's horrifying three billion 85 richest people in the world own more wealth than three billion and at a certain point who the fuck needs that much money? It's like a sickness.

Like you look at Bill and Melinda Gates who are incredibly wealthy and they've given more. They're the biggest philanthropists in the world. They have given so much money to people who are less fortunate. And that's how it should be. Do you use a Windows or a Mac computer? I use Mac. I'm thinking about using a Windows just because of that. Just because of that.

But Steve Jobs is kind of a cunt. and Windows just because of that. Just because of that. Because Steve Jobs is kind of a cunt. Yeah. You know, and I read recently that this guy who's a billionaire investor just dumped all of his Apple stock after he read Steve Jobs' biography. Really? He's like, the guy's an asshole.

Like, I don't care if he has good products. I hate it. I hate the idea behind it. But wasn't he kind of like on the spectrum? Maybe a little bit? I'm sure he was. But I switched over to an Android phone. I still use my iPhone.

I'm saying, fuck you slowly. That's what I'm saying. You're voting with your dollar. I'm crazy I'm saying fuck you slowly. That's what I'm saying. You're voting with your dollar. I'm crazy. No, it's good. That's what we should do. It is what we should do. Okay, so I agree with you that you don't need that much money,

and I agree with you. But how does that happen, and how do you fix that? Yeah, it's tough. Well, I think one thing that you do is that you ensure that the laws – it's not about preventing rich people from getting rich. There's nothing wrong with somebody pulling themselves up from their bootstraps. There's nothing wrong if you come from a wealthy family being able to maintain your wealth, but the system shouldn't be rigged in such a way that you get more help from your government than poor people

do. That's unfair. So having the kind of tax code so that rich people can find so many loopholes that they're actually paying less effective tax than somebody who's working as an administrative assistant, than somebody who's working as a housekeeper. Okay, but is that really true? I mean, look, there's unavoidable taxes. There's a certain amount of taxes that if you are a very wealthy person, you just have to pay. Yeah, but a lot of people have a lot of their assets in offshore accounts. A lot of people are able to pay themselves almost a nil salary and put the rest of their money into some sort of corporate entity. And corporate tax rates are significantly lower than individual tax rates in certain examples.

And so, yes, we have so much corporate welfare in this country. I mean a lot of people, even where we are in life, I know a lot of people who work as independent contractors in Hollywood, and what they do is they kind of rig their taxes so that their accountant, they're incorporated. So you would be like Joe Rogan Incorporated. And what you would do is you would get everything, every check you ever earned made out to your corporation, and then you would pay yourself a salary. You pay yourself the bare minimum salary to be able to pay rent and bills with, like, no spending money. And so, okay, Joe Rogan only makes $20,000 a year because of that,

which means you only pay taxes on $20,000 a year at an individual tax rate, and your corporation pays corporate taxes on everything else that you earn during the year. I mean, that's just a very simple example of completely cheating the tax system. But what happens with these people who can afford to hire like $10,000 an hour lawyers, they can get away with not paying almost any taxes. And again, the little guy's kept down. He can't afford that. He's going to H&R Block. He's trying to figure out how to deduct things just to be able to afford to pay the taxes and still be able to put food in his kids' mouths. It's a fucked up system. The system is rigged to keep

the rich richer. Here's a bit of a problem with that type of thinking. I don't agree that it's a good idea to give the government more money. And I don't agree that giving them more tax money is in some way going to help out these poor people. And I don't agree that taking money from these people, like saying what France just passed recently, a new law, taking the most rich and making their taxes 75%. I don't trust them to take that money and do anything prudent with it. We did under Eisenhower when the rich had the highest tax rate, we had the best economy that we've seen in a really long time. Right, but that's a completely different environment, a totally different world.

It's very different to compare those things. And so I'm not saying that, I mean, for whatever I believe, whether we would advocate for a higher tax bracket for rich people versus poor people, blah, blah, blah. The fundamental thing is we're not living in a good system where rich people can get away with paying significantly less percentage of their income in taxes than somebody who's poor. Well, that's certainly not good. But is that what's keeping these people poor? And is that what's keeping these people rich? Is it just the taxes?

I don't think that that's the entire problem. It's not the only thing, but that is a huge thing that helps keep rich people rich. I don't think that the idea of giving that money to the government, therefore the people aren't as rich anymore, therefore everything's good, I don't think it is because then the government just has this money. And what does it do? It just bloats up the bureaucracy, adds more people in government functions. You're right. And that's a huge problem because that money should be going to really good social programs. It should be going to them. I think that we would be way better off if people

contributed to these social programs voluntarily. Well, I think it would be even better if we had some sort of a system like you see in a lot of developed European countries where there is a certain amount of public service that we're required to make. Like in a lot of European countries, what happens is that you're required to basically give, let's say, a year of your life or maybe more to the government. Like you're required to serve your country for a full year and then your education is covered in college or something like that. And it can be anything. It could be militarily. It could be in volunteer work, whatever reason, so that as young people are growing up, they just know when I get to a certain age, this is what I do. I'm going to serve my country. And with it, I'm going to get a secure understanding that I'm going to be able to get an education. And it ends up being incredibly

good for the economy. And I think it's actually, from a moral perspective, good for people. I think people should serve. I think that's a good idea if the system that's in place isn't completely cockeyed and fucked. And that's a huge problem in America because our system is cockeyed and fucked. I'm not giving these dummies a year of my life. Well, yeah, I think the way that it is right now, that would be a huge problem. But fundamentally, and this is the thing whenever you have, you know, these like long

conversations about any of these real heavy kind of social or governmental issues is that I think truly it comes down to campaign finance reform. A lot of the problems with the way that our country is governed comes down to the fact that the incentive is always to win elections. It's not actually to be an effective executor or legislator. So you work so hard and you raise so much money to have the better ads so that you can then win your election. And the entire time that you're expected to actually be serving the public, all you're doing is fundraising. That's your whole job, is to fundraise to make more money so that you can stay in office. And it's the crux of our system,

and it's what keeps it so incredibly broken. If it didn't cost money to run for elected office, if you weren't allowed to have advertisements that were paid for with private funds, to have advertisements that were paid for with private funds, there would be a totally different way that people govern. Because when it comes down to the money, it really does sully every single part of the governmental process. I certainly think that the motivation becomes financial. And when financial motivations take precedent above all others, you have this amoral drive to just increase numbers. And I think that's a huge issue with corporations in general, just the idea of corporations being this entity that consumes and produces and is all about ones and zeros in the bottom line above humanity. And that's the problem.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with doing something brilliant and making a shitload of money off of it if you're not destroying the environment, you're not stepping on the backs of people who are easy to take advantage of in order to get your bottom line down even lower. You know, there are fundamental things that you have to fulfill. And above and beyond that, if you can profit,

good for fucking you. I want you to be a billionaire. I want you to get as rich as possible. But the idea, the attitude in this country is, so what if there's a certain amount of pollution? So what if there's a certain amount of environmental damage as long as there's a certain amount of profit? And so what if you are literally, like, fucking stepping on the backs of who who can't defend themselves if you get a certain amount. I mean, it's the same core argument. It's the same reason that our economy is booming in the first place, because it was all founded on slavery. And it's not that different.

Like if you look at these kind of this moral perspective that that Americans had early is we had an agricultural society, right, before the Industrial Revolution. And then it moved into a factory society. But when slavery was still legal, fuck yeah, it's easy to make a shitload of profits when you're not paying any of your workers, when they're required to work for you for free, and you can treat them as shitty as you want to, and you don't have basic human dignity that you have to take care of by the way that's in the bible exactly i mean you're allowed to have slaves and don't get me wrong this goes long before american culture not beat them to death but you're allowed to have yeah that's beautiful it's a beautiful piece of work and they live for a couple days it's okay yeah and then after that you've got indentured servitude and then after

that you've got you know the fucking lowell factory girls and you've got child labor we have a we have a long history of taking advantage of those who are less fortunate in order to make a buck off of their backs. And it's gross. And I think it's something that if that could change, yes, we might not be as much of a fucking booming, you know, wealthy society, but at least we would be taking care of the weakest amongst us. And as a whole, we would have strength. And we wouldn't see the top 85 people getting richer and richer and the next 3 billion only having that much money. But what is the solution to something that's so disproportionate like that?

Like how does one step in in 2014 and look at the 85 people that have so much money and the billions that look at the 85 people that have so much money and the billions that, you know, look at these people and say, how the fuck, how is that, how is it possible to re-engineer that? I don't know if there's a simple answer to that, but I think probably the first thing that you have to start doing is cleaning house. You have to look at the books. You have to look at, let's look at the legacy of making this kind of money and let's make sure that all of that money was made completely morally. Let's make sure that all of that money was made completely morally. Let's make sure that nobody was fucking destroyed in the process.

Let's make sure that nobody was taken advantage of heavily. Let's make sure that the globe wasn't getting fucked in the ass in doing this. And as soon as you start taking those things out and you start saying, OK, well, you've got to make sure that your lowest paid workers are treated with fucking dignity and that they earn a living wage. You've got to make sure that you offer health insurance to the people that work underneath. You've got to, you know, once you go through all these things, maybe that person makes less money. Maybe they make more money. I have no problem with rich people being rich. I have problem with rich people being rich on the backs of poor people. That's my real problem. You are the total counterpoint to Peter Schiff, who was on the podcast last week,

who defended frackings, you know, who's like, a few places get fucked up. Who cares? The farmer's got millions of dollars because it got fucked up. Like, it's no big deal. It's the way pharmaceutical companies look at it. I mean, I used to work for a neuropsychologist

back in Texas, and we had a contract with the Texas Commission for the Blind. So a lot of the patients that we saw had, sorry, had visual impairment or blindness. And, oh, that's a totally different tack. That doesn't even apply to the story. And another thing that he did is he was a, he was an expert witness in court cases. And so one time he was going on to be an expert witness about this girl who had taken cough medicine, like totally over-the-counter cough medicine, and she had a fucking stroke. She was

like a healthy nine-year-old girl, took this cough medicine, had a stroke. And I really don't know anything about the medical implications or why it happened, but apparently you look at the records and you look at the history and something like one in one billion cases, a kid's going to take this cough medicine and have a fucking stroke. And the truth is the bottom line is so low that it's more cost effective for this pharmaceutical company to just pay these people out and say like, oh, that fucking sucks. We're so sorry this happened. But the risk benefit analysis shows us that it's still worth it to have this cough medicine on the market. Here's your money to take care of you for the rest of your life because you had a fucking stroke.

And there's like no way you're going to be able to work the same way you could have before. We're going to keep our product on the market because we still are making a massive profit even if we pay you out for having your stroke. And this is the way that a lot of, you know, pharmaceutical companies operate. And sometimes it makes sense. You have to look at a risk benefit analysis. Let's say you have HIV and there's a drug. I mean, everybody probably saw Dallas Buyers Club. Like, you know, when they were first looking at AZT, you know, different drugs that were on the market were really dangerous. And are you worse off being sick from the drug or are you worse off with your HIV getting worse and progressing to AIDS? You know, it's always a risk benefit analysis and it's never that clean. And that's the problem when we have these conversations like, what is the solution?

What is the cure? Well, it's fucking nuanced and it's not always that straightforward. And it's really about risk and benefit. But this is where capitalism can go awry really quickly. Because if you say the bottom line is the number one measure, then you get in a lot of trouble. But what about, I mean, when you're dealing with medications, you have also these extreme variables as far as like biological diversity, the difference in human bodies. Some people are allergic to peanuts. Some people, they're around dogs and their eyes closed shut. There's so much difference. And it's, yeah, it's really tough.

And you can give 100 people that same medication, have no issues whatsoever, and one person dies. Yep. What do you do if 100 people benefit and one person dies from it? Well, sometimes that shit's going to happen. But on top of that, one thing you can do is make sure that when you do your human trials, you don't only give it to 300 people. I mean, there are too many drugs on the market right now where the human trials were fast tracked, where the FDA wasn't as thorough as they needed to be.

Peter Schiff's argument, he was saying, we don't need regulation. Oh, my God. Let the market decide. That's the most insane argument. I mean, look at what's happening in West Virginia right now. Let the market decide. If we didn't have regulation, all of those people in West Virginia would be fucking dead. Yeah.

You know what I mean? Well, they're fucked anyway. They're fucked anyway. And, like, this is what happens when we have regulation. Tell people that people might not even know what's happening in West Virginia. So, right, it was be drinking this water. Well, they're fucked anyway. They're fucked anyway. And like, this is what happens when we have regulation. Tell people what they, people might not even know what's happening in West Virginia. So, right, it was because of fracking and there was like some horrible, it was like oil, no? It was like, yeah. It was a chemical spill.

It was a chemical spill, but it was from like an oil company. And so what happened is there were these reserves that were downriver from a water processing plant. There was a spill. It fell into the river and people started drinking or actually a lot of people were saved because the water smelled like licorice and they noticed the water smells weird. Maybe I shouldn't drink it. So a lot of people actually didn't get sick because they didn't drink the water for a while. And then the government came back and said, okay, we've, you know, mitigated the situation as best we can go ahead and drink the water. And people started

drinking it, but it still was not nearly as detoxified as it needed to be so now people are having all sorts of complaints injuries that are having you know rashes and allergies and all the way down to like neurological issues based on this and this is and part of the reason that this happened they say is because this plant hadn't been, so the regulations in place require that these plants have inspections, and it hadn't been inspected since like 1991. Is that right? 91 or 92? I don't know. It was a fucking long time ago. It was too, and this is what happens when we have, as a lot of these anti-regulation people say, quote unquote, too much regulation in this country.

What I found fascinating was, after the conversation with Peter Schiff, how many people were, A, defending him, and B, being really aggressive about how safe fracking is. And, you know, and insulting me, and, like, the Twitter comments. But it's that hard right wing. The people, and by the way,

I guarantee you the majority of them are not rich. But they have this attitude that they want things to be in place so that when their time comes, the regulations are free and clear so they have a straight highway to success. And I think you even see a lot of pro-science people that are very split about fracking because the evidence isn't completely in and there are some dangers, but in some ways it's still safer than maybe other ways to drill. But truth be told, our fucking dependence on fossil fuels is what's really getting us. You know what I mean? It's like I don't want to keep inventing new ways to get fossil fuels.

Like that's not the direction we should be. That's a regressive direction to go in. Like like fucking let's work on getting alternative sources of energy and let's get the fuck off of these fossil fuels let's stop driving these fucking gas guzzling cars let's move into uh new energy when it comes to the way that we consume our electricity that's easy to say but the real issue is that the situation we have right now is people are operating cars based on fossil fuels but that's because that's because of the oil fucking lobby. We know this.

Watch who killed the electric car. We had the capability to be able to move off of fossil fuels fucking years ago. You think the Tesla is like new technology? That money in the ground is there. And once it's located, it becomes a huge issue. It's a huge commodity because, and we also – like you were talking about with corporate welfare. Like who the fuck are we giving so much corporate welfare to? Fucking big oil.

These big energy companies are some of the biggest lobbies in this country. And they are lining the pockets of our politicians and our politicians are never going to vote for laws that shut them out because then they're not going to get their beautiful corporate sponsorship and they're not going to win reelection. Here's a perfect example. When was the last time you ever heard a politician say that we should ban cigarettes? Yeah, exactly. Cigarettes kill in this country, and this is not fake, 450,000 people a year. That's insane. 450,000 people just in this country.

And that number is lower than it used to be because we have education and because we had our Surgeon General come out like almost 50 years ago and say, this is fucking bad for you. But could you imagine if there was a terrorist that killed 450,000 people in this country every year and how much we would be trying to get that terrorist? Yeah, look at our response after 9-11. That was 3,500 people. Yeah, exactly. If there was a food product that killed 450,000 people every year, if there was anything that killed those numbers, it's just dirty money. It's just dirty money and everyone turns a blind eye to it. And it's one of the great hypocrisies of our time.

I completely agree. Cigarettes. As you were saying, let's say it was like tainted spinach that did that. I don't think I'd be hearing anybody cry for no regulations after that. And that's the problem with those arguments is that you make them conveniently after some sort of horrible event. Well, the thing about regulations is that you put money into this and you maintain it so that nothing bad happens. It's very hard to prove a negative, right? If nothing bad is happening, that means our regulation is working. That's a good thing. When bad things happen, sometimes it happens because we're under-regulated, but you don't know it until people fucking get sick and die. If people aren't getting sick and dying, that means we're actually maintaining at a good regulatory pace.

But people don't want to hear those arguments. People want to look at like, oh, look how inflated our budget is. Look at all the money that we're putting into all of these different regulations. I don't see any effects from it. It's like, yes, you do. It's just hard to measure negative effects. People aren't dying. That's a good thing. I'm going to switch gears here because there's one thing that I really wanted to ask you about is the people, because I know we're almost out of time. You got a hard out.

Fukushima, are you worried about that? Are you worried about the ocean? Are you worried about fish being poisoned? Okay. I know that there's a lot of pseudoscience out there, and I know that there's a lot of good science out there, and it's very hard to comb through. And I really haven't done my due diligence, mostly because of the new job that I'm doing and the direction that my career is going. If I were still a science writer, I would probably know a lot more about this, and I would feel much more competent to talk about it. I definitely have certain news outlets and media outlets that I trust more than others. And obviously I'm worried about this spill. It's fucking horrible. I have the luxury of saying I'm not that worried about tainted fish because I don't eat seafood as a general rule, like at all. First of all, I don't

like it, but I also have always had concerns about certain types of toxins that fish can carry in a greater quantity than most domestic animals. So you know how you look at these lists sometimes, like if you've ever known somebody who is pregnant and the doctor will say, oh, you can't do this and this and that, you probably shouldn't eat this thing. And I'm like, well, if you're pregnant and you're not supposed to eat like certain types of fish, maybe probably just don't do it anyway because if it's harmful

for the baby, I don't see why it's not that harmful for you. I mean, it's just lower concentration, but still. But I also fucking hate seafood. I hate the way it tastes.

I'm not a big fan at all. Really? Lobster? It all tastes the same to me. All seafood has this underlying briny dirt taste. You don't like seafood either? Really?

You're with me? Both of you two. Go fuck yourself. Even seaweed I can't eat because it has this underlying, like, briny, dirt taste. You don't like seafood either? Really? You're with me? Both of you two, but fuck yourself. Yeah, even seaweed I can't eat because it has this briny, like, oceany, yucky taste. Okay. So in that way, I'm being selfish. Like, I don't fucking know because I'm not eating it. Right. But, of course, I mean, nuclear radiation being dumped into the ocean is dangerous.

Whether or not it's dangerous for me is kind of a moot point. Like, is it dangerous for the ecology of the ocean? Of course. And that fundamentally is going to affect all of us. So I think it's about actually really doing our research and figuring out like, are these scare tactics or is this like legitimate scientific evidence and trying to sort through the bullshit, which is really hard to do. I mean, digital media literacy is something that I think we all need to be armed with, living in a world where we have so much information at our fingertips. I think it's another example of how we need regulations. I mean, goddammit, who let them build those fucking things in the first place,

knowing that if the power goes out, we're doomed? Yeah. If the power goes out, you're going to create a spot that you can never cool off that's going to be fucked for the next 100,000 years. And maybe don't put it in a place where there's a history of massive tsunamis. It's like the same thing. We have different issues all over this country. I did

a show for the Weather Channel called Hacking the Planet and then we did a fun kind of spin-off of it called The Truth About Twisters and they were really fun and they also helped us realize that no matter where you live, Mother Nature could fucking get you but in different ways so you know if you live in tornado alley you have to tornado proof your infrastructure if you live in a place that's prone to earthquakes because you're on a fault line you have to earthquake proof your infrastructure

and you should think about building these dangerous things, you should think about the safest places to do it. And I don't think that in a fucking flood zone, on the coast is a good place to put a nuclear reactor. Yeah, but they do it all the time because they want to have that water to cool off the core. So it becomes more convenient and cost-effective to keep it. Convenience and cost-effective. I mean, those are words we keep coming back to

today motherfuckers look Cara we could talk for the end of time yeah we could it's so much fun we could talk over and over again

yeah we need to do this more often I'd love to last time we did it was a year and also I gotta say like I'm thinking about starting my own podcast I'm very much inspired by you Joe

and you know those of you guys who are listening and who are tweeting and being really cool I haven't even had time to look through them but I'll be doing that

the rest of the day. There's going to be a few that aren't cool. Yeah, that's true too. But I would love to get some feedback and some insights and what kinds of things you would want to hear.

If I'm going to start a podcast, I'm going to do it for you guys. Don't do that. Do it for yourself. Listen, you're a great talker. Just talk. Just do it. Just talk.

I'm going to have guests though. I want to talk to people. Well, nothing wrong with that as well. I mean, definitely have a guest, but look Just talk. Just do it. Just do it. I'm going to have guests, though. I want to talk to people. Well, nothing wrong with that as well. I mean, definitely have a guest. But look, you're awesome at talking. Just get together and talk about things that you find interesting. I'm going to quote that tweet. Or I'm going to quote that as a tweet.

Joe says I'm awesome at talking. Look, it's not hard to do a podcast. I mean, you just did it. It's so much fun. There's no difference. Like, when I sit here, it's like so much fun. And I walk away and I'm like, why the fuck am I not doing this more often? Do it. Yeah. Well, it's also, you completely own it. Yeah. It's 100 much fun. There's no difference. Like when I sit here, it's like so much fun. And I walk away and I'm like, why the fuck am I not doing this more often? Do it.

Yeah. Well, it's also, you completely own it. It's 100% yours. There's no input. There's no production company. There's no executives. There's no network. There's nothing.

There's nothing. I mean, look, you see how easy this is. This is going to reach millions of people. We get 9 million downloads a month now. Amazing. It's fucking crazy. It's amazing. You could do that too, it's not hard

do you know the last time I came on your podcast which was about a little over a year ago I walked away and I got something like 5,000 new Twitter followers from being a guest on your podcast I'm not shocked, it's probably going to be even more this time, Cara Santa Maria follower on Twitter, let's prove a point

let's see how many we can do Cara Santa Maria and your show is, one more time Maria follower on Twitter. Let's prove a point. Let's see how many we could do. Cara Santa Maria. And your show is, one more time? My show is, right now I'm working on a show called Take Part Live on Pivot TV. Take Part Live on Pivot TV. And is Pivot, how widely distributed is that? Pivot is in, I think, 40 million homes. So if you have DirecTV, if you have U-verse, if you have Fios, you have capability. If you don't, you can go on the website, takepart.com slash live, and you can watch each live episode a few hours after it airs until the following 24 hours.

So you can pick up basically each day's episode the following day until the new episode airs. So that's pretty cool. Two vision impaired people. Yeah, look. Yeah, we're super nerdy. Also, if you go to my website, which is where Joe is right now on the screen, my website, I have cataloged and archived every single clip I've ever done. So all my podcasts, all my TV appearances, all my internet appearance. So you can click on Take Part Live and you can see any clip that's been clipped out from that. You can click on Talk Nerdy to me and see all my old Talk

Nerdys from HuffPost. Those are great. Yeah, I love that. That was really fun. You do that all yourself? You organize your website and everything? I did, yeah. How do you have all the time? Squarespace.

Squarespace. Squarespace is a fucking gem. Fucking told you, people. Squarespace is the best. I do it all. I literally do it all myself. You can see all my Young Turks appearances every time I've been on TV

from Sundance to travel to whatever, and they're all there. Beautiful. We'll do this more often? I'd love to. Like every couple months or so? Turks appearances, every time I've been on TV from Sundance to travel to whatever, and they're all there. Beautiful. We'll do this more often? I'd love to. Like every couple months or so? I'd love to.

And I'll do your show as well, whatever you need. Yes. I can't wait. You'll be my first guest. Really? You'll do it? Fuck yeah. All right, cool.

100%. Tell me when. So guys, tweet me at Cara Santa Maria because I want to hear from you. Okay. Thank you, Cara, and thank you to our sponsors. Thanks to Ting. Go to rogan.ting.com. Save 25 bucks off of one of those delicious and nutritious cellular phones.

Thanks also to onnit.com. Use the code word ROGAN. Save 10% off any and all supplements. And thanks to stamps.com. Use the code word JRE and get yourself a $110 bonus offer. We will be back tomorrow. I'm not sure who's on. Is it a comedian?

But something good. Big kiss to everybody. Much love. See you soon. Bye, guys.