The Joe Rogan Experience - #539 - Cara Santa Maria

Episode Date: August 25, 2014

Cara Santa Maria is a science communicator, writer, producer and television personality. Check out her podcast "Talk Nerdy" on Spotify.

This is so ghetto. Kara Santa Maria is here, ladies and gentlemen. My friend, Brian's friend, Jamie knows her. We'll all be friends eventually. What's up? How are you? Good to see you. I'm good, how are you? What's cracking? Oh, there we go. There, alright.

I'm trying to tell my Facebook followers that I'm on right now, but there's so many different Joe Rogans, and I don't want to click on the wrong one. Which one is you? Joe Rogan, D-O-T-N-E-T. What the fuck? Dot net. No, but like on your Facebook. Which one is your actual, or are these all just people trying to be you?

Mostly they're not me. Yeah, there's like a hundred fake me's out there. I may be tagging fake Joe Rogan right now. If someone's sending you some dick pics, I guarantee you that's not me. All right. Good to know. Guarantee you. Good to know.

Even if it looks exactly like my dick, that's not me. Tell you right now. I have the sweet Talk Nerdy t-shirt on right now, which represents Cara Santa Maria's awesome podcast. How many episodes do you have now? I just put up episode 26. Jesus Louises. Can you believe that?

Was I on number one? You were number one. Yeah. Fuck yeah. And I do it weekly. And you inspired me. You and your listeners inspired me to do this. Well, you're born for this.

This is a perfect venue for you. I'm telling you. Thank you, by the way. But I'm telling you, when I left your studio the last time I was on, I probably got 300 tweets from people saying, start your podcast, start your podcast, we'll listen. Yeah, and it was great. It was so great. That's so cool that you already have 26 of them.

That's incredible. Yeah. How did you do that so fast? I just do them weekly, and it's been that long. It's been 26 weeks? Yeah. So it's been six months, essentially? Yeah, I started in like March or April.

Wow. Whenever that was. That's awesome, though. Yeah. That's so cool that you did it. You need something like this because, you know, whenever you deal with a lot of producers or, you know, network folk, they mean well, but they all, everyone has their own idea of what should happen.

And even if they're nice people, it gets in the way. It's so true. And like, I, you know, right now I contribute to two different television shows and I'm very lucky. I'm a freelancer. I'm a contributor. So I work on a show on Al Jazeera America called Techno, which is a great science kind of news magazine style show. And then I work on a local show here in LA called SoCal Connected, which is on KCET, which used to be our PBS affiliate. And now it's just a public television kind of standalone. And that's great

i have great producers i get to self-produce some stuff it's it's wonderful prior to only doing those and the podcast i was full-time on a show called take part live on pivot tv that was daily 8 to 12 hours a day every day you know hair and makeup for two hours straight. Basically. Two hours? Yeah. Were they trying to turn you into a werewolf? Insane. Absolutely. What the fuck is that?

Yeah. Two hours. Didn't look like, wasn't allowed to wear my hair straight, wasn't allowed to wear black, wasn't allowed. It was crazy. Like I couldn't. They had rules? Very strict.

I could not be myself on that show. And I look back and that is really when the podcast started because I was so, like you said, kind of boxed into speaking only in soundbites and presenting a version of myself that honestly, I was not comfortable really presenting. The podcast was a really, really necessary outlet. Like it was so psychologically freeing for me. And now I think it really helps keep me centered and anchored when I do new jobs and new work to really understand how not to let things get out of hand like that. Yeah.

The best representative of yourself is yourself. Yeah. And when you've got a bunch of people like deciding what you should do, I think you'd be great if you wore pink. You look like you should be in pink. That legitimate. Like I did. They made me wear pink. Like it was crazy.

And I had to wear my hair all curly. I had it dyed red. Why curly? And they was crazy. And I had to wear my hair all curly. I had it dyed red. Why curly? And they hated that. And I don't know, man. It's like, I think it's because I was the only girl on the show. At the time, it was, like, very male heavy. And I was supposed to be, like, the representative of the female species, which was like, come

on. I'm kind of a tomboy. Like, it wasn't really working for me. It was a lot of short skirts, too, which is weird for me. I like to wear black leather. Short skirts are weird anyway. We've talked about it many times in the podcast about how you watch Fox News and all those women. It's almost like they have it in their contract that they have to uncross and cross their legs a certain amount of times per minute.

Because it's like, who the fuck is that uncomfortable that you're constantly shifting and switching your legs back and forth? And if a man dressed like that, it would be so insane. Oh, can you imagine? It's insane. Because there are, you know, if you watch runway shows ever, you keep up with fashion at all, there are kind of male versions of that sort of ensemble. But nobody actually wears that in real life.

Like the short, kind of tight, maybe not actually wears that in real life. Like the short kind of tight, maybe not up to your nutsack, but like halfway down your thigh, these little like plaid shorts, you know, it's very runway. But even those are shorts. There's something crazy about a skirt. Yeah, I agree. I mean, it's just like easy access. It's the most ridiculous invention. It's like your vagina, which is your coveted sexual organ. I mean, this is where the babies come out. This is where you let

the loved ones in. There's so much to the vagina, and yet it's there, protected by the thinnest piece of fabric. It's so ridiculous. We've seen all these little teeny-bopper celebrities and their little whoopsies getting in and out of cars. Whoopsies where there just happen to be cameras

right down near their vaginas. Like, that's not a whoopsie. That shit was engineered. And what's the reasoning behind that? Show the cooter. Why would you want to do that? Some people want to look at it. Ugh. Anthony Clark, you know Anthony Clark, the stand-up comedian, I'll never forget what he said about vaginas

because he's of a different persuasion. He goes, first time I saw a vagina, I was like, ew, when's it going to heal? But then it is a weird thing. I mean, that you're presented as a serious journalist on Fox News or as a neuroscientist, which is what you are. a neuroscientist, which is what you are, and yet they want you to have your vagina basically just barely protected by a little napkin that they throw over it. No, thank you. And always the cameras are right at the midline. Of course.

They're at the midline of the table. And so it's just like an unflatter or ultra flattering, depending on how you look at it, angle that just makes you feel really exposed. Yeah. How are you supposed to take somebody seriously well not only that it's it doesn't make you any hotter that's where people are confused yeah yeah you don't have to like i think it's a little better sometimes to leave things up to the imagination yeah well i mean no it's not it's definitely better to be naked but i'm saying like if you're on a maybe not on tv on the news well it's like what are you naked news what's your yeah what's your objective i mean is

it better in real life well no well i don't know depends on what you're trying to do but if you're on a show where you're just trying to like talk about issues it's distracting yeah you know it's distracting to have like this really sexy outfit on and i think that's half the reason why these like fox news type shows do that barbara walters never dressed like that no katie couric did but she you know not too too scandalous but she did wear short skirts and i was actually just watching so i'm gonna get a little more comfortable i'm very short and i feel tiny in this chair um so i'm just crossing my legs all right so i was watching this this documentary called Misrepresentation.

Have you seen this? No. I'm about to get like super feminist on the show now. Please do. Really early just so I can piss off like everybody on Twitter. It's actually a really good documentary. It's called Misrepresentation. You can find it on Netflix.

And it was produced and kind of narrated by Jennifer Siebel Newsom, who's Gavin Newsom's wife. kind of narrated by Jennifer Siebel Newsom, who's Gavin Newsom's wife. And the whole thing is kind of about media representations of women, how women are portrayed, how women, you know, make up X amount of the population, X amount of the jobs in this field, in this field, in this field, and then how they're represented both in fictional television, but also in nonfiction programming. both in fictional television, but also in nonfiction programming. And they talk a little bit about that, kind of why are female newsreaders meant to look so sexy? It's always kind of like the crusty old dude and then like his hot niece.

Like that's what it looks like when you look at a newsreading team. And they have these great interviews with people like Lisa Ling and Katie Courak and kind of talking about katie actually is very open and says i i kind of feel guilty like almost i played into this like maybe i set this trend in motion and um you know i was fit i wore you know not ridiculously short skirts but you could see my legs on tv and then it seems like that's now the formula that every newsreader has to have. And you almost just assume that they're dumb. Like it portrays, I don't think it portrays strength, unfortunately, when you have these like girls that are women that look like they're trying so hard to be sexy.

Then all of a sudden it puts it in your head like, oh, she's just reading a script that somebody else wrote for her. When sometimes these are really, really bright, really successful women. Like, why do we? Yeah, well, I guess they just want people to watch it. And they just feel like the best way to hook people is sex. Yeah, and the truth is they also, in the documentary, they showed all of the major news corporations, which there aren't that many anymore.

They showed all of the major news corporations, which there aren't that many anymore. You know, they've been kind of conglomerating and and more and more of the property is owned by less and less people. And they showed the number of women on the board on the board of all of these different news organizations. And so you look at like Time Warner or you look at Viacom and it's like one woman, two women, you know, two women you know two women and as opposed to like 30 men or 15 men the people that are making the shows and the people who have ultimate control over those kinds of decisions historically and to this day are like 99 percent male i wonder if that's why like women like megan kelly that fox lady who's not dumb at all she's very sharp but she's also kind of mean yeah kind of got an edge to her i wonder if it's like to like let you know hey fuck face just because i've got my tits hanging out and my legs are crisscrossed barely covering my cooter i'll still put you in your place yeah

i wonder if she feels like she has to be on her she's on her heels all the time i've always backed up yeah i don't think it's an uncommon feeling for women who are just in a position where they're surrounded by men who just are going to assume when they walk in the door that she's just dumb bimbo. She's a weather girl. She's a newsreader. But really, she's writing her own copy and doing her own research. And it's a really strong, smart. I mean, I disagree with like fucking everything she says. But I've seen her be a total brilliant shark on air before. She's slightly more rational than most of the people on that network that's not saying much yeah she can be pretty rational but she you know she's

right wing and that's just that's her thing yeah and she's like she's like a real right yeah santa claus is white okay is that her kapow she's hot as fuck that's very distracting right it is but it's also she usually looks like that on air. That's what she should do. Just fucking work it all the way. Terrible idea. Be ridiculous. She should do the news from her bed.

All the news should be done from silk sheets. Yeah, look at that. There you go. She's got her tits highlighted. Yeah. She does. They're different colored. Yeah, that's an interesting-

I mean, come on. Interesting wardrobe choice. She basically has a two-tone thing with the tits impossible to not look at because they don't blend in at all. And that's the thing. It's like they really push you. I remember on Take Part Live one day wearing one of my favorite looks, which was like black pants, high heels, a white button-down shirt. It was fitted. I mean, I think that the outfit was, I consider it like a hot outfit, and a black tie.

But I had my hair braided and kind of pulled back and I was wearing glasses. And my producer told me that I couldn't dress like that anymore because it was too masculine. Oh, that's hilarious. I know. Does he know what you look like? I know. I'm like, I'm a girl.

Like, it's obvious that I'm not trying to be a dude. I like to wear ties. Is your producer gay? No. No. You don't have to say. No, he wasn't. He wasn't?

No. No. Maybe he really was. No, he wasn't. Maybe he really was. For sure, he wasn't. Well, if he thought you looked masculine like that. No, I mean, I don't know.

It's like, put on a short skirt. And you get that thing, too, where even if they don't overtly tell you, it's like you get off air every night. And when you're dressed in an outfit that you love, like pants, a shirt, like you feel comfortable, but you feel good about yourself, and you look in the mirror and you think your body looks good. It's like, whatever. Okay, fine show, whatever.

You wear like the dumbest little short pink skirt or dress that you're totally uncomfortable in and you're not acting like yourself you look great tonight like in your ifb like in your it's yeah in your ifb in your ear yeah because they're constantly there like in your ear like that's gross too the ifbs areBs are gross. I know. It's horrible. Having someone talk to you, especially if you're in the middle of a conversation and they're saying, get off that or don't say this or bring this back and bring up that or ask this. It's tough. It's tough.

Especially when there's like tension between you and your producer. Oh, yeah. Because then it makes you. Like not hiding it. Yeah. You know, when I do post-fight interviews, when I first started doing it, they used to talk to me in my ear, like way back in the day. Like sometimes I'd be in mid-sentence and there'd be some fucking clueless shithead

on the other end. You know, it hasn't happened in decades because then the new guys are awesome. The guys that have been doing it for, you know, since, but in the 90s when I did it, like there would be a guy talking. I literally had to take the thing out of my ear because I couldn't concentrate on what I was saying. And then they have a meltdown in the booth when they see you take it out of your ear. They don't know what it's like.

You literally can't form a sentence. First of all, when you're doing post-fight interviews, you're doing it in real time, off the cuff, completely ad-libbed. And you're asking questions and adjusting based on how the fighter talks to you. And that's what they don't understand. Even a good producer will be like, well, I never talk to you while you're talking. I wait until you stop talking. It's like, yeah, but I have to fucking hear what the person I'm interviewing says to me. You literally can't hear them.

If someone's talking in the air and you're talking, I don't hear it. No, you can't hear it at all. And it's the same thing. That show I was on was a live show every night. So I get it. Counting down to commercial, the things where you have to keep time. Hey, guys, we've got to wrap it up. We've only got a minute left.

Great. But just the talking and the talking or you should say this it's like fuck you i'm not gonna say that yeah say what i want to say well that's the beautiful thing about the internet you know the beautiful thing about the internet and producing your own show and creating your own show is i kind of look at those old shows the shows that have been around for a long time like that especially those news type shows where you talked about like the the uncle and the niece and like that kind of weird format where they talk fake and it's everything seven minutes

cut to commercial i feel like that's a dinosaur i really don't think that's yeah i mean i don't think it's going to last for people sort of of our generation i use that loosely but i think most of middle america is still watching that kind of traditional television america gets the internet too they do that's true i think middle america is not middle america anymore i think most of middle america i mean they're they're watching what's on because it's always been there but people are way more hip yeah they are you tell it when you go on the road don't you feel it brian when you go like to ohio and all these different places like that used to be like a little behind they're not really behind anymore there's a lot of fucking slick people that are

living in the middle of nowhere yeah absolutely i think that's what's great about everything i mean i just got rid of cable for my first time and for once i'm like choosing what i want to watch instead of just like oh what's on tv right now so you're kind of directing but are these middle america people picking out stupid shit like Like, I want to watch this. Yeah. You know what I mean? Slowly but surely, though, they're getting more hip. No, I think so, too.

I think part of the problem, though, is that, I mean, you look at the statistics and Fox News is still the most watched news network. Like, what does that say about our country? Well, it says, first of all, they don't really know what the fuck people are watching because the Nielsen ratings are ridiculous. That's true. It's the most antiquated way of figuring out. The only thing that's worse is the arbitron.

When they try to figure out who's listening to radio, that shit's ridiculous. Really? Like, they give you a book and you're supposed to carry it around and write down when you listen to this channel, when you listen to that channel. Like, they don't fucking know. Well, and also what ends up happening is that people represent themselves to be different than they are. They're like, I love NPR. When they, they like never listen to npr because they think it looks good exactly well there's that thing that they do on networks as well where they'll they'll like if you're on a talk show especially they they have the ratings based on how many people are watching

up into a certain point like that's why the tonight show has a 20-minute first break, because 15 minutes in is when they do their first rating. Yeah. So they don't want to cut to commercial, because then you'll change the channel, it'll fuck up the ratings. So they have this 20-minute thing. So everything is geared towards, like, keep watching us! Look at us!

Yeah. We're gonna do something crazy! It's like sweeps every night. They do anything to try to get you to hang in there for 20 minutes and then they'll bring someone on. And that's like what the skirts are all about. And that's what, why you have all these people that their sensibility is not based on what's the best way to get Kara's thoughts out?

What's the best way to get Megan's thoughts out? The thing is, how do I get someone to watch this chick? Oh, completely. And also there is a problem, I think, where people say, okay, well, people in the industry, especially when you talk to them about this, they go, well, whatever, we just give people what they want. So you look at like bad reality TV, where there's catfights and humiliation television and all the shit that, you know, the Kardashians, all the shit that we're like, it breaks my

heart that this is so popular in America. And then people say, well, that's what the people want. And we're just answering to what their needs are. And, you know, we're not actually affecting any sort of social change. We're just playing into the hands of what they're interested in. But I say that that's fucking bullshit, because we have an illusion of choice in this country. Like, we don't have viable options if i want to watch the news i've either got fox news msnbc or cnn those are the things that are easy for me to find i probably unless i have an expanded cable package don't have al jazeera or bbc world news or another option or rt or another option available to me so i'm watching this programming that's no longer even news it's it's just you know fucking advertiser blow jobs and like ratings runoffs yeah you know rt is an interesting example rt is kind of a fucked up channel though rt is very like in the one hand there's amazing reporting happening there and

the other hand it's like answers to the kremlin yeah it's so weird well abby martin's a friend of mine she's been on the show several times she's's great. And she's one of the rare people that can kind of dress however she wants. Yeah. She dresses, she'll wear slacks, she'll wear, I mean, she's very pretty, but she'll wear, you know, she'll wear something that makes her look hot if that's what she wants to wear, or she'll wear something different. But she has a weird situation there too, where she's criticized Russia, like especially what's going on in the Ukraineraine and you know and they were like we're going to send you to the ukraine and she's like whoa whoa whoa the fuck you are like no you're not sending me to the ukraine like they like made a publicly a press statement because she was she was criticizing uh putin's administration

and what what was going on and you know it was very public on television she did this thing and so they said we're going to send her to to crimea so she can see what it's like on the ground she's like are you out of your fucking mind i'm not going to a war zone like why did you guys you didn't talk to me like you know this is not happening i'm just telling you right now this is not happening but it's weird it is it's a weird place i've i'm working for Russia. I'm pretty good friends with Alona Minkowski and Jenny Churchill, who used to work at RT on the Alona show back in the day. And then they went over to HuffPost and were at HuffPost Live, which is where I kind of met them. And that's where you were the science editor. Yeah, that's where I was their science correspondent.

There was a science editor in New York. I did all their correspondent like on air work. And so I met them there. And, yeah, they've told me some pretty interesting stories too about RT. And a lot of stuff has been leaked lately. Like you see it like the reporters there have been more and more open about the fact that there's an obvious agenda at that news network. And I feel like when it comes to Russia reporting, you have to take it with a huge grain of salt. But they do a good job of investigative reporting in other parts of the world. And also what's interesting is everybody that knows about RT primarily knows about it from clips that were released on the Internet.

Yeah, they're really good about their social media. That's what's up. I mean, that's a big reality when it comes to all those news shows, too. And all those Tonight Show and talk shows. Their whole thing is get a clip that pops. Oh, completely. Yeah, get something that you can put on television or, you know, put on television, but then people will make a clip of it and put it on YouTube and everybody trades it. I mean, look at SNL.

Obviously, people still watch it if you want to believe Nielsen ratings, but, like, that show is not good anymore. It hasn't been good in a really long time, but they really reinvented themselves with the digital shorts a few years ago. And as those were getting released, I mean, there was like this new kind of resurgence of young people being like, oh, SNL is actually funny. It's not so kind of worn out and old. Yeah. It's the whole problem with us. And there's a bunch of problems, but trying to do a new show every week and then just doing it live in front of an audience is a terrible idea. And they don't have enough. It's like, make it a half hour show.

Like, don't make it an hour. Because what ends up happening is they have good ideas for clips. And then they just, every single sketch, they just run it into the ground. It's just like they get the joke and then they repeat it 10 times. Well, it's also like a super competitive environment yeah and you know phil hartman who was a good friend of mine we were on news radio together and he was on saturday night live and he had nightmare stories like after talking to him about what it was like the backstabbing and all the the weird behind the scenes shit that goes on

people trying to force their their sketches in and other people cock blocking them it was just like that sounds horrible the worst thing the worst way to come up with something creative like to people trying to force their sketches in and other people cock blocking them. It was just like, oh. That sounds horrible. The worst thing, the worst way to come up with something creative, like to have this like weird competitive environment, like no one's supporting it. I mean, I don't know how it is there now. Yeah. But he told me some nightmare stories.

Yeah. And I just, I mean, there were times when it was really amazing, but I don't know. It's also kind of not my speed. Yeah. There were some times, Eddie Murphy days. There's, you know, I mean, you're always going to have talented people who are capable of being funny under extreme circumstances. Yeah. You can put them in the worst scenario and they could figure out how to make something funny occasionally.

But you're right. Like, it would be better if it were much looser. But it's TV, you know? It'd also be better if they had time. Yeah. Like, you need some time to work on a sketch. Yeah. Yeah.

Like, a once-a-month Saturday Night Live special would probably be a fucking nuclear bomb that would drop. It would be. That's true. But people have these expectations, and they want to live up to those expectations, and they want to keep up with the ratings and make enough money. The old-school TV model is—I don't know how much life it has left in it. The problem is that's where the money is still. It's a legacy model. It's all of the investors, all of the advertisers,

it's how they know how to do their jobs because they've been doing it for so long that they still pump so much money into that machine. I mean, I see it as a freelancer. When I get offered a TV job, it always pays better than a web job across the board. That's where the money is still. And that's where my agent is trying to push me. I do a lot of web work because I like new media and I like that I can be free on it. But the truth is, we're still in this kind of legacy world with old school media. And until those large corporations start to understand new media, I think that you're going to see this weird inflated bubble where all the money still stays there, but nobody's even fucking watching anymore. Yeah, it's adjusting. It's adjusting slowly, but it's definitely in this transitionary period where more people are kind of realizing, hey, isn't everybody online? Everyone's online, right?

So aren't the same people that are online also watching television shows? We can reach them in both ways. And then it'll slowly shift. In my opinion, it's going to shift to the internet almost entirely. I really don't see... The only benefit that I could see in networks is things like Game of Thrones, where you need massive budgets

to put on these spectacular special effects and film everything in Ireland. Yeah, but you're seeing Netflix starting to do that. You know what I mean? So I think you will be able to see. And what happens when those production companies or when HBO rolls out and it becomes a standalone app where you don't need the cable provider anymore, then fuck, that's online too. Yeah. I mean, the only things that I appointment view anymore at all on television are, let's see, Masters of Sex.

What is that? It's on Showtime. Oh, is that the Kinsey thing? Well, it's Masters and Johnson. So different researchers kinsey thing well it's it's masters and johnson so different researchers but yeah sex researchers from the 50s so is this like that movie was who is it was it liam neeson who the fuck is that the kinsey movie yeah so so the kinsey and then i don't remember but kinsey and masters and johnson are probably the most cited sex research historical sex researchers in you know psychology courses where you learn about sexual behavior.

But Masters and Johnson are a really interesting thing because Masters was an OBGYN, Johnson was his research assistant, and they fucked a lot. Whoa, and that's a show. Yeah, and so they were the source of a lot of their research. Whoa.

Yeah, and it's Lizzie Kaplan and Michael Sheen. It's really good. It's a great show that's interesting so is it is it a pervy show is it kind of like uh well there's a lot are they trying to be like scientific about their sex yeah well yeah they totally are but it's a new field at this point nobody has thought to investigate like sexual response so they are the first people to detail what happens when you have an orgasm they're the first people to try and take measurements of female orgasm like all these really nobody thought that that was legitimate research at the time so he gets thrown out of multiple institutions and he's always getting

in trouble it is pretty fascinating when you think about it wasn't until the 20th century that people started researching sex oh and sexuality and even then it was all men like nobody gave a shit about a female response that was totally secondary like because this is what happens this is another little feminist um uh soapbox is that feminist though no i have an issue with that the term feminism i know it's kind of like it's the term feminism all it really means is that i support equal rights for women you know so in in that sense of the term, yes, I'm very much a feminist, but so were you. So it was probably everybody in this room and most of the people listening. And so this is the thing, when you don't have female physicians and you

don't have female researchers because the institutions don't allow them, then you don't have a female research perspective. So all of a sudden, all of your research subjects are men because nobody thinks that it matters to research what happens to a woman's body yeah and it took decades for research on female sexual response to catch up to research on male sexual response which is crazy because females are the child bearers yeah it's pretty bizarre i know well pretty bizarre when you think about all the different things that used to be used on women. Like that women used to go to a doctor to get manually manipulated to orgasm. Because they were like suffering from hysteria.

Yeah, hysterica. Yeah, hysteria. Yeah, hysterectomy, hysteria. They were all connected. Like that was the idea. And women would go to hospitals for exhaustion. That was like a common thing. Exhaustion?

She's hospitalized for exhaustion. Whoa. Celebrities still do that. Depression. Yeah, they say that. But it's either depression or substance abuse. Right. That's what they used to call it then, exhaustion.

And it was only women? It wasn't men that were going to? Men would sometimes too, but it was very common for housewives to go in for exhaustion. For exhaustion. Wow. And what did they do to them? Just jerk them off? They might have.

Rub them? They might have. And they probably gave them early versions of psychiatric medications. And they basically let them leave whatever stressful environment they were in. Get away from the babies that were making you depressed. Get away from the husband. Go be on your own for a bit. Read a fucking book.

press get away from the husband go be on your own for a bit read a fucking book do you think it's fair to think that as life becomes easier and as like society and civilization is more like goods are more accessible it's easier to get food it's easier to get water it's easier to get services and then slowly but surely things sort of equalize in terms of the more aggressive sex, males paying more attention to the needs of the female. But in the old days, when things were much harsher, people lived less, they have a shorter lifespan, the world was a darker place, then it was more sexist. The thing was more like men were just like, look, these are tough times. Fuck off, bitch. You know, I'm going to get mine. I think it's probably both. I think that there's definitely you look at kind of

Maslow's hierarchy of needs. If you've ever studied psychology, you've probably- That's Lizzie LaLanne hospitalized for exhaustion. That's amazing. You look at Maslow's hierarchy of needs and it's like this pyramid. It's like the food pyramid, but it's the needs pyramid. And at the bottom are things like food and water and shelter. Like when you're concerned about food and water and shelter, you're not concerned about things like love and friendship. And then as you get to the top, it's things like self-actualization component of, yes, if you're just struggling to survive, contemplating or waxing philosophical about, you know, civil liberties and things like that. It's not in your, so you may be very instinctual and you may be aggressive because of that or for whatever reason, you may see kind of patriarchal lines that are drawn in the sand and some sexism and some violence. But I think on top of that,

maybe that would always be the case, so long as women didn't have a voice. I'm not sure. I'm not sure of just moving to the future. And I'm not sure if it's a function of people having more access to food and goods and services, or if it's really a function of women. Because what happened was women were mothers. And men said, OK, mothers bring life. This is something that we should respect and we should honor. And this was a historical norm for a very long time. And then as, you know, these kind of hunter gatherer societies moved into more agrarian societies and started to form cultural structures, men realized, I can overpower that bitch. Like, I have physical strength, and I can physically put this woman in her place. And as they realized that there was a power differential between them, that men were physically

stronger, I think that's where a lot of patriarchal wisdom comes from, is that men are physically stronger than women. Do you think that was realized not until there was agriculture, not until there was cities? I think that that was a big part of it. Don't you think that that would be a big part of it everywhere? I mean, in all primitive cultures? Well, if you are a hunter-gatherer type, and so you're living in a very small tribe, and you're concerned about kinship or the welfare of your children, then I think that there's a certain amount of respect and honor that you are going to pay to your wife. But why does that go away with agriculture?

Why does that go away with cities? It's not so much agriculture as it is all of the things that come along with agriculture, which is maybe political power, which is starting to stratify and have jobs. And no longer are you making your own clothes, making your own shoes, doing your own hunting, doing your own cooking. All of a sudden, now you're a cobbler and you're a butcher and you're whatever. And so people have to depend on one another for goods and services. And they have to say, OK, I'll trade you this for that, and then money comes into play and bartering. And all of a sudden, whereas it was a lot more egalitarian before, where everybody kind of had a strong role because they were taking care of themselves, or they're very small groups, they're family groups, now all of a sudden,

they have a place in society. And that's, I think, where you really start to see subjection of women is because men start to develop power within societies. And if you look back historically, there are no known societies that were matriarchal societies, but you do see in smaller kind of tribal communities, more matriarchal ideology, more kind of honoring and worshiping of mother figures and mother gods but every time there's a society it becomes patriarchal historically throughout all time every time there's no such thing as those yeah all of it there's no such thing as those amazonian like women tribe that you know people talk about like the amazonian women that's just dudes jerk off

yeah and that's not a real thing like giant women are going to take care of them yeah it's a myth it's a myth stuff in their vaginas so and i don't know i can't say that that's not a real thing. Giant women are going to take care of them. Yeah, it's a myth. It's a myth. Stuff them in their vaginas. And I don't know. I can't say that that's a cause of it, but those things are highly correlated. But do you think that that evens out once civilization and society becomes more complex? My point was that scarcity makes people desperate. And when people get desperate, they victimize not just women, but they victimize weaker men as well. Weakness, Yeah, exactly.

Anyone weak. It's like, you know, who are the people that we historically look to for like heroic figures in times of great stress? People that pull themselves up by their bootstraps and go out there and kick some fucking ass. People with big muscles. I mean, that's the thing. It's such a brutish and such an underdeveloped way to value strength, to only value strength in like, I punch harder. Right. Because there's other forms of strength. But you're right. When people are desperate, people know that, you know, think about if you're having an argument with another guy or if something comes to a head, even at work, wherever, and you're having an argument and you can't agree with each other and you start to get more and more frustrated,

what's the way in every film, in every book, what's the way that it finally gets settled? You roll up your sleeves and you get in a physical altercation with each other, which is just not a form of strength or not a form of settling a score that's common in like feet in females it happens have you never watched back basketball wives yeah it happens throw down they do they throw down but

that's like the worst of the worst too that's like not normal it's counterintuitive but the best way to avoid that with men is martial arts get men in a situation where they train and they compete against each other on a regular basis. They don't have this need to dominate each other the way. It's true, because I do think that it's a bit stupid to just completely ignore the role that things like testosterone play in gender dimorphism, like in femalemale differences in humans and other higher order mammals. Like testosterone is a chemical that actually is highly linked to things like aggression and feeling tension and having this need to release that in some way. And we have less of it.

We have significantly less of it. And some women are more aggressive and some women are completely passive and are never aggressive that way. But there is a significant difference between males and females. And testosterone is a big reason for that. So being able to get that aggression out, whether it's on a heavy bag or whether it's through martial arts or whatever exercises you use, I think it's irresponsible to think that that's not part of the equation. it's irresponsible to think that that's not part of the equation. Yeah, it definitely is for a man coming from a male point of view. I know that makes a significant difference with me, whether or not I can release it or not. But it's also just doing martial arts and being involved in something that gives you an understanding of what physical confrontation is really all about.

It's not this scary thing that every man has to puff his chest up to avoid happening, or you go into it completely ignorantly, thinking it's like a movie. You're going to sock some guy, and that's going to be the end of it. Meanwhile, you throw a punch at him, and he moves his head, and you're like, oh shit, this guy actually knows how to fight, now I'm fucked. Because now I tried to hit somebody that is not going to let me hit him, and they're going to beat me up. You're right. A lot of that, I think, comes from fear, and it comes from ignorance. It also comes from all these ridiculous media depictions of what happens when people

hit each other one of the things that drives me fucking crazy and I really wanted to talk to you about this because I wanted to get into depression is head trauma like there's so many goddamn movies where someone hits someone in the head and they fall down they get up and they rub their head and they were out cold and then they go out and they fucking have a crazy fist fight with a hundred people or you know they they make it like they're back to normal like they get shut off and they come back to normal and they're fine or a guy is like you know this like great martial artist is is in a fight with like 10 other dudes right and then he's like punching and he's kicking and then he does that thing where he like head

butts like tons of guys. Cracks his skull against the skull of multiple people in a row. And is in no way affected by it. Well, headbutts, it's really a weird thing. But the way to do it correctly, it actually is effective. I'm sure it's effective. Because you're using this part of your head, your forehead, which is a really hard part. And you smash someone in the nose.

And your nose kind of gives in. It's so gross. Yeah, but it works. It works like crazy. I wish we had a shot of Red Band just then. Well, there's a great video of a woman knocking a guy out in a bar. There was some sort of a bar fight, and this guy was involved in a fight with this woman's boyfriend. And the guy grabs the woman and the woman grabs the guy's shirts and slams him in the head right on his nose and the guy goes out cold

and goes limp but it's hilarious because it's like this little woman and this big man and she knocks him out with her head yeah but that's they never show that in the movie they never hit him in the nose they hit him like in the same part of their head yeah you can't do that you can't do that you're gonna scramble your brain if you're samoan if you're like one of those dudes with They never hit him in the nose. They hit him like in the same part of their head. Yeah, you can't do that You can't do that You're gonna scramble your brain if you're Samoan If you're like one of those dudes with an extra big head you can get away with that But for most people you smash them in the nose. I mean you probably don't want to do that too much We're even seeing that there are just that video

This watch this girl headbutt this dude It's fucking hilarious because there's all this shit going on and this girl just grabs this dude and kaos him see if you can cut to it because it's kind of a long video if i remember correctly there's like a lot of shit going on yeah big bar fight oh just isolate it because this is is he punching her no i think yeah oh my god dude that's insane yeah i don't know uh when in this video i don't think this is the same video i think this is a different one yeah this isn't the same video that's just gross that the other video was indoors that one that one's outdoors but whatever but yeah like even you know they're finding that soccer players oh yeah just the multiple the movement of like hitting a ball

with your head over and over and over and over and over it causes mild concussive injuries so yeah cracking people in the skulls a lot is probably yeah it's not to be avoided well you know and me i've obviously i come from this background of not just constantly doing it my whole life but being around it my whole life i've been around so many guys getting hit in the head and I've seen them from the beginning of their career. And then I see them at the end of their career and I see a significant decline in how they communicate and how I'm sure how they feel. They seem like old men when they're in their like forties. Yeah. And depression is a real issue.

And it's one of the reasons why I wanted to bring this up is because my friend, Mark Gordon, Dr. Mark Gordon, who's an expert in traumatic brain injury, and he works a lot with soldiers and athletes that have had significant brain trauma, and they have a lot of issues with their hormones afterwards. The pituitary gland is extremely sensitive. And he wrote a piece connecting Robin Williams with depression, not just based on a lot of factors. I mean, Robin had a lot of things going on. He obviously had substance abuse issues. He obviously, he had the Parkinson's issue, which was also taking medication for Parkinson's, which has been connected to depression, but he also had heart surgery. And his,

But he also had heart surgery. And his, Dr. Gordon's connection was that Robin Williams, having had this major heart valve replacement, which entails many hours the prolonged surgery with low blood pressure, they believe, precipitates a form of Sheehan syndrome, which is the loss of important brain hormones. Oh, interesting. Additionally, there's an increase in reverse T3 and a decrease in T3, which can cause relative hypothyroidism that's also associated with depression. And Mark Gordon wrote this whole piece about it. And he's saying that what people have to consider more is like when you take someone into a situation where you're fixing their heart, you also have to realize that there's going to be some adverse effect.

The whole body is going to react to this. It's not just going to be about, look, your heart's fixed. Why are you so sad? His hormones are fucking completely out of whack now. And that could have played a factor in this that was ignored. Well, and that's something that I think that we've historically had this really weird approach to medicine, which I think is kind of a secondary effect of thinking scientifically. And obviously, I, my background is in neuroscience, I worked as a scientist for many years, and I am very much a scientific thinker, and I'm all about the scientific method. But I think that we sometimes are at fault when we try to fix the problem and we look at it as if you can somehow cut that piece of the person's physiology completely out of them,

solve it, and then put it right back in. And it doesn't have any effect on anything else in their bodies. I mean, you look at medication, right? Any form of pharmaceutical, they all have side effects. If you think about what a side effect is, it comes down to how medication works. Medicine is a molecule. It's some sort of molecule that fits in a receptor somewhere in your body. And the idea is that you want it to have really high efficacy. So let's say that I'm somebody who has a problem with blood pressure, for example. Or actually, let's just jump into depression because I've been talking about this a lot lately around Robin Williams. I had Paul Gilmartin on my podcast just last week to talk about that. He hosts the Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast and has really great insights into mental illness.

And I, of course, publicly have dealt with depression most of my life. I take medication every day. I go to therapy every week. I'm very open about it. For a lot of people, they would look at you, especially people that don't have any issues with depression. They look at you, obviously very intelligent, beautiful, young. Why would you be depressed? Guys are probably tripping over themselves, trying to date you. You're obviously very successful in pursuing intellectual pursuits why would you be depressed exactly a lot of people are like why because a lot of people don't understand the difference between depression and sadness and they don't understand that depression is a biological illness yeah they don't think of it

they also don't think of it in terms of like people look at it in terms of like well you've got all these sums like look you've got all these sums. Like, look, you've got all these numbers. Look, these all stack up. And that almost can make it worse for certain people. I mean, you look at somebody like Robin Williams. He had so much going for him, right? He was famous. He was loved.

He had all this money. How could he be depressed? He didn't have the problems that you or I have. And you know what? Then you have this extra layer of guilt. You have this extra layer of shame. This extra layer of, why the fuck am I still depressed? No matter how much success I get, no matter how much money I make, no matter how

much people write me letters and say that they love me and whatever, I can't seem to beat this feeling inside of me, this constellation of symptoms, because it's not coming from that. It's coming from your brain. And is it, I mean, I don't suffer from depression, but I have had many friends who do. And I've always wondered what it's, because it seems to be that when you go to a doctor and they start treating it, whether they treat it with medication or they try to adjust your diet and prescribe exercise first, that there's no like one simple fix. Not at all.

And everybody's completely different. And people get upset about that because I think it goes back to kind of what I was talking about before, which is a meandering way to, okay, so again, to go back to this idea of a drug, you take a drug. Let's say I take an antidepressant. My antidepressant specifically is a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, an SSRI that's called Citalopram. That's the off brand. I think it's Celexa is the brand name. I take that. It binds to my serotonin receptors in my brain, and it allows me to dump more serotonin into the synapse, the gap between two brain cells so that I always have more available. It basically tells my brain that I need more serotonin, so I make more serotonin available to myself. It's a reuptake inhibitor. And so, or it, sorry, it keeps more serotonin in the gap instead of sucking it back into the cell, so I always have more available to me.

Now, it's a molecule. It's got a shape, just like anything out there. It has geometry. So it binds to this specific receptor in the brain because it's got a similar shape to that. There are other things in your body that are similarly shaped. And so what ends up happening is when you take a drug, the specificity of the drug is only based on whether or not the key fits in a lock somewhere in your body. But let's say that you had hundreds of thousands, millions of locks available to you and one key and you started going through, you'd be able to stick that in a bunch of locks. Some of them, it might even turn, but it would fit in the lock of multiple locks hanging on that wall. So what ends up happening

is I take this drug, it binds in my brain, It does what it's supposed to do in my brain. But it also maybe does other shit like makes me really fucking tired or it makes it so I don't want to have sex as often. It's a side effect. And the reason that you have a side effect is because there's other parts of your body that the drug binds to. It's the same thing with medicine. Like you were saying, you operate on somebody's heart. The heart is connected to other things. It's the source of blood flow throughout your body.

It is connected to hormone levels. There's all sorts of things that can happen when you put somebody under anesthesia, when you cut them open, when you cause an immune response, an inflammatory response. Your body is a holistic thing. And so when you start jacking with certain things, other things are going to happen. That doesn't mean you should throw the baby out with the bathwater, but medicine is a risk-benefit analysis always. But how do they find the right medication by experimentation me that they find the right medication by experimentation,

that they try it. And is that just because- It's the only way. It's because we don't have any tests. I can't, you can't go, as a doctor, you can't come to me, stick a needle in my spinal cord, take out my cerebrospinal fluid and measure how much serotonin I have in it. I wish you could. I wish I could take some sort of a blood test or I could, you know, pee in a cup and then

you could analyze that pee and say, you're low on serotonin. You need an SSRI. That would be what works for you. Because other people's depression comes from problems with dopamine, comes from problems with norepinephrine or some combination thereof. But there's no test for it. It fucking sucks. There's no test for it. And so what ends up happening is you have to play musical chairs. You try a drug. The first drug I tried when I decided to finally go on antidepressants fucked me up so bad. I took an SNDRI, a selective serotonin norepinephrine dopamine reuptake inhibitor. I was so fucking depressed I couldn't function. And we decided, let's throw the book at it. Let's take the drug of all drugs, the monster drug that does everything. And I couldn't sleep for a week. I felt like I was

on straight up crank, like on crystal. Did you get a lot done? I quit smoking. No, seriously, I quit smoking. It was awesome. That's when I quit smoking. That's an important point. Smoking. Smoking is terrible for your body. Horrible. Did you do anything to try to naturally stimulate your body to produce more serotonin did you try a lot of exercise do you did you adjust your diet but you didn't quit smoking i did i mean ultimately when you got on the drugs but you didn't try i was only on the drug for a week so as soon as i got off the drug again i immediately wanted to smoke again but at that point i pushed through it through it. And I said, you know, I'm, I'm at my lowest, I was at my lowest

point I've ever been at. So I was like, fuck it can't get any worse. And I did, I quit smoking. And it's been a couple years, but I did, I tried. But the truth is, this is why addiction research is so important. This is why researchers go into the lab with a bunch of mice or whatever, and they feed them a bunch of cocaine. And they, you know, do these different kind of experiments where you've heard of the famous experiment where you have the mouse in the cage, and it's got a bar pressing paradigm. So it can push the bar, it gets coke. And then like, it just fucking does that until it dies. Like it, like there's food right next to it. And it's like, No, I want more coke. And then it just, you know, dies. And so obviously, there's something happening. This is a natural phenomenon because

mice don't have value judgments. They're not thinking about this from a religious perspective. They're not saying, I don't know, maybe I should stop doing this coke and maybe exercise a little more and that'll give me the same kind of high. It overwhelms everything. It's such a strong addiction. Does nicotine have the same sort of addictive properties? Nicotine is almost more addictive. But not nicotine natural in a natural form it's not like nicotine as far as like pipe smoke i do think nicotine is still addictive even if you're talking about like vaping it or something like that no i'm talking about like like traditional methods of it like the way they would smoke tobacco in a pipe or in a cigar or something it's not as addictive i don't think it's as addictive but it's still addictive

i mean it's still it's it's the the nicotine is the molecule that's studied in laboratories it's not the tar it's not the shit that comes in the papers now that's what like has much more carcinogenic properties but nicotine itself is highly addictive and that's the molecule that's studied in in research it's pure nicotine but isn't nicotine itself it doesn't actually have some medicinal benefits? It does. It's actually neuroprotective, so it can protect against Parkinson's. Wow. So if you smoke, you won't get Parkinson's? Well, I wouldn't say that. But there is some evidence in the lab that animals that were given nicotine had a lower incidence rate of Parkinson's.

Is it dangerous in the form that people take it as far as gum or things along those lines? Much less. It's much less dangerous. But the goal still would be to get off of nicotine. Because the reason they're chewing the gum is because they're still addicted to it. But is there a way to take a small amount of it that gives you those neuroprotective properties but it's not dangerous? Possibly. But I think it would be important for us to see more research to see how, you know, again, it's a risk-benefit analysis.

Like, is it really that beneficial? I don't know. It's hard to say. What's the dose-response curve? How much would you have to take for it to be beneficial? The thing about depression that is fascinating to me is that there are some correlations between how well your life is going. Do you have good relationships? Are you happy with what you choose to do with your day?

I had a friend who was, he was on like some serious SSRIs and they changed his life. They got him, he quit his business, he quit his job rather, started his own business, got involved in a relationship. And then once he got to a really good place, he slowly weaned himself off the antidepressants

and now he's great. Yeah, and that happens to a lot of people. And so I think that there's different – what we have to understand too is, of course, all psychiatric disorders are spectrum disorders, right? There's really extreme examples and there's barely any examples. And if anybody who's ever taken a psych course or who's studied, you know, if you were a psych major in college, you know that as you study the DSM-IV, which is like, it's called the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual that they use in psychiatry and psychology. It's basically the big Bible of all the things you can be diagnosed with. The more you study it, the more you're like, I have that. Oh, I have that. Oh, I totally fucking have that. And you realize everybody has, everybody can convince themselves that they have these, it's like

WebMD, you know what I mean? So it's only once it is sufficiently detrimental to your life that it affects your relationships, it affects your ability to work, it affects your health, whatever the case may be. And usually within the DSM, there are maybe like eight things and it's like you have to have five out of these eight things. And so anybody can read it and go, oh, I've felt depression before. But what they don't realize is there is a difference between depression and sadness there's also a difference between parody depression so depression that lasts years decades and the type of depression that people get that's directly linked to life events and that's your dog dies shit you look well a big one you lose your fucking job like we've seen so many documentaries lately about this as the economy took a downturn, people lose their job,

and then they end up committing suicide, because they can't it's like, this cascade of awfulness, that's a really common one. You know, family member dies, you have a stillborn, or you have an abortion, or you have a baby, a healthy baby, postpartum depression is incredibly common. And in that case, that's much more common that people can take meds. They can do all these things. And once they get back to where they were before that horrible life event, they're okay to get off the meds. Some people are able to get their depression managed without medication perfectly well. Some people aren't. Is the different reactions that different people have to different medication,

is it because their depression has a different source, or is it just a biodiversity thing? I think it's more of a biodiversity thing than a source thing. I mean, source is hard to say. So depression is both when you think about it. Well, brain and mind are the same thing. Most modern neuroscientists say that brain and mind are two sides of the same coin, that mind is just an emergent property of brain. Nobody's a dualist anymore. They don't think that you can like heal the mind and it has no effect on the brain because it's the same fucking thing. comes from the fact that their dopamine levels are not healthy or their norepinephrine levels are not healthy or whatever the fuck. But I think the common view of depression now

is that there's some sort of biological difference in your brain. And oftentimes, that's either caused or it develops out of childhood or early life experiences where, you know, you have some sort of trauma or you have some sort of development, you have some sort of, you know, interaction with family, whatever the case may be. And it doesn't have to be, you know, you were molested as a child. It can literally just be like you didn't feel loved or whatever the case may be. And you've got this brain difference combined with this emotional experience. And what ends up happening, because when you're very young, your brain is very plastic. So when you're very young, you're learning skills that are going to last you the rest of your life. And you're actually building your brain architecture.

Certain neurons are connecting and disconnecting and reconnecting and pruning out the tree, the beautiful tree that is all of the cells in your brain is getting pruned when you're young. And if you're depressed when you're young and you're experiencing those kinds of things when you're young, you're going to prune a tree that's prone to depression as you age because you're going to keep reinforcing those neuronal connections. That's why therapy is so important. Meds in and of themselves are never going to get you in a place where your depression is really well managed. It's going to get you in a place where therapy is going to be working better for you. Meds are going to be an immediate and necessary interventional strategy so that you're not crying or you're not trying to kill yourself or you're not whatever your symptoms are.

So you can actually fucking your symptoms of so you can actually fucking get out of bed to work on yourself that's what meds are there for me meds keep me from staying in bed all day that's that variable though finding the right counselor it's got to be incredibly difficult it's tough it's like i always liken it to the women who are listening to the podcast i liken it unto when you were first deciding to go on birth control. A lot of women will go to their gynecologist when they're 15, 16, 17 and say, I want to go on birth control. And they'll give them orthotricycline or whatever the pill, the regular old pill, and they'll be fine. A lot of women will take the pill the first time and it'll make them really sick. Like every time they take the pill, it makes them want to throw up or it gives them cramps or something's weird about it.

It affects theirs. And they go, oh, this drug doesn't work for me. Oh, fuck. Okay, let's try one with lower levels of estrogen or progesterone or let's try the ring or the Depo-Provera shot or maybe you need an IUD. I was like that. It took me multiple times to find the right drug. And I think it's the same thing with therapy. I think it's the same thing with psychiatric medicines. It's not, we're not monolithic. So the same combination isn't going to work for everybody. And the truth is, if that makes you afraid of modern medicine, or if it makes you think that psychiatry is woo or something like that, it's the same thing as cancer in many ways. There's so many parallels. Cancer is not one disease. It's a spectrum of diseases. If I got diagnosed

with breast cancer and you got diagnosed with breast cancer and we both went in with our diagnosis the same day, our oncologist would give us different treatments because we would have different genetic markers. We would respond differently to different types of chemotherapy. Chemotherapy means chemical therapy. It's a really big umbrella term for all the different kinds of cancer treatments that are available. Maybe you would get more radiation. Maybe I would need surgery, but your metastasis would make it so that surgery wasn't a viable option. It's a spectrum disease and psychiatric illness are the same way. The variable though of the counselor has to be kind of weird. It is weird. It's a bit weird. Just trying to find someone that you can confide in wholeheartedly. And it takes time, a really long

time. And finding the correct, a really long time. And finding the correct sex, right? Whether or not some men do better with women counselors. I have a male counselor. Like I would never, it's funny. I have a male therapist, but I have a female gynecologist. Like I would never in a million years let a dude like put speculums in me and like dig around in my cervix.

But I'm totally comfortable with a male therapist. I have a friend who went to a male gynecologist and the male gynecologist texted her and asked her out. Oh, that's so creepy. Oh my God. She's kind of a flirt. She might have put it out there. That's crazy.

That reminds me of what's the Judd Apatow? She pushed forward. What's the Judd Apatow movie? Yeah, she like moaned a little While he was getting in there Ew ew ew No you would never You have obviously Never had a pap

You would never No I haven't But some girls Are dirty bitches In a good way What's the Judd Apatow movie With Knocked up

You know And she goes to the doctor And it's her sister's doctor And he's all like Oh I recognize you now Like when he puts her in this It's like so gross yeah having some dude dig around your cooter i could never i just could never i'm glad that i lit i'm glad it's 2014 and there are plenty of female ob-gyns available

because back in the day you had a male gynecologist right because there were only dude doctors whoa yeah yeah that would be really weird and even for a guy to have a woman doctor that's checking out your genitals that would be odd as well you think so would you have you've had a female doctor before right like grab your balls while you cough that no i wish oh yeah but that's the issue like the man would be the predator like that the doctor the female doctor would have to deal with especially if it's an attractive female doctor would have to deal with the dude oh being kind of excited about a woman checking on his balls i'm not sure keep doing it i'm not sure if you found it yeah that she'd probably have to deal with that a bit for fuck yeah sure well there's um you know i was

talking to a friend about this uh the other day and he he is a pretty philosophical older guy. And he was, he's been through two divorces. And he was talking about how sex starved so many people are. And like, you're dealing with all these scenarios where you're like, oh, this guy was a creep. And this, you know, this woman is ridiculous. And there are people out there that no one's touching. And they are so hungry just to be held and i i mean this is a minor story but when i was uh when i first came to california i didn't have any friends came here from new york and i wasn't happy i wasn't happy because i didn't enjoy acting i didn't enjoy being around actors and i didn't have any friends and it wasn't didn't have a girlfriend didn't't have any dates. And I got a hug from this girl on the set. And I'll never forget that feeling of that hug because it wasn't like a sexual hug.

It was a friend gave me a hug. And when she gave me the hug, it was like my level went, but not sexual. It was like love. Like I got touched. You got a love boner. I got touched for the first time in like a couple weeks yeah and i was like oh you need this like this is important for people it's totally important for people there's all sorts of hormones like a cascade of hormones that you set off when you are

affiliative when you're you know close to somebody else and it it's absolutely necessary. And kind of going back to what we were talking about, about aggression, like a male female difference. I also feel strongly that many men have a deep need that's slightly different than than women that our sexual needs are much more affiliative and emotional. And there is some physiological basis for female sexual need. Don't get me wrong. Like any girl can tell you that she's had this craving, this passionate feeling where she's like, I just need to come or I just need to, you know, have sex with somebody. But with men, there's literally a backup of fluid that you have to release. That's a very different physiological thing than women. And again, that goes back to testosterone.

So the same thing as you were saying, MMA can be really helpful for clearing the mind and for lowering your base levels of aggression. I think cumming does the same thing. I think it's healthy for guys to jerk off if they're not having a lot of sex, because guys can get pent up and be aggressive because they're not coming enough. Well, they also get desperate. I used to, I had a joke about it. It was, it was a whole descriptive called jerk off first, then think about it. Like anything you're thinking about doing in life, any weird decision you're going to make, you're getting married. That's good. Jerk off first, then think about it. You know, you're going to decide to do this. You're going to buy that car. You're going to do this. You're going to buy those clothes. Jerk off first, then think about it. You know, you're going to decide to do this. You're going to buy that car.

You're going to do this. You're going to buy those clothes. Jerk off first and tell me if you really want to wear alligator shoes. Why are you wearing those? Are you trying to attract a certain person? And that's the thing. We talk about the little head and people, guys thinking with that head or whatever. There is a really big neuronal link there. There are hormones that affect your dick the same way they affect

your brain and so you can't pretend again that your cock is somehow completely disconnected from your emotions from your feelings well if you looked at it and also if you looked at it objectively if you looked at the human beings on this planet as like a giant mathematical equation you would say okay why are there so fucking many of them? Well, because there's this intense need to breed. And this intense need to breed was back when it was really difficult to stay alive. You know, we are essentially the same organism that used to get cut down by each other, by animals, predators, natural illnesses, disease, injuries. We've only been around for 200,000 years in our current form. Homo sapiens as a species. So before 200,000 years ago, we're talking about something that was different enough from us, evolutionarily speaking, to be a different species. Homo sapiens, 200,000 years old. That's long enough for a little bit of evolution.

Yes, we have changed in some ways, but that's not long enough for that much evolution. In many ways, biologically, psychologically, evolutionarily speaking, you're right. We are the same organism that was like crawling out of the trees. There are some folks that are just more fucking primitive today or more animalistic or more kinetic. And just the range is so massive when we talk about what is, quote, normal and what is hyper and what is hypo. So many people are so different. cool to see when people actually manage to partner up or whatever sexual or emotional partnerships make sense for them, whether they're monogamous or polygamous, whether they're, you know, gay, straight, somewhere in between. It's so cool when you see people that make it work because they're on the same page when there's so many differences that exist out there. When two people go you're awesome or three or four whatever and they go you're awesome i'm into you we're into

the same stuff we abide by the same rules we have the same sexual proclivities and it works like how fucking cool is that because there's so many combinations out there when those magnet those two ends of the magnet kind of find each other in that way it's it's pretty dope like it's not that common well even like when you were talking earlier about molecules and receptors it's almost like the you have to have the right fit yeah you totally do you also have to be a good molecule yeah you know it's like how many people truly have their shit together to the point where anybody would want to be with them and so many people are so goddamn codependent and so fucked up that they they can't attract anyone because their own biology their psychology the the mix that makes

them a person it's just so chaotic like you can't expect to be happy in a relationship because you're not happy alone yeah there has to be equity in a relationship like you can't suck the light you can't be like a vampire in a relationship You have to offer somebody just as much as you get from them. And you have to be, like you said, very standalone. I mean, that's a common theme for me in therapy is this conversation about if I am in a relationship, feeling very confident and comfortable because I have like an insane fear of commitment. Because I'm so used to thinking about a relationship as if it's a prison sentence. And I've been really relearning what it means to be in a relationship with my therapist and how the idea of living for now is a healthier way to look at life. Like, I don't have

to think about hardcore future kinds of conversations. Like if I'm comfortable with myself right now, and I can be comfortable with a partner right now, and not have all this like sense of intense obligation, that's where that codependent stuff comes from. And that's what I think is so incredibly unhealthy in a relationship. It's like, I'm going to bring my best self to the table and hopefully I'll find a partner that does the same thing instead of needing a partner, which is a common motivation for people to get in relationships. I need somebody else. I can't handle it on my own. You're not going to end up working it out.

There's all those variables, too too like the sexual variable the emotional variable there's so many different things that are going on and then it's almost like okay i found this water hole i can't leave i finally found water i was alone like my experience of going several weeks without being hugged and then being hugged like oh and that was just a friend it was like someone on the set the difference between that and someone who's gone years without a relationship that really worked and you finally have one that works and you fuck it up because you're too goddamn clingy and too crazy. Where are you? Where are you? Why aren't you home?

I'm texting you. Why aren't you texting me back immediately? And like that kind of shit is what makes me run out the door. That's what I'm talking about when I talk about my quote unquote fear of commitment. What it really is, is it's it's an intense feeling of stress when I feel obligated to somebody else. So, so in the healthiest relationships I've been in, they're the relationships where there's not a lot of jealousy, not a lot of possession, not a lot of that checking in and these, it's just trust. You trust each other. And when you're really into somebody, you want to be around them and you spend time with them but when you want to be around your

friends they're not like where are you why aren't you checking in when are you coming home it's like fuck off dude like i don't want to be with you if it's going to be like this there are friends like that and they're brutal and you got to cut them off yeah you do because that's that's that codependency and what happens when you end up with two people who are like that with each other murder suicide yeah and they less and less learn how to exist on their own so then when they finally do break it off because it's obviously unhealthy then they're fucked then it takes all this healing to get back to a place where they're independent again yeah that's so true and it's it's a weird thing when you find those two people that like they they can't be apart like they literally

they don't they go everywhere together they're also so gross like nobody wants to be around them they're the worst you you have friends like that don't you yeah no i i cut off all my friends oh you have no friends you have friends i'm your friend fuck face what are you talking about i mean all my shit friends oh your shit friend that's good yeah cutting off shit friends. Cut off all my friends. It's just me and my girl. We're out there riding motorcycles. Well, I think the older you get, you just realize, why am I friends with these people? That happens too.

That's true. When you're younger, you need a lot of support. And I think the older you get, the more you value your alone time. And the more you realize that good relationships and good friendships shouldn't feel like work. And once they start to feel like work, you're like, fuck, I have too many obligations and responsibilities. I don't want to have to work to be friends with you. Also, I have a lot of friends that are like super empowering. Like when I'm around them, I want to do better.

I want to be better. I get stimulated. You know, I think better. My mind functions. Like I'm inspired, you know. I'm very lucky to have that now. You were talking about your experience when you first came to Los Angeles and not having a lot of friends and kind of being depressed. And so when I first moved to L.A., I was in New York.

I'm usually not that comfortable talking about this, but for some reason I'm going to right now. I was living in New York and I was working on my Ph.D. And then I started dating Bill Maher. Like that's why I came to Los Angeles is because we started dating. I was living in New York. I would kind of come and go and see him. And we weren't committed to each other. I had a life on the West or on the East Coast.

He had his life here on the West Coast. And eventually we got close enough that we decided, hey, let's give this thing a go. And so I was like, fuck it. I was actually really not happy in my degree program. So in some ways, it was a double whammy. I was very happy to be exploring a deeper relationship with this guy that I had grown to love. And also, I was more and more not happy with my situation in New York. And so it was a new opportunity. I moved out to LA and we ultimately ended up dating very seriously for about three years. And that was my first LA experience was bizarre as fuck. I was dating somebody who was incredibly famous in the public eye who had a lot of money. There was a big equity problem in the relationship. I didn't know what I was going to do with my life. I had just left my degree program. I was searching for answers and I was young. I was like 24. But I had no friends, none. I mean, I was friends with people in their 50s. Like that's, that was my social circle. And yeah, I would meet people like I

would hang out with Sarah Silverman a little bit. But they weren't really my friends. I was the come along. I was the girlfriend and they were all very nice to me and I was like what a weird life but it was almost like I was living somebody else's life and I was pretty depressed and I was very lucky to have my best friend at the time Kelly was still living in Dallas where I grew up and kind of worked with her and hooked her up with a job working with Bill she ended up becoming his wardrobe stylist and she still does that to this day, which is really amazing. It was a huge opportunity for her. She always wanted to come to LA. And now she's this incredible celebrity stylist and has this great job. And so I was very lucky when she first came out maybe six months later, because we got an apartment together and I finally had somebody, but I just had her.

And it took probably until just a couple of years ago so now that's maybe been five years out before i met this group of friends that we um affectionately call each other the nerd brigade um yeah we hashtag nerd brigade on twitter all the time and they're they're like one of my best friends just finished her phd in molecular neuroscience from caltech one of my other best friends got his PhD from USC in animal cognition. I have a friend who, another neuroscience student at Caltech, I have a friend who has a marine biology degree. They're all like science communicators, writers, academics, but cool, young, edgy, fun people who like, we get each other. We're friends because we have a lot in

common. It took a long time to get close to these people and to meet them and to finally find, because LA is a fucking hard city if you're used to living in a university town. Like there, it's so hard to meet. What town were you in? Well, first I was in Denton, Texas. That's where I did my undergrad and my master's at the University of North Texas. And then, yeah, I was in New York City, but I was living in Queens, specifically in Forest Hills, because I would take the bus to Flushing every day to Queens College. That's where I was working on my PhD at the City University of New York Graduate Center. But Queens College was my campus.

And a lot of my friends live in Pasadena still, which is very much a college town because they were Caltech students and now they're working there or some of them are still taking courses. But I saw, I mean, Brian just shook his head. Like LA, it's hard to meet smart people in this city. It's so full of fucking vapid people

and people who will, I learned this quickly. I moved to LA dating somebody who was like an A-list celebrity. And all of a sudden, I was like, wait, why do you want to be friends with me? Wait, what's going on? I also, I've dated another very, very famous person in my life where I don't publicly talk about that relationship at all just to respect each other's privacy. But I would learn things about people. Like I had this one group of friends who i thought were my friends um and i remember dating this person and being

like hey do you want to come to a barbecue i don't know oh but you know so and so thought that you might want to play tennis we're going to do it at so-and-so's house oh so-and-so will be there oh yeah i'm totally down and you would get that all the time this like oh is that why you're friends with me yeah that la thing is very bizarre it's such a weird experience that i think a lot of people don't i never even imagine but it also has opened a million doors for me like how the you think when i was 23 years old you know cutting up mice or birds and and digging around in their brains i always thought i was going to be a bench scientist and that's what I was going to do.

And I kind of hated it. I love teaching. Kind of hated doing the lab work, but I was like, okay, this is the path I'm on. This is, who the fuck, if somebody had told me, oh, you're going to be in media, you're going to be on the Joe Rogan podcast,

you're going to start your own podcast, you're going to be on television. I'd be like, you're fucking out of your mind. Like I'm scared of camp. When I was in Texas at 16, i tried out for season two of american idol you sing yeah i was a jazz singer in college like that's what i went to college for yeah and so i made it through four callbacks in season two of american idol i made it through the producers the executive producers more exactly i finally got to the three judges who were they at

the main ones it was like randy and paula and simon cowell and um so that was the last audition you do before you i'm going to hollywood right and you know why i didn't get it all three of them said like you're not they go we like your voice we like your look because i was a total punk rock kid i had like short spiky hair and my lip ring and the arm is very avril lavigne kind of a look back then and they were like oh we love it all you of a look back then. And they were like, Oh, we love it all. You're you're the total package. And I was like, great. And then I auditioned and they were like, you're not going through. No, but why? And they're like, you are not TV ready. I was so afraid of the cameras. I like didn't have that dynamic personality that all of the reality TV

stars have where they're like, I'm gonna win this competition because i'm the best i just walked up and i was like are you ready for me to sing i'm so scared like it was i i was meek i didn't have that that kind of self-assertive thing going on so you developed that i think i did i think it happened from getting thrown into it i think what happens is when you're like okay i'm just working i'm in the lab but also i I taught. Between then and now, I've taught like a million courses. So that helps. You stand up in front of a classroom, and you go, you don't understand glycolysis. We're going to figure this out together up on the whiteboard, and you're helping the students. So that helps with your confidence, for sure. But also, I think getting thrown into it. I come to LA, and it's like, oh, let's go to the Emmys.

Let's walk this red carpet. And then you're all of a sudden in the room with all these really important people and you don't even know who they are. Like I would go to parties where every single person there was a celebrity. And the people you didn't recognize, you didn't recognize because they owned movie studios. Like it was the weirdest feeling. And then once you realize I'm not that different from these people, I can have a conversation with them like anyone else. And I would talk about science. I'd be like, science is awesome. Let me tell you this story.

And they'd go, oh, that's kind of interesting. And then eventually Bill was like, you need to be doing this on television. You need to be trying this at least because I think you'd be good at it. He completely and utterly pushed me into this. And I thank him every day for it because I never would have done it without his help. When did the depression start? When I was a child. Really? So you were dealing with it your whole life? My whole life. Oh, completely. Some of those years, like when I was dating Bill or when I would be moving, those were some of the worst years. Because it was so

stressful because you didn't have friends. And because I was unmedicated then. Yeah. I didn't start taking medication until about three years ago. Really? About 27. Did you try other methods? Did you try 5-HTP? Yeah, I tried some things. And I've been in therapy my whole life. My parents first put me in therapy when they first started to decide that they were thinking about getting a divorce. And I was young then. I was maybe six or seven.

So from the time I remember, I've understood the therapeutic process. And they always really promoted that in me so then even after the divorce and the remarriages and all of that I started doing the the therapy thing on my own then when I went to college and I was very much on my own I went to college when I was 16 by the way and lived on my own at 60 I was fucking weird kid yeah so I was a little I'm an adult but I wasn't I did that I went to therapy I did all those things by myself. But I always had this mental block. I always had this like, oh, I don't need meds. Meds means you're really crazy. Meds means you really don't have control. And not until I kind of hit a very bad rock bottom a few, maybe three years ago, did I finally say, you know what, fuck it. I think I actually have to do this. I think it would be good for me. And then it was the same experience that I've heard over and over and over from people where finally they get on the meds that are right for them and they calibrate to their dosage. And maybe they've been on it for

about two months and they just have this epiphany of like, why the fuck did I wait so long? I could have felt like this my whole life. What the fuck was I thinking thinking because you're so societally we're so resistant to looking at mental illness the same way we look at physical illness we're so it's so easy paul gil martin just made this point when he was on my podcast last week if you went up to somebody with diabetes type 1 diabetes and you were like what the fuck dude why don't you just think more positively so that your pancreas makes more insulin like what's wrong with you why can't you just make more insulin it's like they'd be like what are you talking about it's the same

thing with depression people put the onus on like they they look at it like it's a disease of will but it's not it's a it's a biological illness will. But it's not. It's a biological illness. And that's just very hard for people to understand. And so what you end up doing is carrying around a lot of guilt and shame and a lot of feelings like I'm not good enough. I can't will myself out of this if I just think more positively. It's not about that. And I did that for years. Years.

You just deal with it. And I destroyed so many relationships. Wow. Yeah. i can only imagine i can only imagine being trapped in that scenario yeah um but i'm i'm also very sensitive to the the variables that different people go through with their bodies i have hypothyroidism i have to take thyroid medication runs in my family my mother has my mom has it too. Yeah. And I know I should get headaches, these weird headaches at the end of the day where I was like, oh, I'm so fucked. Like I could fall asleep and it wasn't like, it wasn't like I was like, now I get tired, I go to sleep. But it was like, I could fall asleep just watching TV and be out for like eight

hours. Like it didn't make any sense. It was like a tired like i was in pain so uh and i get these weird headaches and then once i finally got on medication it was like whoa night and day yeah right you're like oh this is this is what other people feel like right like i thought i was normal because that's another thing there's such a stigma in this country not just about mental illness but about any sort of illness where people can't openly freely talk about it. So you end up living in this weird bubble where you don't really, like, I know people that have mental illness that didn't even realize they had mental illness until they finally had a conversation with a doctor about it. And they were like, oh, this isn't normal. Like not everybody doesn't hear voices or everybody doesn't. It's like, yeah, because you're so afraid to talk to somebody about it. So that's I mean, that's use this as a teaching moment because this guy, no matter how good his life was, he had this thing that he ultimately couldn't kick.

And it wasn't his fault. It just is that way sometimes. And, hey, maybe who have had a bad go of it for other reasons are like, even you, like you had said before, like even you, but you're pretty or but you're successful, you're whatever. Well, if you could have that, then of course course it's not weird that I have, you know, it's like, it's a good thing for people to be able to see that they're not alone like that. Yeah. And, and it's also, there's a bunch of people that attribute other people's depression really irresponsibly to a bunch of different things. They'll say like, oh, I had a guy on the podcast last week that was saying that Robin Williams killed himself because his ex-wives took all his money.

As if he knows at all anything about it. Yeah, it's like, oh, I'm so glad you're such an expert on that. He was saying that it was a women's addiction to free stuff. That's horrible. And it makes you want to be like, who the fuck are you to presume that you know what's happening in somebody else's head ever? Who the fuck are you to presume that you know what's happening in somebody else's head ever? Not only that, it's insanely irresponsible to go against the grain of science and medicine, which is clearly established that it's an illness. It's an illness. Yeah.

And I think that that's something, too, that a lot of people don't understand. of diagnosis and cure, because we're so used to things like flu, cold, you know, tonsil infection, whatever, where you take an antibiotic or you take an antiviral or you just wait in your immune system, clears the disease. We're used to catching things and then eliminating them. But when you have disease states that are processed states like cancer, like diabetes, like mental illness, there's no cure per se. Like I even, I got a tweet just earlier today from somebody who was like, blah, blah, blah. Have you ever thought about blah, blah, blah to cure your depression? It's like, I'm not cured of depression because I take citalopram. I'm in treatment. I'll be in treatment the rest of my life. Do you believe as a person who's a neuroscientist, is it possible that they could eventually come up with something that balances your brain out instead of just adding something to your neurochemistry, which sort of enhances your serotonin levels, but rather something that where they can get it at a genetic level?

I hope so. I mean, I really hope so. We're starting to see major improvements in cancer biology with personal genomic medicine. My fear with genomic medicine is only, not to put a dark cloud on it because I think that it has amazing prospects. My fear is that it's going to further increase the kind of class divide where you've got people who are sick because sickness strikes rich and poor the same but for some reason we are a very class-based system and i think that you're going to see that rich people get those kinds of treatments and poor people don't and that that kind of scares me isn't that how it always is with anything emerging technologies

remember in the old days, the Wall Street phone. Remember that Wall Street movie where Michael Douglas had that big fucking stupid phone? That was like a huge status symbol. Rappers used to have them in videos. Most people couldn't afford a phone. Now I go to Brazil all the time for the UFC and I've gone to these poor neighborhoods. You see people on cell phones. Oh, you see it in African nations where there isn't enough malaria medication.

phones oh you see it in in african nations where there aren't there isn't enough malaria medication but i mean there's this huge malaria um push right now to increase uh awareness and you know you can get mosquito nets you can do malaria tests on your family and you do it all through your cell phone because it's very common for people to have cell cell service or maybe not service but to have access to a cell phone because the technology is getting cheaper and cheaper so yes i do think that time always tells and that hopefully eventually that kind of stuff trickles down but i wish it didn't have to trickle down i wish medication i wish health and wellness were a more egalitarian enterprise that one of the biggest problems i think with the structure of american government and being such a capitalist society, which I'm all about capitalism, don't get me wrong, I think we need to be a socialist capitalist blend, just like we are. We have a lot of socialist systems in our

country, the male is socialist, educate public education is socialist. We have a lot of capitalist systems in this country. I hate that healthcare is a for-profit system in America. It makes no sense to me. The argument is obviously that people who work harder or more ambitious become better at it should be rewarded for that. And that's what's going to motivate them to work harder and be the best heart surgeon, to be the best brain doctor, to be the best guy who fixes bones. I just feel like by the time you're a brain surgeon and you're a licensed brain surgeon you're a fucking good brain surgeon like you you don't get through a 10-year residency you you get your surgical degree and then you have a 10-year residency before you become a neurosurgeon you don't get through that and you're like a subpar neurosurgeon you're you're a fucking

incredible neurosurgeon but aren't there the best of the best like of course there's the best of the best and if those people want to do private practice on top of it, that's fine. Private practice on top of the socialized medicine? Yeah, there has to be a National Health Service. There has to be. I agree with that. Here's the problem. Here's the problem. Fundamentally. And if you can provide me an argument that solves this problem for a capitalist healthcare system, then I'm all about to, and I don't mean you, but I mean, anybody listening, I'm all about hearing it. The problem is that when you have a capitalist system, that's a competition based system for profit, what ends up happening is that people compete. That's how it works, right? You compete. And a lot of times they say that's

what drives prices down is that you compete and prices get better and then you've, you know, the best, whatever. But what ends up happening when you have for profit healthcare is that illness is incentivized. Wellness is not. People make more money, the sicker you get. People make more money, the more procedures you have to get. People make more money, the longer you stay in the hospital. And the minute, I'm not saying there's some grand conspiracy to keep people sick, but if you've got an industry like the insurance and pharmaceutical and for-profit hospital industry, where the profit comes from sickness, where is the incentive to get people well? I'm not saying that doctors aren't very noble people. They are.

And they work every day, doctors, nurses, other health care officials, to get people better. But the system itself does not incentivize wellness. It incentivizes sickness. incentivize wellness. It incentivizes sickness. So at that very basic level, it's a bit broken because somewhere along that chain, people are going to take advantage. They're going to say, oh, I make more money if this guy has to stay in the hospital an extra day, or I make more money if this guy has to get this quote unquote unnecessary procedure. All the way across the board, the sicker you are, the more money goes into the system and that's really gross it's gross there's certain

things that capitalism don't work on and i think that wellness which is a basic human right is one of those things it just doesn't make sense it's fundamentally incompatible with that type of monetary system but isn't that just taking into account only people that do the wrong thing? Yeah. But people who do the right thing, who motivate themselves to become the best orthopedic surgeon and treat the Lakers and fix all their knee issues, and these people rise to the occasion, shouldn't they be rewarded for that? Totally. And the turd in the pool is not the surgeon. Trust me. It's the insurance company.

It's the pharmaceutical company. But it's occasionally the surgeon. Trust me, it's the insurance company. It's the pharmaceutical company. But it's occasionally the surgeon. I have a friend who, when he was young, my friend Aubrey, when he was young, worked at a resort. And he clearly remembers these doctors bragging about how they talked some guy into getting a surgery and because he's buying a Porsche. surgery and because that he's buying a Porsche. Yeah. No, there is that. Oh, for sure. So the fact that it even trickles down to the people who took a Hippocratic oath, to the people who we think of as being the most noble of the most noble of citizens in this country, if it even trickles down to them, how is it going to affect somebody who's pushing

paper at the insurance company where you're just a number on a piece of paper? You're just a statistic. And you're a bottom line. You're not a real person. So is the answer to cut out that aspect of it, that the insurance company is the issue and that really socialized medicine would be compensating the doctors and that the doctors would still be potentially able to rise above the others? Yeah, I mean, that would be my answer is the same, I think, as any other industrialized western nation we're the only industrialized western nation that doesn't have national health care so what ends

up happening is you have a public option you have the option to have a health care system that is free and available to you and it has basic levels of treatment and care for anything that could go wrong with you and there are doctors you can see and there are hospitals you can go to. If you want to go private, it's the same way that we have education in this country. I had an amazing public education. I have friends who went to private school. Their parents wanted them to go to private school. Good for them.

They may have had a better education than me. They may not have because there were still amazing teachers available and an incredible infrastructure in place for me to get an incredible education if you get lucky in the right spot or you can be in the la unified school system and have fucking horrible education and that that is a problem with gentrification and with segregation and with again i think some of the problems of our capitalist society. Well, it's certainly a problem in how we view and what, you know, what we think about in terms of where our money should go. Like if we had privatized police force and privatized fire, like every time your house was on fire, you had to pay someone to come and fix the issue and put the fire out. Like, my God.

It's happened before. It's happened. Has it? Yeah. You can find stories online of people living in regions where they have like a privatized fire service. Like it's a for-pay fire service and like people's houses have burned down because they can't afford to put it out. A weird area, like some rural area.

Imagine if that was an urban issue like we it is with health care i mean health care you could be in the biggest most populated city in the world and there's poor people that don't have health care yeah i think that if society is going to offer basic services police force um fire for you know fire departments medicine has got to be it's got to be one of them and the thing, when you put the kind of money into preventive care that's necessary, you end up saving so much money on the back end. When people who can't afford to go to the doctor until they have a festering wound or until they've allowed the cancer to spread or whatever are going to the doctor early on and they're getting a checkup because they can afford it, because it's free to them. When you've got somebody who's living on the street, who's obviously going to be subject to much more infection, much more disease, because they're living in squalor. If they can go to the doctor on a regular basis and get a

checkup, they're not going to be then going to the doctor later to get some multi-thousand dollar procedure that Hippocratic oath. They have to do this. If somebody goes into and they're like fucking arm is hanging off, no doctor is going to be like, I can't reattach your arm. You're just going to die. They're going to do it. They're going to bill these people and they're never going to fucking pay their bills because

they can't afford to. And then you and I are going to absorb that cost in our in the money that we're paying for our insurance. Well, doesn't that go back when you're talking about people living in squalor that goes back to the mental illness issue as well because that's a massive percent of those people that are wandering around homeless they're such an important point to make well that was the god damn ronald reagan administration they changed the standards they let loose i remember it i was a kid and i remember being in new york and seeing all these fucking people wandering i came came to New York for a martial arts tournament during the Reagan administration.

And I remember like the people were talking, you know, I was young, I was a teenager and these adults were talking about these, that all of a sudden they changed the mental health standards and they were releasing all these people. And I was like, what?

Yeah. Like they're just releasing them. They were taking these people that were in mental institutions. They changed the standards of what you needed to to keep these people uh in these facilities and they were just released them on the streets and there was yeah there were two massive releases there was one in the 50s when how doll first came on the market which is um an anti-psychotic which was a major improvement in psychiatric care so all of a sudden you had people who were schizophrenic who had delusional kind of disorders, and you could treat them. And so these people who were

basically just being fed and watered in asylums were given Haldol, and they could lead functional lives again. So there you saw a big change in the way that mental health services happened. You no longer had the asylum population, and then you started having more of this idea of like a mental health facility. And then again, during the Reagan administration, you saw a big release. The problem there was it was really a name only. They weren't getting any better treatment. They were just put out on the street. They just changed the standard.

Exactly. And so you've got these people that are put out on the street. And it's, again, don't get me wrong. I mean, look at me. Like I said said i moved out when i was fucking 16 i busted my ass my whole life to like work really hard i got a good education i'm i you know even coming to la with bill he opened a bunch of doors for me i fucking walked through those doors i made sure that i was as responsible as possible. I am all about fiscal and personal responsibility. I have amazing credit. I have no debt. But I also know that as a nation, we're only as strong as the weakest amongst us. And there are certain people to whom those types of standards just can't apply

because they're ill. Well, it's a spectrum issue, isn't it? I mean, there's so many variables that when people like to look at these issues and look at them in a black and white term, I'm a liberal, so I think this. I'm a conservative, so I think that. And that's really, you know, I have a lot of ideas that are very liberal and a lot of ideas that are fairly conservative. Me too, yeah. There's real issues with picking a side like that, especially when it comes to ideologies. It's just such a blazy way to think. You're not thinking.

You're letting somebody else think for you. I get a lot of hate when I come on your podcast, but also when I go on The Young Turks, anytime I talk about GM foods or genetically modified crops in any way. And because what ends up happening is people look at me and they go, oh, you're a liberal. You're a shill.

They say I'm a shill because they look at me and they say, okay, you're a liberal, you're a progressive, you're left wing. Why do you have this super conservative ideology when it comes to GM foods? Why would you say that you think that's a good thing? You must be pro big agribusiness. You must be pro Monsanto. And it's like, because I don't inform my politics based on what a party tells me, my politics are informed based on the science. I study the science behind genetic modification. And I come to a personal conclusion that genetic modification in and of itself is not only not dangerous, but can also be a huge boon. It can be really helpful for health and human safety across, especially in lower income and globalized areas where they're not very industrialized the second problem is that people have a really hard time with the concept of synecdoche this idea of you know that's a literary term for like looking at the part for the whole or the whole for the part so people say gm food monsanto oh monsanto it's the same thing it's not the

fucking same thing that's a company that utilizes gm technology and yes recently i got offered a branded entertainment job with monsanto and i had to turn it down and the reason i turned it down was not necessarily because i really disagree with the practices even though i do fucking disagree with their practices like let's be honest there are a lot of monsanto things that make me mad social practices are evil. from a very neutral perspective, would be out the window. Nobody would ever take me seriously again. So it's the same thing with big pharma. People go like, oh, big pharma's evil. And it's like, so what?

Should you never take drugs again? Are you out of your fucking mind? It's like you've got to be able to look at these things in a nuanced way and understand that there are problems and there are evils, but you can't throw the baby out with the bathwater. And you can't say, oh, all modern medicine is terrible, because Pfizer is making money on the backs of poor people. It's like, yeah, that's fucked up about Pfizer. But that doesn't mean modern medicine is terrible. So two totally different conversations. It's also people when they start talking about

genetically modified foods, one of the things that they have to take into consideration is that almost everything you eat is genetically modified. Oh, yeah When you go to the grocery store, if you're getting corn, if you're getting apples, if you're getting tomatoes, stop thinking that just because it's organic, that it's not genetically modified. The corn that you eat today has no resemblance to the original corn. None whatsoever. And then they'll say, yeah, but it might not be transgenic. It likely is transgenic too. And that's another thing, like genetic modification is a really big umbrella term. It could be selective breeding is genetic modification. A lot of people have a hard time with the concept of transgenic foods. And I say to them, fine, if you don't want to eat transgenic foods, define transgenic. So transgenic foods would be actually a scientist going into the genome of an organism. Let's say it's a type of corn. They go into the genome and they go, okay, this corn tends to die readily when the temperature gets above 101.

Well, the climate is changing. It's getting hotter and hotter where they farm it. So we're going to tinker with the genome and we're going to delete a gene or insert a gene or move the genes around in some way so that this corn is now drought resistant. Change the genome, produce a new corn crop, and then continue to breed that corn crop. And that is really the goal and generally the motivation behind GM crops. It's to make them withstand things like droughts or pests or whatever so that they can live hardier and feed more people in that way. or pests, or whatever, so that they can live hardier and feed more people in that way. Now, sometimes you have a company like Monsanto doing their own research where they want to make a crop that can only live for one generation and then die so that farmers have to keep buying their

seeds, for example, or they make a Roundup Ready crop. I want a crop so that I can spray the whole thing down with Roundup. The crop survives, but all of the weeds around it die. It's an easier way to farm, but it could have some really detrimental ecological effects. But for the most part, this is why a lot of scientists get pissed off about all the GM hysteria, because they're like, okay, if I were to take this random corn crop and that random corn crop and breed them, I'm shuffling like 30,000 genes. If I were to go in targeted and change three genes that only affect the ability for it to withstand a higher temperature, it's a much more specific and targeted way to change this plant. I trust it more. I know exactly what I'm eating. But people are like, ah, it's horrifying because you're going in with, you know, pipetters and tools. Well, it's because of things like Roundup,

because of companies that do, I mean, there's a reason why people are suspicious. There's a reason why people are cautious. Totally. Because they are worried about, and then there's been also some, there's been some fuckery involved in these studies too. Like there's a study about rats

where they show they grew all these tumors, but it turned out that the rats they use were more susceptible to tumors in the first place. Yeah, it's not. It's it's you know what? As somebody as a person who has never studied lab science to try and make sense of all the bullshit in the media and to be reading articles that were written by journalists who have never studied lab science. How are you expected to keep things straight? That's why I do what I do for a living. I'm a science communicator, and my job is to look at research that exists and to try and translate that to the public.

But I also want to try and understand where the public is coming from. Why are you afraid of this thing? Why does this thing worry you? Let's understand the psychological reasons behind it. Let's understand what you've been fed your whole lives by the media and see what's reasonable and what's not and come to a rational conclusion about it. Unfortunately, we as a species respond better in some ways to fear and hysteria. We see something on the news that's like, holy shit, this thing could kill you. And you're like, oh, my God, really? I need to know about this. Because if the media was always presenting things rationally, like, okay, let's take a balanced approach to this.

Let's look at the pros and the cons. And people would tune out. It's not that interesting anymore. The things that we find salient are the things that also the reality of the absorption of information, the people's ability to take in how I mean, how much time do you have in a day? Most people work eight plus hours a day, plus commuting, plus family, plus whatever hobbies you might have. about whatever they do for a living.

And contradicting information. You could always go online and find a host of websites that will tell you about the evils of genetically modified foods. Easily. And if you absorb

that information and that is what you preach, that's your mantra now, it's very difficult to be open-minded and then sort of accept other ideas that contradict those original ideas that you've been telling everybody about and and the truth is it's it's it's hard to figure out who to trust especially in a landscape

like this it's that's why i never promote i have no intention as a science communicator that the work that i do is going to necessarily um promote a lot of people to go off and become scientists themselves. I mean, hopefully young children or some teens, people who are in that age group and who are interested, maybe they'll be influenced a little bit about some of the work that I do. But more than that, I want to see a higher level of scientific literacy in this country. All that means is that we think more with our brains and less with our emotions and less with our, you know, that Stephen Colbert truthiness. Like we got to get away from truthiness. Just because something feels right doesn't necessarily mean that it is right. So it's like, stop for a minute. Listen to the argument

that's being made. Who is making the argument? Do they have any financial reason to be making the argument? Do they have any political reason to be making the argument? Is this article about GMOs being evil on a website called, ohmygodgmosarevil.com? Or is it like a legitimate news site? Or is it like a legitimate news site? Someone needs to start that website right now. And that's the thing. And I think this also goes back to this conversation I had about throwing the baby out with the bathwater. The mainstream media has its problems. But journalism as an enterprise has a lot of nobility to it. The pharmaceutical company has major problems. And it's very broken.

The insurance company, too. But medicine has so much worth to it, especially, you know, evidence-based biomedical advances. Psychiatric medicine has a lot of, you know, pluses. The process of genetic modification is so important. But yes, Monsanto has a lot of problems. We've got to be able to think more nuanced about these things and instead of going well i don't trust fox news therefore i don't trust any media therefore i only am going to go to the site that keeps as you said reinforcing what i already believe omg gmos are horrible.com that's the only place where i get my news well now you're in an echo chamber yeah that's a huge issue. And the other thing that you brought up there about political, about financial, all the different motivations, all the different things, the variables, that's also stuff that you have to try to pay attention to and squeeze into your head. And that's the thing. It's impossible. We need someone like you

to sort of break it down, someone who has a background in this particular area to break it down in a way that we can understand. We go, okay, I'm comfortable that Cara Santa Maria is being honest with me about this particular aspect of depression and neurochemistry. This is her experience. This is also what she knows about the science behind it. Because I have no motivation otherwise. Nobody's paying me to say this.

And I think that this is why we, as the listeners of the Joe Rogan experience, the listeners of Talk Nerdy with Karis Anna Maria, the people who are really involved in the next movement of alternative and new media, it is our responsibility to continue to support these kinds of programs and to continue to speak up and become engaged and involved. Because if we're not happy with the way that traditional media is handling things, because they're playing to the ratings, and they're playing to the lowest common denominator, we can't be passive about it. We have to support the news outlets and the organizations and the podcasts and the web shows that we support. We have to do our part to make sure that those things don't fail. Because the unfortunate thing is we don't have the backers that they have. You know, I have Squarespace on my side.

I have Computer Learning Zone on my side. You have these wonderful sponsors on your side that help you keep doing this so that you can offer it for free to your listeners. But we're not being backed by Pfizer. But we don't have to be. Or Monster. And we don't have to be. We're also doing it with these other companies that find value in it. And they know that we're going to backed by Pfizer. But we don't have to be. Or Monster. And we don't have to be. We're also doing it with these other companies that find value in it.

And they know that we're going to say some crazy shit. But the only reason they're going to keep supporting us is if people keep listening. But the only reason why people are going to keep listening is because it's interesting. And the only reason why it's interesting is because we're being honest. Yes. And so that whole chain, like we're all in it together. I think that's the important thing is that like we agree we're here for you you're here for us and we're all on that kind of same team to be that counterculture and to to offer opinions but also offer facts that are that are based in evidence that are based in

reason that aren't based in some sort of corporate interest or because some producer is in that fucking thing in my ear telling me that i have to do or say or act like somebody that i'm not i would love to talk to you about this to the end of time and i would love to not tell you that you're already past the time you're supposed to leave you know what's so funny too is the reason i have to leave and i'm so sorry you guys is because i have therapy i have therapy at three and i've got to make it all the way across town to see my therapist listen anytime you want to do this i'm more than happy i love it i love it with you, and I'm so happy you're doing your show. Thank you so much for wearing my t-shirt. I have to, can I take a moment to plug?

Is that okay? Yeah, please. Because I just started making all this great merchandise, and you can find it. Is that a baby in a bath? If you go, Brian, to my main website, just to care, like if you go home, maybe, click on home, then you can see that I've got all of my episodes right there. You can download them. What's with the dinosaur? That was on a different page. then you can see that I've got all of my episodes right there you can download them you can listen to them

what's with the dinosaur? that was on a different page it was an old episode that I did of Talk Nerdy to Me but there's you know you can see my episodes of the podcast

right there I use SoundCloud so it's through there and then if you scroll down you can see all of my merchandise there I have t-shirts and stickers

and slap bracelets just like this one just like that one sexy old school microphone yeah I'm gonna have a new style coming out soon and also I'm gonna be offering a new style coming out soon. And also I'm going to be offering soon handmade mugs from a really amazing potter friend of mine.

Oh, wow. That's cool. So those will be really cool custom one of a kind mugs. Mine are made in a fucking factory in China by slaves. But they're beautiful. They're pretty cool. Well, it's Mike Maxwell. Mike Maxwell, the artist. I really like it.

It's cool. And I get to take this home, right? Oh, yeah. Fuck yeah. Sweet. We have Run J artist. I really like it. It's cool. And I get to take this home, right? Oh, yeah. Fuck yeah. Sweet. We have Run JRE cups now, too. Awesome. And if you guys want to buy them, they're available at higherprimate.com.

Thank you very much, Cara. Thank you. You're fucking awesome. Your podcast is awesome. I always love talking to you. It's always just trying to catch up with your thought process and stuff it all in there, but I appreciate it very much. Thank you so much.

Ladies and gentlemen, please check out her podcast. It's amazing. And tweet me, guys. Tweet me, at KarisAnimaria. Tweet the shit out of her. Anything else before we go? You got anything going on? New t-shirts. You just fucking talked to the back of the microphone, son. Four new t-shirts at ShopSquad.tv. And come into Columbus, Ohio with Tony and Tiffany

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We'll see you tomorrow. Big kiss. Mwah. Mwah.