The Joe Rogan Experience - #949 - Josh Zepps

Episode Date: April 19, 2017

Josh Zepps is the host of #WeThePeople LIVE available on Spotify and at http://wtplive.com

Five, four, three, two, one. Fuck it, we'll do it live! Fuck it! We'll do it live! Do it live! We'll do it live! Do it live! Josh Zapps, today's a sad day.

Yes. We lost Bill O'Reilly. I'm mourning. Are you mourning, Joe? I feel like I should be, but I'm not. He made a ton of loot. What's that? I said he made a ton of loot.

Wow. I mean, since 96, when Fox News launched, and he was like the big, I'm just making it up that that's when Fox News launched. Let's check it, Jamie. Is that when Fox News launched? 96? Check it. Can you fucking check it?

Just check it now. Jamie, check it now. Check it live. Check it live. He has pulled in so much money for that network and for himself. Oh, yeah. He wrote a bunch of books. He was the main guy, really.

He really was the main guy. It's a big day in broadcasting. They're going to find another old cunt to fill his spot. They're going to have to. That's what people want. Look at that. October 7th, 1996, ladies and gentlemen. You're welcome, America.

You're welcome. Before that, he was on like hard copy or something like that, right? I don't even know. I was too young. I wasn't even here in the States. Oh, yeah. I was a school child in Australia. A little child. I don't even know. I was too young. I wasn't even here in the States. Oh, yeah. I was a school child in Australia. A little child. I don't remember him from anything else. I just remember

him being on O'Reilly and watching it and going, what is... It's like that longing for nostalgia thing. You know, you see an older gentleman in a tie who just said, well, that's the way it is. The tie goes in, the tie goes out. Can you explain it? Like, what in the fuck is this guy doing?

That was when he was talking to an atheist, wasn't he? Who was he? Was it? Oh, I don't remember. It was like, maybe it was Ricky Gervais or someone. I can't remember. But he was saying. It was Ricky Gervais.

Well, maybe it was Sam. Could it have been Sam Harris? No. No. I don't know who it was. Anyway, some atheist was saying, like, he was like, and Bill was like, I've got the absolute number one reason why you have to believe in God. Because tide goes in, tide goes out. Always been that way, always will be that way.

Moon goes round, Earth spins round. How do you explain that if not God? It was just super obvious that he was pandering. Because the guy went to fucking Harvard, okay? Bill O'Reilly's not a dope. He might be a douchebag, butilly's not a dope. He might be a douchebag, but he's not a dope. I think religion makes people dopey in ways that they don't even know about.

I don't even think he's religious. I think he's barely religious. I think he's religious enough to get by with the job. That's interesting. So do you think he has been insincere? 100%. Because I think he's one of the... Look, I don't watch the show a lot, so I'm not sure, but he's always struck me as one of the more

straight shooters. I think he is smart but not wise. Yes. You know, what he feels in his gut is more important than what the data tells him. And I think he falls for a bunch of fallacies that a lot of people fall for, especially if they're religious. Like the idea

that there is a certain order to the cosmos and how could we all have come about? How could this whole thing around us exist with all these butterflies and the moon and the tide comes in and the tide goes out and there's me and Joe, these spiritual creatures, these beings sitting opposite each other at a table in Los Angeles right now. Some people just find that too inexplicable to explain without a deity. So they're like, all right, there must have been a big guy who did it. It's even dumber, in my opinion, to think that one dude engineered this whole fucking thing. I mean, wouldn't you just think that, oh, wow, there's some crazy, super complex system

that sort of works in some odd way where it balances itself out with predator and prey and food and water and fire and dirt and all this stuff together. And then you realize that it all has to form out of the actual elements that come from an exploding star. It's magnificent. The full realm of things that they've absolutely proven to be true in terms of like scientific discoveries about the universe and just the very elements that constitute human beings and everything you see, this table and laptops. It's amazing. The idea that one dude is sitting there up in his cloud with a robe on. And of course, moderate religious people will say, well, of course we don't believe in that kind of a God. We don't believe in a God with a robe and a beard sitting in the clouds. We believe in a more sophisticated, metaphorical version of God.

Yeah, but you still believe that whatever consciousness created black holes and the whole cosmos gives a shit whether or not you beat off. Well, also that it has to be a one yeah a god a thing a one thing unless you're a hindu in which case i've got an elephant god over here i've got a vishnu over here i've got a multi-armed monkey and you got a lot of hash you got a lot of hash to see those things we do joe yeah i mean one mean, one of the things that's interesting is I think at any given point in time, people just assume that the universe was created by whatever thing happens to be around

them. Lawrence Krauss was on the podcast the other day. I heard that. That was a great episode. I had him on my podcast with no, I had him on Point of Inquiry, actually, which is a different podcast than my normal one, We the People, like the week before he was on yours. Yours was way better. You can talk about a lot of shit in three hours, Joe.

You can't talk about it in 30 minutes. Yeah, that's why I like doing it. But he broke my brain with this one thing. He said, he explained that when you talk about the universe being 14 billion years old, you're talking about the observable universe. And he's like, the problem is space moves faster than light. The universe is moving faster than the speed of light. So what we're seeing is what we can see from 14 billion years ago. But that doesn't mean that's all there is.

Right. He goes space itself beyond that. But what he's saying is space itself beyond that could be infinite. It's just moving faster than we can see. You just broke my brain. Yeah, exactly. So what he was saying is, when you're talking about the observable universe being,

I think it's 13 point something billion years old, almost 14 billion years old, that's just how far back we can see. He's like, but before that, when you go back further, it's not that there's nothing there. That's right. It's just that we can't see it

because the space itself is moving faster than the's nothing there. That's right. It's just that we can't see it because the space itself is moving faster than the speed of light. That's right. And what you're looking at is not only the edge of the universe, but the edge of time. Yeah. But it's not even the edge. What he's saying is it's very likely that not only is it infinite, but there's an infinite number of possibilities beyond it. Yes. And those things beyond it may also be right alongside us

I mean in terms of the other dimensions and things like that like he didn't even get into all of it all of that stuff But if you believe in string theory and quantum physics, and if you believe in math, then you sort of have to well Quantum physics and string theory to a dope like me is one of those things where I have to kind of take your word for it It's almost like before the um you know before the lutheran times before the bible was translated and you had to rely on the priests just trust the priest i'll trust you why should i trust the priest because he knows latin he speaks aramaic he knows how to read this shit yeah who told the priest well the pope who told the pope don't ask questions but when you go and eat your food that's why it's so important to to appreciate like when people are science deniers

it's so frustrating because everything you use everything you enjoy everything that you in terms of medicine technology is based on the work of countless people who have worked generations after generations on the innovations of the past like the people before them invented some shit, they improved upon it, they figured out more, they studied the calculations of those people, they added to it, and then you get to 2017. So whenever someone steps in with an incredibly limited understanding of science or of what we're dealing with in terms of the universe itself and says, whoa, the tide goes in, the tide goes out, you can't explain't explain it like you motherfucker. They've been explaining the tides forever. What are you talking about?

Well, I think what he actually means is you can't explain why there isn't why there is something instead of total chaos and anarchy I Think you're getting too much credit. Yeah, he's a douche bag. He's I think he's pandering I think he was just trying to I think he knows there's a bunch of old dummies out there crocheting, you know, with three teeth, listening to his stupid fucking show. But you don't think that you can be highly intelligent and religious? Yes, you can. But you, highly effective at individual pursuits.

Now, when you say highly intelligent, I think as soon as someone is religious in terms of like if you believe in preposterous notions, like there's a guy who came back to life, he turns water into wine, he walks on water. If you believe that, you're not intelligent. You're just not. Well... I don't believe you're intelligent. I think you are intelligent in individual disciplines, but obviously if you believe

something that makes no sense whatsoever, you believe that someone was magic. Someone defied physics. Someone had superpowers. Someone was a person who could bring people back to life. Someone could come back to life themselves. There's no evidence that anybody like that has ever existed. You believe this on the flimsiest fucking evidence that wasn't even written down until 70 or 80 years after that dude died because christianity didn't even so i'm with you even worse than that because the old testament is far older than totally notion of jesus yes but it's not but hang on i i do

quibble with the idea that this that you can't be smart stephen colbert is one of the smartest what is the word smart this is what the problem is. Like, we define smart. If you believe stupid shit, are you smart? You are implying that the reason why Bill O'Reilly talks about tide goes in, tide goes out, is because he's pandering to people because he's a Harvard guy, and there's no way that he would be dumb enough to believe that. No, I'm implying that because I looked at the way he said it,

and I know what he does, and I think he's manipulative, and I think what he's doing is playing to his base. I think there's a lot of people out there that want to see some smug liberal atheist get taken down a notch and Bill's just the guy to do it and talk over him and he's a big giant guy so he can yell and get all aggressive.

What I don't understand is like Stephen Colbert is obviously a very smart guy. He's a Catholic. Andrew Sullivan, I don't know if you know him, the blogger, he's a friend of Sam Harris's. Like, he's a Christian. Good luck. These people find ways of compartmentalizing logic, I guess. So, like, as you say, they believe in something that is totally crazy.

I mean, the idea that you can say a certain number of Latin words over a cracker and it'll turn bodily into the flesh of someone who existed 2,000 years ago, is crazy magic talk. Well, it's crazy talk. But there are people that are religious that are extremely intelligent, and I agree with you on this. Like Jordan Peterson, who's a brilliant man, who is very religious in the sense that he studies religion, and he believes there's some fundamental principles that are involved in religion that are

inexorable to the human condition and i think he think he thinks they're important to our society and to civility and ethics and morals i don't think he believes people walked on water i don't think he believes someone came back from the dead i don't think he believes this stupid shit and i don't think the stupid shit is even the original story. The huge problem with religion is translation over time. That's one of the biggest problems. The oldest version of the Bible that we know of is the Dead Sea Scrolls. They don't even use that because it's so fucking crazy. If you listen to some of the translations of the Dead Sea Scrolls or you read some of it, it is unbelievably crazy.

I mean, it sounds like science fiction stuff. And if you go back to that version of it, I mean, you're talking about stuff that was written on animal skins. They did DNA tests to make sure that the pieces that they got, you know the whole story behind the Dead Sea Scrolls? Basically. They found them in Qumran. These scrolls were written on animal skin, so they were broken up. So to piece them back together, they had to do DNA testing to make sure that the piece of skin came from the same cow. And then they had to try to figure out, okay, where does all this shit go, and then how to put it into place.

But they don't even use that version of the Bible. And even if you use the Old Testament, people say, well, that's the Old Testament. We don't really, we go by the New Testament, which is even more preposterous because the New Testament was written by Constantine and a bunch of bishops and men decided what to leave in and what to take out. They decide. Of course. And the whole chunks of it are contradictory. This is true of the Quran and the Hadith as well as the Bible. But I mean, we're just talking about the Bible for now. Constantine wasn't even religious.

I mean, Constantine wasn't even a Christian until he died. He was converted on his fucking deathbed. I mean, he just did it so that he could unite Rome. He knew what the fuck he was doing. He was getting all these people to operate together. Does this mean there's no God? Absolutely not. Does this mean that I have any answers that you don't have? Of course not. I'm just saying, people are full of shit, and that story sucks. It's that simple. I think what we do too much of is confusing two questions, one of which is, is there a God without defining what God is? And the other of which is, is there any reason to believe in a particular faith or a particular denomination, to be a Christian or a Muslim or a Jew or whatever.

I think we could break it down even further than that. People don't know. And anyone who says they know is not telling the truth. We're not talking about, do you know that carbon comes from stars? Yeah, well, that can be scientifically explained and proven. We're not talking

about that. We're talking about, do you know whether or not Jesus was a man who came back from the dead and turned water into water? You do not. No one does. It is impossible. I know with as much certainty that he didn't do that, as I know anything about the past. But you don't. But you honestly don't. You don't. Well, how do you know what Napoleon did? You don't. Right. Well, we know historical records. We know the stories of people from back then. But the idea that this one guy did things that no human being could ever do today. Yeah.

Defied logic, physics, the laws of nature, the laws of life and death, all the different reality, like the realities that we accept today in terms of what's provable, what we know about biological life, all that stuff was violated by this one guy. Yeah. It could have happened. It could have. It could have. In the same way that the Holocaust might not have happened. No.

Yeah. It's way less likely than that. You reckon it's more likely that Jesus was divine? No. The opposite. It's way more likely to someone. It's way more likely that the Holocaust didn't happen than that Jesus did all of that shit. And I think the Holocaust is 100% real. Exactly, me too.

I mean, that's kind of my point. Religious people put an undue burden on non-religious people by saying, look, who's to say? I say there's a God, you say there's not a God. It's a 50-50 toss-up. I'm just going to believe in Christians. I've heard Colbert say this to Bill Maher on his show. Look, I'm a Christian. I've got nothing to lose. If I turn out to be right and Christianity is true, whoop-de-doo, I get to go to heaven. If it turns out that Christianity is wrong, then I just die. But at least, you know, give it a chance. This is Pascal's wager, right? This is this idea that you might as well be religious because, hey, if it's true, you've got an eternity of goodness. But here's the thing. And you avoid hellfire.

It can't be true because no one knows. Like, no one has died and given you the day. No one's died with a VCR or, you know, a VHS tape recorder and come back with a, like, here, put this in the machine and play it. This is heaven. I've shown you. But it's not even a 50 50 shot is what i'm saying it's not like like bertrand russell kind of demolished this idea with his teapot analogy where he said like okay i'm going to claim that there's a teapot circling in orbit between the earth and the moon and now if you deny that then hey it's just a 50-50 shot.

Maybe it's there. Maybe it's not there. Who's to say? Obviously, you would say, no, I think it's not there because if there's no evidence that it's there, I'm not just going to believe you because you say it. And similarly, if you say, oh, this guy Jesus 2,000 years ago, he turned water into wine. He walked on water. And then he was the son of God. And that God requires you to believe on him.

Otherwise, you're going to go to hell forever. And you say, why should I believe that? Then they can't turn around and say, Hey, it's a 50, 50 shot. It's not a 50, 50 shot. There are good reasons for believing things and bad reasons for believing things. And religion almost always only offers bad reasons for believing in it. Well, as soon as you start talking numbers, percentages and stuff, like you're just making those numbers up, right?

50, 50. Who, where are you coming up with that? How's that a 50 shot what is this vegas odds like what is this a lot of religious people but it doesn't mean here's the thing if people are listening you're getting fucking pissed it doesn't mean there's not a higher power doesn't mean there's not an order to this universe it just means that it's super likely that if there is something that's unbelievably powerful and there's some law that keeps the universe together and some force of good that's trying to guide us. And there's some, you know, there's some beautiful inclinations towards that direction. What I'm saying is I guarantee you that the people who lived 2000 years ago who wrote this shit down on leather with, you know, ink that they made out of plants.

They didn't have all the data. They just didn't know. They just didn't. They didn't have the germ theory of disease. I mean, they didn't even know that the Earth spun around the sun. How are these people the people who understood the most about the cosmos more than scientists today? I mean, the reason why they didn't want to eat pork is because they figured out trichinosis.

They're like, oh, listen, if you eat these fucking pigs, man are getting sick left and really gonna stop doing that as for those things that crawl off on the bottom of the ocean Yeah, give me any of that shit exactly well the guy hooked up with red tide like yeah dying We gotta stop eating shellfish there's a lot of like real logic to the why the reasons why they had laws and It makes the it makes sense, but the real issue, again, is the translation. The ancient Hebrew version of the Bible, ancient Hebrew, the words also double as numbers. Like, do you know that letters are numbers in ancient Hebrew?

Yeah, right. Their alphabet, they don't have numbers. So the letter A is also the number one. So words have numerical value, like the word God and the word love. They have the same numerical value. All that was lost in translation. When you translated it to Latin, Greek, eventually English, all that shit was lost. Like, it's the ancient Hebrew version of it.

Like, have you ever read, like, some really goofy translation of English from Japanese? Yeah. And you're like, what in the fuck are they saying? Or if you translated English into a foreign language and then translated it back from that foreign language into English, it becomes gibberish. Well, one of the things I love about Instagram is it has a translation thing that I use a lot of times.

I follow a lot of Russian fighters. There's a lot of Russian MMA fighters, and I follow their pages. And I'll go, okay, let's hit the translate. And I'll hit translate. I'm like, Jesus. Russian seems especially hard for some reason. It's got a lot of weird pronouns and things. They're always saying, this is the best fight.

Well, it's also like their language looks different. Yeah, totally. It's all in Cyrillic. Have you heard the claim that the 72 virgins in the Quran are actually 72 raisins? No, but do you know what that expression means? The word is almost the same between raisin and virgin. No. The expression 72

is like a fuckload. That's what it means. It doesn't mean 72 virgins. It means like, there'll be 72! And you're like, wow, that's enough. That's enough. We're good. I would not need more than 72 virgins or raisins it's probably happy in the afterlife it's probably not even the number 72 it's just like our translation from arabic to english just screws it up and then someone

probably came up with this numerical value a long time ago and they stuck with 72 so believe in science people so talking about bill o'reilly do you think you should have been fired i Don't know what he did and i know i don't know he didn't do you know i don't know i know he's definitely done some gross Shit in the past like there's a the audio of him calling that chick and say he's gonna take a loofah sponge yeah Big big old bill with his loofah in the shower i don't know you know who knows i i would imagine Whenever you hear a story about a guy like that that some of it is probably fabricated the shower. I don't know. You know, who knows? I would imagine whenever you hear a story about a guy like that, that some of it is probably fabricated.

I just don't imagine that all the people that say things about him are all telling the 100% truth. I would not imagine that would be true because people

are just not that honest. Once it gets beyond a few people, don't you think that the preponderance of evidence is that they're probably... Yeah, I guess you can't say they're all telling the truth, but you have to take their word for it because why are they... No, you don't. You, don't you think that the preponderance of evidence is that they're probably... Yeah, I guess you can't say they're all telling the truth.

It's hard. But you have to take their word for it. No, you don't. You definitely don't. If there are six, seven, eight people with similar stories... You definitely have to go, hmm. But you don't have to take all their word for it. Because, first of all, you don't know those people. You'd have to know those people. You'd have to really know

if they were honest. You'd have to really be there. To know what really happened is so fucking hard man because first of all people not only they full of shit But their memory sucks people's memories like if you're I'm sure you've had a conversation with someone about something that happened that you witnessed as Well, and you both have totally different memories of memories are terrible I've come to accept that though for myself over the last few years. Like, I used to, like, cling to memories and then try to argue them. But I think it's been scientifically proven that the human memory is one of the worst pieces of evidence that you could ever call upon. Yeah, the justice system is starting to deprioritize it as well, as it should do. Because in the past, like, eyewitness accounts in courtrooms

have been very highly prioritized. Like they've been very highly valued and prized by prosecutors. Well, I mean, this person points out, do you see that person sitting in the courtroom today, madam? And she points her finger and, well, it's a slam dunk. Of course, that was the perpetrator. Now we realize our memories are terrible, they're wrong all the time.

We're really susceptible to suggestion and influence and all that sort of stuff But I think you kind of remember whether or not your boss who's a television star put his hand up your skirt very likely very likely probably, but there's also someone who could be seriously deceptive and very Ambitious and realizes that Bill O'Reilly is kind of a twat. And this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to get close to this old cunt and I'm going to get this guy to get creepy with me and then I'm going to exaggerate what he did and I'm going to profit off of it. I mean, you don't understand that they've paid fucking millions of dollars to people. So there's a real industry in getting Bill O'Reilly to get creepy with you.

Like if I was a chick, especially if I was a really unscrupulous chick, and I didn't like him. Yeah, he touched my knee, that's half a million. He went up the thigh, that's a million and a half. I'm like, this guy's a douchebag. This is what I'm going to do. I'm just going to kind of give him a semi-green light. You know, just a little bit.

Take it back. A little bit. Take it back. I mean, the problem is, though, that this kind of skepticism towards women's stories about sexual assault has is what has Permitted people like him to get away with it for decades and centuries right like I don't agree with I take your point that it's How can you know it's just a he said she said I don't think that's what I think power has gotten Allowed them to get away with it. I think fear and power the fear of this powerful man I think that has been but isn't the fear of not being believed part of that? Maybe. I think the

repercussions that he's going to ruin your career, that he has influence. And also that if you just play ball, you'll get something from it. I mean, I'm not, especially I'm not talking about an individual person and saying this individual person is not telling the truth. What I'm doing is just making hypotheticals. I'm just saying if I was a chick and I was an unscrupulous sort of social climber, and we all know that they exist, and I was the type of person that really wanted to make it in this business. And I was like, look, I'm working for an asshole. And I already know there's five chicks who got paid. They've already paid out 13 million bucks. I'm going to fucking move in on this. I'm interested that Rupert turned on him, that Rupert Murdoch turned on him and kicked him out. When he's still making a ton of money, he's still the number one cable show, right?

Or he was. Well, maybe Tucker Carlson had a meeting with him. Pulled him aside. They're listening. Fuck that guy. That guy. The tide comes in and out because of the moon. Jesus.

Because of fucking gravity. Come on, cut the bow tie off. Speaking of someone who will say whatever they think their audience wants them to say, that would be Tucker. That's your guy right there. That's with his stupid old bow tie. He doesn't have a bow tie anymore. You know, he got rid of it.

It's a straight tie now. Bow tie's too gay. Exactly. He doesn't want to be associated with that. Or clowns or someone who's got a camera in it. I'm amazed that he's had his renaissance Tucker. There was that

classic Jon Stewart moment when he used to host Crossfire. Chuck Tucker Carlson and John went on and he was like, you're a grown man wearing a bow tie. Stop hurting America. Well, Jon Stewart was interesting in that regard where he was funny on his show when he was doing a scripted monologue and talking to people who was gracious. But if he came on your show and he had an issue with you, you would find out how fucking smart and mean he could really be. He'd go after you.

Absolutely. Which is good because, I mean, Tucker, yeah. Whatever you think about whether or not Bill O'Reilly believes what he believes, I don't think Tucker knows. Like, Tucker has this constant fate he has this have you know if you if you're listening to the audio podcast you can't see my face but it's kind of furrowed brow and like mouth breathing kind of like he he plays the role of like the bemused clown who doesn't who's just i'm just a common man from i'm just middle america I don't understand what you're talking about. And he's like, very, very, what?

Very riding the fence. Very kind of riding the fence. Very like never quite having an, I'm just Mr. Common Sense. Like I'm just saying it like I see it. Anyway. Yeah, I don't know. You know, I would assume that a lot of these women are telling the truth. What I'm not, I'm definitely not saying that they weren't telling the truth.

What I'm saying is, I don't know. I don't know what happened or what didn't happen. I don't know whether he should be fired or shouldn't be fired. I mean, he fills a niche, right? And if it's my company, and you have to worry about this guy representing you, okay, I see where you wouldn't want that guy representing you because he's problematic and people think he's a creep.

But he could just go do his own shit like Glenn Beck did and it would be gigantic. Of course he will. He'll do something. He's not going to go away quietly. I mean, it's an interesting question about what happens to the right-wing media now because if Roger Ailes is no longer at Fox News and

Bill O'Reilly is no longer at Fox News... For the same reason. For the same reason. Both guys. Both guys for the same reason. That's a good point. It pretty much plays into the same narrative, doesn't it? A dirty old white guy. Just a fuck fest going on over there at Fox News.

Just mayhem. Just young women. It's like an old Porky's movie, or like one of those 1970s National Lampoon films with women with their tits hanging out. People are tweeting at Hannity now. You're next, Hannity. Yeah, exactly. They're going after him now. And Breitbart's had its dude, Steve

Bannon, sidelined in the White House. And he's not even getting along with Trump anymore. Is that true? I don't know. I'm not friends with him. I love rumors. I don't call him up. Hey, Steve! Hey, Stevie! Hey, Stevie B! How you doing with Donnie these days?

You guys still close? Jared is running the show now. That's right. I think he had to make a decision, and he kind of sidelined the white nationalist bit, and he kind of empowered the old school Republican orthodoxy. Gee, you'd be pissed if you were a Trump voter, wouldn't you? To have a Jew running shit? Well, not just to have a Jew.

Doesn't help, Joe. Doesn't help. But, no, i just mean because like so much of what he sort of ran on was like it's going to be different it's not going to be the same old politics and now you know we're going to repeal obamacare well that didn't work out right it's just going to be tax cut now he bombed syria well you weren't supposed to be bombing people i thought we were going to get out of all these foreign wars and shit i don't care like that i don't know so many people they have this cognitive dissonance that they have in addressing his actions.

There's so, they're, they're, the support of him. They're so happy that they won. They would, they would never want to take away their victory. Like the people that are happy that Trump is in office are so happy that he won and

they won with him that any little thing that happens, they, they just come up with some sort of a way to rationalize it and justify it. Some of them do. I saw a story the other day about a county in Pennsylvania or something which had voted for Obama twice and then voted for Trump because they thought they were going to get change and they're all just like, well, he just seems like a regular Republican.

He's going to try to cut taxes for the rich and go to war with foreign countries. This isn't what we bargained for. But it'll be interesting to see whether or not they flip back in four years. Yeah. I take your point that they're just really happy that Hillary's not the president. There's a lot of people that are really happy she's not the president. I think Bill's the biggest. I think Bill's super happy. He's like, thank God. I didn't want to have to go back in there again I don't know There's a lot of tail in that house

He gets plenty of tail Yeah I bet he does Outside Did you see all that shit He's the Joe O'Reilly In the WikiLeaks In the WikiLeaks memos About Bill Clinton

Colin Powell was talking about him Banging hookers on the side No I didn't Yeah I was like Talking about how Bill's at home Banging bimbos, and there was some thing about... I mean, Colin Powell

just fucking puts it in emails. They talk shit. They talk shit just like regular people. Yeah. Don't put it in an email, people. And we learned nothing. Don't send it to fucking anybody who's got an insecure server.

No. Well, just don't write it down at all. You can't even really talk now anyway, because you're going to be spied on everywhere. How are we going to have our private conversations to just pour shit on people? Or just let it fly, just like this. Like what we've said here. It could easily have been in a private email. Yeah, that's right.

You know, questioning whether or not Bill O'Reilly's intelligent or whether or not he really believes that or whether or not religious people are actually intelligent, which I, you know, clearly there's a lot of religious people that are intelligent. I mean, part of the problem is that people give too much of a crap about things that people have said in the past. I mean, we've spoken about this before in relation to political correctness or something or like using the wrong language. I think as more and more of what we say gets intercepted or at least interceptable in emails and also in phone calls

and so on and we're being spied on all the time things can be leaked and things can be hacked people are just going to have to chill the fuck out a little bit about people's past otherwise we're only going to end up with the most boring anodyne people in positions of power because it's only going to be people who've always watched exactly what they say who are able to who have never kind of triggered a tripwire and who have never gotten people angry well in that sense trump's the big victory for that that's right yeah what i said after trump was elected that political correctness just took a missile to the dick absolutely it's like this is just it just shows you you could be out there grabbing pussies talking crap fucking people i mean it's okay like it's it's not it's the the world has changed in

that regard and part of the i mean part of the problem there is that the things that he some of the things that he says really are bad like i don't think that it's appropriate to be to to talk about women the way that he talks about women. I don't think it's appropriate to talk about... You mean the ground pussy talk? Yeah, basically. But that's... The problem with that is he's talking to a dude and trying to make him laugh.

Yeah. I mean, he's having a private conversation with a guy, and he's doing what he called locker room talk. Yeah. But guys talk shit, and they say things they don't really mean. And what he said was, and I'm not I'm not an Apologist just let me get this out of the way What he said was you can just grab them by the pussy they let you you could do anything that you want when you're a Big celebrity yeah, he just grabbed by the pussy yeah

Like what he's saying is not I grab women by the pussy and I sexually assault them what he's just being Totally outrageous. It's like a punchline for a joke. He's exaggerating the reality of the situation. He's saying he's so famous. He's saying when you're as famous as me, you can do anything. You can grab them by the pussy, which implies that he's trying to. But he's saying they let you.

He's saying they let you. Yeah. Meaning implying consent. Right. I see. He's not talking about sexual assault. So when people are saying, you know, he's doing sexual assault, no, he's talking about girls that are enthralled with the fact that they're around this guy who has his fucking

name on skyscrapers and he flies around with a jet with his name on it. And if you're that type of woman and there are that look, there's that type of men, there's that type of women. We're not it's not a gross generalization about men or women, but guaranteed there are are some women that when they're in the face of a guy like Donald Trump, they react that way and they let him do anything they want and they love it. There is that possibility. There is that possibility. I also thought that the phrasing of that term was kind of funny. Like, they let you grab them, but like, how do you grab a pussy exactly?

Like, where do your fingers go? Like, where does the thumb, who's doing, like, so I just thought it's, what it sounded to me like was someone who is inept sexually, which by many accounts he is. Like, there are lots of accounts of, like, when he was married to or dating the most beautiful people, he'd be downstairs eating Cheetos, watching late night cable news while they were upstairs.

But how do you believe that or not believe that? Well, because, well, just compare it to whether or not it comports with what else you know about him, which is that he's very image-focused and cares a lot about being thought to be the best at everything and the most glamorous and the richest. So you would imagine that it would be consistent with his personality that he would want to present a front of being more of a slayer

and more of a sexual demon than he actually is. Sexual demon. That's a great name for a band. Sexual demon. So the grab him by the pussy, it sort of reminded me a little bit of the way that 15-year-old boys would talk to each other. Yeah.

Dude, I told him, just grab him by the pussy, man. Guys say ridiculous things that they don't mean to get other people to laugh. I will grant you that. And I'm sure girls do, too. I mean, my point about political correctness is that I don't think Trump is our best ambassador for the anti-political correctness brigade. No. Agreed. And part of his rise, part of the backlash, is a backlash against the, you know, we've

had so many conversations that we all know it by now we're bored of like people who go who absolutely lose their you know just go crazy because you use the wrong transgender pronoun or something like that you know you say he instead of she or whatever it is all these tiny or microaggressions and stuff like that or all of that kind of bullshit i think gave rise to an environment in which people were so frustrated with political correctness that they unleashed and it was like a pressure cooker exploding and the Trump hair went everywhere. He's the Kraken. He's the, yeah, exactly. But I don't think, you know, things would have been better if we hadn't

gotten to that place and we could all just take a chill pill. Well, I think we need to learn, you know, and I think we need to make mistakes so that we can learn. One of the things that's really unfortunate is that he doesn't tell the truth and that he's the president and he shows that you can doesn't tell the truth and that he's the president and he shows that you can just not tell the truth and be the president yeah about all kinds of things yeah the alternative facts analogy you know i mean what you know i mean i'm trying to grapple with this on my podcast um because i think it's i think what's what's dangerous about trump is that is not just that he he doesn't tell the truth,

because as lots of people point out, many politicians don't tell the truth. It's that he doesn't even care that he's not telling the truth, and he doesn't behave as if there is such a thing really as truth. Like the other day, he talked about the warships that were heading for the Korean Peninsula. Did you see this story? He said that we've got this aircraft carrier which is going towards Korea. It was going in the opposite direction to Australia to not attack Australia, but do a military exercise with the Aussies.

And then Sean Spicer got, you know, the press corps went crazy and the White House correspondents, and Sean Spicer was like, well, he was saying that it had been heading, it was going to be going to the Korean Peninsula, but it was just on a detour. So he wasn't saying the actual direction of the aircraft carrier. He was saying that it was he was talking about the overall strategy of what and like poor old spicy is out there trying to make Trump's statements comport with something with reality in some way. But Trump is just an explosive like vomit machine just tweeting out stuff that doesn't even have to map onto reality at all. And he almost seems to take pride, I think, in the fact that he can say whatever. Million people at the inauguration.

When I started talking, the rain stopped. The most people ever. That was pretty good. Are you working on that, Joe? No, I'm not. I like the impression. It needs work. It needs a little work, but everyone's got their Trump.

But you know what I mean? He will say things and then almost take, I feel like he gets his jolly, he gets his rocks off through the sheer audacity of being able to say whatever the hell he wants and just make his opponents go crazy because they don't even, it's a game of whack-a-mole then, right? It's like, well, you said this was untrue, you said that was untrue. So he's acting as a politician for the first time in his life and he's 70. So for his entire life, he's been this braggadocious guy who has exaggerated facts and built up this amazing persona and exaggerated wealth. And he's obviously very successful, but exaggerates that success. So like the thing about him winning the inauguration, remember that really interesting exchange that he had with a reporter?

It was a young reporter and he was up there saying, we won by the largest margin ever. The largest margin in the electoral college. And this guy was like, that's not true. Yeah. And he said, well, the largest for a Republican. A Republican. And that's also not true. So he said, George H. Bush or George Herbert Walker Bush, much larger margin.

Yep. And so he explained to him, he goes, well, you will agree that we won by a substantial number. Yeah, exactly. Well, you are the president. Thank you. Like, he was like, good, I won. Tic-tac-toe. Exactly.

You know, it's just, he's not a politician. And that's what people like about him. You know, but then he starts doing all these different things. Like, you know, he's trying to get all these different plants to reopen and give Americans jobs. And they talk about all the jobs that have been created. And people get excited. And he signed this new thing yesterday. You know, American made, American sales.

And trying to encourage people to buy and make American. And then trying to get rid of foreigners that are sneaking over here and doing bad things. And, you know, the base, the people that have been, you know, clamoring for that kind of response get very excited. That's true. They go, we'll deal with the lies. The lies are fine, as long as he opens up that Ford plant. The lies are bad, but look, he got those Guatemalan terrorist drug dealers out of Chicago or whatever. You know what I mean?

Yeah, and I think that there's a feeling that the whole people who regard themselves as being custodians of the truth are hoity-toity, out-of-touch elites who've been shitting on the honest, hard-working Trump supporter for so long that they deserve to be slapped in their face with a little bit of untruthful truthiness from time to time. The journalists and the judges and the academics. People smarter than you. Yeah. People more educated than you. Higher up the social- And they're spitting out facts and it makes you humiliated. Yeah.

You feel dumb. Yeah. Like the tide goes in, the tide goes out. Can you explain it? It's kind of the same thing. It is. That's the appeal. Yeah, that's right.

Bill got him with that tide thing. Yeah, yeah, that's right. There's nothing you can say about that. Tide does go in and go. I mean, people do love when liberals get their comeuppance. Yeah. And liberals are really classically associated with education, with higher education, bigger vocabularies, universities. It's one of the funny things about Trump that he's the anti-elitist as if it is non-elite to be a

Manhattan real estate billionaire. How is that the anti-elite candidate? You just have to say it. Remember when George Bush pretended he was from fucking Texas? A lot of people don't realize. He's from Maine. Yeah, he's from the Northeast. He went to Yale. All he did in Texas

was clear brush. He did it when people were looking. The camera's rolling. Absolutely. Chain sewing down trees. But it's, you know, it's the American way. You pitch people an image. I mean, it is why they have publicists.

I mean, when you say, though, that Trump is like he's not a politician, that's what people like about him. Yeah. Like he's not a politician and that's what people like about him. Yeah. The worry is that when you're president of the United States, shit you say has like an impact. Yeah. Right? It is an important position. So things that you say can be misinterpreted by the Koreans or the Russians.

And there's a, like if you are the president, you should know that people in the executive branch, such as the president, people in the White House, should not disparage people in the judicial branch, right? Because we have a separation of powers in the United States of America. It's an attangle about just because he said that the judge was, you know, implied that the judge was biased in the Trump University case. It's because presidential candidates shouldn't be shitting on judges. Right. Because otherwise you end up with situations like you've got in Venezuela or now in Turkey. They've just had this referendum over the past weekend, which gave sort of quasi dictatorial powers to Turkey's president. Yeah. And the last two months, Venezuela and Turkey have become dictatorships. Essentially.

Essentially. And look, Russia has done that over the past 10 or 15 years. And when you listen to people who are experts in these things, they always say, I was just listening to Masha Gessen, who's a really, do you know Masha?

She's a Russian journalist who lives in the States now. Fascinating person. She'd be a good person to get on the show. And she was saying that the things that that nascent dictators always like to do is take take down a peg people who who who rely on facts for their living. So that's journalists. It's people in the judicial department and it's academics. So it's judges, lawyers, academics and so on. That's always what you see, like the Putins, and again, the sort of Bill O'Reilly mindset of like, tide goes in, tide goes out. Hey, I'm just a regular guy. I've got my gut going for me.

I don't need all these fancy book learning. It's just you and me. Let's go to Washington, D.C. and take it back from those fancy elites. We're going to make America great again. Make America great, right? And we're going to do it just with our balls. We're going to grab them by the pussy,

and we're going to drag this country into the 21st century. Come what may. Dude, you should run for office. You can't. God damn it, you're from another country. That's a stupid rule. It is. America.

Most countries don't have that natural born rule. Most countries, if you move to that country and you become a citizen and you live there for a certain period of time, sure you can run for the highest office. Are you upset because you want to run for office? I'm a little offended, Joe. Would you run for office if it was available? I think I can run for office. I think I can't run for the highest office. Are you upset because you want to run for office? I'm a little offended, Joe. Would you run for office if it was available? I think I can run for office. I think I can't run for president. Right.

Obviously, Arnold Schwarzenegger was governor of California. That's correct. Exactly. So I hereby announce my candidacy for the governorship of California, Joe Rogan. But you don't even live here, dude. I do now. When did you move? I moved.

I've kind of oozed between New York and Los Angeles over the course of the past four months. Yeah, but you're an elite bi-coastal guy. There's no way we're going to accept you. You're an elite bi-coastal guy and from another country. Look, if I was Al-Qaeda, I would say the way to get somebody to slip them in is not to get some brown guy who looks like an Arab. Get an Aussie. Handsome Aussie. No one's going to think that an Aussie.

Especially a gay one who's married. Exactly, that's right. A married gay guy. I'm having twins, Joe. Oh my goodness. With my husband. How does that work? It's very complicated. Do you have somebody that carries them for you? Yeah. Does she live with you? No.

Oh, that's weird. Yeah. Make sure she eats right? Yeah, we're trying. I don't want to be that. I don't want to be a controlling... Whose jizz did you choose? We used my jizz because we used... Because you're the boss. Because I'm the boss, exactly.

Are you the dad? Oh, we haven't figured that out yet. Are you both the dad? I didn't say we had twins yet. They're in the oven. I have a couple that lives down the street from me. They're a gay couple. And I've known them for probably about 15 years.

And they have a child and I watch this kid grow. They went through the whole thing. And they went through the whole thing. Their kid's friends with my kid and has been since it was a baby. And he's about seven or eight now. And they went through the whole thing where they had a surrogate, the whole deal. And then at the end of it, she's like, I'm keeping this. Oh, wow. Yeah. They paid for the kid.

And that was kosher? She won. I mean, she got it. Geez. Was that in california do you know because that's unusual because california is usually our surrogates not in california but it tends to have pretty good uh pro-family surrogacy laws by which i mean it makes it hard for the surrogate to change her mind at the at the end yeah well they did in 2000 it was like early 2000s oh yeah that might have changed somewhere. Do you know bloody Australia?

I mean, let me whine for a moment about how backward Australia is. 10 or 15 years ago, when I first started coming to the States, I was able to look down my progressive nose at these fine United States of America and think of it as being a more conservative, center-right country.

But now you guys are legalizing pot all over the joint. You've got the gay marriage. Australia still doesn't. Like a lot of, I feel like a lot of interesting stuff is going on in the States on the progressive side of politics and culture that Australia has just been too slow to pick up. So on the question of surrogacy,

there's this weird like alliance in Australia that also exists in some communities here in the states between essentially extreme feminists and like right-wing christians to say that women should not be allowed to take money to be surrogate carriers from the christian right they say you know we shouldn't let these fags be using women to create life, God forbid. And from the feminists, it's, oh, we have to protect women

from being manipulated and taking money for renting their wombs out. But you want them to have the right to kill an unborn baby, which I'm also all for. No, no, no. It's not that. It's abortion.

It's a medical procedure. It's not killing a baby. It's a bundle of cells until it comes out. Just a bunch of cells. Yeah, until then all of a sudden. Until it gets a social security number. It's not real. So you want a woman to be able to kill that bunch of cells, but you don't want her to

be able to bring that bunch of cells into existence and get paid for it. In Australia, it's against the law to pay a surrogate to carry your child. It has to be a favor. But prostitution is legal. Yes. So you guys are right in that regard. We are just confused. We're a confused nation lost on the wrong side of the planet.

Well, you're a tiny land. It's a giant chunk of ground as big as the United States, but a tiny group of people that's smaller than Los Angeles. That's right. We're the same population as, well, a bit bigger than greater Los Angeles. You're not counting Mexicans. They don't know you're any Mexicans are over here. They just don't.

They do a census. Anyway, most people say greater L.A. is 18 or 19 million. Australia is 24. but who's counting? Listen, Greater LA is connected to Orange County, is connected to the Inland Empire. It's not like it stops. Stop shouting, Joe. I'm with you, okay? We agree about the largeness of Los Angeles.

I'm not shouting. Your country is not as big as ours. I'm just saying. But it's the same size. That's what's fucked. Same size. Yeah. If you exclude Alaska, then it's the same size as the United States.

The contiguous United States, right? The contiguous United States, exactly. And it's got basically half the population of California. Yeah. You have a tiny little spot. I know. In terms of human beings. So you want to talk tiny.

Have you been to New Zealand yet? No. I heard it's awesome, though. It's great. I want to go. That is a small place? No, I heard it's awesome, though. It's great. I want to go. That is a small place. God, it's gorgeous, though, too. It's beautiful.

I'm half New Zealand. Are you? Yeah. How do you know? Like, are they the same shit? Yes, basically. It's like being half Canadian. California's saying they're from Nevada.

Like, do you even know? Well, it is a different country. It's like Canada. It's our Canada. It's another island, right? It's another island. It's two islands. Yep've got to fly over there. It's two islands.

Yep. You've got to fly over there. Or row. Can you row? 1,200 miles. Can you row 1,200 miles? Fuck yeah. Polynesians can.

That's true. They can. And did. They did. That's how they got to Hawaii. Tonga used to control basically all of the South Pacific. They were absolutely bad asses. See the size of those fucking people?

Yeah, they're big. They're giant. They have giant bones They'll kick your ass But how do they fit in the canoe They build big canoes bro Very big canoes Imagine a canoe full of tongans

Can you find a big tree 350 pound tongans They're big humans They were probably really big back then too Even when people weren't as big They were probably bigger I think they've always been bigger Although Americans are giving them a run for their money right now.

And Aussies. Starting to get fat. Well, it's food. Food's different. The high protein count. I mean, you've seen it in Japan as well. You know, people are just larger. Yeah.

You know, they're eating more food. And we're eating more sugar. That too. Well, there's also the, I had Gary Taubes on who wrote that book, The Case Against Sugar. And one of the things that he was saying that was really kind of interesting is that when you feed people a higher sugar diet, the higher insulin count is actually making larger people. So he's talking

about his kids, and that he almost wants to feed his kids more sugar to make bigger athletes. And I'm like, that's crazy! So bigger not in terms of having more body fat? Larger. Larger humans. Larger. Like taller as well? Bigger. Yeah. humans. Larger humans. Like taller as well? Bigger.

Yeah. Just bigger people. Yeah. There's some evidence that points to the high sugar diet as well as the high protein diet are contributing factors to people being larger. Could I just eat a lot of donuts? Not now. Too late.

I've missed the boat. How old would I have to be when I went on that donut binge? You have to be like a little kid. I think you have to be like a little kid. Okay, well I'm about to have a couple of twins Stuff their faces full of chocolate Best news they've heard all day You just gotta get to the wall of diabetes

And pull back Oh this would be great By the way I just want to get real clear I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about So don't go feeding your kids donuts And I don't even remember exactly what Gary Taub said. This is the liability of being Joe Rogan. I remember a story the other day.

I showed you this. This was after the show. Red Skittles spilling onto Wisconsin Highway. We're headed for cattle feed. Oh, yeah, they do do that. They give it to cows. Feed them candy. Yeah, that's just to fatten them up, though.

Because it's cheaper. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, they do do that. They feed cows candy to make them fatter. They also feed them antibiotics just to make them bigger, just to make them fatter. They also feed them antibiotics just to make them bigger, just to make them grow faster. Well, actually, the reason why they feed them antibiotics is their bodies reject the grain.

They feed them corn and things like that, and they develop abscesses in their bodies and infections. It's twofold, apparently. It's for that reason, and also it just has this byproduct that it makes them grow faster. Antibiotics, dude? Antibiotics, yeah. How weird. Yeah, it's bizarre. I don't try to take those things anymore.

No. Unless I really need them. Surgery. When you get surgery, you should take them. Yeah, that's right. But you should be real careful about taking them for little colds. Yeah. People are like, I'm just going to take a Z-Pak.

Yeah. Like, yeah, you're going to make a super virus, you fuck. That's right. And if you do, then make sure you take probiotics and shit. Eat a lot of kimchi and sauerkraut and all that stuff. There you go, buddy. Yeah. I know. I've been listening to Joe Rogan. You know what's up. Eat a lot of kimchi and sauerkraut and all that stuff. There you go, buddy. Yeah. I know.

I've been listening to Joe Rogan. You know what's up. I don't know where I got that information from. Rhonda Patrick. Yeah, exactly. That's right. She's good value, isn't she? She's a genius.

Yeah. She's making a person. I wonder if she's going to feed it sugar. How far along is her third person? Third trimester. Okay. Yeah. I needed to learn all that shit.

I'm not good with the numbers of human physiology. I didn't know what a trimester was. It's difficult. You're a guy. Exactly. You don't have a womb. I don't have cycles. I don't have the cycles of the menstruation and the moon and the tide comes in and the

tide goes out and the blood comes in and the blood comes out. It's impossible to explain. The sperm comes in, the baby comes out. The sweet baby Jesus is the only explanation, Joe. So explain to me what the law is right now in Australia. Like, can you hire a surrogate or is it being pushed back? Well, it's a state-by-state thing because Australia is also a federation like the United States, which used to be a bunch of separate colonies. So it used to be a bunch of, you know, penal colonies that Britain, basically after the American Revolution, Britain had nowhere to send its criminals.

And it was a very, very tough law and order state in the 1700s in the uk like if you it was the three strikes and you're out that wasn't even the start of it and there was incredible inequality there was no welfare obviously and no food stamps and shit like that so people who were starving would steal a loaf of bread and you do that twice and they'd be like all right we're going to send you to the moon, which is essentially Australia. Right. So they went and found they discovered this great southern land that had been rumored about and had been kind of sketched on the edges by some of the explorers from the Netherlands and from France so far. And they sent out Captain Cook to settle it basically. So they would have a place for British criminals to a huge vast, sunburnt land for criminals to roam free in now that they could no longer use the United States, any of those colonies.

Meanwhile, it's one of the most beautiful places in the world, and some of the nicest people in the world live there. Like, they fucked up. They made a better place than England. I know. They sent the criminals over there, and the criminals were like, you know what? Our problem was we were living in fucking England.

It's true. It's never sunny. People are cunts. The bars are a thousand years old. Like, Jesus Christ, I feel so good. I'm not going to be a criminal anymore. I'm going to be a good guy. I'm going to go surfing.

Oh, please, judge. Don't send me to the other side of the world to a tropical paradise when I could be living here in London where it's dirty and disease ridden and it's rainy and drizzly and gray all the time. But isn't it interesting how there's a balance to everything? Because when you go to Australia, everything can fucking kill you. Yeah, that's true. That's part of the problem.

There's goddamn box jellyfish and there's brown spiders and brown snakes and all these different things that can fuck you up. But you don't feel afraid of that when you're in Australia, do you? You get over that in 24 hours. No, not me. I'm a pussy. Oh, really? I'm terrified of bugs and snakes and shit.

Because, I mean, you do realize statistically that you're much more likely to be killed on the freeway here in LA or by someone shooting you in the States than you are by a spider bite in Sydney. Unless you go near the spiders and the snakes, which is what I would do. I mean, the problem with me is- Yeah, don't approach them. I have a buddy of mine, my friend Adam Greentree, who's a big bow hunter in Australia. Yep.

So he's trying to get me to go hang out with him. And I'm always like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll do that. And then they send me a picture of some fucking spider, a vicious poisonous spider eating a vicious poisonous snake. Where the fuck do you live, man? This is insane. Crocodiles everywhere. They went hunting and they didn't bring any water. And they just figured they would find water and they use water purification systems and clean it out.

So they're drinking buffalo piss water. Because these water buffaloes, they piss in this water. And then you have these filter pumps. And you pump out all the toxins. But it still tastes like piss. Because you're essentially drinking purified piss. And they were cooling off in this water. And they didn't realize that there was crocodiles in the area.

So they easily could have got jacked by a crocodile. cooling off in this water, and they didn't realize that there was crocodiles in the area. Shit. So they easily could have got jacked by a crocodile, because crocodiles slide into that water, and they just sit and wait. But it's one of those things that you just learn about as a kid. It's a bit like, I mean, people, it's like when you talk to Canadians about the risk of bears, and they just sort of laugh it off, because you learn about how, or like people from Finland about falling through the ice on a frozen lake. These are just things that you learn about when you're a kid, you just take it for granted. I know where there will be crocodiles

99% of the time. Don't go. And I don't go to those places. Or bring a rifle. Well, sure. Yeah, exactly. Get ready. Armor. Yeah. Well, be with a group of people. I mean, in terms of how good it was for convicts, I mean, people came out to Australia you know, Brits came out to Australia, even if they weren't criminals, just because they wanted a new adventure. And some of the states of Australia actually were free settler colonies, like South Australia, which is one of the states, was never a convict, a penal colony. colony. And in fact, when Australia became a country in 1901, in the constitutional conventions in the 1890s, which created a country out of all of these previously separate colonies, New Zealand was in negotiations to be part of that country as well. And Western Australia,

which is the western half of the continent, was going to be a separate country. And the eastern half, the eastern states of Australia and New Zealand could have been a single country. And then at the last minute, New Zealand jumped out and Western Australia jumped in. And now you've got two different countries. But anyway, this massive huntsman spider in Australia is what... Yeah, but huntsmans aren't... They don't hurt you. Who gives a fuck?

You get those spiders... You get those spiders inside even in Sydney, but they're not harmful. That's the size of a goddamn giant crab That's huge. It's on a broom so it's not you can tell it It's big enough to scare the fuck out of you if it was in your underwear you'd die. Yeah You know New Zealand is a place That's really fascinating because they brought over all these wild game animals from other countries to turn into a sportsman's paradise

And I think they did in the 1700s or the 1800s. Would have been 1800s because I think it was only settled by white people in the 1700s. Yeah. And now they've run rampant around the island because there's no predators. So they have these, you know, hordes of red stags from Europe that are wandering around New Zealand. I think we spoke last time about the attempt that New Zealand is doing to basically eradicate all of its predators,

all of its invasive predators that have come from abroad. Like New Zealand, because it was the last country to be settled by white people, by white foreigners, that is, who brought, you know, foxes and rabbits

and whatever nasty things. I always forget exactly what... Feral cats, too, are a huge issue. I can't even remember what... Every time I say this publicly, someone from New Zealand is like, actually, we don't have foxes on Twitter.

They definitely do in Australia. They have the same issue. You have the same issue in Australia. Totally. Totally. But in Australia, it's too far gone. There's no way that you would be able to actually eradicate them. Whereas in New Zealand, it is a New Zealander's patriotic duty to murder as many little mammals as they can.

Yeah. Because those little mammals eat the native birds and eat all the native wildlife and stuff. So New Zealand is like my cousins over there. They set traps out in their yard. And every morning they go down with bloodied hands pulling up the carcasses of animals that they've killed. And they're like, oh, yeah, this is a good job. Good for you. Well, Australian bow hunting magazines show people holding cats up.

Yeah. Like domestic cats. They hold them and they got like an arrow through the heart. And there was a guy recently who got attacked on Instagram because he's an Australian bow hunter and he was out bow hunting and he killed this cat. And all these people were freaking out. That was somebody's pet, you piece of shit. And they're like, actually, you don't understand.

Yeah. They're ruining the native wildlife. They're devastating ground nesting birds, all these different animals that live in the ground. The animals that have never had a predator like that in their midst are just getting destroyed. They're a menace, those cats. They get out. It's hopeless.

On the question of... Isn't that beautiful? Nice shirt, Rick. Nose blow right there. Have you got a cold or are you just allergic to something? I'm fighting one off. Fighting one off. Don't take antibiotics. Eat your kimchi.

I'm almost out of it. But I worked out today pretty hard. Because I'm fucking crazy, bro. What'd you do? Just lifting weights. Yeah. Some kettlebells. You know how I do.

What was I going to say about Australian animals, too? I forget. Doesn't matter. It's amazing that there is this imbalance. Oh, that's what it was. Your Tasmanian tiger, which was an animal that was extinct, apparently there's a bunch of sightings of this thing. And they're pretty sure that it might actually still be alive. I've read that.

I hope so. There's this really depressing footage. still be alive. I've read that. I hope so. There's this really depressing footage. You can see it online of the last ever Tasmanian tiger in a zoo, just pacing back and forth and back and forth. They wiped it out completely. 1930s, right?

Yeah, exactly. Black and white footage. Yeah, really early. I mean, they basically destroyed everything in Tasmania. They wiped out the native Aborigines. They wiped out the people. I mean, it was like, here we are, the British Empire. Let's make things better by killing everything. Isn't it interesting that you guys changed the British accent just a little?

Whereas, like, most Americans can't tell where the fuck you're from. How do you not tell? Honestly, it's really... It sounds the same, though. It's obvious. You're not from here. You only get to spend half a... You're not from here.

I can tell the difference between Canadian and American. Oh, that's easy. It's only easy because you're American. As soon as you hear a boat. Exactly. And they're nicer. I mean, actually, that is less different than the difference between British and Australian, considerably. Can you tell the difference between an Arizona accent and a California accent?

I don't know. Neither one have one. It was a trick question. Come on with an Arizona accent. What the fuck is an Arizona accent? Yeah, no, the only American accents that I can easily pick, apart from the big city ones, because you can tell Boston, you can tell New York, you can, that's basically about it.

The South. Yeah, the South. Obviously, there's that Midwestern thing where, like, Minnesota and Wisconsin have that, oh, that kind of oh, that sort of Fargo accent. And then you've got that West Coast thing. But that Fargo

thing is similar to Canadian as well. A little bit. It gets a little bit confusing sometimes when you're a foreigner like myself. Friendly people that live in the cold. That's right. Yes. They have to be helping each other out. Sense of community. Canadians are sort of like Aussies. You know, they were also big land

mass. Not very many people. Mostly inhospitable. Most of them are huddled along one stretch of land. In Canada, it's the border. And in Australia, it's the coastline. Yeah, I think they have less people than California as well. Yeah, they have about the same. I think they have a bit more than Australia. I think they're in the 30s. They're like 30 million or something. Yeah, exactly think they have less people than California as well. Yeah, they have about the same. I think they have a bit more than Australia.

I think they're in the 30s. They're like 30 million or something. Yeah, exactly. I'd move there. Those are the two places I'd move, by the way. If I didn't live in America, like if some shit hit the fan here. If. California, if California slid into the ocean, a big earthquake or something.

I would either live in Canada or Australia. Those are the two spots. Canada's cold, Joe. Are you aware of that? It's very cold up there. Not Vancouver. No, but it's rainy and cloudy and Australia. Canada's cold, Joe. Are you aware of that? It's very cold up there. Not Vancouver. No, but it's rainy and cloudy and great. It's beautiful. It's green. On the three days a week when it's

a year when it's sunny, it's beautiful. People are cool as fuck. 362 days a year? Horrible. Nah. Don't be a pussy. Drizzly. So what? Stay inside. Get me down. Get me down, Mr. Rogan. I tell you, when it is... I guess I get seasonal affective disorder, because my sister-in-law is from Finland,

and when I go to Finland and it's grey and dark, I don't feel good. You get sad. I get sad. I get sad, and actually, I don't mind the cold cold. I don't mind the really frigid freezing cold. I lived in New York for 10-ish years depending on how you count it. And the winters out there, when it's crisp and bright and blue sky. I mean, you grew up in the northeast. You know what that's like. When it's a nice day, I don't actually care if it's only 5 degrees Fahrenheit. If it's

like sunny. Right. but that's the thing. I don't like gloom. New York and Boston in particular, it gets really gloomy in the winter. I definitely think that affects people. It definitely used to affect me. But it's not as bad. Like Colorado gets super fucking cold, but it's really sunny. And Colorado doesn't have any of that shit.

I agree with you. It's not necessarily the cold as as much as it is the lack of sun. We need clear skies. That's right. It makes us feel better. Yeah, that's what I don't like about London and Amsterdam and cities like that as well. Seattle. Seattle. Vancouver. I'm going to Portland. Portland tomorrow. Holla! Two shows.

Oh, great. Nice city, but again. Fuck you. Portland's awesome. How many days of the year does it rain? 289 days of sunshine in Vancouver. Well, that's a piece of bullshit. What is... Jamie, what are you looking up here? Wikipedia.

It does say there's 166 days with measurable precipitation, so that doesn't add up. No, it does. Because it rains part of the day. But hang on. 289 days of sunshine. That just might mean that at some point during the day, there was a bit of a glimmer of sun. That's all I need, bro. Just set up a little alarm to go, boo!

I'm good. I know we're still on a planet. I know there's still a star above us. I'm good. Have you seen about the election? There are quite a few stories coming out of Europe this week. I did my podcast today about about there's the british prime minister just called a snap election yeah i saw that to try to reaffirm her mandate for

brexit and the french are going to the polls next week in for the first round of the presidential election which could see the far right leader marine le pen win in france and if she does she wants to crash out of the euro currency, you know, do Frexit instead of Brexit. And if France leaves the EU, then that actually is all over. Like, Britain can leave. And if that happens, when would France leave the EU? I saw that there's massive

anti-fascist protests this week. Yeah. So the way that their electoral system works is they, instead of doing it all in one day, they basically, whoever can run and get on the ballot they there's like maybe eight to twelve candidates who are on the ballot next week and then assuming that one person doesn't get one of them doesn't get more than 50 of the vote which they almost never do that then goes to a second round ballot which is next month and that's the actual presidential election between the two main candidates and what it looks

like is that the far-right leader who is softer than her dad who founded the far-right party was but he was like a Holocaust denier and like serious anti-semite and she's just an anti-muslim like anti-immigration anti-eu sort of like more right-wing version of Trump she will get through in next week's election, which means it'll be between her. I don't know. The polls say she won't, but the polls didn't say that Brexit was going to happen or that Donald Trump was going to win either. So the question is, will people stay at home? Because the person who she's most likely to be running against is just this kind of slick, nice, handsome, doesn't really believe in anything, not really a politician, but kind of

pragmatic. I mean, maybe that'll work. I don't know. But it's a bit of a worry if you care about handsome doesn't really believe in anything not really a politician but kind of pragmatic i mean maybe that'll work i don't know but it's a bit of a worry if you care about the stability of europe and like germany and france not ever being in a war again for them not to be knitted together and into the european union i do worry about it and then there was the turkey thing that we were talking about so we've got these three these kind of pieces of jigsaw puzzle that have been bashing around in my head over the past few days about like will we look back on this period as just a starting point to something even bigger like i already think that it's amazing like that trump is amazing like i mean if two years ago i was on when was i first on this show

maybe three years ago or something like that you know if someone had walked in that door and said to us okay in 2017 you're going to be back on the show you're going to be talking to each other and the fbi will be conducting an active investigation into whether or not the government of the day conspired with Putin in Russia to spread misinformation and illegally hack the emails of the Democratic Party. Oh, and by the way, the president is Donald Trump. And we know that the hacking happened. We know that the Russians did hack this and did spread misinformation. But the only question is whether the FBI is trying to figure out whether or not there was active collaboration with the government.

What do you think about that? I mean, we would be like, that's a cartoon. That's a fucking cartoon story. That is crazy cloud cuckoo land. And so that's where my head has been at. But that would have been, if we did have that conversation, that would have been before the nightclub shooting in Paris, that would have been before the truck ran shooting in Paris that have been before the truck ran all over

Those people in nice. Yeah, like the those those terrorist attacks that they have had over in France and in Germany have scared the fucking shit out of people Yeah, and letting all those people in from Syria with no vetting and letting a lot of Muslims come into the country that may have some real hate in their heart for this new land that they've found. I mean, they've got some real issues. And that's when a person who's a fascist, who comes along, who's like this anti-immigration, comes from a racist background, super right-wing, that's when those people take hold. Well, this is what I always say.

I'm talking to Sam Harris tomorrow on my podcast, and this is something that he and I talk about a lot, which is we have to find a new way to converse about the problem of Islamic jihadism without being so full of shit. If you are a globalist and an internationalist like I am, if you basically believe— You're a globalist? That's a negative thing. I know. I've only started using that term lately because the alt-right thinks that globalism is like this Jewish global conspiracy. You're a globalist. You're trying to take over the world. What does that mean?

I'm an open-minded person, so I think what I would define it as being someone who doesn't like borders and who doesn't like nationalism and jingoism and believes that we are all one and should try to get along. You know what I hear, bro? I hear New World Order. That's what I hear. This motherfucker's New World Order. I can't believe we had him on the show.

I hear FEMA concentration camps! Was that an Alex Jones impression? It was getting close, wasn't it? Alex Jones is a performance artist. Is that what you're claiming? You know what? I asked people on Twitter what I should ask you, and overwhelmingly, overwhelmingly, it's all like,

why does he legitimize quacks like Alex Jones who creates a false equivalence problem? Oh no no no Why does he interview so many bad faith actors like Alex Jones? How many people do I interview like Alex Jones? First of all, I don't interview anybody I'm not interviewing you, am I?

I'm not an interviewer. I suck at that. I've kind of interviewed Ron Miscavige yesterday. I talk to people, and I record it. That's it. I'm not a journalist. By any stretch of the imagination. Alex Jones has been my friend for 20 years.

He's fucking crazy. I showed everybody how crazy he was on my podcast by getting him high and drunk and have him talk about interdimensional child molesters. If you watch that and you think I'm legitimizing Alex Jones in some sort of a way, then you're just, you're looking at things in a very cookie-cutter way. You're deciding that this is what I've done. But a lot of people listen to you, and so I think the criticism that these people have is, like, people put faith in you, and they assume that if you don't raise a question against something,

that that means that you tacitly agree with what's being said and that that allows you don't raise questions about Alex Why don't I didn't listen to the you're definitely raise questions? But we were more bullshitting than anything and having fun and he was hammered I mean look people got a chance to see him They're actually using footage of the conversation that we had against him in his custody battle Because they're saying he was in Los Angeles on film smoking marijuana. He's a loose cannon.

And that's literally being used against him. He doesn't. He doesn't give a fuck. Really? They asked him a question about his kid. About his custody battle? They asked him a question about his kid. He couldn't remember.

He goes, oh, I'm sorry. I had a large bowl of chili for lunch today. I can't remember. He's fucking crazy. He's crazy and he makes ridiculous amounts of money. Alex Jones. He doesn't give a fuck. He's a great guy. I swear to God He's a great guy. Okay. He's just he's just got a ridiculous platform, and he's kind of character Hmm, but he's that's who he is man. You think he's a performance artist I think there is a part of what he does that is most certainly

Theater I think there is a part of what he does that is most certainly theater. I think anybody who doesn't see that- Tide goes in, tide goes out. Tide comes in, tide comes out. It's a bad impression. You've got to work on it. It's almost as bad as my Trump impression. Fortunately, I never listen to Alex Jones. Never?

I don't actually know what he- I mean, I see clips of him when someone shares something with me online, but life's too short to listen to Alex Jones. The best clips are when he gets mad and then he apologizes. I'm a Christian. I'm sorry. Someone said something about him recently and he went all, I never swear.

I never swear. In 20 years I've never sworn on the air, but this fucking faggot. He went fucking crazy. He went fucking crazy on this one guy. And then he said, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I apologize. I have children listening. This is wrong. I mean, he's just fucking, he's a maniac.

I'm not giving him legitimacy. He already has a massive platform, arguably bigger than mine. What I'm doing is showing you what I see when I hang out with Alex Jones. People are like, why are you friends with Alex Jones? I'm like, he's a nice guy. I like him. Look, I have a friend who I argued with for a fucking hour yesterday who thinks, I'm pretty sure he thinks the fucking

world is flat. Yeah, that's another one that I got. He thinks satellites aren't real. Is this Eddie Bravo? Yeah. He thinks satellites aren't real. He doesn't believe in dinosaurs. He thinks dinosaurs are bullshit. He doesn't believe in nuclear bombs. He's out to lunch. He doesn't believe in nuclear bombs. Listen, man, you can't even hold it to the fire.

It's ridiculous. I don't understand his thought process. And again, I've been friends with him as long as I've been friends with Alex Jones. I'm way closer with Eddie. Way closer. Eddie's one of my best friends. He's fucking crazy. But if you talk to him about conspiracies.

But if you talk to him about MMA or he's a jujitsu genius. He's one of the very best jujitsu instructors on the planet Earth, without a doubt. I mean, this comes back again to how we can compartmentalize our minds, right? It's like a religious person who believes in the story of Jesus but is also otherwise super intelligent. That's a perfect analogy. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't know how people's brains work.

I don't understand. And, you know, I don't know how people's brains work. I don't understand. I, you know, I've tried to study, like, people's really irrational thinking and try to, but you know what I worry more than anything? I worry that it's a contagious disease. I think it is. I think it is. And this is why I'm a bit worried about where we're at culturally at the moment. And because I think that concern about irrationalism being contagious is not too dissimilar from my concern about a disrespect for the idea of truth and falsehood being contagious. this analyst, this Russian journalist who was talking about the ways in which Putin and Chavez and Erdogan in Turkey and the Hungarian dictator, well, not dictator, Hungarian president,

who is becoming a quasi dictator, the way that they kind of use the muddiness of the whole question of what's true or false as a way of throwing sand in the gears of the whole democratic process and sand in the gears of people whole democratic process and sand in the gears of people's ability to kind of analyze the world and figure out what's true and false and what's important and not important that if all you're doing every day is just tweeting out like a stream of nonsensical bullshit that is neither true nor false but kind of exists in like this meta area of like you are trump's ego then I actually have found myself becoming less convinced about reliable sources of information

and myself becoming more susceptible to irrational ideas. Like I don't feel as confident anymore. Like it's easy because there's so much, you see so much stuff of like I'll tweet out something that the Washington Post or the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times have published, all of which I regard as being upstanding publications where I have faith that the journalists are doing their best,

not always perfectly, but doing their best in the long haul to tell the truth and only report facts. And then people will say, oh, fake news, fake news, oh, this is bullshit, and they'll link to something that Alex Jones said as if there's a kind of equivalence between those two things. And I have to remind myself, there isn't. They'll link to something Alex Jones said? Are you talking about an actual specific thing, or are you just speaking in generalities?

No, people have linked, people have told me that they believe there's no difference between the credibility of Alex Jones and the credibility of the New York Times. Does the New York Times talk about interdimensional child molesters? Not yet. Not yet. But let's give them time, Joe. It's early days in this administration. The New York Times has fucked up in the past.

Yeah. And they have strayed from unbiased journalism, which is an issue. Because as soon as you start doing that, as soon as you editorialize the news, you open yourself up for people who point out that you editorialize the news and then point out the fact that you're biased. And they have, but hold on, they have been. That's an issue. And I think they realize that that has been used against them. And I think that's one of the things that they addressed

when they talked about sort of reinvigorating the idea of objective journalism. And they started talking about that after the Trump election, after he was elected president. They talked about this reinvigoration, this sort of recommitting themselves to real hard journalism. Yes, that's right. I think a lot of people also don't understand the difference between the editorial page and like the opinion pages and the news Mm-hmm section. It's true. But even the news section has been biased, you know, there have been stories in a couple of occasions I've read some things overblown. I think yeah, they have but as soon as you just leave open that potential Yeah possibility that people go

Oh, you're a bunch of left-wingers like a lot of people think that because they got the election wrong That means that you can't trust polls. Here's another way in which this kind of insidious idea that nothing is trustworthy and there's no such thing as the truth or facts or, you know, your version of history is as good as anyone's version of history. This is another thing that Lawrence Krauss was saying on my podcast, by the way, which is he thinks that there's a link between the kind of postmodern, like, hippie 1960s, like, philosopher movement of, like, hey, believe whatever you want to, man. Like, there is no truth, right? Like, truth is all socially constructed, and, like, gender is entirely socially constructed, and there is no such thing as masculinity. It's all just, I don't know, some kind of capitalist story that we've all been led to believe. So, like, put a flower in your hair and bust out of it and let your truth be whatever

you want the truth to be. He sees a link between that and what you might think of as being something very opposite, which is the hard right, kind of alt-right, Trumpy sort of fake news phenomenon. Because both of them make the claim that there's no such thing as the truth, essentially, and your truth is whatever is true for you. There were a million people at inauguration? Okay. The warships were steaming towards North Korea? Okay. Trump said it.

Does it matter that it's true or not true? Let's unpack that one step at a time. I definitely think that some of the, as we said before, some of the reasons why Trump became popular are these ridiculous assertions that gender has no basis in biology. That you can be anything you want. You can be Foxkin. You know, that you can, you know, you can identify with being. I mean, there's people that are trying to figure out whether or not transracial is a thing Yeah, Rachel Dolezal was on CNN. Yeah, and she was talking about the fact that

Race is a social constructs interesting wasn't it it is interesting because people don't want to accept that black people get really mad They're getting really mad and yet they also say the same thing like I mean Worth their salt understands that race is not a genetic thing. This is a cultural construct. And, I mean, I find her logic sort of hard to flaw, to fault in a way. Race is a social construct. It's most certainly more solid than saying there's no biological basis for gender. That's right.

There's more biological basis to sex than there is to, you know, there's more correlation between gender and sex. It's a chromosomal issue. There's an XY chromosome that males have. And if a male decides that he identifies with being a female, look, there's a boy that's running track now. There's a new one, because they've had a few of these. There's one that was

a girl that was a wrestler that was taking, she wanted to be a boy, so she was taking testosterone and crushing all these other girls and wrestling. She won the state title in Texas. I think you mean he was a wrestler that was taking she wanted to be a boy So she was taking testosterone and crushing all these other girls and wrestling she won the state title in Texas I think you mean he was a train whatever whatever But now there's a boy who's not even taking treatment who decides he identifies as a girl And he's just whooping everybody's ass and track because he's a fucking boy right now He's a girl, but he's not a boy. He's not a girl We have to find a way to like separate the psychology from the physiology.

Well, we have to with sports. Especially in sports. Exactly. It's 100%, especially in combat sports. You know, I took a lot of heat because I was saying that there was a man who was a man for 30 years and became a woman and didn't tell people that he used to be a man for 30 years and beat the fuck out of two chicks before it eventually came out. And now once you're out, look, I say, especially in professional sports,

you have a right to say no or to say yes to compete against that person. I think if a woman wants to fight against a man, if a woman's 130 pounds and she wants to fight against a man who's 130 pounds, they both agree, do whatever you want. I think you should be allowed to. But I think that there's a big difference between someone who has been a man who's 130 pounds, they both agree, do whatever you want. I think you should be allowed to. But I think that there's a big difference between someone who has been a man their whole life, has had testosterone flowing through their bones, their blood, their body, their whole life, and then decides they're a woman, versus a woman who was born a woman, raised

a woman, and is a biological woman her entire life. A transgender woman just is not a regular biological woman. There's a difference. But saying that gets people so angry. Saying that a transgender woman, who you can say is a woman, but saying that they're the same thing as a biological woman is just not factually true. They have different chromosomes. They have a different structure. The hips are built different. The shoulders are wider. The hands are bigger. There's so many factors. That's right.

This is what makes people so frustrated about, you know, the whole political correctness thing, right? That we set up tripwires. And if you trigger one of those tripwires by making a claim like the one you just made, which is that a trans woman is not exactly the same as a cis woman, a non-trans woman. I'm not using cis. Won't do it. Not going to do it?

Not real. What do you want to call them? Zs. I'll go with Z and Zer. No, Z is the, isn't Z instead of she for a trans? No, it's not instead of she, you piece of shit. Sorry. Did I just trigger one of those tripwires?

It's non-gender based. Your shit is so transphobic. It is a non-gender based pronoun. No, that's what I mean. It's he or she for people who don't have a gender. It's what the fuck it is. And you sitting over there as a male, as an actual male. I'm a cis male.

Thank you very much. Yeah. Not an actual male. Biological male. Not all men have penises. I had Buck Angel on. Oh, yeah? Who's a transgender man who uses the term biological male

he says there's a difference between a biological man he was born a woman and then transitioned to being a man and he says biological male and he says that trans people hate on him for using the term biological well what does he mean by the term? Well, someone who has XY chromosome, a biological male versus him who has XX chromosome. Oh, I see. I see. Yeah. Yeah. So I thought you meant that he calls himself a biological male.

No, no. He says- Yeah, he calls other people biological males. Yeah, sure. He's like, you should be able to differentiate without being prejudiced. It's so, I mean- Ha ha. It's crazy.

We're in crazy town. I just think that people should be able to live however they want to live their lives. I agree. And so I don't, you know, I don't spend a lot of time thinking about this, but I just wish that we were all generous enough that when people find it a little bit difficult to understand, you don't assume that they're bigoted just because it's a new concept for them. Yes. And I think, as you say, this is part of what gave rise to Trump. I mean, the parallel that I was drawing a moment ago between post-structuralist, there is no such thing as gender and Trump's fake news campaign was not

so much that the one led to the other. It was just that both, this is the point that Lawrence Krauss was making both undermine the they both erode the idea of truth And what's ironic is it? It's almost exactly the same thing that Bill O'Reilly said the tide goes in the time runs out people push this way And then people go fuck you there is a biological difference, and then they push that way and then they get they get transphobic I mean there's a lot of people to get upset at ridiculous ideas, and then they push that way and then they get they get transphobic i mean there's there's a lot of people that get upset at ridiculous ideas and then they get they go overboard yeah they go the other way it's so stupid like louis ck has that bit about gay people as well he's like i don't understand people i don't understand why people get angry at the existence of gay people even if they're not in their lives well how about even better the the gay marriage thing

yeah exactly people get furious about gay marriage. Louis says, like, I would understand if, like, there were a couple of gays fucking on my lawn and I had to, like, hose them down to get them, or, like, gay people were just, like, touching their dicks in front of my face as I'm trying to eat my breakfast cereal. Right. But as long as they're not bothering me, I don't understand the point in getting upset about their mere existence out there. Yeah.

And it's the same with trans people. Like, I don't understand why there's this big thing about trans people. I understand it's silly. I mean, this comes to also, like, people who are currently obsessed with political correctness as being the biggest problem facing America today, I feel like have missed the boat. They're fighting last year's battle. They're fighting yesterday's battle when the actual battle to fight is the day before yesterday's battle which is today's battle which is a battle against bigotry i think which is a battle against trump a battle against the idea of fake news a battle against america eventually

having its own putin-like strongman anyone who's spending all of their time doing all of their shows about how terrible political correctness is and how milo ianopoulos should be able to say whatever he wants which of course he should is not i think is like terrible political correctness is and how Milo Yiannopoulos should be able to say whatever he wants, which of course he should, is not, I think, as like... Well, political correctness is a response to people feeling that there's an injustice, people feeling that there is bigotry and prejudice, and so they go too far with it. They get ridiculous. And it's also a natural human inclination to try to control other people's behavior. People like to be bossy and they like to be able to tell you what you can and can't do. They like to tell you what words you can and can't use. It's a weird thing that

people do. And it may be a response to the frustration that they feel, legitimate frustration from actual bigotry. And it makes them go overboard. It makes them go too far. Yes. It's a lack of perspective on both sides. That's a giant issue with human beings. conversation, and I think justly so. But I do think that last year, with the election of Trump, and the kind of welling up of kind of subtly anti-Semitic, coded, racially coded language during the election campaign last year... Well, how do you claim we're anti-Semitic when Jared Kushner is like his main guy now? I don't think Trump is an anti-Semite. I don't think Trump hates Jews. So who is anti-Semitic? A lot of people who support Trump.

Hmm. Right. But there's no evidence that he is, right? I don't think so. No, I think he's just an old white guy. I think he's an old white guy with traditional ideas about what made America great. And those traditional ideas coincide with an America that was a lot wider and more Christian than the country that we see today.

I think that's the way it becomes racially coded. He's never even been a religious person, which is really interesting when you see him talk about no children of God should be forced to suffer such a feat. He's such a fraud. He's such a go and get your steak knives and your Trump University, dude. It's like, you know, he's a charlatan. Trump steaks, the best steaks. Amazing steaks.

It also shows you how fucking corrupt the religious right are for having gotten behind him so quickly. When he went down to Liberty University, he gave a speech. He was like, you know, my favorite part of the Bible, two Corinthians. It's not as it exists. It's not pronounced two Corinthians. It's second Corinthians. Even if you just went to Bible school when you were a kid, you remember that.

So they know he's a fraud. He was asked by an interviewer what his favorite part of the Bible is. He was like, well, I'm not going to get into that kind of personal, you know, that's personal. He hasn't read the fucking Bible. No. He doesn't pray. He's got his own Bible. That's why he wrote it.

Exactly. It says it all at night in his underwear. He talks and somebody writes it down. Yeah. One day, that'll be the Bible, the best Bible. It'd be an amazing Bible. So they're all corrupt and full of shit, the religious right, for getting behind him when they always talk about how important personal faith is in their candidates. Yeah, but I mean, what else are they going to do?

They go towards Hillary? I mean, what are they going to do? No, no, no. I mean, sorry. I mean, during the primary. Yeah, but who else would they go with? He's going to win. They knew he was going to win.

Ted Cruz didn't have a shot. He's too wormy. People see him sweat too much. He's just too weird. Yeah, he would have easily lost the election. But what I'm saying is they would rather have Donald Trump win the election than have Ted Cruz lose the election with principles. Yeah, which is amazing because now you see people saying, I wish Ted Cruz was in office. There's a lot of people on the left that would have been happy with Ted Cruz.

Yeah. No, not me. Well, he's really anti-gay. He's very anti-gay and he's very smart. He's extremely, you know, he was like a champion of the Harvard debating team. Apparently, I think it was Harvard. I think he's gay. You reckon he's gay?

I reckon. You reckon. What do you think when you look at him? You got gaydar, right? Yeah, I do have good gaydar. Being a gay man, can you pick out gay dudes? Like if you're in a room? Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm pretty good at it. I'm pretty good at it. Really? What do you think? He doesn't really... He gives... On the conservative right, there's a fine line between slimy asshole and closeted gay.

You know what I mean? You don't think there's some connection, some like Michael Reisel relationship between the two things? There could be, but the problem is they never Underlying root system connected by fungus that sort of connects them. They communicate

via electronic signals using fungal Deep under the surface, pray the gay away. It's possible possible but they often They also like Ted Haggard is a good example Yeah right you remember that guy Yeah he was He seemed gay didn't he he had A little like his

Sibilants were a little bit What is up with lispies And gay I don't get it I don't know because I'm like obviously not The most gay presenting person That you've ever met so I don't get it i don't know because i'm like obviously not the most gay presenting person that you've ever met so i don't work yeah i don't know it's fascinating though isn't it yeah some people present as gay well so here's here's part of the thing about gender as well this is the brings us back to rachel dolezal and race and stuff like that like obviously so maybe there is some biological reason why dudes who are attracted to dudes tend to exhibit mannerisms that are more commonly associated with femininity.

Right? Maybe a sing-songy voice, a certain style of walking, sashaying, a swishy sort of walking manner. Well, my friends that I was talking about, the couple, there's a very clear male and female in the relationship. One of them does appear gay. Like, if you met him, you'd be like, oh, that's a gay guy. But the other guy, you would have to know him. Right. You wouldn't know.

And so, but then, so what I think, if there's a kernel of biology in that, I think it's been ramped up aggressively over the past century by people also playing the role of gay in the same way that masculine dudes play the role of you know masculine straight dudes will play the role of masculinity and girls will play the role of being girly and in that respect people who point out that gender is not the same as sex are right like gender is a bunch of behavioral tropes that we all act out and so it's interesting to me me, like, when you say, why are gay people, why do gay people act gay? Part of it must be an act. Well, there's behavioral tropes.

Maybe to telegraph to each other? Maybe, yeah. But there's also just this broad spectrum of individuals that are so different. I mean, there's masculine people that are so incredibly different than other masculine people. There's feminine women that are so incredibly different than other feminine women. I mean, just people, they vary. They vary widely biologically, socially. They vary by their own neurochemistry.

I mean, there's people that are just almost naturally inclined to be depressed. There's some people that you could shit right in their hair and they'd be fucking happy as peaches. People are weird, man. i'm a pretty happy person where do you think you lie on that spectrum of happiness i'm pretty happy yeah but i work at it i'm pretty aware of the pitfalls of like inactivity and i'm very i exercise a lot but even having the ability to motivate yourself to take action is also something that you're lucky to have yeah i guess but how much of that is from learned behavior how much of that is from what you know the way i grew up there's a lot of factors yeah yeah there are my parents did not exercise at all i mean fucking zero when I was growing up zero they would come home

from work and drink and I did I just was like look I gotta do something with this body like this body wants to go to war I gotta I gotta get out and run I gotta hit a punching bag I gotta lift some weight I gotta do something yeah I was just always like like I felt like there was an engine inside of me that was revving up all the time and I had to go run it. If I didn't get out there and push it, I didn't feel calm. And it took me till I was like a teenager before I figured that out. And then once I figured that out, once I started exercising, it was like, there was me pre-working out and then me. It's like, oh, now I can think. And then

I realized I was, God, I was under the influence of biology for so long. Well, yeah. I mean, you're lucky that you didn't channel that into drugs or alcohol or prescription drugs. Or aggression. Yeah. Yeah. Violence is the real worry. That's a giant issue with boys.

When you see kids playing. I was at a party recently. A little kid's party. It was an adult's party. What were you doing at a little children's party? I'm not even going to make that joke. recently a little kids party it was an adult party what were you doing a little children's party little kids okay and there was this one boy and this one boy has these two parents that they had a kid late in life they weren't really paying attention they were inside drinking and this kid was fucking hyper aggressive running around around, pushing kids. He hit kids. Like I watched him.

I watched him call this kid a loser. And, you know, I had to have a conversation with the dad. I'm like, dude, your kid is really aggressive. And he's like, he's a good kid. I'm like, I wanted it. It's so hard because you want to say, hey, man, you're not even fucking watching your kid. You're in here drinking. I'm like, look, I saw him push this kid and call him a loser.

He goes, that never happened. I'm like, oh. Oh, my God. He goes, look, I'm trying to apologize because this kid did something. He goes, I'm trying to apologize for his behavior. I'm like, you're not apologizing. You're saying he didn't do anything. I'm like, all right, man.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry that this is the case, but this is what happened. What is it with parents defending their kids so much these days? If a parent had come up to my parent when I was a little kid and told them that I'd been doing something like that, it would have been the grown-ups gathering together against the child in order to kind of communally raise the child. My dad would not have said he didn't do that. He would have come up to me and said, did you do that? This guy and his wife were both drinking.

That could have definitely been a factor and there was a factor in me not pushing it because i didn't want because first of all he when a guy says to you that didn't happen when you know it happened yeah you're two steps away from beating the fuck out well he wasn't there you were there you saw it happen how does he know that it didn't happen and it's such a deep thing to say we're two steps away from well he wasn't watching his kid at all yeah And his kid first of all he they had to go to visit his kid because his kid hit other kids on three occasions And it's funny has really good grounds for leaving that it never happened this party happened over a course of you know

This is over a course of a couple of hours. Yeah, it hit three kids and So when you say to a guy that your kids really aggressive he's like he's a good of hours, this kid hit three kids. And so when you say to a guy that your kid's really aggressive, he's like, he's a good kid. Yeah. No, he's not. He's a good kid. Oh, he's a good kid. You don't even fucking know.

Hey, maybe he's a good kid who's being aggressive right now. Doesn't change what I saw. But what I'm saying is kids, especially boys, they have this thing inside of them. Some of them do. Some of them don't. But, you know, we vary biologically. Yeah. But some of them do some of them don't but you know we vary biologically Yeah, but some of them have this aggressive tendency. That's why boys like to play football It's why boys the gravitates or some boys gravitate towards aggressive activities

They you gotta get it out of their system. You got to exercise with that kid You got to do something with them play catch with them run around with them wear them out something with them, play catch with them, run around with them, wear them out. People are not meant to sit down in a fucking classroom and just pay attention all day to some shit they don't want to pay attention to, and then go home and sit in front of the TV. And what do they do with all that energy that kept us alive, kept us from predators, kept us from invaders? All that stuff is biologically programmed in the human animal, and we ignore it.

You're being very transphobic by implying that there's something male, intrinsically male. Is that transphobic, or is it gender? I don't know. Gender essentialism, I think that's what it's called. No, I'm with you, and this is a problem. I mean, this is a problem about fatherhood, right? It's something I'm thinking about now that I'm about to become a father.

Twins. Gotta run around, take care of two. Yeah. about fatherhood, right? It's something I'm thinking about now that I'm about to become a father. Like, how do I... Gotta run around, take care of two. Yeah. And how do I also make sure that they grow up with good masculine role models and people, and that I enable them to be the best kinds of human beings

that they want to flourish into? And then you've got the whole question of Adderall and Ritalin and so on. Like, these... My neighbor did that. My neighbor put their kid on Ritalin. One of them. Prozac, Ritalin, something like that. that they had this kid and he wasn't a bad kid he was just fucking ignored

same thing the wife the wife was always trying to get dick from everybody she was like flirting with everybody she flirt with my friends flirt with everybody and the husband was just fucking like dealing with this crazy bitch for a wife he didn't want to be there he would work late and this poor kid was just bouncing off the walls as they put him on drugs. There's an economist called Tyler Cowan. I don't know if you know of Tyler. He's the kind of guy who, now that he's in his mid-50s,

says that he's sure that when he was younger, he would have been medicated if he were a young person today. And the point that he was making about that was that human psychology is complicated. And there's no sort of yin without the yang, right? Like the distractedness that he had was bad if what you wanted was for him to sit still in class and pay attention to something that he wasn't interested in. Yes. But fantastic in a whole bunch of other ways that he thinks were invaluable. Yeah, right.

Or my best friend, Sam, in Australia, who is a brilliant soil scientist, one of the country's and possibly the world's best scientists in his field, has a PhD. If we'd been growing up, if instead of being born when we were born, we'd been born just 10 years later, what would have happened to his creativity if he'd been medicated in order to be able to get through class because he was always

distracted? Parents don't care. They want convenience, especially parents that work all day. They work all day and they come home and they want this kid to fucking behave because they're tired. And they want this life that they see in movies and in television shows. They don't know what it's like to raise a human being.

It's very complex. And, you know, especially when you're sending these fucking kids to schools that they promote these rigid ideas of how children are supposed to behave and, you know, and tell you that if you don't follow their rules, you're not going to be successful. I mean, how many fucking stories have you heard where teachers tell rowdy kids they're never going to amount to anything? I had a teacher tell it to me. I never fucking forget it yep i had that as well because she was just so dumb she was so she was so dumb and such a bad teacher and i was a terrible student

i mean she was certainly frustrated i mean it's public schools right but uh i said something and she was a this uh black woman had a terrible accent. She had a very bad Ebonics accent. And I was talking to my friend. And she goes, Mr. Rogan, would you like to come up here and do both of these problems in front of the class? So I go, would you like me to do both of those problems? And everybody started laughing hard. The kids were like, oh, shit. And so she kicked me out of class for that.

And I said, all I did was talk the way you talk. Yes and so she kicked me out of class for that and i said all i did was talk the way you talk yes and you kicked me out i go just because you're teaching a math class shouldn't you learn how to talk shouldn't you learn how to talk correctly in front of students and she she kicked me out and she i remember she said go ahead laugh mr rogan mr rogan is never going to amount to anything in life yeah i'm like being a public school teacher but i read there's nothing wrong with being a public school teacher but saying she didn't amount to anything in life. Yeah, unlike being a public school teacher. But I read there's nothing wrong with being a public school teacher. I'm just saying she didn't amount to very much. It's not true. It's a great job if you do it right

and you have influence over people. What I'm saying is all public school teachers are worthless and should be executed, Joe Rogan. That's precisely the point that I'm trying to make. You are so rude. First of all, you're not even American. You come over here and say that shit. We have public school teachers. No, of course. I love public school teachers. But saying that. I take your point. Why would she say that? But saying that is because she's a c of course, I love public school teachers. But saying that, but saying that,

it's because she's a cunt. She was not a nice person. So we should be criticizing her not for her occupation but for her cuntdom. But it's a fucking horrible job, man. I mean, I wouldn't want

to deal with me either when I was 15. Who the hell wants to deal with a 15-year-old boy who doesn't want to pay attention, who doesn't give a shit about math?

But, you know, she left a weak spot. Do you think, well, also, the whole question of, like, of speaking well as a teacher, if you're an educator, then you sort of have to have your shit together

in terms of being educated. But then that also bumps up against, are we being racist by implying that black American English is less educated than standard white English? Because some people argue that black English is just a dialect of the language. Well, you could argue that. But you know what?

The same would be held if this was, I mean, this is in Massachusetts. The same would be held if it was a guy who was a teacher who had a ridiculous Boston accent. And I mocked his Boston accent. Yeah. Like if he said you know something about pack your fucking car and I was like would you like me to pack my car correctly yeah yeah kick me out because of that it's

the same thing Australian accent to they don't forbid you're mocking someone's inability to communicate correctly and because look whether or not it's good or bad like you might like saying both better you might like it and there's nothing wrong with that look if you're like saying both better. You might like it. And there's nothing wrong with that. Look, if you're a happy, successful person and you don't like to say both, you like to say both, what the fuck is wrong with that? It's just a sound you make with your mouth. Sure. But if I can say it, if I can repeat it, and you're so touchy about it, you kick me out of class, well, you fucked up.

You fucked up. You got a soft spot. That's right. She knows. Yeah, she feels insecure about it exactly I got a big laugh you got under her skin one of my first big laughs

I was like oh I can mock things yeah but it's just you know she just she's under pressure

it's a terrible job not getting paid very much and you have to be a babysitter as well as an educator yeah fucking horrible I mean

I had Frank Rich on my podcast on we the people uh who was who he's an executive producer on veep and he was the he was like the main columnist on the new york times opinion page for about 50 for maybe almost 20 years in the 90s and the 2000s and he sort of started the new york times week in review section which comes out in in the Sunday paper these days. And he had a piece in New York magazine, which was about how much empathy we should feel towards uneducated people. He was talking specifically about Trump, about Trump voters, because since the election, there's been quite a lot of hand-wringing among progressives about,

like, we've been focusing too much on these issues like trans rights and gay rights and so on and identity politics and black lives matter and we've lost touch with the working class base like the democratic party no longer speaks in a meaningful way to white working class especially males and especially in rust belt cities you know in the in in the midwest and his point was, actually, fuck them. You shouldn't need to pay attention to them. They're a lost cause. They keep voting against their own interests by voting for people like Trump and voting for Republicans. Don't try to win them over and stop trying to understand them and wringing your hands about why you've lost them. It's an interesting episode if people want, I mean, obviously I'm grossly exaggerating what his actual position is, but you can listen to the episode.

I could see how someone would take that stance. But I think there's just a natural inclination to go left and right with people. There's a natural inclination to react to certain right-leaning behaviors by going far left and a natural inclination to go. and the natural inclination to go, like, how many people grow up from really regressive religious backgrounds and then they become like really secular as they get older? They abandon the religion, they become reformed Catholics. It's really common. Yep. It's really common to see the suppression of one ideology and bounce in the other direction.

If you have a parent, I mean, there's a lot of people that, you know, they grow up and their parents are super hippies and then they become so conservative to rebel against their parents. It's really common. Yep. That's what I'm always thinking about in terms of parenthood as well. Like no matter what it is that I try to fix in the way that my parents raised me, where I think they could have done it better, that's just going to swing in the opposite direction.

And then my kids are going to do the opposite because you always think that your parents did an imperfect job, right? So we're always fighting yesterday's battle. Well, everybody does an imperfect job. It's impossible to be perfect. You're a fucking human being. There's no perfect human beings. They've never existed. Jesus. The Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lama is not perfect. How about fucking Gandhi?

Gandhi used to sleep with a bunch of girls naked in his room. He was probably a freak. Gandhi was most likely a freak and they just naked in his room. He was probably a freak. Like, Gandhi was most likely a freak, and they just kept it under wraps because he was Gandhi. Like, do you know the story? He used to sleep with naked teenagers? Yeah. There's also weird things about, I mean, him and also Mother Teresa have weird things in their personal lives.

What'd she do? Well, I don't think it was sexual, but I think there were a lot of questions about, like, her ethical dealings in terms of the Mother Teresa Foundation and where her money went. What did it go to? Well, for a start, she didn't think it was a good idea to empower young women. What if we found out that all her money went to a warehouse filled with dildos? Like, what the fuck? She did a lot of good, but she also bought a lot of dildos. Just fucking gigantic stacks of them. Huge quantities. she could do way more than she could use way more than anyone she could

kick start these fucking harley davidson powered vibrators i love it uh yeah well i mean the people are not perfect and most charitable organizations are criticized for spending far too much on infrastructure and you know the administrative costs. And then you find out how much money actually goes to the charity. Like, you just have an organization where you're giving people jobs. And, by the way, you also do some good. There are some good – it's interesting because, like, whenever I give to charity, I always try to pay attention to how many overheads they have and how much money is being spent on admin and so on. to how many overheads they have and how much money is being spent on admin and so on.

But then it was actually, I think, Will McCaskill or someone who's involved in the life you can save, kind of like give well movement, which is like rational, is it practical altruism or rational altruism? Effective. Effective altruism, that's right. He's been on my podcast.

Yeah, right. He was on last month. Yeah, he's great. And they were saying, in actual fact, it does take quite a lot of administration to make a dollar work well. Of course. So if you just look at the charities with the lowest overhead, then it doesn't necessarily actually mean that they're doing the best work in the field. Because it might cost 40 cents out of every dollar to make sure that you're targeting the remaining 60 cents in a way where you'll get actually 60 cents of value.

the remaining 60 cents in a way where you'll get actually 60 cents of value rather than a place that only has a 15 overhead but then the remaining 85 cents are all being squandered on bullshit projects that don't have any measurable and then successes on the complete other end of the spectrum you have the clinton foundation which was a ruse i mean it's not essentially a prestige play wasn't it doesn't exist anymore it's gone going under. Yeah, they're closing it down. Isn't that a fact? Please pull that up. I'm pretty sure they said they were shutting it down. But, I mean, Bill Clinton would take hundreds

of thousands of dollars and speak at these charitable events. Like, people would spend a gigantic chunk of their budget to have Bill Clinton come and speak, and he would take all of it. He would take all the money. He wouldn't donate any of it back. So he would take these gigantic donations from people

and then he would speak and get paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to speak. Yeah, the speaking fees are crazy. I mean, even the fact that Hillary Clinton was taking speaking fees from Goldman Sachs and did not think that that would look bad in... She didn't give a fuck.

They're so stupid. No, well, I think now she gives a fuck. Well, you know what? Bernie Sanders drilled that, and I'm so glad he did. Yeah. But look, it's bribery. It's a loophole. There's a loophole, and it's bribery.

Nobody wants to pay to hear her talk. Get the fuck out of here. She's a terrible speaker. She's not Blue Louis C.K. You know what I'm saying? I mean, this is not Chris Rock we're talking about. She's not a good speaker. Nobody wants to pay money to hear her talk.

But this is the whole thing about these elite. Clinton Global Initiative to shut down lays off 22 as donations. But this is the Washington Times. That's a right-wing rag. How dare you. That's not the only place that I saw it. I saw it in a lot of different places. They're shutting it down.

Well, check out the top click is Snopes. So that's the conspiracy theory fact checker. Do you know the whole story about Snopes, though? Do you know about the guy who runs Snopes? No. Snopes is run by a fucking kook. The guy who runs Snopes left his wife. He started with his wife.

Left his wife. Married a prostitute. A prostitute has a website where she was, as recently as two years ago, was getting reviewed for her prostitute work. She's an escort. And they both have a clear left-wing bias. Clear. Like, she's been involved in anti-Bush organizations. Show me any Snopes pages that say that something is true when it's not,

or that say something is false when it's not. It's not necessarily that it's true or it's false. There's these ambiguous areas where they always lean left. And that's what people have stated about Snopes. It's kind of tricky. Okay. But it's simple. It's not like this computer-controlled objective reality measurement.

No, I understand. It's run by people. But it's like PolitiFact. It also gets accused of being left-wing because right-wing people who are full of shit don't like being called out on it. Fake news. Yeah, exactly. It's not actually fake news. Fake news.

I mean, I haven't seen anything on Snopes that is questionable, even if the guy is an asshole. The CNN thing. Which one? When he pointed to the CNN reporter, you are fake news. Oh, my God. When Trump did that. Well, this is, that reminded me of living in a banana republic.

It reminded me of living in Venezuela or something. You are fake news. Yeah. You are fake, like just that statement. What the fuck does that even mean? You're not news. This is a goddamn person.

It's a human being. You are fake news. You're fake news. Also, but so effective. People loved it. You're fake news. Also. But so effective. People loved it. You know the thug life meme where the sunglasses drop down? I saw a bunch of those for him when he said that.

You are fake news, thug life. I mean, did you guys in the States when you were like kids, were you like, did you have like, I know you are, you said you are, but what am I? Like that kind of bullshit? Everybody had that, I think. Basically what he's saying. Yeah. Like people accuse. No, you are, but what am I? Like that kind of bullshit? Everybody had that, I think. It's basically what he's saying. Yeah. Like people accuse... No, you are.

He was elected on the back. He was elected by very, very narrow majorities in a few key swing states that had been inundated with bullshit stories on Facebook that were coming out of Eastern Europe with Russian funding and exploding all of these fake bombshell exposés about how Hillary Clinton, how the FBI prosecutor who was looking into Hillary Clinton had been found dead and all this sort of stuff. That was actually fake news. Then the term came into public consciousness last year. and now anyone who criticizes the administration he just does he just pulls a i know you are you said you are but what am i a trick and says well that's not fake news you're fake news your face is fake news what did you think about when julian assange um implied that that young man who worked for the dnc who wasinated, who was shot in the back, they tried to say it was a robbery.

Like, they left his wallet, they left his watch, they left his phone, they left all his money. They didn't take a thing from him. They shot him at 4 o'clock in the morning in the back. Julian Assange was insinuating that this young man had been the source of the DNC leaks that implied that, that showed that Hillary Clinton and the DNC conspired against Bernie Sanders in the primary. And you don't really hear about that anymore. I mean, that guy's dead.

He's dead and there's no investigation. There's no, no one was found guilty. No one was tried. There's no, there's no, no one's looking. That guy was killed. Well, I'd like to look into it. I think Assange has kind of lost credibility by essentially becoming a conduit for the Kremlin. Like all of, you know, WikiLeaks, we all know that the, I mean, people in security, so anytime I talk about this, people are going to respond and say, oh, you're just dozen different security agencies, also confirmed by the Brits, by the British Secret Service, all believe, say that they have good reason to believe that the Kremlin was behind the hacks and that WikiLeaks released, must have been in cahoots with the Kremlin because otherwise how did they release the DNC hacks? Well there could have been many

people that were trying to hack. There could have been but our secret services can see fingerprints on things. They know how these things work. They can see the back doors. So do you think that Julian Assange was lying when saying that guy was part of the leaks? He could have been one of the conduits. He could have been one of the

people that leaked it to Russia in the first place. That's possible. That's possible. That's possible. I just don't know why I would be trusting Julian Assange about any of this, because he says that it didn't come from Russia. Well, the other thing that I would worry about with Julian Assange is that this poor fuck has been trapped in the embassy in London for so long, and he can't get out.

I think he's got a problem with his head these days. How could he not? Pam, he's back. Pamela Anderson makes a sixth visit to lover Julian Assange as she brings vegan cheeseburgers to the Ecuadorian embassy for the WikiLeaks Foundation. What? Pamela Anderson is banging Julian Assange? My God.

Powerful Julian Assange. Wait a minute. Hold on a second. Julian is trying to free the world. I love him for this. Pamela Anderson reveals her feelings for Assange in rambling blogs on sex and faking orgasms. Baywatch actress and model 49 is said to have been dating WikiLeaks founder, has been stuck inside.

He's been stuck inside the embassy in Knightsbridge since 2012. Not anything has been stuck inside by the sounds of it. I'm all right. Or a pussy thing who's been stuck inside by themselves. Pussy's too big for him to get stuck. You know what I'm saying? Well, I guess he's done well for himself for a pale, pasty Australian who's never... What did you just say, Jamie? She's been visiting him there and whatnot. For how long? Last

couple months, at least. She's looking pretty good when you cover her up and put her all in black. How old would Pamela Anderson be now? She's 49. We just read it. She's 49, he's 45. Oh old would Pamela Anderson be now? She's 49. We just read it. She's 49, he's 45. Oh, I see. He's 45. She's 49.

She's an older woman. Oh, dark and older. It comes around, doesn't it? Fuck yeah. I mean, time wins on all of us. I look like shit compared to when I was 25. There's nothing you can do about it. Everyone does.

There's nothing you can do about it. It just beats you. Do you reckon we'll get to a point where science can reverse that? It's on the way. 100%. They've already done it in mice. Imagine what people would pay to be able to look and feel like they did when they were 25. Well, you know that Peter Thiel guy is already getting young blood put into his system.

I don't trust that guy. Him and Julian Assange should meet up and create some little underground empire or something. Why don't you trust him? I don't know. There's something fishy about him. He's a big Trump guy, which in and of itself is not bad, but he's such... He's a very smart billionaire Trump guy. Billionaire gay Trump guy. Yeah.

Weird. And also that whole, you know, suing Gawker until it went under. Well... He's a vindictive prick. Well, they had it coming. I mean, they outed him and then they went after Hulk Hogan and then the guy said that he would release a sex tape of a child

if he could get away with it. You remember that? Yeah, I do. And I don't condone them, but I don't like setting up a precedent where very, very rich people can just... This wasn't the only thing that he was suing them about. He was basically just throwing lawsuits at them so fast that they couldn't keep their head above water and they

went under because, I mean, how can you... Eventually, the person's going to win a lawsuit. I don't like the idea that media companies can just be constantly sued. They went after a creep. I mean, well, they were creeps and they went after him, but they went after a rich guy. Yeah, well, we live in America, which has a First Amendment. They're supposed to be able to do that without being sunk.

But should they be able to reveal details about his life that he doesn't want public? That's what the First Amendment is you're allowed to talk. Is that a First Amendment that you're allowed to go after someone? Like, say if somebody decides to just go after you, you're not even a public person. Is he public? He is a public person.

How is he public? Because people know who he is because he's rich? I don't actually know whether that was part of the defense. So you think they should be able to just write crazy shit about you? Unfortunately, yes. Really? Because that's what freedom is. Do you think that America would be a better place if fantastically

wealthy people could launch an endless string of lawsuits, whether or not they're legitimate, at media companies they don't like? That's a good question. It really depends on what that media company did and why they did it. I mean, I'm no fan of Gawker's tawdry. Like, I didn't consume any of that stuff. I don't believe in outing people.

I don't think that they were right. But what it says about his character is what I find troubling. Much like Trump, I basically don't like vindictive people who the moment you cross them, they then spend the rest of their lives and fortune coming back to hunt you down. I don't think that's a mature character trait. I see your point. I see your point. The question would be, what if they cost him money and they profited from it financially? By being gay?

No, not just that That's not the best example Because you know There's nothing wrong with being gay He should have just been out in the first place right? But that's his choice isn't it? Yeah it is his choice I don't really believe in outing people

But on the other hand just grow up But he didn't sue them over that He just decided they were cunts I think he did sue them about that But He just decided that they were cunts and he was going to go after them. I think he did sue them about that, but that didn't work. And then he sued him about, he sued him on multiple occasions.

If you've got infinitely deep pockets, you can ruin, you will find a way to ruin people by dragging them through the courts. So you think he should have been able to bankroll Hulk Hogan? Did you think Hulk Hogan had a legitimate gripe? Yeah, I think so. Right.

I mean, cause wasn't, wasn't it the case that he didn't realize that he was being filmed at the time? Yeah. Yeah, you shouldn't be able to have a video of you having sex with somebody that you didn't know was being taken. Yeah. Splashed all over the internet. Yeah, and then profit from it. And then profit from it, sure.

So the real question was, should he have been able to bankroll Hulk Hogan? Exactly, that's right. Yeah. Or should there be some limit to the number of like lawsuits? Because, I mean, you would want people to be able to bankroll cases that they care about deeply. Right. But maybe not three or four completely unrelated cases all against the same organization. Who's to decide, right? That's where it gets weird. But isn't this like life in general? Yeah.

It's slippery. Yeah. I mean, it's like we were talking about with abortion. Like, what is it? Is it killing a baby? Yeah. Or is it a medical procedure? Yeah. Can we all just agree that it's both, that like, that I don't understand why there is, especially in this country, like it's so, so polarizing here.

You know, this is not a debate. No. Oh, come on, man. No. Honestly. Dawkins had tweeted something about it, there's nothing people like a human embryo was essentially the same thing as a pig embryo

it was like some ridiculous comparison to abortion the religious right will always be crazy about the things that it's crazy about and people will always get offended on Twitter when Richard Dawkins tweets something that's unpopular by the way I have an interview with him coming up.

So if you don't, let me just plug, if you don't subscribe to We The People live and search for We The People or one word in your podcast app, I'll be talking to Sam Harris tomorrow, which will get released in a couple of weeks. And don't shout at me for not releasing it immediately like you did last time, Twitter. Don't tell him not to shout at you.

We'll have some... That's their right. Exactly. They have the first remnant right. It's true. I'm going to sue their asses. I'm going to drag them through court. And I'll be talking to Joe about...

I'll be doing... Launching a little Ask Me Anything kind of Q&A thing. And so I had... I did a live event with Dawkins. He's had a stroke. Post-stroke.

He's great. He's fine. He's doing well. Well, the stroke did not affect his cognitive function. No. But it did affect his ability to sing, which is interesting.

Oh, that's interesting. He can't keep a tune. Yeah, and so there are a few motor functions that I think it's affected, but it didn't, yeah, as you say, it didn't affect his cognitive. So that'll be being released. So follow at WTP underscore live on Twitter. Nobody's going to remember this, bro. They'll find it. They'll find it, weird people.

Anyway, so what Richard Dawkins was saying is people are going to be angry at him on Twitter regardless of what he says. But I still affirm that in the States, the conversation around abortion is uniquely different from the way that it is in Europe and in Australia. It's much more of a fault line issue. it's just much more of a fault line issue. And I wonder whether in hindsight, it wouldn't have been better for Roe v. Wade not to actually have been decided by the Supreme Court that way. What? Well, just because, I don't know,

people are going to hate me for this as well. You fucking cisgender piece of shit. I believe in abortion. With your surrogate mama. I believe in abortion rights, but I don't believe that it's, that you can find in the Constitution of the United States a right so inalienable that the Supreme Court – like, where is it in the Constitution? The Supreme Court said there's a right to privacy, therefore there's a right to abortion because we don't want to interfere in women's affairs.

But that presupposes that the embryo isn't a human. You don't have the right to privacy to kill somebody, right? I mean, if I go into a room, my right to privacy doesn't extend to me being able to get away with killing a baby. The question of whether or not it's a baby is the relevant question. That's not addressed in Roe. So I think that it should be legal, but I think that it should be legal through the legislative process. I think that is a legitimate democratic aspiration for people to be able to...

And if it means that it's not legal in Alabama because a majority of people in Alabama don't want it, I don't think the founding fathers would have a problem with that. Well, there's a strong amount of... a large amount of people that don't want men talking about this at all.

Yeah, well, fuck them. They don't feel that you should be able to discuss this. Yes, that is the problem. That is one of the main problems in America as well. It's a female issue. Well, I can understand a woman being upset that a man with no stake in the game is stepping up and saying that a woman should or should not be able to have an abortion. Well, why, I mean, how do I have stake in the game of whether or not, for example, murder should be legal?

Well, okay, this is not that. This is something different. No, it's not. It's not something different. It's a moral question. It might be to you, but it might not be to them. If it's just happening, like, okay, here's the morning after pill. Is that the same as an abortion?

I don't care because I don't think there's anything wrong with abortion. No, I don't think there's anything wrong with abortion. But sure there is. If it's a nine-month-old baby, the baby's in there and it's about to come out the next day, you decide to open her up and stab it in the head? This is what I'm arguing for is a kind of incrementalism, which you were just alluding to, right? It's not a black or white thing. Why can't we all appreciate that it's both?

Because it's become so polarized in the United States that both positions are bullshit, and people on both sides know that both positions are bullshit. It's bullshit to say that it is just a women's health issue and has no ethical implications whatsoever, even if, as you say, you're talking about cutting a woman open at nine months and stabbing the embryo in the head. It's also bullshit to say that the instant an egg

is fertilized, that is a person that should have all of the rights to life that an adult should have, and that it's murder to kill a blastocyst that's smaller than the size of the head of a pin. Right. It's very complicated. Both of those positions are stupid. This is an incremental situation. Life evolves. It grows. A fetus grows. It becomes a human being. I mean, Peter Singer, the great philosopher, also an Australian, says that under certain

conditions, infanticide, the killing of babies, should be legal and could be ethical. Well, he's an animal nut. He loves animals more than he loves people. But he makes a legitimate point, which is that, you know, why does it make a difference one day after the baby is born? Suppose you've got a premature baby that's born, you know, four, not week-old baby after birth, but timing from the moment of conception. That could live outside the womb. Right. But the moment it gets born, it becomes murder to kill it.

But you could have killed exactly the same organism with exactly the same future and exactly the same prospects and exactly the same life if it was inside the womb. In certain states. Well, under Roe v. Wade, I'm not talking about late term. I'm talking about the point of viability. Does Roe v. Wade state a viability time? It's been interpreted as being like that 20 to 24 week mark. But does it specifically say that? I don't know whether or not that comes out of the actual ruling

where they were writing it in Roe v. Wade, but I do know that that is the way that it's been interpreted by lower courts since then. But maybe they actually spelled out the number of weeks. Either way, you know, he's pointing to a legitimate conundrum, a sort of moral hypocrisy on both sides of this. It's a very complicated, slippery issue. It's not simple black or white.

Right, and the idea that we shouldn't be allowed to think and talk about the moral quandary of this because we can't have babies. Well, I'm not agreeing. I think it's silly. I'm not agreeing to that. No, I know. But I'm saying that is an argument that women want to take because they feel like there's this unjust sort of male dominance on the female reproductive system.

Look, when I see a bunch of white men, white old men sitting in Congress making rules against women, predominantly young women, predominantly young women of color who are in areas that have less, the least amount of access to safe and legal... What do you mean predominantly women of color? How so? Because safe legal abortions are more difficult to obtain in places like rural Alabama than they are in places like New York City. Yeah, but there's a lot of white people in rural Alabama. I don't necessarily think it's a racial issue as much as a poverty issue.

Yeah, okay. Especially things like Planned Parenthood and shutting down Planned Parenthoods. They're just going to affect people that don't have much money. Yep, who are disproportionately people of color as well. things like Planned Parenthood and shutting down Planned Parenthoods, they're just going to affect people that don't have much money. Yep. Who are disproportionately people of color as well. Disproportionately in terms of the actual numbers of human beings or percentage-wise? In terms of percentage-wise. Right. But the actual numbers of human beings, it's not.

Right. But you can understand how it would look bad if you're a black woman. Well, I just think that when you add people of color to that, it accentuates the issue and makes it even more problematic. It makes it more of a big left-wing progressive issue right that can't be argued against do you think the opposite discrimination against people of color oh don't want to do that it's people yeah human beings but do you think that the optics would look as bad if all of the old white men who were writing the

laws were black I think it all looks bad I don't think it'd look as bad the idea hold on a second. You're saying that if old white men make these issues, it doesn't look as bad? No, I'm saying it looks as bad as possible. It looks worse. Then if old black men were making this issue against all poor people? Yeah, because old white men just seem to drip privilege because every single checkbox they've got going for them. They're both male, they're white, and they're old, and they're rich male they're white this is a tortured argument anyway very tortured argument i think you understand thomas you don't think it looks weird when clarence thomas votes against abortion

oh yeah i do yeah so there you go but i mean my point my point is simply i take the optics as being a bad thing i think the optics are worse if it's white people and if it's black people but i'm happy to i'm happy to yield that point to concede that point if that's a sticking one. The point is we have to be able to have conversations about anything without allowing our identities to prevent us from being able to think. I mean, the first time that I came on this show was because I was getting into an argument with an activist about whether or not I had a right to have an opinion about whether or not Stephen Colbert had been racist. Right. And she was claiming that I didn't I didn't have a right to have a conversation about

it because I'm a white man. Well, that was just the way she tried to get out of the argument. You know, the whole thing before that was her not understanding the joke. And she didn't want to own up to the fact that she didn't understand the joke. And then when you sort of explained it to her, she was using the you as a white man thing to try to deny your opinion. But don't you think it happens all the time? I mean, as you just alluded to. I think we're both on the same page here in that I think we both agree that you should absolutely be able to have a conversation about this. The question is, should a man be able to decide what a woman can and can't do with her body? And should we be able to make

the laws? But you just smuggled in the term with her body. Well, it is a baby if it's a blastocyst and it is in her body. Right. If it's a blastocyst, it's in her body. Right. So that is a decision. We're talking about that. So when it gets to be an embryo or a fetus, along the way... Somewhere along the way, it ceases to be just her body. But an unrelated male human being,

when should that person be able to make a decision? And should a male human being be able to make a decision at all? Because if you can make a decision about the embryo or a fetus, can you make it about the blastocyst? When can you decide? And why should a man be able to make a decision at all because if you can make a decision about the embryo or a fetus can you make it about the blastocyst like when can you decide and why should a man be able to make that decision in the first place because he's got because he's got a brain as well and we're all invested in

controlling someone's body you are talking about controlling a body no which a woman with a blastocyst inside of her you tell her she can't take care of that blastocyst and remove it she must make it viable and bring it to birth. We're talking about when a homo sapien comes into existence. That's a philosophical and ethical question. No, it's not. You're framing it as being a woman's body. No, no, no. Because we're talking about the rights. Giving

someone a right or stopping them and controlling them. If you're talking about a blastocyst inside a woman's body and you're a man and you decide, you don't even know this woman, you decide by your moral argument and judgment she should not be able to terminate that blastocyst, then you are deciding what she can do with her body. No, you're deciding what she can do to the blastocyst. It's in her body.

Yeah, it's inside her body, sure. It's also inside her body when it's nine months old. So you're saying a man, unrelated man, should be able to have input on whether a woman should be able to terminate a blastocyst? No, I'm saying that the democratic institutions of the state should be able to decide that. I'm not talking about democratic institutions. We're talking very specifically about a man being able to decide. Well, if it's a dictatorship, then I don't agree with it. I do believe that people should be able to.

I think this is something that people ought to be able to vote on. Yes, I personally, again, favor abortion rights. But I don't think that the gender of the person who is voted into power by the voting public is relevant in terms of whether or not the voting public thinks that embryos are human beings. I don't think that embryos have a right to life. But I don't think that it makes sense to say that an embryo is just the woman's body. We're not talking about an embryo. We're talking about the entire process, right? The entire process of conception to birth and that somewhere along the line it becomes slippery.

What are you arguing? Are you arguing that if there are males in positions of power in Congress that they should have to abstain from ruling? Should the male justices on the Supreme Court have to abstain from voting on abortion cases? I'm arguing that it's problematic when a man decides, who cannot get pregnant, decides when a baby is actually a baby. So should men not be allowed to vote for candidates that are anti-abortion? Don't you think it's problematic that a guy should decide whether, like, say if you're a hardcore right-wing Christian. Yeah, I've already said it looks bad. Not just looks, the fuck looks,

man. But what does problematic mean other than looks? Well, it's not, it's a huge issue. It's not looks. It's a huge issue that someone who cannot get pregnant decides that another human being that they're totally unrelated to can't make the decision that five cells that have bundled together must be brought to life they think that those five cells are a person well they don't even know this I mean you're just a lot of cells they don't even know this person they don't know this for why should they have any power over this person why should they have any power determining when are they controlling a person's body and when are they saving a baby?

Well, that's precisely the question, isn't it? Right. That is the question. Should a male have the right to determine whether or not a woman can murder her newborn baby? It's a good question. I say no. At least you're consistent. Yeah.

I don't think that you should be able to. What if the baby's one year old? I don't think anybody should be able to murder a baby. I don't think a man should have the right. I think we society as a society... No, no, no, no. I thought you were just saying that you think that a man should not be able to prevent a mother from killing her baby. No, I said that wrong. What I mean is no... Because that is what you're saying with regard to abortion. You're saying that a man should not have the right to prevent a woman from killing her baby. This is a very odd conversation when we interrupt each other. It's not going to work.

Okay. I know what you're saying. And I know that you're saying that we should all have a stake in this. We should all be able to discuss this. I just think that when you talk about, especially like a blastocyst eventually becoming an embryo, we have to agree in some way, shape, or form that you and I don't have a stake in it. We're not going to get pregnant.

No, that's right. It's a way bigger issue for a woman than it is for a man. Yes. So we agree. We agree that it's a way bigger issue for a woman than it is for a man. We both agree that you should be able to discuss it. I just think... We both agree that you should be able to discuss it.

Yeah, I mean, my... And you should be able to have this word I just think... We both agree that you should be able to discuss it. Yeah, I mean, my... And you should be able to have this word debate. Where I'm coming from here is that I feel like we use identity politics to deprive other people of standing to discuss questions that are actually universal because they're moral questions. Right.

And I think we all have... So one thing that I try to do as much as possible is understand where people who I disagree with are coming from. And I know you do that as well. So I am pro-abortion rights. logic into their camp and see things from the way that they see them which is that the instant egg is fertilized for them that becomes a sacred a sacred question of a new life where it's no longer about the woman's body it's now a moral and ethical question that we're all involved in because we're

all involved in what our culture is allowed to do and who it's allowed to kill and how it's allowed to kill them so it becomes a bit more like a death penalty question where you might say well i'm never going to be up for the death penalty because i'm never going to do anything that would put me on death row. So what standing do I have to be in favor or against the death penalty? That's sort of a moot question. Like we're all in this society together. We all have to figure out what's right and wrong. And if we've got a brain, we should have conversations about what's good or bad. And the fact that I'm unlikely to be in a specific scenario doesn't actually really give me less standing to have a conversation about it or even to write laws about it if people vote me into a position where I can write laws about it.

Well, I certainly think it does when you're talking about a blastocyst. I certainly think it does when you talk about the argument of conception and when something becomes alive. So let me ask you this. When do you think abortion should be legal? Do you think it should be legal up to nine months or do you think abortion should be legal? Do you think it should be legal up to nine months or do you think it should be a cutoff period? I think it should basically be legal all the way up to nine months. And I probably agree with Peter Singer that maybe, maybe it's occasionally okay to kill babies. So you think, wow. So you think that a viable baby inside a woman's body at nine months old, she's fully pregnant. As long as that baby doesn't come

out, she should be able to kill it. Well well i'm saying even if it does come out maybe that's because i'm evil that's so ridiculous you really think a woman should be able to murder a baby well religious people think that you think that because they think that blastocysts are talking about religious people i'm talking about you yeah you. Yeah, I think it's obvious that the process of going from an egg into a Joe Rogan is such a long and incremental passage that I don't see any reason why 20 weeks or 22 weeks or even vaginal birth is like the absolute moral cutoff. Don't you think, though, that that's weird, that you have this really rigid opinion on it? I don't have a rigid opinion. Well, you have a thing that you could kill a baby.

You don't think that's rigid? No, because I'm absolutely open to being convinced out of that. It's just I happen to have read a book by Peter Singer about that, and so he's sort of convinced me. I mean, what you would hope for... He convinced you that you should be able to kill a baby when it's born Well that there would be systems in place that would like that would help mothers I don't think that it should be I sort of agree with Bill Clinton's old framing that abortion should be safe legal and rare

Right that you should have as many opportunities for people not to get pregnant in the first place widespread contraception contrac widespread sex education, and that this should not just be a form of birth control. Right. On the other hand, if people find themselves in a horrible pickle, and they don't know of how to get out of it... You think you should be able to hit the baby with a rock? We used to do it years ago, didn't we?

Yeah. I don't know, Joe. It sounds pretty horrible, doesn't it? It does. It does. But again, you can't get pregnant and I can't get pregnant. That's true. But I could kill my kids after they're born.

They're getting furious at us right now for even discussing it because of the fact that we can't get pregnant. They're wrong. They're wrong. But you're right. No, I'm right that I should be able to talk about it, but I don't know what the answer is. You definitely should be able to talk about it, but you should be able to kill a baby with a rock. Yeah, probably. No, probably not.

Maybe when I talk about that I'll never be on death row, maybe that's how I'll get on death row. I'll end up killing my children. It's so evil and unsympathetic and unempathetic to want to kill a baby. Some people think that killing a blastocyst is the same joke. It is, but you don't see that little fucker. No, you don't. That blastocyst is like, you would have to have reading glasses on to even look at it at the head of a pin. So as long as you put a comforter over the baby so you can't see what's happening.

I think what we're talking about is a really complicated subject. And I think it's one of the reasons why people like to box it and put it into this yes or no black or white because it's so complicated to really sit back and think that hey if you have an abortion at you know four weeks five weeks six when does it have fingers you know when does it have a heartbeat when is it okay and it's also incredibly fraught with tripwires right I mean people are not going to be happy with me saying that you should be able to kill a baby, and people are not going to be happy with you saying that you should be able to kill a blastocyst.

I think more people will hate my position, if it even is a position. Well, when is a blastocyst? Is that the moment of conception? Like, how much time do you have? It's almost like a race to kill the baby. We need... Oh, God.

Well, some people don't think that you should even be able to use contraception. Well, that's right. And also, this is one of those things where, a bit like pedophilia, it's a subject where it's not really possible. It raises passions so immediately. Look at what happened to Milo Yiannopoulos when he was talking about his pedophilia stuff, right? Well, he was also talking about his own personal experiences and framing them in a positive way. Yeah. And even saying that he was the sexual predator. That's what he said on my podcast. Yes. When he got on the other podcast, when he was on the Drunken Peasants podcast,

that's where it got more weird. Yeah. Because then he started framing it in a different way and saying that he thinks that there's a lot of positive benefits to a young man, like a, I shouldn't say a young man, a boy, having a relationship with a man sexually that can help them. And that there's positive benefits to being molested as a young boy. I think that's obviously a horrible thing to say. I think what was going on was he was trying to rationalize his own sexual abuse. Hmm. I really do. Hmm.

I mean, I think in no way, shape or form is it comfortable for a young boy to be sexually abused by an older man. And I think that in this process of rationalization he's created this way that's empowered him and he's also rationalized that he was the predator i mean he keeps saying that and joking around about it but he was 13 or something yes i think he's a victim and i think his his he's a very strong smart guy and i think a lot of his intelligence has allowed him to use his perception of that event to sort of shape it into a way that benefits him. Yeah, right. Right. I mean, I was on a TV show in Australia where there was a question of whether or not we should be naming and shaming sexual offenders, sexual sexual predators or people who've been convicted

of sex crimes and in the meeting before we went on air because it's a live show i raised the point that like i think the more sort of interesting and controversial angle here is what a bloody horrible nightmare it would be to be born being sexually attracted towards infants right right now this is in no way to diminish the monstrosity that is pedophilia i think it's the worst thing that you can do to abuse the trust of children who are too young to to know any better but it's surely no walk in the park like the reason i'm not a pedophile is not because i'm a good person it's because i have no attraction towards children right right imagine if the only way that you could express yourself sexually and find fulfillment in life was by torturing another human being. Like you're basically a form of, I don't want to use the wrong word here, but it's a form of psychopathy in some way in the sense that like a psychopath can only get fulfillment by doing something that's awful.

So the job is to try to figure out how to stop the psychopath from doing something awful. I'm not saying that pedophiles are psychopaths, but you can see the analogy where if your only way of finding fulfillment in life is to rape children, then let's address how to figure out how to stop you from doing that thing rather than demonizing you as a monster, even if you don't do it. For me to even say that, a lot of don't do it. Yes, that's a really, that's a very simple issue. A lot of people are going to push back on that as well. And it's a very similar thing to where I'm just trying to figure out in my head what makes the most sense to me. And as you say, it's got to be some kind of a spectrum of, like, it can't be black and white, either on abortion or on something like pedophilia.

But the moment you start having conversations like this, shit's going to explode. Because people are very, very, very strident. Like, you've got to protect the babies. Like, you know, we've got to protect the children. Yes, I understand that. But does that make it impossible for us to have conversations about it? Right. That's the issue is that should you even be allowed to have a conversation about it?

And should you have a rigid black or white view of this? Yeah. And if you are. Well, here's the real question. First of all, we don't know what causes someone to be sexually attracted to children and we don't know how many of those people But there's a significant amount who are actually molested themselves. Yep. I mean, that's a huge factor in in child abuse So what what causes that I mean, is it and the here's that's even more fucked up throughout history Some of the greatest minds have been pedophiles

Even more fucked up. Throughout history, some of the greatest minds have been pedophiles. Really? Sure. Socrates, Plato. I mean, you can go back through history. They were all fucking young kids. Well, yeah, the Greeks were like that, weren't they?

Oh, some of the Romans. Many, many ancient cultures. I think that was adolescence, though, right? They were fucking... Fucking 12-year-olds. Yeah, like boys. What Milo Yiannopoulos was talking about. It's pedophilia where you're talking about babies, which I think is probably even more rare than someone fucking young boys.

Yeah. But it's, it's a very bizarre part of our human history. Yeah. Very bizarre. And it makes you wonder how much of that sexual abuse gets somehow or another transferred from a child being abused to that child growing up, becoming an adult and becoming an abuser themselves? Is it a cancer of ideas?

Is it almost like a sexual disease that gets spread from perpetrator to victim? The victim becomes perpetrator, makes new victims? Well, do you think it's the same act now as it was back then because it's more accepted back then it was more accepted back then so i wonder if i wonder if it wouldn't have been less i don't know maybe it's not less bad i'm trying to think i'm talking so i'm talking now only about people who are sexually mature right so like someone who's like a 15 year old catwalk model let's just let's assume that it's a woman who's walking down the catwalks of Milan and Paris and has what she thinks is a consensual relationship with a 25 year old fashion designer

that's against the law right and it's regarded as being deeply unethical in our current society happened all the time in other societies yeah um there's no I'm not saying that I think that the law should be changed I don't I think it's I think that the law should be changed. I don't. I think it's good to have laws against these things, and I don't think that it's ethically defensible for people who are significantly older to assume that a person who is still kind of evolving and still coming of age is capable of giving proper consent. Well, it's illegal if they're just three years older. Right. That's where it gets really weird.

Right. Well, that is weird. That's stupid. Well, how about a week older? Yeah, exactly. If they're like 17 and 51 weeks and the other person's 18 in one day. It's illegal. That's stupid.

There's a Romeo and Juliet clause that some countries have. Like, I think in the Netherlands, it's not against the law to have sex with people even as young as 12 or 13, as long as, if you're 14. Oh, okay. Or like if you're like, maybe 18. Well, what is the law in America? If you're 15 and your girlfriend's 14, is that legal? I think it's a state-by-state thing, isn't it?

But that's a good question. Well, you would never be prosecuted. But there have been these weird cases where teenagers have been prosecuted for having, like, dick pics of not only their boyfriends or girlfriends, well, not dick pics of their girlfriends, unless they're trans, but of themselves, and they've been prosecuted for child porn because they're a child and they're holding pornography. Yeah, I had a whole bit about it. Yeah, I had a whole bit about this girl.

Bloody ridiculous. Yeah, they arrested her. She was sending boys pictures of her pussy, and they arrested her for child pornography. She was 15 years old Yeah, I mean that's a weird use of the law, you know Look if she's sending it to other girls and boys that are her age It's not your business. Who are you protecting by throwing her in jail? No one but it's a it's a an ability What when you give someone a game called arrest people that are doing bad, here's the law. If they don't follow by the bylines, you're allowed to lock them in a cage. And this is your job. You're allowed to do that. And I want you to arrest a certain amount of and police officers. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's almost like, I can't remember who I heard saying this the other day, that police used to go out and catch bad guys and solve crimes. But now we've sort of outsourced to police the job of just making everything kind of nice.

Well, police are glorified revenue collectors in a lot of ways. I mean, why are they giving people tickets for certain traffic violations? Yeah. Or for smoking a plant. Yeah. There's a lot of things that people get arrested for where they're essentially just providing money to the system. They're not serving or protecting. It's funny. It's one of the things where when I talk to Americans about the best things about America, the number one thing that Americans will always say is freedom, that this country represents freedom.

But the actual daily experience, like I've lived in New York and I've lived in Copenhagen and I've lived in Australia, and like the daily experience of, like I was standing outside my apartment in New York drinking an open beverage just watching the world go by and a couple of cops came over and one of them was like, yo, what's in the glass? What's in the glass? And I was like, just soda. It was vodka soda.

Just soda. And his partner had to be like, ah, don't worry about it. Like, come on, don't make a big deal out of it. And they walked away. But I was like, go to a park in Copenhagen. Everyone's drinking beer. They're not getting harassed by cops. Isn't that a kind of freedom as well?

They're taking off their shirts and they're playing volleyball topless with their breasts hanging out. First of all, you're talking about one specific area. Because if you go to New Orleans, people walk down the street drinking all the time. Yes, and it's more free. Yeah, if you're in Vegas, people walk down the street drinking. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, is it better to live in Vegas or New Orleans? You know, some people would say yes, and other people would say, I don't want that for the children.

It's bad for the children that I might abort. Yeah, that's right. I don't know, man. I don't know. I mean, I think it's complex. All these issues are very complex. It's like, when should you just let people run free and rampant to the point where chaos ensues? And here's another problem.

And I was talking about this with a friend of mine the other day about North Korea When people have become sort of indoctrinated into a specific style of life and behavior and then all sudden you remove the reins Yes, like when people who live in Kansas go to Vegas and As opposed to someone who grows up in that environment or like say we were looking at the north korea footage yesterday of them goose stepping down the street and the giant throngs of people who are following the orders and doing the bidding of kim jong-un we're saying like what would happen to those people if you remove this military dictatorship and gave them a democratic life would they even be able to appreciate it and understand it or are they so

Institutionalized are they so indoctrinated into this very specific style of living and behavior that they wouldn't be able to adjust Like I talked to Ron Miscavige about that you know who is he got out of Scientology when he was fucking 76 I mean stop and think about that the guy got in in 1970 and got out in 2012, lived the bulk of his life in this really bizarre environment, and now all of a sudden he's this free man. This is why I'm sort of libertarian-ish when it comes to non-economic cultural issues because I actually think you need to inculcate in people an experience of showing restraint by themselves because if the law always does it for you, you all over the place and getting drunk because they've been so used to, so acclimated to never being allowed to do it, that now it's the forbidden fruit. Let's go out and just get smashed in the park, because that's all we can do now. Well, you know about Amish people? Yeah, Rumspringer. Yeah, when they get to do that.

What was Hell's Playground? Was that the documentary? I haven't seen it. There's a great documentary about it. These people, they have this period of time where they're allowed to do whatever the fuck they want. It's basically when they're in their late teens, right? They're let

loose from the Amish communities and they're allowed to indulge. They go hog wild. They go hog wild. They party fucking hard and then they have to figure out whether or not they want to go back to being Amish. And most of them do. Yeah, strange. It's interesting that you use the word institutions, Joe, in describing like North Korea, because I think this is another thing that I'm so grateful about America for and why I'm sort

of optimistic that Trump is not going to destroy this country. That institutions like, this sounds like such a valuable thing to say, I was going to say institutions like really matter but institutions are like so important I agree but it's true

you look at places like Hungary and what we've just seen happen in Turkey and you know Russia and Venezuela and it's much easier for people there who are corrupt or who would like to bring people under their spell to do so because there aren't these big, robust, divided institutions like the press being fiercely independent, the judicial system being fiercely independent, Congress and the executive hopefully hating each other just enough to keep themselves in check. And also just the traditions of American life

where there's, I think, more acceptance of dissent and of weirdness than there are in those other places. Like, Russians are just very, I don't want to generalize here, but allow me to, conformist people.

Like, they've lived under tsars and fucking empires for centuries and millennia like they like following strong men americans aren't like that right some of them are there is this kind of militaristic jingoistic side to america which is very kind of like salute the flag and like say yes please like you got to honor the honor the veterans and everything i'm not president. Yeah, exactly. Respect the office, all that kind of stuff. And I think that way tyranny lies. I think the best thing that America has ever kind of given the world is its flamboyant, boisterous sense of possibility and craziness that expresses itself in Silicon Valley and maybe Peter Thiel, who I might not like, but at least he's unusual in Hollywood, even in Wall Street. There's just an excitement in this place, which seeps out in so many different ways in America,

that I think to try to corral it as a dictator would be like herding cats. It'll never quite work. Well, we can only hope, because if Trump has his way, he would definitely try to do that. He would try to get all these people to do his bidding, and figure out some way to dismantle all these different institutions and make it much easier for him to make America great again and just fucking force that agenda through. Yeah, I don't even think he would think that he's doing the wrong thing, would he? I don't know. Do you think, I mean, he says he admires Putin, I mean, which is very bizarre.

I mean, it's very bizarre. And when he compared what Putin does to what we do that we do terrible things to like whoa That's great that guy murders people on the street. Yeah, I mean he any political opposition. He fucking kills them He kills reporters mean or somebody does I don't know if it's him somebody somebody does right outside the Kremlin You know on the main bridge leading to the Kremlin at night and all of the security cameras from the Kremlin happen to go off and have their footage missing just when the murder happens. It's amazing. The amount of power that he wields is stunning.

Yeah. If someone on the left in America said, oh, who are we to say that Putin is a bad guy? Think of all the bad things that America's done. They would get destroyed! Just demolished, right? That's a kind of Noam Chomsky thing to say. You're right, that's exactly it.

You know, America's chickens are coming home to roost. We did this in Vietnam, and now we're no better than Putin. Fuck that. I mean, it's the right that's supposed to believe in American exceptionalism. Trump's not. Trump isn't that. Well, he's got a very bizarre interest in Russia. And that's one of the reasons, I think, why he doesn't want to release his taxes. The real question is, how much money does he have invested in Russia?

Like, how much financial influence do they have on him? I wonder if part of it is, when he says that he admires someone like Putin, if it's just his sort of some way that's more... So I've always found the how much money does he have invested in Russia question somewhat less interesting to me than why does he want to suck Putin's dick so much? You know? Isn't this a convenient interpretation? A convenient interpretation of what Putin represents? Because he doesn't really have time to look at all these different things. You know, it was revealed the other day that he's not really aware that Kim jong-un is not Kim jong-il

It is confusing. There are too many Kim's in the careers, but you didn't say that Yeah, there's like this ridiculous thing where he's talking about this gentleman He was talking about Kim jong-un and he was referring to conversations that Kim jong-il has had with Bush And I mean the whole thing I think there's too many things to focus on. And he's so fucking busy with himself and his business interests and the things that he's trying to push through and fucking ExxonMobil and all these different subsidiaries that he's kind of invested in. He's got his fucking fingers in so many different pies. He's also just not interested in the affairs of state. He doesn't care about foreign policy and stuff.

Like it's all a bit, he doesn't like learning stuff. He doesn't like, he's not a good reader. Well, what's one of the big concerns is that he's not concerned with foreign policy to the point where he's putting off all these things and letting the military do their job. Yeah. In quotes. Did you see the point that he didn't even authorize the mother of all bombs when it was dropped on Afghanistan last week?

He gave the military the option to do what they think is right. And that's what Eisenhower warned about when he left office. Yeah, that's right. But in some crazy way, don't you feel more safe with the military doing it than with Trump doing it? In some way, yes, absolutely. Well, I think there's a real argument that the military has been That they've been held back To the point they have I mean look you're engaging in war right and that there's a real argument that the people in the military Make that people die because they're forced to take too many steps before they get clearance to do something

they're being attacked and So their argument is it's better to let people who really understand war engage in war. But then there's the Eisenhower argument that, well, you're dealing with an institution like the military industrial complex. You're dealing with a, I can think of it as an organism that survives on war. There's a tremendous amount of money that gets pumped into this thing, this war machine, right?

And then what does it want to do? It wants to fucking use all this stuff. It wants to go to war. That's right. And have you noticed how the military contractors, have you looked at how delicately spread out around America they are? Like they have plants in almost every single state so that there's always a congressperson or a senator who the military contractors can call and be like, well, you're going to lose like so many thousand jobs in this little.

Of course, you know, shit poked out. It would actually be more. It would make more economic sense for them to have consolidated their operations and be making all the submarines and warships in the same place. But then they make one widget in Delaware. They make another one over here, another one over here. So they've got Congress and no one's ever going to want that plant to close. It's dodgy. It's like most of the things that we've talked about today, they're super complicated and there's so many different things to consider and there's no real

one black and white answer. When you're dealing with so many factions and so many variables and so many things, that's one of the reasons why being a president is a preposterous idea it is it is stupid it's ridiculous isn't it they have too much power i mean you talk about black and white and you like shades of gray how do you negotiate with the north koreans and the south koreans and the chinese and the Japanese and the Russians about what to do about Syria. Well, sure. Or Syria. Yeah. I mean, in some ways, what did you think of Trump hitting Syria? Well, no one died, right? What he did was attack airfields. He blew up airfields. It was a show of force. Is it the right thing to do? don't i don't know um i don't understand exactly

what is accomplished other than you blow up an airfield and have to rebuild it i mean you show people that you can do that but we already knew you could do that you show people you're willing to act i guess i mean back in 2012 and 2013 i thought that obama flubbed it by saying that we wouldn't tolerate the use of chemical weapons and then doing nothing. What a reaction by the right and the left. People were very weary of war back then. Absolutely. I think they've relaxed a little of that.

We're more willing to go in again. We took a break. Yeah, exactly. I'm going back in. It's like when you go in the pool, you swim for a while, and then you come back out. No, I'm hot again. I want to get cool again with a nice foreign war. Yeah. It's like, you know, when you go in the pool, you swim for a while, and then you come back out. No, I'm hot again. I want to get cool again with a nice foreign war. Yeah. There was Vietnam, and we didn't like that. And then we forgot about it long enough, so we did Iraq, and we didn't like that.

But now that's kind of fading, receding into the distant past as well. But I actually interviewed Phil Donahue on HuffPost Live because he was a very outspoken anti-war critic. on HuffPost Live because he was a very outspoken anti-war critic. And I was saying at the time, like, can't we be nuanced enough to make a difference, to understand the difference between the Iraq war, a full-scale invasion based on a misunderstanding or a misleading interpretation of what Iraq's capabilities and its weapons program was. And this Syrian problem, which is a horrifying civil war where a dictator is gassing his own people and we didn't want to invade,

but drawing some kind of a line in the sand and saying, you can't do that in the 21st century. You can't just be dropping gas canisters on kids so that they bleed out their eyes and like cough up their own lungs that's not a way to behave in the united states as an exceptional nation will do something about that you're right that obama really had his hands tied because he went to congress and congress didn't give him the power to do it but i kind of felt somehow sort of slightly vindicated when trump did it like i was not one of the people on the left who was like oh my goodness what's he doing

i was like okay i mean at least that's a... At least it's something. I agree, but it's also an incredibly complicated situation because Assad is against ISIS. Superficially, yes. But he uses ISIS as an excuse to be able to target all of his political opponents. It's too much. I can't take it. It's too twisted.

It's too twisted. And there's no way to get rid of ISIS without getting rid of Assad. Because the locals in Syria who are left hate Assad, who are anti-Assad. They hate Assad even more than they hate ISIS. So as long as Assad is there, they're going to give ISIS their sympathies. So this idea of like, I mean, basically the whole ISIS thing

I think is just a smokescreen to allow Putin and Assad to crack down on dissidents. But isn't it also like a lot of the same issues that they faced when they dethroned Gaddafi in Libya? You create this void. What would happen?

Exactly. And now I think it's too late. Libya's a failed state. Yeah, I think we've missed the boat in Syria. Well, what the fuck? What do we do, President Josh Zeps? What do we do? We build a time machine, Joe, and we go back to 2012.

There's not much you can do. I don't know. There probably wasn't even much we could do. Do you think... Can you imagine, you should have one president that deals with just Syria. That should be your job, 100%. Yeah, that's right. The idea of having a president that also deals with ExxonMobil and BP, and then also was talking to the coal people, and also was talking to the people in Silicon Valley.

Well, I mean, that's why you have an administration, right? I mean, so the Secretary of State is broadly overseeing it, and then they will have a special envoy to the Middle East who basically is the president of the United States for Syria. Yeah, and then Sean Spicer's in charge of cleaning up lies. I mean, he's the alternative facts president. Yeah. Do you think that the world would be better or worse off if America had just stayed completely out of the Middle East from, like, the end of the Cold War on? you overthrow them i mean the cia has been battling that for years i mean they're propping

them up or propping them up or propping them up and shooting them down or you know trying to keep that issue over there and keeping them from becoming big enough where they spread to the point where they become another nazi germany or what have you it's a really good question and i'm too fucking stupid to give you an answer yeah me too i mean who knows i mean look it's just to give you an answer. Yeah, me too. I mean, who knows? I mean, look, it's just disturbing that something like North Korea can exist in 2017.

I want to go. I really want to go to North Korea. I think it'd be fascinating. Really? Yeah, because it's like the last kind of hermit kingdom left. It's the last true Soviet-era communist dictatorship. You could probably go, right? Yeah, I think you can.

But the problem is you have to be kind of accompanied by a chaperone who works for the government, who only shows you the things that the government wants you to see. Henry Rollins went. That's right. I heard him on your show. He's so gangster. He's so good. I was in New Zealand actually listening to that episode at the lounge in

Auckland airport coming back to Australia a couple months ago. And Henry was really inspiring to me in that episode because it made me realize like, yeah, just because I'm getting old and like I'm going to be a dad and everything doesn't mean you have to lose your sense of adventure. That dude is badass. Yeah, he's got 100% sense

of adventure to the point where he won't have a relationship. He's like, it's not worth it. It's just too much work. But he's also a hundred percent sense of adventure to the point where he won't have a relationship He's like it's not it's not worth it It's just too much work, but he's also an interesting case study in giving kids medication a very early age He was one of the very early Prozac kids. Oh really? Yeah, they've riddled in rather Yeah, they hooked him up. They hooked him up with a Ritalin when he was fucking five years old man Hmm from five years old to high school. How does he feel about that now now terrible I mean he just described it like it's horrible like his white knuckled his way through the day and at the end of the day the Ritalin would wear off and he'd be exhausted hmm yeah we go through class I mean that's a good

chunk of his intense personality behavior has to do with him being raised on speed yeah just crazy it's funny how it has a different impact on people who have ADD than people who don't, right? Yeah, I guess. What is ADD? I mean, it's a real thing, but how does it manifest itself in a person? And how does it manifest in a person that is formed in this environment where they're forced to be in this rigid, controlled, social experiment called school.

Well, that's right. Why do we have classroom? It has to be 30 people, and they all have to be sitting in a row facing a blackboard. They have to program you to have a regular job that you don't have. I don't have. He doesn't have. There's a lot of people that don't have jobs where you have to work in a fucking cubicle like that. Well, that's one thing that I assumed we would have gotten to today, which I'm surprised we didn't,

which is like the rise of automation and robotics and stuff. I mean, how many millions of Americans, I think it's the largest employment sector for working class males is driving. Yeah. Self-driving cars are just around the bloody corner. What's going to happen to the millions of Americans who make a living driving trucks and U-boos? The big solution to that that a lot of people bring up is universal basic income.

But universal basic income, you know, there's people that have a problem with that because they believe that people are only motivated by want. And then as soon as you give them money, then they're not going to just pursue their interests. They're going to lay around and do nothing and just live off of that money only. Well, and this also, the question of whether or not that's right or wrong comes back to America's sort of Puritan work ethic as well, right? The idea that it would necessarily be wrong for a person not to be doing something productive. But like, if the robots are doing all the work and they're producing lots of wealth,

then who cares if someone's doing something productive or not? Right. We're worried that they're going to get mad at the people like you that are out there being ambitious and they're going to kill Mercedes. Well, maybe I would sometimes not do anything as well. I'm Australian. We're criminals. Goddamn criminals. We have a saying that thank God we were convicted by, thank God we were settled by convicts instead of by Puritans. Well, it's a good point. I mean, we're fighting off the echoes of those fucking ridiculous instincts from the Puritans that landed here. We're still fighting that off.

I mean, that's a big part of what America is. Yeah, I think that would be a big impediment to universal basic income. This Puritan sense of justice, that there is justice. And also, I think maybe people just want work. They want purpose. Like the people who were retrenched by... But you could have purpose as well as universal basic income. You'd have to

sort of program it into the zeitgeist of the culture. Right. And give people what? Voluntary ways of expressing themselves and contributing that weren't tied to their income. Yeah. Encourage people to pursue actual interests. Like say if you gave people universal

basic income and encourage them to pursue artistic venues or ventures, I mean, you know, whether it's writing or painting or whatever the fuck it is, and you say, like, look, there's a lot of merit in that. And you can do this. Your food is bought. You have a home. You can eat and you can sleep.

You have a roof over your head. Now do what you want. What do you want to do? I think it's a fantastic experiment, and I'm glad that there are a few little jurisdictions in Scandinavia and Canada which seem to be trying it out, because I'd be interested to know how many people... You could imagine different groupings of human psychology.

Some people will be like, Awesome! I don't have to worry about making money. I'm going to become the greatest artisanal furniture maker that I can, and that's fantastic. And then at the other end of the spectrum, there'll be people who are like, sweet, don't have to work. I'm just going to sit at home all day. That's fine too, right? As long as there aren't too many crimes. I bet crime rate's lower because of that.

Oh, I'm sure. That's what we should be hoping for. The idea, the real good argument for universal basic income is that the money that you spend giving people a certain universal basic income, you would save money from people going to jail, juvenile detention, medical issues, all sorts of issues that come out of poverty. There's a lot of issues that come out of poverty that are directly connected to that. Yeah, this is one of the arguments for welfare as well. I mean, people who say that it wouldn't have any impact on crime, I would just say, look at the different countries in the world that have more or less generous welfare systems. And the ones with more generous welfare systems do tend to be more peaceful places. There might be other reasons as well. I think they're correlated. And I think also one of the things that I try to do, I really try to support people who make things. People who make things by hand.

Companies that make stuff. I like when people make stuff. I like when people pursue, like this table is made by an artist. I like when people make handmade knives. I like that stuff. I think people get deep satisfaction in doing things like that. Like Russell built. The guy made that clock

right there. That's a handmade clock. That dude built that fucking thing. That one, this TGT studios, it built that right there. That's a handmade clock too. I try to support that shit as much as possible. I think that that is the future. When I look

at that clock, I know a guy made that. That means something to me. It's cool. It is also a really cool looking clock. It's pretty dope. If you asked me to make a clock, I wouldn't know where to start, Joe. Well, you would figure it out. I would. If you gave you enough time and books and all that stuff.

It might not be a clock for you. It might be that Buddhist sculpture. Somebody made that and sent it to me. I mean, there's a lot of things that people can make that other people would enjoy. And I think artisanal goods and services and things that people do that are handcrafted, they have a special meaning to them

that people, they value versus something that's mass produced. I wonder if enough people can find self-expression through that to counteract the job losses that are resulting from and will continue to result from technological advance. Well, I think that with universal basic income is possible. But I think making things is not necessarily the only way to do it. I mean, it's making art, being creative, encouraging people to think of that as an actual way to live.

That's a big impediment and a big hurdle that people have to get over. It's like the North Korea thing that you were saying. Like, if you got rid of the North Korean regime, would the people who lived under it have the scope, just the mental scope to know what to do with themselves? In some ways, it's a comparable question with capitalism, right? If you took away the capitalist incentive to work and all of a sudden everybody was liberated and had a basic income that gave them all the sustenance that they need, would they have the horizons available to them, having been raised in this idea of, like, you've got to work, got to climb your way up the ladder, got to get a 9-to-5 job,

go to college, get an education, please the boss, get your promotion. To have all of that suddenly fall away and be like, you know what? Just go and make clocks. We'll pay you anyway. Some people would figure it out. But other people would be like lottery winners. They just go crazy. Like lottery winners almost universally lose all their money.

I know. And they end up unhappier. Yeah. Because everybody's mad at them. Yeah. Because if you win $5 million in the lottery, everybody goes, Josh, come on. It's free for you. I got bills, bro. Hook me up. And then people start, look, you and I are going to do a business. We're going to paint

cars. And you're like, fuck, I don't want to paint cars. And next thing you know, you're loaning money out and family wants money from you. And you're just dealing with a lot of bullshit. And also, you have expectations immediately after winning that things are going dealing with a lot of bullshit. And also you have expectations immediately after winning that things are going to get a lot better. And as you know from anyone who has paid attention to the process of their own consciousness, whether that's through psychedelics or flotation tanks or what Sam Harris and Dan Harris were talking about recently

about meditation, your conscious perception of life is not determined by what's going on outside. Yeah. It is trivially, occasionally, and like in the short term. But in the long term, your actual happiness, it comes from within. But people always take the path of least resistance. And oftentimes the path of least resistance is these patterns that we've carved into our behavior.

These behavior patterns that we've carved into our psyche. these behavior patterns that we've carved into our psyche. And a lot of times those aren't even the path of least resistance. They become the path of more resistance. But we're so accustomed to those paths that we think of them and treat them as if they're the right path. Mind blown. Fucking man. There's no answers.

There's no answers to abortion. There's no answers to North Korea We didn't figure out shit It's not the point Joe It's not the point to figure it out Let's end this and do yours Yeah wonderful I want to talk to you

I'm going to do like a quick round of questions And also talk about extraterrestrials on my podcast with Joe Josh motherfucking Zeps ladies and gentlemen Thank you sir Always a great time I love you Oh I love you too brother all right we'll be right back with josh zeps