#2012 - Gad Saad

[0] Joe Rogan podcast, checking out.

[1] The Joe Rogan Experience.

[2] Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day.

[3] Oh, you, sir.

[4] Oh, my God, I'm excited to see you.

[5] Good to see you.

[6] It's always great to see you.

[7] I think this is the ninth time I appear.

[8] So am I entering kind of Hall of Fame status?

[9] Yeah, there's like after five, anybody with more than five.

[10] That should be like the top line on my CV.

[11] Forget about all the other bullshit.

[12] Nine times on Joe Rogan.

[13] We've had some fun conversations.

[14] Yeah, before we start, today, July 25th is the release of my latest book.

[15] All right.

[16] Here's a copy for you, sir.

[17] Thank you very much.

[18] The sad truth about happiness, eight secrets for leading the good life.

[19] Boom.

[20] All right.

[21] Please read it.

[22] I will enjoy it.

[23] Did you do the audiobook?

[24] Yeah, I swear to God, the number one thing I was worried that you were going to ask me was that.

[25] And you lead off with that.

[26] So here's what happened.

[27] An actor does it.

[28] So he has a beautiful voice.

[29] I insisted, I said, Joe Rogan berated me on his show for maybe 15 minutes, listened to him.

[30] They pitched it to the audio publisher.

[31] The audio publisher said, sorry, we do in -house narration.

[32] So I think for the next book, I'll put it as part of the contract.

[33] Yeah, it has to be.

[34] They're silly.

[35] They're silly, especially in you're a public figure.

[36] Like, there's hours and hours and hours and hours and hours of you talking.

[37] Indeed.

[38] Now, when people want to hear your words, they want to hear them through your mouth.

[39] And it's personal stories.

[40] Yes.

[41] It makes no sense.

[42] I'm sold.

[43] Believe me, I fought the fight.

[44] I know.

[45] But it's such a silly fight to have when someone's a professional public speaker.

[46] Yeah.

[47] Like, it doesn't make any sense.

[48] With a very velvety voice.

[49] Velvety.

[50] Smooth.

[51] And, you know, who's closer to the subject matter, right?

[52] Like, come on.

[53] You know the truth behind the words.

[54] It's like you're going to say these things, if you're talking about especially like real life experiences, you're saying them as you.

[55] I lead off, by the way, in first chapter to talk about sort of existential happiness about how I came very close to being aborted in Lebanon.

[56] I don't want somebody else to be telling that story.

[57] Right, right, right, right, right, right.

[58] Of course.

[59] Your story is wild.

[60] You know, when I find about people like yourself that have been through, um, like a really scary thing really scary like genuinely scary like scary threats for threats for your life war zone stuff folks like yourself have so much less patience for nonsense exactly and that's why i sometimes can appear irascible yeah when i go after me because sometimes people will say you know when i meet you you seem so much nicer and warmer than how you are on social media but i'm not trying to be mean on social media it's that I'm pissed off at the bullshit.

[61] And so it comes across as though, you know, I'm cantankerous and combative.

[62] But I'm just really fighting, hopefully, the good fight.

[63] The real problem with social media is the problem with human beings.

[64] It's tribal group think.

[65] And it overwhelms these groups of people that you associate with.

[66] And then narratives get formed.

[67] And you can't stray outside those narratives.

[68] You can't even look at objective reality.

[69] You can't look at data.

[70] You can't look.

[71] It just becomes so crazy at the idea.

[72] ideology and the adherence that ideology trumps everything trumps the truth it trumps you're you're willing as long as the politicians on your side to ignore craziness corruption horrible shit you ignore all of it perfect example of that i hate to say that i've seen his feed meathead from all in the family rob riner have you ever gone to his i've read a couple of tweets and i'm like i'm out i love his work too much I know.

[73] I know it's hard to then like his work when he is so overwhelmingly obsessed with Trump.

[74] Stephen King is another guy who fits that description.

[75] Something happens to old liberals with a ton of money.

[76] It's like something happens to those old creative types.

[77] Yeah.

[78] It just, you know, it doesn't make sense.

[79] It doesn't make sense that you're arguing with people online about it all.

[80] day long if you're Rob Reiner or if you're Stephen King like putting you know nasty tweets out it's like come on so I actually I wrote maybe it was shameless plugging of my book but I I responded to rob Ryan I said let me send you a copy of my book man there's so much that you have to be happy about stop being mired endlessly in vitriol I mean that's all he does I mean imagine this guy how many things he's got to be grateful about he's a creative guy a talented guy And he spends all day obsessing on issues that ultimately he's got no control over.

[81] Well, people viewed Trump as an existential threat to the very fundamentals of the country.

[82] They thought that he was going to come in and he was going to represent corruption on a level that we've never seen before.

[83] But the problem with doing that and saying that is that it opens the door to examining all the other corruption.

[84] Like, how much corruption is there?

[85] Yeah.

[86] Like, how much, what do you, who's, how much money you guys making?

[87] How, where's this money coming from?

[88] There's so much corruption that's readily available that once you start opening the door to calling someone a monster, then everyone gets to look at you and go, hey, but what about you guys?

[89] Like, what are you doing?

[90] What, what about, what about, what about, what about, what about, what about you guys?

[91] Like, what are, what about, what about, the, the, the, the, the, the borders where, like, criminals are coming through.

[92] Like, how many are being sent back?

[93] What's the numbers?

[94] Yeah.

[95] What's the numbers?

[96] I mean a lot of them are good people that just want to find a better way to live and good for them and I would do it.

[97] I would do it too if I could sneak across into America and be assimilated.

[98] I would fucking do it.

[99] Yeah.

[100] Why wouldn't you if you got a bad roll of the dice and you're living in somewhere that's less favorable and you get the opportunity to just all you have to do is get across the river and they let you in?

[101] But how many of those people shouldn't be here?

[102] How many of those people are dangerous?

[103] How many?

[104] What's the number?

[105] It's not zero.

[106] What's the number?

[107] Well, I could tell you that I We've talked about us in the past when we've talked about people who come from certain cultures where there's rampant anti -Semitism.

[108] Yes.

[109] And so if you let people that are coming from cultures where, when they're pulled somewhere between 90 to 99 % of them will exhibit rampant Jew hatred, it doesn't take much of a sociologist or, you know, survey analyst to recognize that out of all those people that are coming in, you're going to have an increase of Jew hatred.

[110] Yesterday, I was out with some friends here in Austin.

[111] And so one of them asked me, have you seen an uptake on, you know, Jew hatred?

[112] Are you exposed to more?

[113] I say, it's endless.

[114] I mean, it's usually on social media.

[115] Do you think it's ramped up?

[116] Or do you think now that Elon has taken over Twitter and allowed much more free speech?

[117] Hard for me to tell.

[118] I really don't know.

[119] But there is kind of a normalized, now, many of them are behind anonymous accounts.

[120] Of course.

[121] But there is kind of a cavalier normalization of just saying, so for example, I think someone had retweeted, you know, a promotional thing about my book.

[122] And someone said, you know, why are you promoting the Jew?

[123] You're like, my God, this guy could be your son's teacher.

[124] He could be the grocer at the store.

[125] You know what?

[126] I have a real concern with that.

[127] And I also have a real concern with vested entities like organizations that would want people to be at each other's throats stirring up things with fake social media posts because this is a real problem that's happening in the world right now right you know um someone um tweeted a bunch of different examples uh of where dozens and dozens of accounts are saying the same inflammatory things with the exact same wordage exact and they're all like you know they have numbers and letters and their accounts like just random accounts and you know you go to their page it looks kind of real they have a photo there's like them with a flag it's like and you go through it but you get this sense like oh you're you're a bot like you don't even a real person like so you you're an agent of you're stirring up bullshit so there's a certain aspect of our culture I don't know what the percentage is but there's a certain aspect of the conversations online that are being flavored by fake accounts that are designed to get people upset with each other.

[128] It's like psychological warfare on a level that no one anticipated and no one's prepared for because when you have the two things we already discussed, like this adherence to the ideology no matter what, no matter what, like there's no, you can't object to.

[129] logically defend any of the things that are in opposition of it and then you have this so are you I noticed I mean obviously we follow each other on Twitter you almost never I mean short of the recent thing you did with the Peter Hottes you almost never weigh in on anything is has was that sort of a conscious thing for you to step back yeah well with that one it was like okay this is crazy you're you're you're saying that he was he made some crazy tweet about neo -fifes fascist leanings.

[130] Yeah, yeah, yeah, I saw that.

[131] Like, what are you talking about?

[132] Like, with Robert Kennedy Jr. with me, I'm like, this is dangerous.

[133] Like, what you're saying is totally untrue.

[134] You know it's untrue.

[135] And you're willing to just say it because, like, the more you can discredit someone who's in opposition to some of your ideas, the more you can somehow another in your weird game of checkers you're playing, like elevate yourself.

[136] But you don't think people know what you're doing.

[137] Like, that's like the most clear neo -fascist like what the fuck are you saying did you feel more angry at the fact that you had already had a conversation with him and so you there was some kind of personal connection between you two i mean i understand he's not your for sure i've had him on at least what was he on twice twice i've had him on twice i was very nice to him yeah even in disagreement with him like in issues of health i was very nice to him yeah but you can't just say stuff like that and you know it's like I just wanted to say, like, have a debate with the guy.

[138] Yeah.

[139] Like, have a debate with the guy.

[140] So what ended up happening?

[141] I think it got up to, like, $2 million.

[142] He's not going to do it.

[143] He won't do it.

[144] You know, I don't think he wants to do it.

[145] You know, and there's the idea that, like, Robert Kennedy would be too silver -tongued, like, oh, stop, come on.

[146] Because he's a lawyer, you know, and he's really good arguing stuff.

[147] Like, if you either have facts or you don't have facts.

[148] Right.

[149] And if you're scared to debate the facts, I have to go, what are these facts?

[150] Well, what's bothering you?

[151] Like, what do you worry that he might bring up?

[152] I mean, what are we saying?

[153] It could be the case.

[154] So, for example, I've been often asked, why don't you debate creationists about evolution?

[155] And I take the position there of Richard Dawkins, which is it's not that I'm too hearty to debate anyone, is that there's almost no chance that I could present any evidence that would cause you to alter your position.

[156] So it's really a losing proposition.

[157] So could it be that Peter Hotez is coming from that perspective?

[158] It could, but you know what I would say to that?

[159] even in your case it is preposterous for someone to not believe that at least there's a process of evolution at this stage it's kind of crazy to because there's like there's evidence of things that are happening where things are adapting to their environment right now that we've tracked yeah exactly like you know there's a little antelope in the Congo that swims underwater and eats fish is that right yeah it's called a dyker I think it's called a dike er I think that's how you say it but little animal evolved lived on grasslands and the grasslands became rainforest and when the grasslands these little like prairie animals are trapped inside the Congo there's an amazing BBC documentary about it but they've got like these things are evolving yeah like they're figuring out a swim but believe me having spent 30 years trying to convince some of my academic colleagues about the value of evolution in studying human behavior they'll go la la la I don't want to hear it with human behavior yeah and especially with you know certain narratives so this one is just swimming in the water but these motherfuckers can go underwater they can so the the dikers that they were talking about in the Congo they can swim underwater for like a hundred yards why do I feel that the crocodile is about to hit it any second now because we've seen too many of those videos that is arguably one of the scariest scenarios the scariest the fucking scariest I have to pause something happened with my video oh right now Oh.

[160] It's some doing sense mixing your two things really strangely.

[161] I need a...

[162] Do we got a reboot?

[163] Not a reboot.

[164] I just got to figure out what happened.

[165] Oh, okay.

[166] But we got everything else?

[167] No, yeah.

[168] It's just, yeah, when I cut to your camera, it's blending them together and strange.

[169] So if people are only listening to audio, this is a special segment of the podcast.

[170] It's only just for you.

[171] There you go.

[172] Because the video's fucked.

[173] Should we stop talking?

[174] I mean, you can keep talking.

[175] It's just like the video looks weird, so I don't want to be a distraction.

[176] All right.

[177] Well, let's fix it.

[178] We'll pause.

[179] We'll be right back.

[180] We're back.

[181] All right.

[182] Technical difficulties.

[183] I just want to close the parenthesis on something that happened from last show.

[184] Oh.

[185] Incredible story.

[186] You ready?

[187] Yeah.

[188] That actually speaks about connecting with people.

[189] So last show you had asked me, or not you had asked me, we were talking about who would be some guests that we'd really want to have on our respective shows.

[190] And you probably don't remember what my two celebrities were.

[191] Do you?

[192] I don't.

[193] I don't remember.

[194] Clint Eastwood.

[195] And first, I appreciate his politics.

[196] I've been watching him since I was a kid in Lebanon.

[197] Number two was Bert Baccarac, who's, I don't, do you remember who that is?

[198] I remember the name.

[199] Bert Baccarac is the music composer who's basically written songs for everybody.

[200] He was featured in one of the Austin Powers movie where he, the guy says, Ladies and Gentlemen, Bert Bacarach, you know, anyways, after our chat aired, I go on my Instagram, I have a personal DM.

[201] Private DM from what looks like the account of Bert Baccarac, who's arguably the biggest musical composer in the United States.

[202] So I'm extremely excited.

[203] It turns out it was his son who said, oh, your clip with Joe Rogan was passed on to me, and I think it would be great for, I'd love for my dad to come on your show.

[204] Now, cut to the punchline.

[205] It never ended up happening.

[206] He recently passed away, so perhaps he wasn't, I mean, he was like 94, 95.

[207] But just the fact that you and I are having a conversation, someone else picks it up, and then my world can intersect with Bert Baccarag, whom there is no conceivable place where his word and her world and mine would ever connect, that's the beauty of life.

[208] Wow, that is a beauty of life.

[209] That's awesome.

[210] Is that amazing?

[211] You are a connector, sir.

[212] I try to be.

[213] Clinise would be an interesting guy to talk to.

[214] Like, the guy still works.

[215] He's like 93 years old.

[216] He's still out there making movies.

[217] He still enjoys it.

[218] I remember in Lebanon when I, you know, I only learned English when I moved to Canada when I was 11.

[219] And I got all the communication I needed to get.

[220] Even though there wasn't much dialogue in his spaghetti westerns, I would look at him and I would say, that's the man, you know.

[221] And so he's...

[222] Remember every which way but loose?

[223] Of course.

[224] He hung around with an orangutan.

[225] So that's a bit later, right?

[226] That's a fucking movie.

[227] That's in the 70s, right?

[228] I believe so.

[229] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[230] I believe it was the 70s.

[231] Yeah, yeah.

[232] He played a bare -knuckle boxer.

[233] That's right.

[234] Who traveled around with an orangutan.

[235] That's right.

[236] Yeah, I think that sounds like 77.

[237] But I'm talking in the 60s.

[238] I'm talking, you know, 65, 67, 68 when I'm, you know, four or five years old.

[239] And I'm watching this guy in Lebanon.

[240] Wow.

[241] That's the power of, you know, the male archetype.

[242] That is still every which way but loose, right?

[243] I'm not conflating two movies, right?

[244] That's the movie where he was the bare knuckle boxer, isn't it?

[245] I think that sounds right.

[246] Yeah.

[247] And I think at the time, his love interest in that movie...

[248] What the hell was that, Jamie?

[249] What was that?

[250] Jesus, Jamie.

[251] You got a wrong tab, open up, son?

[252] I started the trailer, and that's the first.

[253] How about taking in a new movie?

[254] Okay.

[255] I guess that's what this trailer is, and I don't know why there's nothing on it.

[256] Oh, you can't see the video?

[257] I don't know yet.

[258] Oh, what is happening?

[259] Okay.

[260] Yeah.

[261] But it's weird.

[262] Oh, there's a video.

[263] That's the one.

[264] I guess so.

[265] I don't know what that voice is over it.

[266] It seems like someone was...

[267] Oh, I said 77.

[268] It's 78.

[269] There you go.

[270] Yeah.

[271] This is a dumb -ass movie.

[272] Those movies are great, though.

[273] I love movies from that era.

[274] They're like ridiculous, like, like, smoking the bandit.

[275] Yeah.

[276] I mean, come on, man. Jackie Gleason, you got Bert Reynolds, Sally Field.

[277] Come on, man. That's a fun movie.

[278] Jackie Gleason plays a cop.

[279] It's hilarious.

[280] Yeah, yeah.

[281] What's your favorite movie of all time if you have to pick one?

[282] I really don't think I have one.

[283] But you know what I watched recently?

[284] I rewatched is 2001, Space Odyssey.

[285] I forgot how good that was.

[286] That movie is amazing.

[287] It's not just amazing.

[288] It's amazing visually.

[289] And it's from 1968.

[290] Yeah, that's amazing.

[291] The special effects are so good, like, all through it.

[292] Like, even the apes in the beginning, you know, the scene where they're evolving when they encounter the monolith, the fucking special effects on the apes is pretty goddamn good for 1968.

[293] My all -time favorite, the original 12 Angry Men, I first saw, and actually it speaks to what we talked about earlier about how you can get someone to change their mind when they're in a tribal mind.

[294] mindset because I watched the movie for the first time in a first semester.

[295] I was an MBA student and I was taking a organizational behavior class where the professor assigned us that movie to watch it to demonstrate group dynamics because for those of you who don't have, have you seen it, Joe?

[296] I don't think I have.

[297] Oh, you need to rent it tonight.

[298] So basically it's Henry Fonda.

[299] That's it.

[300] That's the one.

[301] Okay, I think I have it.

[302] It was a long, long time ago.

[303] So let me tell you the premise.

[304] 12 guys get together in a room.

[305] They're trying to discuss whether a guy should be found guilty.

[306] They take a poll.

[307] 11 say he's absolutely guilty.

[308] Let's go home.

[309] One guy, Henry Fonda, says, hey, let's sit and talk about it.

[310] The rest of the movie is how he gets each of the 11 other guys to flip their positions.

[311] And so that's why I had watched it in that MBA course because it demonstrates how, you know, there are techniques.

[312] can use to try to persuade people of course today you could almost never do it i can never convince rob riner of anything but you know i mean i wouldn't necessarily say that i think some people are just like really deeply cemented in their belief systems right and i mean maybe they can relax it's still it's still you're a human being if you're a human being and you're willing to look at objective truth you can realize that like there's some other things afoot there's like there's a tribal aspect to all of our ideological problems that makes objective reasoning a giant problem.

[313] It just like it gets in the way of everything because people are so tribally committed right now.

[314] And that they're tribally committed to this idea that the other side is the end of the world if they take power.

[315] Yeah.

[316] And there's all these different things that are bounced back around these societal issues that keep getting bounced back around.

[317] Where you go like, what, why aren't these resolved?

[318] Like, the Roe v. Wade one, and now they're talking about gay marriage, like doing the same thing with gay marriage.

[319] Like, why do you want to do this?

[320] Are you doing this because you just want people to squabble about shit?

[321] Because that's what it seems like.

[322] Because that's the only reason why you would have, like, Supreme Court conversations about gay marriage in 2023.

[323] Like, why would you, what?

[324] We've already had that debate.

[325] We're gone.

[326] We passed.

[327] that we passed that so if that's still and if people even want to bring it up for debate like is that real or is this one of those things that keeps us culturally squabbling and it keeps people like ideologically connected to one group and opposed with all their victory all the other group the other of the group they're monsters they're evil the the ruin of society yeah and this this fucking bipolar aspect to our society is just it's just it's It's fed by social media.

[328] It's fed by these fake accounts.

[329] It's fed by, you know, soulless commentators.

[330] The saddest part is when that tribalism comes into your own family.

[331] So here's an incredible story.

[332] I've appeared on Tucker Carlson's show, I mean, his old show several times on television, but his long -form podcast that he used to do, he had invited us to us, meaning my family and I, to Florida to do his show.

[333] He was super gracious, super warm with everybody with my kids and so on.

[334] And so I put out a tweet just thanking him for his hospitality.

[335] Hey, Tucker, it was so nice to meet you.

[336] Thank you for giving me the opportunity to chat, blah, blah, blah.

[337] A cousin of mine, Joe, who went through the Lebanese Civil War with me and who was my best friend growing up in Lebanon.

[338] So you would think that if there's ever a relationship that's cemented in the trials and tribulations of our childhood, it would be that relationship.

[339] So he puts out a tweet, and he says something, I mean, I don't remember exactly, although I quoted in the book on happiness, because I'm basically arguing, don't live your life like my cousin, he puts out a tweet saying something like, have you no shame?

[340] Right.

[341] So he decides to publicly shame me for being associated or agreeing to go on Tucker Carlson's show.

[342] That shows you what tribalism can do to the human mind.

[343] it takes something as difficult as what we went through to the Lebanese Civil War and erases it because he can't believe that I could do something as grotesque as to talk to Tucker Carlson.

[344] Yeah, and if you asked him for example, specific examples of why Tucker Carlson is so horrible, that's where it would get interesting.

[345] Because some people might be able to say some things they found disagreeable, but most people are just sticking to a narrative.

[346] There's just this narrative that he is evil incarnate.

[347] He is a transphobe or whatever it is.

[348] He's a Putin stooge.

[349] Yeah, he's a Putin stooge.

[350] There's all these different things.

[351] But they want to ignore all evidence that he's a lovely guy.

[352] And he really is.

[353] By all accounts.

[354] By all accounts.

[355] All the people that I know that have had interactions with him say he's a very lovely guy, including my friend Steve Ronella, he had him on a podcast.

[356] And these people that, you know, they had these ideas of who he was before he came on his podcast.

[357] And he's like, they all came away.

[358] I'm like, I really like him.

[359] He's a really nice guy.

[360] Even if you don't agree with his politics, seems like a really nice guy.

[361] Gracious, down to earth.

[362] What I love, you know how you often say, if you want to know whether the date that you're out with is a good person, see how he or she treats the server at the restaurant.

[363] Sure.

[364] So the way he interacted with my children, right, he was focused on them.

[365] He was at the moment.

[366] So how are you doing?

[367] How are you enjoying, right?

[368] So he's taking his time.

[369] He's not acting haughty and I'm this big.

[370] star he is focused on my children i thought that was really lovely that's what i was trying to convey in that tweet but to my cousin that was beyond the pale yeah it's unfortunate that someone would turn on you like that yeah it's just so foolish it's so foolish because it's first of all that that should be something that you would have a conversation with somebody about like if i care about someone they're they're talking to someone that I find egregious you know I think you would have a conversation with you call them up you know hey man just this is what I think like you tell me what you think yeah I want to know what you think so but there's certain like narratives that you can't like anything on Fox News is the Hitler it's the Hitler it's the evil it's well I'll be on the Hitler channel tomorrow when I go to Greg Gutfeld yeah it's like I mean I think they're trying to reform that in some sort of a way.

[371] And I think Fox News is getting a lot of pushback from people on the right that are very concerned with some of the decisions they're making.

[372] They're kind of going down the same path that a lot of these other corporations have gone down.

[373] Do you have a sense of what happened with the, do you have any?

[374] I don't know.

[375] So I don't know what happened with Tucker Carlson.

[376] I don't know why he got fired.

[377] I know as much as the average person who reads Reddit.

[378] I know some conspiracies.

[379] I know he was, he was kind of wild fellow when you think about, like, what he was doing on a major television show implicating the CIA and the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

[380] Yeah.

[381] And he's saying it with, like, utmost certainty, right?

[382] So you think that the reason of firing him was that they thought that he didn't adhere to some journalistic ethic or rigor or something like that?

[383] I don't know.

[384] Yeah.

[385] That could be the case.

[386] I don't know.

[387] I would think that when you have a network that's run by advertising, you know, it's what you do for income.

[388] Yeah.

[389] You know, I would imagine there's a lot of pressure by those people, those advertisers, to eliminate threats to their business.

[390] Right.

[391] So if you got some wild dude on Fox News who's saying a bunch of shit about what, whatever it is, whether it's the why we in Ukraine, whether it's why are you mandating vaccines, whether it's having that kind of stuff on regular television.

[392] It's a big problem to anybody that's selling advertisement that's in those businesses.

[393] Apparently Budweiser didn't learn that lesson.

[394] Well, see, the difference between Budweiser and pharmaceutical drug companies is that Budweiser is not prescribed.

[395] Right.

[396] It's not recommended by your doctor.

[397] You don't go to CVS to pick it up.

[398] It's different.

[399] And so this is like something that you can't really, you can't really criticize a brand and like say, yeah, we don't buy Pfizer around these parts anymore.

[400] Like it doesn't, that doesn't work.

[401] It's not going to work.

[402] You can do that with Budweiser, though.

[403] And you can do that with like, that's probably going to happen with some other stuff too.

[404] Like people are upset at the country music channel.

[405] Oh, yeah, the Jason L. Dean song, try that in a small town.

[406] The level of outrage, like, now, I'm not saying that that's the greatest song the world's ever known, you know, but the level of outrage coming from people that are upset about that song is so strange when there are hundreds of rap songs out there.

[407] Yeah.

[408] That are infinitely worse and also enjoyable.

[409] Misogynistic.

[410] Qualifying violence Oh yeah And no complaints at all Yeah yeah yeah And we're not even talking about old stuff There's new stuff too There's there's hip -up There's wild rock songs There's a lot of wild shit And to be focusing on that one And it's the racial aspect of it It was crazy because like The real Antifa problems that were happening During the BLM I think it was a lot of white people doing that Wasn't it?

[411] It was a lot of like lost liberal whites who are very angry who decided to take up this movement and smash things so like the racial aspect of it there's nothing racial about the lyrics or how about the tracy all did you see the tracy olman controversy no i did not so she she wrote in the i don't know if you remember in i think it was 1988 he had this iconic song fast car yes oh right right right and then this uh i guess he's a country music singer tracy chapman chapman that's the oman oh that's She's an actress, right?

[412] She's a comedian, too much.

[413] Tracy Chapman, thank you.

[414] And then this singer asked for her permission, I guess, to do a cover and so on.

[415] It's amazing.

[416] And then people came out that, you know, the white guy is usurping.

[417] Yeah, well, but that's always going to happen.

[418] You're always going to have a certain amount of people to say that.

[419] Yeah.

[420] It doesn't mean it's real.

[421] It's also, and apparently she's happy that he's doing it.

[422] Well, no kidding.

[423] Everybody's good.

[424] And it's a great song.

[425] I mean, it's really good as he.

[426] He didn't even change the gender, like when he sang it.

[427] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[428] You know?

[429] Yeah.

[430] I can become a checkout girl.

[431] He says checkout girl.

[432] Right.

[433] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[434] So what else is that?

[435] I think we were going to talk about what my impression of some of the prices in Austin.

[436] Oh, yeah, you were telling me that an espresso was $8.

[437] So, yeah, so yesterday I went out with, actually, I was at the hotel, and two friends came by to one of whom I think has been on your show, Michael, malice.

[438] Yeah, I love that, too.

[439] Yeah, he's lovely.

[440] And the other guy is a professor at U .T. Austin, who's really, Richard Lowry, who's really fighting.

[441] He's very much of an academic honey badger fighting against all the woke stuff.

[442] And so we were just hanging out.

[443] One of the guys ordered a Diet Coke and two of us ordered two espressos.

[444] The bill came.

[445] It was with the tip, $28.

[446] And I'm thinking, this is like Oprah money.

[447] Who can Who can, you know, afford these prices?

[448] You tell me what's going on in Austin?

[449] I have no idea.

[450] I didn't go to that place.

[451] But, I mean, in general, the real estate, everything is completely doubled, tripled.

[452] It's going, I mean, I understand that it's because it's a hot place.

[453] Yeah, but espresso shouldn't be eight bucks, right?

[454] Which is an espresso cost.

[455] Well, in Montreal, it'll be...

[456] Four or five is normal.

[457] What's normal?

[458] Montreal would be maybe for an espresso, so it's a short espresso, single espresso, three -fifty?

[459] It's hard for people to believe, but when I was growing up, there was no Starbucks.

[460] Right.

[461] People did not, they did not like coffee like they like coffee now.

[462] They are the greatest drug dealers the world's ever known.

[463] They're slinging that sweet caffeine all over this country, and that's what it is.

[464] It's the best drug dealing operation the world's ever known, because it's a super mild, productive drug that everybody enjoys.

[465] It feels like a warm hug.

[466] Oh, I feel the requisite drug conversations coming up.

[467] Here we go on a 30 -minute conversation of drugs.

[468] Yeah, but this is like a good drug.

[469] Like, caffeine is it, like there's whatever bad effects you get from coffee, they're so minimal.

[470] There's even, like, links to, like, good health benefits from it.

[471] Yeah.

[472] I think there's worry.

[473] People used to worry about dehydration, but I don't think they worry about that as much anymore when it comes to drinking coffee.

[474] They used to think that if you drank a lot of coffee, you would get dehydrated.

[475] But there's a certain amount of hydration.

[476] and you're actually getting from drinking coffee, too.

[477] So it's kind of complicated, because it is kind of a diuretic, but you're also drinking it.

[478] So that perfect segue into one of the chapters of the book, I talk about everything in moderation, which, of course, Aristotle already talked about the golden mean.

[479] You know, if a soldier is too cowardly, it's not good.

[480] If he's too reckless, he's going to die.

[481] And so, like most things, the sweet spot is in the middle.

[482] And so in that chapter, I go through a bewildering number of phenomena all of which adhere to that inverted you.

[483] Too little, not good.

[484] Too much is not good.

[485] And the ideal point is in the middle.

[486] Exercise intensity, inverted you.

[487] Alcohol consumption, inverted you.

[488] Coffee consumption, inverted you.

[489] Fish consumption, inverted you.

[490] And so I thought that was a really cool chapter to cover because it's arguably the most universal law that we can find.

[491] So many things adhere to that inverted you.

[492] And I think we had discussed this last time that I was on the show, the ancient Greeks were already aware of it.

[493] I mean, Aristotle in his Nicomachian ethics talks exact.

[494] I mean, he doesn't call it the inverted you.

[495] He calls it the golden mean.

[496] And so to our earlier conversation, the last time I was here in going through the research for this book, the amount of insights I've found from Seneca, Epictetus, Aristotle, Marcus Aurelius was just breathtaking.

[497] It was unbelievable.

[498] Yeah, I just got back from Greece.

[499] Was that right?

[500] Yeah, I was in Greece.

[501] for two weeks.

[502] And I saw the Parthenon and we went to Ulysses, went to Dallos, went to a bunch of different islands.

[503] It was really interesting, man. We checked out a bunch of ruins.

[504] And it's just so, it's so hard to even wrap your head around what was going on there, 2 ,000 plus years ago.

[505] Yeah, indeed.

[506] I did five islands, so maybe we can compare notes.

[507] I did Corfu.

[508] Crete, Naxos, Santorini.

[509] And the fifth one, I'm leaving to the end, I asked the captain, take us, at the time I was traveling with a buddy of mine after school, this is 1990, I said, take us to an island that's completely void of tourists.

[510] And so he dropped us off on an island, volcanic island called Folligandros.

[511] And we spent, I think, maybe two days there, not a single tourist, just hanging out with the locals.

[512] They didn't speak a word of French or English, and it was just magical.

[513] Wow.

[514] Where did you go, What was there?

[515] We went to a bunch of them.

[516] I can't remember all the names.

[517] Mikanos.

[518] All right.

[519] But that is, that's tons of tourists, right?

[520] There was a lot of people there.

[521] We went to, oh, my God, I'm not going to remember.

[522] A bunch of weird ones.

[523] But it was really, it was really fun.

[524] And it was relaxing.

[525] But the most mind -blowing thing was seeing the Parthenon and seeing Elysses and walking around there.

[526] Yeah, we just came back from Portugal.

[527] We did 16 ,000.

[528] days in Portugal, first time ever.

[529] I think it's a lusus.

[530] I'm saying Elyssus.

[531] It's a lus.

[532] Oh, okay.

[533] Yeah.

[534] Well, really enjoyed Portugal, with the exception.

[535] Apologies to all of my Portuguese listeners and fans.

[536] Not a very attractive language.

[537] You don't like that language?

[538] I don't like that.

[539] Do you hear it coming out of Brazil?

[540] It sounds amazing.

[541] Brazilian Portuguese is nicer than Portuguese Portuguese.

[542] Oh, no. I'm stealing here somewhere.

[543] I think there was a comedian who said this, but who said something that like Portuguese is akin to someone having a perpetual stroke in the way that, you know, Fazau, wow, right?

[544] There's kind of a twisting of the mouth that appears unnatural.

[545] And I can see that because I found that it wasn't the most pleasant.

[546] So now I'm going to get hate mail from Portuguese people.

[547] Yeah, they're going to be very mad at you.

[548] Because Brazilian Portuguese is beautiful.

[549] It's got a flow.

[550] It's got a flow.

[551] It's like a, it's like a dancing.

[552] Italian, you know, it's a. universally loved language.

[553] French as spoken in France.

[554] Now, I'm going to upset the next group of people.

[555] Quebec French is an affront to human dignity.

[556] What?

[557] Yes, sir.

[558] I said it.

[559] What?

[560] Yes.

[561] It's horrifying.

[562] I can't believe what you're saying.

[563] Now listen to this.

[564] My wife is able to switch her French depending on whom she's speaking with.

[565] So if she's speaking with someone who speaks international French, she'll speak in a regular manner.

[566] Not Parisian French, but like an international French.

[567] I speak an international French because we're from Lebanon.

[568] When she speaks to a Quebecer, she turns into a complete Quebecer.

[569] And oftentimes I say, how did you just do that?

[570] That sounds so inauthent.

[571] She goes, well, no, because if I speak in the regular French, then it'll come across as haughty.

[572] But that to me is so strange because that would be like, I speak with an Oxford accent with one person.

[573] And then I turn into the southern drawl.

[574] with the other person depending on who that doesn't stop there's a falsity to that there's a good argument there's a good argument that's a falsity to that yeah but there's also a good argument that like there's like a cultural agreed upon way of communicating you know like if you started talking like therefore thou like you started talking like that today people would go what are you doing man we don't talk like that anymore do you think I have an accent in English you don't have an accent in English you don't have an accent you have a very distinct way of talking okay so you couldn't say oh you're american or canadian it's well you have this there's that like your your words are very clear but there's like there's something going on right yeah it's clear there's something going on there right but that's a fascinating thing about a person that's able to speak multiple languages it's like you're you're speaking english but you're speaking english perfectly with like a little bit of a twist to it Right.

[575] Which is, I guess, an accent.

[576] So I guess the answer is yes.

[577] Arguably my only regret as a parent so far, may it be the only one that I ever experienced, has been that we haven't passed on our linguistic heritage, we, meaning my wife and I, to our children.

[578] So I speak Arabic is my mother tongue, French, English, and Hebrew.

[579] My wife speaks Armenian.

[580] And so between the two of us, we've got five languages, and yet our children only speak French and English.

[581] And the reason for that is because if I were to speak to them in Arabic or Hebrew, my wife would be locked out.

[582] And if she speaks to them in Armenian, I would be locked out.

[583] And so we ended up just agreeing on the two languages that we both speak.

[584] But now both our children are telling us that they regret.

[585] Because when they see me meeting someone who's Arabic and we break out the beautiful Arabic, at least my son has been saying, you know, Daddy, you should only speak to me in Arabic.

[586] but now it feels as if it's a vocabulary lesson, right?

[587] So I'm telling him, here is how you say, he goes, no, but just speak to me. Right, right, right, right.

[588] But that's easy to do when you're, you know, one year old, when you're 11, 12, 13, it feels false to start speaking to you in Arabic when you don't speak a word of Arabic, you know.

[589] Yeah, but that's a great way for him to learn.

[590] Yeah, indeed.

[591] Wouldn't it be?

[592] Yeah, of course.

[593] Because he'd have to keep up.

[594] He'd have to keep up.

[595] Yeah.

[596] That's what they say, like, if you really want to learn a language, really want to learn it.

[597] Move to a place.

[598] Oh, absolutely.

[599] I mean, one of the things that I regret the most is that I haven't been able to return ever to Lebanon.

[600] Because if I were to go to on a visiting professorship to say American University of Beirut for a year, they're going to come back flawless Arabic speakers.

[601] And especially, I mean, now my daughter's 14, he's 11.

[602] So they're sort of entering that period where they're pretty much soon not going to be able to ever speak it like a native speaker.

[603] There's something magical that happens around puberty where if you're, you learn a language after that period, you can never speak it without an accent.

[604] Really?

[605] And it really is.

[606] And no one exactly knows what causes that mechanism.

[607] But so, for example, I learned English at 11, and that's, that was the genesis for why I asked you, do I have an accent?

[608] Because I would expect that the time at which I learned it, I snuck in just before that period.

[609] Had I learned it when I was 13, 14, 15, I could have spoken it, you know, perfectly.

[610] but you would have detected a much stronger accent.

[611] That's interesting.

[612] That's a strange thing about human development and just the sounds that we all agree upon that equal the words.

[613] Well, there are tons of sounds in Arabic.

[614] Let's see if you can do them.

[615] You ready?

[616] First time ever on the Joe Rogan experience.

[617] Give me try.

[618] Okay, so for example, my last name, everybody, all Americans will say sad.

[619] You just extend the A. But the proper way to say it, it's God, Saad.

[620] Saad.

[621] Right, it's like Arnold.

[622] Like if Arnold was going to say it.

[623] It's sort of like, exactly.

[624] Or, for example, h, can you say h?

[625] Not ch.

[626] There's ch, hugh, and er.

[627] They're coming from different parts from my throat.

[628] What?

[629] Those are all the same.

[630] So if I say, if I say the Arabic people are going to laugh at this, that means your shit, okay?

[631] Okay.

[632] It's a ch.

[633] Intachara.

[634] Okay.

[635] Intachmar.

[636] That means you're an ass.

[637] Okay, you're an idiot.

[638] Say it again?

[639] The second one?

[640] Yeah, the second one.

[641] Intachmar.

[642] But see, you're saying ch.

[643] It's hugh.

[644] Okay.

[645] First time ever, are we breaking new ground?

[646] Oh, yeah, for sure.

[647] I've never even tried to say these words.

[648] Yeah, yeah.

[649] You know, it's Arabic.

[650] Earlier I said some derogatory things about Portuguese and about French Canadian, so let me be fair and say, not Arabic.

[651] Hebrew, which is also, you know, one of them from my heritage, is a violently ugly language.

[652] On the other hand, Arabic as spoken by the Lebanese, and I'm not saying this because I'm Lebanese, because, you know, Arabic comes in many different dialects, right?

[653] There's Iraqi Arabic, there is North African Arabic, there's Egyptian Arabic.

[654] The Lebanese Arabic is really the Italian of Arabic dialects.

[655] Get ready for some comments and I'll come in your way.

[656] Isn't it weird how when they have horror movies, whenever someone's like calling a demon, they always have to do it in an old language?

[657] Meaning?

[658] It's always in Latin or something.

[659] Oh, right, okay.

[660] They're always reading from some book they're not supposed to be reading from.

[661] What does it say?

[662] Muhammad's von Vlamada cha, and they're like, and then the demons come.

[663] Like you have to say the magic old words that people don't understand.

[664] There's probably some weird, you're a psychologist.

[665] You understand that shit.

[666] That's interesting.

[667] What's going on there?

[668] Yeah, you're putting me on the...

[669] Well, it's always, right?

[670] It's always like a dead language.

[671] Well, I think it's because of that.

[672] So because it's an extinct language, it's somehow...

[673] Calling demons.

[674] It's calling demons that exist in another world.

[675] I think it's as simple as that.

[676] What a dumb concept that the way to call demons is like by saying a word, like making a noise with your mouth.

[677] It's the perfect frequency.

[678] Or say Candyman in front of the mirror three times.

[679] Scariest movie of all times as we were talking earlier about...

[680] our favorite movie, Halloween, first one, Jamie Lee Curtis.

[681] Is it really?

[682] Till today, I would probably have a heart.

[683] See, what scares me about horror movies is not the supernatural stuff.

[684] It's the being startled.

[685] You see what I mean?

[686] When he comes, right?

[687] So oftentimes when I'm watching a horror movie, I will block my ears because it's that sudden sound that really scares me. I think if I had to pick an all -time scariest movie.

[688] I think I would see the first alien.

[689] Love that movie.

[690] The first alien movie, that is a scary movie.

[691] It's very different than all the other alien movies.

[692] Because in all the other alien movies, the aliens are kind of out in the open and you shoot a bunch of them.

[693] They're coming from all over the place.

[694] It's way unrealistic, by the way.

[695] Wait, we can get into that.

[696] Have you seen the documentary of the making of alien?

[697] I have.

[698] Isn't that amazing?

[699] It's amazing.

[700] That, HR, how do you say his name?

[701] Geiger.

[702] The artist that designed it?

[703] Oh, my God.

[704] What a unique vision.

[705] Unreal.

[706] Like, his art was so strange.

[707] That creature that he created was fucking amazing.

[708] It was literally like the ultimate terrifying alien predator.

[709] And a feminist empowerment because the alien is a female.

[710] Oh, the big one.

[711] The mother is the second one.

[712] But this movie is so fucking good.

[713] It's so good.

[714] And it's so scary.

[715] It's a great.

[716] sci -fi movie but it's also fucking scary like like you're talking about being startled yeah yeah like and that that alien in this movie is elusive and intelligent and traps people yeah and and and you you get to see it in brief glances and then in the new movies after that like they like aliens it's kind of a different things going on because you can kill them easy yeah yeah you just blasting a bunch of them and then the mother's at you but you got a robot body so you're all good like Like, so much ridiculousness that it just hurts my feelings.

[717] Have you ever seen 1980 Brian De Palma's Dress to Kill, which is kind of a precursor to all the transgender stuff that we hear today.

[718] Have you seen that movie?

[719] No. Oh, it's fantastic.

[720] Michael Kane, Angie Dickinson.

[721] Look, you're amazing, Jamie.

[722] It comes out.

[723] I mean, you're a wizard.

[724] You have to see this movie, Joe.

[725] Is she supposedly transgender in this movie?

[726] No. So what happens is, can I give away some stuff?

[727] Yeah, it's a spoiler.

[728] It's a movie from the 20s.

[729] You got it.

[730] Well, but if somebody wants to see it.

[731] So she is sexually frustrated with her in her marriage.

[732] So she goes to see a psychiatrist played by Michael Kane, who as she's telling him, her sexual stories, is becoming aroused.

[733] But he turns out to be a guy who wants to become a transsexual, him, the psychiatrist.

[734] And so he doesn't like the idea of being aroused as a male.

[735] because it is then, you know, attacking his desire to make the transition into being a female.

[736] And so dress to kill, the movie is him dressing up as a, there you go.

[737] That's Michael Cain.

[738] Oh, my God.

[739] It's phenomenal.

[740] I saw it as a 15 -year -old.

[741] I think that was my first exposure to, you know, transsexual operations and so on.

[742] Oh, my God.

[743] Yeah.

[744] Oh, wow.

[745] Yeah, yeah.

[746] This is an amazing movie.

[747] I highly, highly recommend it.

[748] 1980?

[749] 1980, 15 years old.

[750] Wow.

[751] This was the year, by the way, that year when my, not this is a weird segue, but when my parents were freed in Lebanon after having been kidnapped by Fatah in 1980.

[752] Wow.

[753] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[754] So I remember I was 15 years old.

[755] Another thing that happened to me when I was 15 years old, I broke my nose in soccer and then had to have it reset by the surgeon.

[756] And so for about a week, I wore a face cast.

[757] Did you get it fixed where you can breathe out of both nostrils?

[758] I think I can, yeah.

[759] But yeah, it was...

[760] That is so important.

[761] If anybody out here is listening and you have a deviated septum, get that fixed.

[762] If you can, if it's safe to do.

[763] Because it's like the benefits of being able to breathe out of your nose.

[764] Speaking of athletics, I remember many years ago I had come on the show where I was singing the glory of, yeah, Leonel Messe.

[765] And you were like, who?

[766] Right.

[767] Who's Leon M .Messi?

[768] And then you mentioned some M .MA fighter that I'd never heard of.

[769] And I remember your exact response.

[770] You looked at me and said, how dare you, sir?

[771] Let me flip it back to you.

[772] How dare you?

[773] So are you now, you are a messy fan finally?

[774] You've come around to the truth?

[775] Well, he's an amazing soccer player.

[776] Oh, that goal.

[777] There's no denying.

[778] Okay, well, let me, since I'm on the number one show in the world.

[779] He's a wizard.

[780] Didn't they offer him like some.

[781] fucking insane amount of money and he just said no Saudi Arabia.

[782] How much they offer them?

[783] A different guy just got offered a billion dollars for one year.

[784] Yeah, Mbapit.

[785] What?

[786] And Boppa.

[787] What?

[788] A billion for a year?

[789] 330 of that is so that he can transfer to the team and then 771 is for his services to play soccer for a year.

[790] They're buying everybody to Saudis.

[791] Jesus.

[792] LeBron said if they offered him, he'd take off.

[793] They have so much money.

[794] But let me tell you something.

[795] LeBron will become Saudi Arabian king.

[796] He'll be the king.

[797] He'll be the king.

[798] a basketball over there.

[799] That is so crazy.

[800] December 18th, 2002 World Cup Final, you talk about the power, the emotional power of sports, right?

[801] My family and I were sitting and watching the World Cup final, and we had the extent to which we were emotionally vested in Messi winning the World Cup can only be, can only demonstrate the beauty of sports, right?

[802] Because here's a guy that, right, we've never met him.

[803] We're not Argentinian.

[804] Right.

[805] He doesn't know that we're alive.

[806] And yet it's life and death for us that he should.

[807] I mean, it was so harrowing.

[808] I don't know if you watched the game.

[809] That at one point, my son, who's 11 years old, said, I can't watch this anymore.

[810] I'm going to have a heart attack.

[811] That's the power of sports that it can pull us in and it can make us truly tribal.

[812] And on my case, before you interject, it was kind of driven my desire for him to win was driven by really a purity strand.

[813] It was that it seemed cosmically unjust for the greatest soccer player of all time to not have won the World Cup.

[814] So when he won it, to me, it seemed like the world is right.

[815] Beauty has won.

[816] I get it.

[817] That's awesome.

[818] And I should add, what a guy, right?

[819] Humble, sweet, family man. What's fascinating to me is as happy as they are, the people on the other team that we're rooting for that time they're devastated right now yeah that's that's the weird thing about sports yeah you can get so attached to what's happening that a loss is like really a loss yeah can't believe we fucking lost to kansas city well in in my first book ever 2007 evolutionary basic consumption i talk about studies not my studies i'm i was citing other works that looked at what happens to the testosterone levels of fans as a function of whether they're team wins or loses of course you test that well it's been tested uh you just take salivary assays of fans as their team is winning or losing you can get the testosterone levels from that yeah yeah yeah that's interesting yeah and so but now what it's not surprising as you would know as a as a fighter that if you and i fight and you defeat me your testosterone level goes up my testosterone level goes down like a video game like a video game uh except what's happening here is that there is a vicarious and the chronological response.

[820] The fans are having the same increases in their testosterone levels or decreases as a function of their team winning or not.

[821] That's quite extraordinary.

[822] And that shows you why we become so bonded to our favorite players and so on.

[823] We are really going through this battle with them.

[824] Yeah, it's really the case with fighters.

[825] When people have a fighter that they're really a giant fan of and that person gets beaten in a devastating manner, it's heartbreaking.

[826] breaking.

[827] There's even studies, by the way, that have looked at what happens to sexual behavior of fans after their team wins or loses.

[828] So if, let's say you, if your wife is upset that you're not, you haven't been producing in the bedroom, she should pray that the husband's favorite team wins because if he wins, he has an increase in testosterone level, increases their libidinal drive and so we're animals it's just it's just attaching so much of your own emotions to something completely out of control and just rooting on it exactly but do you do you have a fan in any sport where you've ever been that vested in well there was one time i remember when i was a kid um i was a giant fan of donald curry don't curry was the welterweight boxing champion at the time.

[829] And he had a rivalry with his other guy, Milton McCrory, and Donald Curry knocked him out.

[830] He became like my favorite boxer.

[831] And then Donald Curry, he got beat by this guy, Lloyd Huntingen.

[832] It was a devastating loss.

[833] Like, people couldn't believe Lloyd Huntington beat Donald Curry.

[834] And it was like Donald Curry might be on the downslide, but I was still like a giant fan of his.

[835] And then Donald Curry fought Mike McCallum, and Mike McCallum hit him with a left hook to the body and a left hook to the chin and put him out.

[836] out like out cold and i couldn't believe it and i i ran here it is right here i ran out of the house watch this boom so the out cold the one with the black shorts is your guy right the guy down it's my guy okay so i i i misremembered it wasn't a left hook to the body it's like he goes with a right hand and then a left hook behind it but he just he caoed caoed Donald Curry and I couldn't believe it and so I put up my running shoes I couldn't stay home I just couldn't deal with it I couldn't deal with it and I went running in the snow and I ran right no I went there's another snow I'm thinking of another story there's another time when someone lost I went running in the snow I don't think it was in the snow I think it was warm I don't remember but I remember I went running and as I'm running and I'm running down the road I'm thinking myself I am never going to be this invested in someone else winning or losing every at.

[837] I was so devastated that he lost.

[838] What was the bond?

[839] What, what, why?

[840] His technique.

[841] His technique was perfect.

[842] He was crisp.

[843] Like he was coiled.

[844] They called him his, his, what was his nickname?

[845] Something Cobra.

[846] Here comes Jamie.

[847] I forget what his nickname was.

[848] But his, his technique was so crisp.

[849] Lone Star Cobra.

[850] Lone Star Cobra.

[851] There you go.

[852] He was out of Fort Worth.

[853] And his technique was so sharp.

[854] I just really, I always admired guys who were able to find, like, the shortest path to connecting with a shot, where it's just like the technique is so dialed in.

[855] Yeah.

[856] There's guys that, like, Giovante Davis is like that.

[857] Their technique is so dialed in.

[858] That when you watch them uncork, it's like, oh, my God, the efficiency of it.

[859] And so I was just a giant fan of the guy.

[860] I just loved as a person who, like, really enjoyed technique.

[861] I like watch someone is exceptional at it.

[862] I recently put, I don't know, maybe a few months ago, I put out a sort of a hypothetical, what if scenario where I, I think this was on Twitter, where I asked, you know, people who follow me, would I be able to step on an NFL field and under any circumstance, simply get a single yard as a running back?

[863] Right.

[864] So, in other words, right.

[865] So now, for example, if I go into a, boxing ring with someone, the only way I'm going to survive is if I keep running around long enough because the singular time that they hit me, I'm unlikely to be able to withstand that.

[866] Right.

[867] So that's, I'm gone, right?

[868] If I play basketball, I think I have enough skills that I can receive the ball and pass it off to someone, right?

[869] And so then I started thinking, what about other sports?

[870] Could the average person who doesn't play that sport survive long enough to do something?

[871] I'm obviously not going to get 100 yards, but a single yard.

[872] What are your thoughts?

[873] I thought, maybe I was being presumptuous, maybe now I'm an old guy, but I thought that it could be possible for the front line to make enough of a hole for me, to run through for one yard, and I would just draw.

[874] I just need to get a single yard.

[875] Yeah, it's possible.

[876] But a lot of people thought there's no chance that that would happen because they would catch you in the backfield, they would tackle you, and then you would die.

[877] Well, they probably could do that too.

[878] That could happen as well.

[879] but if the defense is so strong that they can just create a small enough opening for you to go one yard I think that's reasonable it would suck for you though dude they're gonna pile on top of you you're never going to be the same again especially since I've lost so much weight at least before I looked like a linebacker a fat linebacker yeah that was you don't want that happening to you what was that just happened there watch watch this guy this is the running back trying to get the ball to get one yard watch this boom his helmet's off and he's hurt.

[880] Oh my goodness.

[881] Oh my god.

[882] He got tack old.

[883] And that's one of five guys that are just going to try to stop you from doing that.

[884] Tack old.

[885] These guys are so powerful.

[886] So Jamie is in the camp of I'm not getting a single yard.

[887] There's a lot of other variables.

[888] But it is possible that the defense could have prevented that if the defense is extraordinary and the guys are on point and there's there's you know games, things happen, right?

[889] People are trying to control things and people are charging forward.

[890] It's possible that there's an opening just big enough for anyone to get three yards.

[891] Or one yard, rather, three feet.

[892] Do you think you could step on a soccer field and look anything short of a complete moron?

[893] No. No, impossible.

[894] I actually saw you recently, and I was really delighted to hear that where you were singing the praises of how fit soccer players are.

[895] Oh, my God.

[896] We went to see the games here in Austin, and when you watch professionals, first of all, here's one reason why soccer is problematic for television.

[897] They don't get breaks So there's no breaks Like, you know We'll be right back With another word from Nabisco You know, there's none of that So if you have commercials Like you have to interrupt the play Of the game And then people have to catch up And then it's not live now Or are you gonna like have half of a commercial And half of the game Like what are you gonna do How are you gonna do that?

[898] Because they don't stop They just keep going And you have to be insanely fit Those guys look like thoroughbreds Like their legs Were just fucking shredded So there was a study a few years ago.

[899] I can't cite what it was that looked at who were the fittest athletes.

[900] Number one was soccer.

[901] It has to be.

[902] Do you know what number two was?

[903] No. Squash players.

[904] Why?

[905] I'm guessing because there are a lot of those very, very quick accelerations that you have to engage in to be able to get.

[906] The ball is very dead, right?

[907] And so you really have to have this incredible quickness to be able to.

[908] What a weird thing for an elite athlete to choose.

[909] Jamie, can we check the rankings of the...

[910] I don't even really think I could describe squash.

[911] You know, I tried to play it.

[912] I got very claustrophobic.

[913] Really?

[914] I'm being serious, because...

[915] Let me see what it looks like.

[916] Show me a squash game.

[917] It's like a racquetball, right?

[918] No, but with a ball that's more dead, racquetball, the ball has a lot more give.

[919] It bounces more.

[920] I was just trying to look.

[921] I found other sports that sound like they would be more, but I didn't find it on a scientific study.

[922] My wife has been trying to get me into pickleball.

[923] What are our thoughts about that?

[924] I hear people like it.

[925] Have I just lost a few testosterone points?

[926] Come on, man. People like pickleball.

[927] Well, apparently there's a whole craze of pickleball now because it's not quite as difficult as tennis.

[928] You don't have to cover as much ground.

[929] It's still a racket game.

[930] It looks like a lot of damage to the knees, son.

[931] That's what I'm looking at right there.

[932] In terms of squash, we're talking?

[933] You're running around.

[934] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[935] A lot of fucking explosive.

[936] and explosive movements for old guys like us.

[937] Yeah, yeah.

[938] Best stick to yoga.

[939] Pickleball, you can play with a beer in your hand, so you'd be alright.

[940] Yeah, pickleball is the way to go, son.

[941] By the way, and I'm not gonna say, call it ping pong, table tennis.

[942] Oh my God, insane.

[943] I watch a lot of it.

[944] When I was a graduate student, there was a fellow student who were roughly the same level so we could have these long rallies, we'd be drenched.

[945] We'd be drenched.

[946] Oh, it's very, very, very, very.

[947] athletic it's also amazing to watch like their reeds like knowing where the ball's coming and to be able to get to the side of the table and they're wacking over there and then it's step sideways and dudes are hitting them behind their backs like it's beautiful wild it's wild it's beautiful those exchanges are so fast yeah yeah it's a and you're just this little ball just tracking this little ball whacking it with your thing now i just now that you said that you went to the soccer match here that's because austin has a team right oh yeah they have it's the only real professional team in town.

[948] So are you willing on your show to commit to inviting Dr. Gadsat to a game when Inter Miami comes over?

[949] Because God should see Lina L .Messie in person?

[950] I would be happy to do that if I am going to be here while that is happening.

[951] So I have a lot of commitments.

[952] You know, I don't necessarily know that I'll, I don't know when that is, you know.

[953] But would you want to go?

[954] But if I was free, I 100 % want to go with you.

[955] Oh.

[956] I really enjoyed it.

[957] Yeah, I really enjoyed it That's amazing You just made my day You made me happy Matthew McConaughey Who's the coolest He's such a good guy He's one of the owners too So he's there Of Austin Yeah Oh is that right Yeah yeah yeah I'm not miss saying that right I don't think so But yeah they just actually played here Right before Messi joined the team I don't want to like misstate his position He's something I think he's one of the owners I don't pay I unfortunately don't pay attention to that But I do pay attention to him He's a super cool guy And he was with explaining it to us like he has he loves it he fucking loves it you know who else is surprisingly into soccer do you know the Canadian actor Ryan Reynolds oh no shit have you heard he is the part owner there he is he's co -owner okay okay can you it I knew it I knew he was I just wanted to be sure let's do Ryan Rexum mm W -R -E -X yeah Ryan yeah he they purchased a team right yeah what a wild baller move I'm gonna purchase a sports team.

[958] And they got good.

[959] They got good that we purchased them?

[960] It's got the magic touch.

[961] Speaking of Blake lively, I actually have her in the current book that came out today as a manifestation of a truly beautiful woman.

[962] Do we agree on that?

[963] Oh, she's gorgeous.

[964] She's phenomenal.

[965] Yeah, truly beautiful.

[966] And exudes.

[967] That's like a duh.

[968] Depends if you like that type.

[969] There's like a level of beauty.

[970] And then everything else is just different versions of that.

[971] Yeah.

[972] That's what I think.

[973] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[974] I think people are too picky, first of all.

[975] And I also think that it's like a level of beauty that's like, you hit a level of, like, beauty and it's like everything else is just different.

[976] So for on a man, who would be a guy that you would think is kind of the epitome of gorgeous?

[977] Jason Mamoa.

[978] Jason Mamoa.

[979] Is that right?

[980] He's perfect.

[981] He's beautiful.

[982] He's tall.

[983] He's from an island.

[984] He's got tan skin.

[985] He's always smiling.

[986] It's like a man's man. This is not the scientific study.

[987] but I was just trying to find where soccer lists on this rank this is the most overall fitness rating but this is based off of physical demands it has soccer number one is water polo 25, 26 oh come on you know you never wrestled did you that's yeah the other thing I had had wrestling boxing okay first of all let me hit the brakes martial arts being number five and then boxing being number six that is way too general you can't say martial because martial arts is jujitsu and it's also like fucking karate at the mall and then if you go down go go down i don't i can't speak to rugby league but you know i talked to guys like volkinovsky used to play it's fucking hardcore shit that's all believable but why is wrestling keep going down keep going down why is wrestling way down below basketball oh they're squash they're tired actually but whatever it is shut the fuck up this is a bullshit Shut the fuck up.

[988] Let me tell you something.

[989] Number one is wrestling.

[990] Number one.

[991] Is that right?

[992] A hundred percent.

[993] Even Greek or Roman wrestling, you mean?

[994] Whether it's Greco -Roman or whether it's freestyle or whatever it is, folk style, whatever wrestling, that is the most physically demanding sport, for sure.

[995] It's so hard to do.

[996] It's so hard.

[997] And to be at an elite level, like a Daniel Cormier level, like, I'm going to pretend.

[998] I know who that is.

[999] He's two -division UFC world champion.

[1000] Oh, okay.

[1001] He was also Olympic wrestler.

[1002] Nice.

[1003] There's levels that these guys are at that is their fucking fitness is off the charts.

[1004] Their athleticism is off the charts.

[1005] Well, you know, I think we probably discussed this before.

[1006] This is not wrestling, but my brother was an Olympic judoka.

[1007] Oh, well, that's another one, man. Judo is hard core.

[1008] I've trained a bunch with judo guys.

[1009] They're ridiculously strong because they're throwing bodies around.

[1010] all the time and that throwing bodies around when they grab a hold of you it's a totally different feeling so i'm sure i've said this story that's that number one what's that boxing and wrestling number one boxing two yeah that's that's how it should be soccer that that that's what is this website this website's a good website yeah that's that website makes it agrees with my thinking it's a good website if it doesn't it's a bullshit website okay what where's soccer there jimmy this was number nine on this list yeah wrestling mMA that's that's accurate that's accurate that's accurate it because if you look at guys like Corellan Alexander Corelland who's the scariest fucking wrestler of all time like if anybody says like who's the scariest wrestler of all time it's Corellin.

[1011] They used to call him the experiment because his parents were like normal size like kind of tiny like 5 '7 and he's a fucking panther like a human panther 6 foot 2, 300 pounds and you know what his move is he throws people around He picks them up and beats them with the earth.

[1012] He's the most terrifying wrestler ever because he would just hoist them up in the air and look at that picture.

[1013] See that picture?

[1014] I have that picture framed on metal, printed on metal in the gym, just to remind me what a pussy I am.

[1015] You should always know that dudes like that have existed and probably still exist today.

[1016] He was fucking terrified.

[1017] Let's play the football game of can I get a yard.

[1018] You go in with this guy.

[1019] Zero chance.

[1020] No, not winning.

[1021] How long can you last?

[1022] I'd have to run away.

[1023] It would just be as long, until he catches me. Okay.

[1024] I would have to run away, and I probably wouldn't be able to run away.

[1025] He's faster than me. He's big and fast.

[1026] The thing about Corellan was he was 300 pounds, but he moved like a cat.

[1027] He had crazy flexibility, like ridiculous flexibility and mobility.

[1028] He did all these mobility drills.

[1029] If you watch his workouts, they were extraordinary.

[1030] Because, like, he's doing a lot of things like shield casts with giant steel.

[1031] plates so he's doing a lot of this shit so it's like rotational muscles his ability to manipulate things and awkward positions was off the charts it was all like heavy kettlebell work that guy was a freak and his mobility he would show all these mobility drills and different things look what he's doing oh my goodness look at this i mean this is the fucking olympic gold medalist wrestler what era is this 80s i think his last wrestling matches were around, I want to say, before 2000, because he did have offers.

[1032] He had, like, one Fagasy MMA fight.

[1033] It was like a fake MMA fight, because they did a few of those in Japan.

[1034] They had a weird sort of symbiosis with pro wrestling and MMA.

[1035] And so there was MMA fights in Japan that are allegedly fixed, and they look fixed.

[1036] You watch them and going, get the fuck out of here.

[1037] It's like you see, like, a fake tap.

[1038] You see like someone giving their arm up or something there was some of that going on and so it seems like he got involved in one of those where they gave him a shit ton of money and they said come over here.

[1039] It's kind of pro wrestling, but kind of not.

[1040] We'll say it's an MMA fight.

[1041] It's one of those deals.

[1042] But if he did fight MMA, everyone would be fucked.

[1043] Everyone.

[1044] Everyone would be fucked.

[1045] And if you figured out how to strike, oh my Jesus.

[1046] You know, I'm not sure if we've talked about this before, but the precursor of the M .MA, I had had that conversation with my brother, the judo guy, because we would go out to nightclubs and he would, he's a very, very small guy, probably five foot three, but built like a pit bull.

[1047] And he'd kind of interact with the world as though he's six foot eight, the bouncers and so on.

[1048] And I once asked him, do you think you can take these guys?

[1049] And he said, if I can get them, If they knock me out before I get to them, then they knock me out.

[1050] But if I get them and I can bring them down, then they're dead.

[1051] And I think from my very, very limited knowledge of MMA, the guys who usually win are precisely those guys who can do exactly what he said, right?

[1052] Yeah, sort of.

[1053] But kind of everybody knows how to defend that now.

[1054] It's just how well can you defend and how good of a striker is that wrestler.

[1055] Because there's this gentleman who's coming up on the scene right now.

[1056] His name's Bo Nickel.

[1057] and he's an elite like blue chip wrestler like elite wrestler like Olympic caliber wrestler and now he's competing in MMA and his last fight was a first round knockout with his hands and he showed he's got sick boxing skills too which is the most terrifying thing when you got a guy who's above and beyond you in grappling like once he gets a hold of you you're fucksville there's no way you have one way taken to fuckville he's going to slam me to the grassland He's going to control.

[1058] He's going to beat your ass.

[1059] They're just too good at wrestling.

[1060] And then also he can fuck you upstanding.

[1061] That's where it gets really dangerous.

[1062] So if a guy like Corellin learn how to stand up, that would have been the end.

[1063] Because there's certain freaks that, like, you just like athletic freaks, you're just like, I don't know.

[1064] What are you going to do with that?

[1065] What are you going to do with that?

[1066] So in the M .M .A. in the history of the M .A., is there someone that is akin to Messi in terms of like a Michael Jordan or a messy in the MMA?

[1067] There's a few.

[1068] There's a few that are in that conversation.

[1069] I think the number one consensus greatest of all time is John Jones because John Jones just went up and easily won the heavyweight title with the first round submission easily just took the guy down and strangled him quick and the way he did it was like so extraordinary his control of distance his management of the space like the way set it up it's it's really tough to argue that he's not the greatest of all time undefeated as a light heavyweight had one defeat that was a disqualification that's 100 % bullshit he was on top of this guy smashing him beating the fuck out of them.

[1070] But they said that he did 12 to 6 elbows, which are the dumbest fucking ever rule in MMA.

[1071] Because what if it's 1205?

[1072] What if it's 1205?

[1073] Sorry, what does that mean?

[1074] I don't say that.

[1075] Oh, I'm sorry.

[1076] From the position on the clock.

[1077] An elbow straight down is illegal.

[1078] Oh, I see.

[1079] Doesn't make any sense.

[1080] You have to do it sideways?

[1081] How do you do?

[1082] You do it at an angle.

[1083] Okay.

[1084] But it's literally because the athletic commissions that were sanctioning MMA initially, they said, you know, we've seen those things on ESPN.

[1085] where people break bricks with their elbows.

[1086] You can't do that.

[1087] It's too dangerous.

[1088] So you can't do that on the ground.

[1089] You can't even do it standing up, I don't believe.

[1090] I think if someone comes straight at you and tomahawk elbows you, I believe that's illegal.

[1091] I'm not sure about that.

[1092] But on the ground, it's most certainly illegal.

[1093] And it's the dumbest rule.

[1094] It doesn't make any sense.

[1095] A regular elbow is just as hard.

[1096] An elbow like this is just as hard.

[1097] It might be more hard because you can kind of get more of your shoulder into it.

[1098] Where this might be a more awkward move that, I mean, I mean, I'm not the best at this, but I would think that this is not as good as this.

[1099] This seems like I'm getting a lot of weight into that.

[1100] I'm getting the torque off my hips.

[1101] This I'm kind of coming up and down.

[1102] I feel like I have more ability to generate force going sideways, going into it like that.

[1103] So I don't, I think if you measured it, I bet it would be, I bet this elbow is stronger for, like, the elite fighters.

[1104] So it's not a matter of like whether or not it makes sense.

[1105] It's a dumb rule.

[1106] And that's the only time he ever looked.

[1107] He lost.

[1108] He got the squal fight.

[1109] He's the only time he ever lost.

[1110] Other than that, like, he's like, at certain point in times, he was, like, playing with his food.

[1111] Like, he let fights go on too long, where he's, like, almost disinterested and engaged, like, he wanted to try standing up with guys who were supposedly great strikers.

[1112] He just decided not to try to take people down.

[1113] Just try to do whatever the fuck he wanted to do.

[1114] Because he's so much better than everybody.

[1115] He was getting bored.

[1116] And then when he has, like, big challenges, like, this second Daniel Kormier, he fights stopped Kormier with a head kick.

[1117] like he's so fucking good I mean he's beating so many people and the way he beat him he fought Leota Machita and it's one of the most cold -blooded finishes in the history of the sport he has Machita and he grabs them at the at the cage presses them against the cage and gets him in this perfect power guillotine puts him to sleep and then drops him and walks away watch this watch this so he grabs a hold of him they get this exchange and John catches this he gets him in this knee to the body and then he catches him in this standing crank so see how he's doing that he's compressing but he his head to his chest completely putting him out like there's nowhere to go he's 100 % out cold and so look at that just drops him oh my goodness and walks away cold blooded cold blooded that's the goat that's the greatest of all time and when he's challenged that's when like I said the second Daniel Cormier fight.

[1118] There was so much bad blood between them.

[1119] When he's challenged, really challenged, that's when you see how good he really is.

[1120] The problem is he's so much better than almost everybody that ever has done the sport that he, at certain times, just got too distracted, partying a lot, fucking off a lot.

[1121] Did you think there are any personality traits that predict people who are likely to be interested in MMA fighting versus other sports?

[1122] There's so many personalities.

[1123] It's really interesting.

[1124] The diversity in personalities in MMA is really fascinating to me as a person who's an analyst.

[1125] Like there are people that are very calm and disciplined and religious, like people like the greatest.

[1126] Like Khabib Nama Gavanovna, who's also in the conversation of who's the greatest of all time.

[1127] He's also in that conversation.

[1128] He's Azerbaijan or what is it?

[1129] Dagestan.

[1130] Dagestan.

[1131] He's in the conversation of the greatest of all time because it's not even a matter of whether he lost because he never lost.

[1132] He's 29 and 0.

[1133] it's a matter of did he ever lose a round and he lost maybe one round in the Connor McGregor fight because in the Connor McGregor fight he was in one round it looked like he was kind of taking a round off to really put the heat on him it was slowing Connor down and then he just he was just taking him down and beating the shit out of him beating the shit out of him and yelling on him let's talk now let's talk because it was so much like trash talk during and you know it was a very emotionally charged fight and I think he might have lost one round in that fight where Connor got the best of him Standing, because Connor still an elite motherfucker.

[1134] But other than that, his whole career is just domination.

[1135] There's one fight that he had with Glacin T. Bow, that was a controversial fight.

[1136] It was a close fight.

[1137] But that's very early in his career.

[1138] When you look at him against guys like world -class competition, you know, guys like Edson Barbosa, guys like Michael Johnson, like the domination that he showed on these guys was just fucking off the charts.

[1139] He would just take him down, mount them, tie their legs up with his legs and beat the fuck out of him and he did it to everybody he did it to everybody what's your preference in terms of do you like the showy trash talkers or do you have no preference I love them all I love it all I love the guys to talk a lot of shit and I love the guys that are like Khabib that are stoic and just get the job done see because in soccer of course you've had this perennial discussion about you know Messi versus Ronaldo I don't really think there is a debate Messi is much better but I also am I admire his humility right because if there ever was someone who should have a chip on his shoulder should be messy probably the most famous person in the world who's done it all and yet he really walks around as though he's nobody on the other hand Ronaldo is a big showboat if you ask Ronaldo who's the greatest player ever he'll say it's me whereas if you ask messy he'll list 10 people and he won't put himself on that list and so there there is a way by which he engages in his personal conduct that I think is really admirable, that, you know, he truly is a role model.

[1140] Right.

[1141] Yeah, that's beautiful.

[1142] So I'm wondering, so from the perspective of, because there's a lot of showboating in fighters, right?

[1143] I'm the greatest ever and, you know, I'm going to knock you out.

[1144] I would have thought that you'd probably be more into the understated guys.

[1145] No. No, I'm all into whatever the fuck you're into.

[1146] Like, I like the Connor McGregor wears diamond -encrusted watches and drives around a Lamborghini I fucking love it I know I know that dude grew up poor that dude was was struggling early in his MMA career and wasn't even sure if he was going to continue fighting right you know I became a fan of his watching him fight in the UK I watched him fight on YouTube and I reached out to him like 2013 I sent him a message so I hope one day you come over to the UFC love to love to see your fights might have been earlier than 2013 But I was like, I think he's, I knew he was legit, like back then or something special.

[1147] He's been on this show many times?

[1148] No, he hasn't been on the show ever.

[1149] No kidding.

[1150] No, I definitely have him on, though.

[1151] I love the guy.

[1152] I love that he's wild.

[1153] I love it.

[1154] I like wild guys.

[1155] I like John Jones, and he was wild.

[1156] I think he did some questionable shit.

[1157] That's no doubt some things that he shouldn't have done.

[1158] Are many of your closest friends fighters?

[1159] I have a lot of friends that are in all walks of life.

[1160] But most of my friends, most of my close friends do really.

[1161] risky shit.

[1162] Either they do martial arts, or they do stand -up comedy, or they do something.

[1163] How about intellectual risk -taking?

[1164] Yeah, well, you do those.

[1165] You do those things, for sure.

[1166] What year was that?

[1167] 2013, yeah.

[1168] So I tweeted to him.

[1169] Yeah, he was amazing.

[1170] But I knew that back then, but I'd like that he's a wild fella.

[1171] I like that he's fucking wearing ridiculous, expensive suits and fucking giant watches and crocodile skin shoes.

[1172] Fuck yeah.

[1173] Fuck yeah.

[1174] I like that.

[1175] I like it.

[1176] I like when people go hard.

[1177] That's good.

[1178] Good.

[1179] Enjoy it.

[1180] Enjoy it.

[1181] Enjoy the shit out.

[1182] I like when Floyd made with it other.

[1183] Enjoy it.

[1184] Enjoy it.

[1185] You earned it.

[1186] You deserve it.

[1187] Enjoy it.

[1188] Enjoy it.

[1189] Did you see there's a, I think it's an HBO documentary coming out of the Mexican boxer.

[1190] I can't remember his name.

[1191] Which one?

[1192] Oh.

[1193] I guess they are.

[1194] Yeah, exactly.

[1195] Have you, have you heard that there is a?

[1196] No, I have not heard that.

[1197] I think it's coming in August.

[1198] And I seem to be, I mean, from the little trailer that I I saw, I think there is quite a bit of personal demons that he's had to face in his life.

[1199] And so it seems like a gripping story.

[1200] Apparently, he likes to party.

[1201] Oh, is that right?

[1202] Yeah.

[1203] Is he mean with the ladies or with the...

[1204] Oh, I was meeting with...

[1205] But I don't know.

[1206] These are just rumors.

[1207] You know, some controlled substances.

[1208] He's had some issues.

[1209] Yes, it's...

[1210] Public issues.

[1211] Oh, there you go.

[1212] Yeah.

[1213] Some issues with, yeah, rehab, drinking, drugs, and women.

[1214] Holla.

[1215] This might be the most interventions by Jamie on any show.

[1216] that I've been on.

[1217] Nah, he always does it.

[1218] Jamie knows how to fucking load him up.

[1219] He's the all -time greatest truth checker.

[1220] Well, he's the goat of podcast producers, for sure.

[1221] He's the goat of podcast producers.

[1222] 100%.

[1223] But there's no Rinaldo out there.

[1224] So he's...

[1225] What am I the messy of?

[1226] Or what is messy the gatter of?

[1227] Why doesn't it have to always be about you?

[1228] Why do we keep turning around to you?

[1229] About me. You know I love you.

[1230] I've said two words in this podcast.

[1231] That's not true at all.

[1232] Literally, if someone does a content analysis of art conversation so far, they wouldn't know that I'm here.

[1233] I've just sat and smiled at your beautiful face.

[1234] Oh, sweetie.

[1235] That can't be true.

[1236] I can just look at the words I'm seeing on my recording.

[1237] It's like 50 -50 in the last 10 minutes.

[1238] It is not 50 -50.

[1239] How dare you?

[1240] How dare you, sir?

[1241] You got a little testy there.

[1242] I got you.

[1243] Not at all.

[1244] I'll just having fun.

[1245] So what else is up?

[1246] What's going on?

[1247] What's going on?

[1248] I don't know, man. I'm more worried.

[1249] What's upsetting you?

[1250] What's making you happy?

[1251] I'm more worried than ever about the cultural narratives.

[1252] I'm more worried than ever about like the fucking divide in this country.

[1253] Yeah.

[1254] It seems so accelerated, whether it's climate change or Ukraine or whatever the subject de jour is.

[1255] Yeah.

[1256] It's everyone's so stereotypically on one side or the other.

[1257] Have you lost any personal?

[1258] friendships because of ideological issues?

[1259] No, not real friendships.

[1260] Okay, good.

[1261] Maybe acquaintances.

[1262] Okay.

[1263] But that was okay.

[1264] Those are good if you can clean those up.

[1265] Exactly.

[1266] Yeah, you find out who you really, who's really your friend.

[1267] You know, even people that I, like, vehemently disagreed with about certain policies that were in place during the pandemic.

[1268] Yeah.

[1269] They're still my friends.

[1270] Right.

[1271] We can have disagreements.

[1272] I know who the core of you is.

[1273] And people think about things differently.

[1274] We're free to think about things differently.

[1275] Some people are free to have a perspective that I don't agree with.

[1276] It's like, and you might be able to back it up with some facts.

[1277] Yeah.

[1278] You might be able to or you might be intolerant to the other opposition views because some of them are full shit.

[1279] Maybe that's true too.

[1280] There's a lot going on, but it's very hard for people to when, especially in times of crisis.

[1281] Like when, during the pandemic, you kind of found out how.

[1282] human beings are very malleable and very quick to pick a narrative that they support.

[1283] And especially if that narrative offers a promise of going back to normal.

[1284] You know, and that was what was weird about that.

[1285] It was like, this is a psychological, like, test study.

[1286] If you wanted to do a test study of how a population, even a free, supposedly free population, free thinking, free freedom of expression, freedom of speech is literally in the doctrine.

[1287] that we run the law by and to have people willing to throw that away quickly under something that wasn't even it's not we're not talking about a nuclear war but we're talking about something that's like relatively in terms of the amount of people that die every year it's not good it's certainly wasn't a good thing to have anybody 99 .7 % survival rate yeah and yeah i mean again it's not a good thing right it's not good to get any kind of cold any kind of disease any kind of like illness it's not good but there's a lot of shit that's killing people also and there's almost no effort to stop that like there's no effort to stop the comorbidities that caused a lot of the problems that a lot of those people that didn't survive had there's no effort to stop that in terms of like what we understand about health and wellness and promoting that you're referring to obesity largely not just obesity but like malnutrition vitamin deficient Like so many people are eating, but they're malnourished.

[1288] Sure.

[1289] It's a giant portion of our population that is not getting the proper nutrients every day.

[1290] And there's a host of diseases that come along with that.

[1291] And it's just not being discussed.

[1292] I mean, it's not like the epidemic that it really is.

[1293] It's not being discussed like the epidemic that it really is.

[1294] Do you think that a lot of the governmental policies that were instituted stemmed from the fog of war during the pandemic?

[1295] And so it was driven by ignorance?

[1296] or are you of the view that there is kind of a Dr. Evil, you know, nefarious thing behind this whole thing?

[1297] I am very reluctant to go with the Dr. Evil narrative.

[1298] I think there's certainly people that you would consider evil that will take advantage when things happen.

[1299] But do I think that, like, they release the pandemic on purpose?

[1300] No, no, there's like pretty clear evidence that people working in the lab got sick and that those people spread it.

[1301] No, but let's say the ad hoc policies that they would come up with.

[1302] You could only be four people on a boat.

[1303] You can do this.

[1304] You can't do that.

[1305] My feeling is, I don't have any proof of it.

[1306] It's just, I'm speculating, is that a lot of it really came from the fog of war.

[1307] People were, and I'm not trying to be charitable, but I think that most people were well -meaning.

[1308] They didn't know what the hell they're talking about.

[1309] They didn't exhibit any epistemic humility, right?

[1310] They made it seem as though they knew what they're talking about, but they were trying their best.

[1311] I don't think there was kind of this grand conspiracy where this is our chance to take over the freedoms that people still, you know, adhere to.

[1312] I would be more inclined to believe what you're saying.

[1313] Yeah, exactly.

[1314] I think it's many factors.

[1315] And I think when we want to look at like what, why people did what they did, we try to look at it one way or not.

[1316] But I think there's many, many things going on.

[1317] And also, for sure, governments that are really good at correct.

[1318] drafting laws that allow them to gain power.

[1319] And they've done that with all the bills that they passed after 9 -11, you know, the Patriot Act, the Patriot Act 2, the NDAA, all that crazy shit.

[1320] Whenever something happens, they find new ways to control and they do it because it's an opportunity.

[1321] It's an opportunity to pass laws that people who are reluctant to pass before.

[1322] It happens.

[1323] It happens all the time.

[1324] It's normal.

[1325] that's their job.

[1326] That's what they do.

[1327] What they do is they're in control, they're in power.

[1328] Like, that's the game that they're playing.

[1329] The game that you're playing is, I want to keep my freedom.

[1330] And, like, we have to figure out a way to, like, establish, like, real clear rules to how this game works.

[1331] Because if you could just cheat and lie and then delete things off social media and have a bunch of bots saying a bunch of shit to stir people up and you're literally funding this.

[1332] Like, who's doing that?

[1333] How many of that, how many of them are coming from America itself and how many of them are coming from foreign agents who are trying to disrupt American politics and trying to disrupt American narratives.

[1334] I wonder.

[1335] I wonder like what is the ratio of shit posting like people that are like what would you call it bot posting?

[1336] What was what's the level of disingenuous non -human non real person posting?

[1337] As relating to COVID or anything anything I think it's all the social things that are that are coming up right now.

[1338] anything you see a lot of these wacky fake accounts I wonder how many of them are they there's an FBI analyst that said that somewhat he believed there's somewhere around 50 what do you say 80 % he said 80 % 80 % of Twitter's users or bots it could be as high as 80 % wow that's that's crazy what you imagine Twitter just becomes bots arguing with bots and they finally realize like no one's on it but But have you felt that your, I mean, your experience with Twitter has radically changed as a function of the pre and post Elon Musk coming in or hasn't changed much?

[1339] You feel more free.

[1340] Yeah, like you can post things that are controversial and not worry about, you know, having your account limited.

[1341] Yeah.

[1342] Because if you were posting things about, like, first of all, there's things you couldn't post.

[1343] Like, you had not post a story about the Hunter Biden laptop.

[1344] You couldn't even send it to me in a DM.

[1345] Yeah.

[1346] There were certain things I tried to send people in DMs, and it wouldn't allow me to send them.

[1347] That's amazing.

[1348] I'm like, this is wild.

[1349] This is weird.

[1350] It's just confusing.

[1351] It's like, why would you think this is a good idea?

[1352] Well, I remember I had been contacted by, I don't know if you've had him on the show.

[1353] Do you know who Matt Ridley is?

[1354] Matt Ridley.

[1355] What do I know that?

[1356] He's an evolutionary biologist.

[1357] He was in the House of Lords in Britain.

[1358] He's been on my show a few times.

[1359] He wrote a book a few years ago with a co -author.

[1360] I can't remember her name where they were arguing for the lab leak theory.

[1361] And when his people had reached out to me to come on the show, I very frankly said, look, I'm someone who very much speaks my mind.

[1362] I don't care.

[1363] But let's be pragmatic about this.

[1364] If you come on my show and we spend an hour and a half chatting, it's going to be taken town.

[1365] This was at the time when YouTube did not allow that.

[1366] And I've always kind of struggled with that decision because I was being pragmatic and saying, look, we're just going to waste our time.

[1367] First of all, it's not going to appear.

[1368] They're going to take it down.

[1369] they're probably going to put a strike on my channel if not remove my channel and there is a real problem with that and so we ended up never doing the show but just the fact that they can get to me someone who really defines his identity as being irreverent and I just do whatever I want yet they still found a way to get me to modulate my behavior to think about it therefore they won against me yeah it's self -censorship that people do out of survival yeah and it it always sat badly with me because, you know, I always thought no matter what, I'm always going to speak my mind.

[1370] But here was a case where I actually fell prey to that mechanism.

[1371] What's crazy is also the goals shift, the goalpost shifts.

[1372] So I think you could talk about a lab leak theory now.

[1373] Yeah.

[1374] Because it's kind of established science.

[1375] And there's more evidence that points to the fact that it leaked from a lab than there's almost no evidence of natural spillover.

[1376] There's also evidence of manipulation of the virus itself to make it more contagious to human beings.

[1377] it's some real wackiness man yeah it's it's really it's crazy how but it took so long for people to think that that could even be a possibility like remember when john stewart was on the cobert show and cobert kept trying to block him from joking around about it no i don't i don't know that no i didn't see oh my god you never see you have to see this it's kind of amazing because john stewart bless his heart he sticks to the bit yeah and colbert like's trying to cock block the joke he's not he's trying to stop him from ranting So you can clearly see John Stewart is in the middle of a bit.

[1378] He's, like, literally doing it to the audience.

[1379] Like, he's doing a bit.

[1380] Like, watch this.

[1381] It's pretty fun.

[1382] This is a delight to have you here, my friend.

[1383] Oh, my God.

[1384] There's nothing I wanted to do more than breathe everyone's air.

[1385] Well, here's the thing.

[1386] Here's the thing.

[1387] This is what I know about you.

[1388] This is what I know about you.

[1389] We are truly dear friends, and yet this is the first time I've seen you in the flesh in 15 months.

[1390] That is correct.

[1391] Right.

[1392] And I am so really happy.

[1393] And I know we're all vaccinated, and I'm not going to get COVID, but I'm going to get something.

[1394] Honestly, these people did not take good care of themselves during the pandemic.

[1395] Last time, well, actually, the first time we talked during COVID, I was still in South Carolina.

[1396] That's right.

[1397] You were locked down.

[1398] I was locked down there.

[1399] and the family, Evie and the kids, were the actual crew.

[1400] That's right.

[1401] That's how we were doing it.

[1402] We're doing it in a little unused little bedroom with cables through the window and a satellite truck on our lawn.

[1403] And I mean, the room was twice the size of this desk, I think.

[1404] I'm not joking.

[1405] Chris could tell you it's really, really tiny.

[1406] But the whole point was like just to get it done to get something out there.

[1407] We really wanted to do the show.

[1408] And when I interviewed you for it, you were talking about how little progress we've made in science in combating pandemics because in 1918, the advice was, wear a mask, wash your hands.

[1409] That's right.

[1410] And 100 years later, 103 years later, wear a mask wash your hands.

[1411] It was soul crushing to find that.

[1412] I was really hoping that, like, in 1918, they'd be like, drink a tincture of mercury and butterfly juice.

[1413] Like, I was hoping it'd be like some bizarre thing, and I'm like, we've come a long way, baby.

[1414] It's the exact same.

[1415] How do you feel about the science now, though?

[1416] So I will say this.

[1417] I, and I honestly mean this, I think we owe a great, debt of gratitude to science.

[1418] Science has in many ways helped ease the suffering of this pandemic which was more than likely caused by science.

[1419] Uh -oh.

[1420] Uh -oh.

[1421] Oh, you go over here.

[1422] And that's kind of...

[1423] Hold on there.

[1424] No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Spit take.

[1425] Listen.

[1426] It's coffee.

[1427] I wouldn't do that to you.

[1428] I'm all for the extent.

[1429] But what do you mean by it?

[1430] Do you mean like this or perhaps there's a chance that this was created in a lab?

[1431] There's an investigation.

[1432] A chance.

[1433] Well, but I, I, I, I, if there's evidence I'd love to hear, I just don't know.

[1434] There's a novel respiratory coronavirus overtaking Wuhan China.

[1435] What do we do?

[1436] Oh, you know who we could ask?

[1437] The Wuhan novel respiratory coronavirus lab.

[1438] The disease is the same name.

[1439] the lab that's just that's just a little too weird don't you think and then they ask those scientists they're like how did this so wait a minute you work at the wuhan respiratory coronavirus lab how did this happen and they're like um a pangolin kissed a turtle and you're like no i you're the name if you look at the name look at the name can i let me see your business card show me your business So when is this?

[1440] See, look at Colbert, though.

[1441] Look, Colbert.

[1442] Colbert keeps opening his mouth.

[1443] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1444] Oh, because there's a coronavirus, loosen Wu.

[1445] Into my chili, and now we all have coronavirus.

[1446] Like, come.

[1447] Okay, wait, okay.

[1448] See?

[1449] Wait a second.

[1450] See, he has to stand up.

[1451] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1452] Look at John Stewart.

[1453] But you see how many times Colbert tried to cock block his bit?

[1454] But so this happened when?

[1455] This was.

[1456] Look, they have the COVID -19 vaccine.

[1457] seen a leak there two years ago.

[1458] So this is in the heart of everything and the chaos of it all.

[1459] Yeah.

[1460] Well, you know, in Montreal, you probably know that we had some of the most authoritarian stuff on COVID.

[1461] We, late into the pandemic, there was a curfew that you weren't allowed to walk your dog in your neighborhood after, you know, 8 p .m. or 10 p .m. or what it was.

[1462] Now, people really, there was an outcry, so they rescinded it.

[1463] But just the fact that they did that.

[1464] I mean, what would be the scientific evidence that suggests that walking your dog outside in the middle of the...

[1465] Super spreader event?

[1466] No, but I genuinely think, though, and I'm not someone who just gives people a pass to be charitable.

[1467] I genuinely don't think it was something nefarious.

[1468] I think that it was just the fog of war.

[1469] People are acting like idiots, thinking like they know what they're doing, and they made...

[1470] I'm sure there's going to be a thousand doctoral dissertations written about the failure of public...

[1471] policy without it necessarily being a whole evil orchestrated thing that's my sense i think i think there's certainly a lot of that and then there's certainly a lot of people that um never really had the power to dictate what people can and can't do before like mayors and governors they really didn't have the ability to shut down businesses before and i think something there's something creepy and weird about having that ability and that people especially if their income doesn't change at all yeah They did not seem to have a problem doing unscientific things that stop people from making money, like shutting down outdoor dining.

[1472] That didn't make any sense.

[1473] And they did it, and they did it for optics.

[1474] Yeah.

[1475] And the fact that that kind of stuff can happen.

[1476] Like, it's when you get, it gets real strange when people have power to do things because some people are just going to start doing those things.

[1477] You know, there's an interesting conversation to be had about what's going on in Canada right now.

[1478] with assisted suicide.

[1479] Yeah.

[1480] Because all you have to do is go to a doctor, I believe.

[1481] The doctor recommends it and then one other doctor has to recommend it.

[1482] So I don't know the specific mechanism.

[1483] Let's find out what the specific mechanisms are.

[1484] But, you know, people that are depressed are getting this as an option.

[1485] In 2021, the law was changed to include that those are serious and chronic physical conditions, even if that condition was non -life -threatening.

[1486] It's been available for adults since 2016.

[1487] Okay, so since 2016, Canada's medical assistance in dying program known by the acronym made has been available for adults with terminal illness.

[1488] Okay.

[1489] And in 2021, the law was changed to include those with serious and chronic physical conditions, even if that condition was non -life -threatening.

[1490] What would constitute that if I have severe back pain?

[1491] Does that fit under that?

[1492] Yeah, you could, well, I think even depression, I think, is a nifference.

[1493] illness yeah it's considered an illness you know right yeah so if someone could like instead of discouraging people instead of saying you know having a suicide hotline instead of like having people that have nowhere to go to somewhere they can reach out and find help instead of that you're saying okay we'll help you kill yourself but like that is that's a weird one man that's a weird one to get behind because I'm all for people that have terminal illnesses and don't want to I mean we do it to our dogs right our dog is dying we we we we we we we we we we we we we we we we we we're not we we we're not we we we we we we we we we we we we we we we You have the dog put down.

[1494] It's a humane way to take care of something that you love and care for.

[1495] You don't want them to...

[1496] I went through that five years ago.

[1497] It was like the worst thing that I've ever gone through.

[1498] It's horrible.

[1499] It's devastating.

[1500] How's your...

[1501] I see some type of photos.

[1502] He's doing well?

[1503] He's the sweetest.

[1504] Yeah, he's the best.

[1505] Well, you know, in Canada, there are all sorts of problems we're facing...

[1506] I don't know if you heard about the story of the guy who just committed suicide because he was being bullied by the diversity, inclusion, equity.

[1507] Have you heard about the story?

[1508] No, I didn't hear about the story.

[1509] A 60 -year -old man who, from everything that I've heard, was an exemplary principle, he had been told that he has to take some, you know, diversity, inclusion, equity stuff.

[1510] And in one of those meetings, I don't know the exact details, but he had sort of raised some concerns, shouldn't we be judging people based on, you know, a meritocratic ethos and so on?

[1511] Because he said that, but he's actually quite a liberal person from what I have heard.

[1512] But just the fact that he questioned the die cult, the diversity, inclusion, equity, they started hounding him, harassing him.

[1513] He's a racist.

[1514] He's got to take, you know, remedial courses sensitivity.

[1515] He ended up committing suicide.

[1516] I'm sure, Jamie, you can pull it up just recently in the last week or two.

[1517] Jordan Peterson wrote something about cancellation.

[1518] That's akin to being diagnosed with, like, a terminal illness.

[1519] yeah well yeah I mean horrible illness I forget what he said but you know what what a what a lot of people have tried to cancel me now some sometimes people say oh it's because you're tenured that you know you can be courageous because otherwise you wouldn't be courageous the reality is I get tons of death threats I mean last year I received for the first time ever a in -person death threat while walking with my son necessitating that the Montreal police get involved so there are many ways by which people can try to get you to modulate what you say and so on it's a real problem what is the number one thing that people were upset at you about probably and I haven't done it in a while just because I kind of lost interest the most violent would be any criticism of Islam and in this case it was I think someone who was of that faith because he looked like he came from that background and so people will get upset at me for all sorts of things Valerie Bertinelli got upset at me once because I tweeted something about my wife having an uncomfortable interaction with someone, a barista who was transgender.

[1520] And she got super upset.

[1521] And two days later, 26 million tweets later, all the, as Dave Chappelle causing the alphabet, people were really coming after me. But that doesn't have the timber of, you know, we want to kill you.

[1522] When you start criticizing some Islamic stuff, then it can get pretty hairy.

[1523] And I think that's one of the things that's maybe different about, say, Jordan and me, I think he receives a lot more hate than I do, but some of the hate that I receive is really unique in that it's both Jew -related.

[1524] And he actually mentioned this recently, that, you know, I'm in a unique position in that I receive a lot of hate that's related to my being Jewish.

[1525] So cover being Jewish and then criticizing some Islamic tenets.

[1526] So, for example, I've seen at times when I've come on the show, and we've talked about, I remember one time I talked to you about the hate.

[1527] of black dogs as sanctioned by Muhammad himself and then all sorts of people started saying he's making this stuff up his bullshit why don't you bring a real Islamic person on the show you can just look it up I mean Jamie can now check it that there is within Islam a hatred for black dogs so even the most you know is that a translation issue does does that mean the color black for sure it's it's black dogs yes specifically black dogs Now, I think it comes from the fact, I don't know the exact theological reason, but I think that Muhammad himself had had a fear of black dogs, and so he sanctioned it as a kind of divine prescription.

[1528] It's not, it couldn't possibly mean something else?

[1529] Meaning what?

[1530] You mean the color, black means anything else?

[1531] The alleged hadith, which regards black dogs as evil, has been rejected by the majority of Islamic scholars, has fabricated.

[1532] Nevertheless, Islamic scholars have tended to regard.

[1533] dog saliva as impure.

[1534] Yeah, so that comes, by the way.

[1535] It's fabricated?

[1536] Well, but pretty much anything that you say, someone will say, oh, it's fabricated.

[1537] So in Islam, there's a thing called nejus, which is like impure things, right?

[1538] So, for example, the kufar, the non -Muslim is himself impure.

[1539] Well, urine is impure.

[1540] The dog's saliva is impure.

[1541] So if you were to be licked by a dog or something, then you'd have to redo your purity.

[1542] ritual before you pray because you've been touched by nejas by something that is impure.

[1543] So there are many debates depending on the hadith as to whether something is authentic or not.

[1544] But there is certainly, as Jamie just pulled out, the fact that there is within certain Islamic thought that black dogs are uniquely bad.

[1545] And so just if I say that on your show, there'll be some Islamic guy who says, you know, the Jew is making this stuff up and so on.

[1546] and so it's now I've stayed away from it recently not because I'm trying to shy away from it just because I've said all the I have to say about the matter and I've moved on but the hatred comes from all forms I can criticize feminism I'll get women's group attacking me if I attack something about transgender issues I'll get criticized and so the hate is endless that's a horrible thing to experience it's a horrible thing to experience as a horrible especially for a guy like you, that literally fled it.

[1547] Yeah, yeah.

[1548] Well, I mean, and when I would, I think in our earlier chats, many years ago, we've talked about, you know, Islamic immigration and so on.

[1549] And I hold zero hatred.

[1550] I think you know me enough to know that, I mean, I have tons of Muslim friends.

[1551] I probably know more Muslim guys than most people will ever meet.

[1552] I never criticize individuals.

[1553] I criticize ideologies, right?

[1554] So, you know, does Islam codify the right?

[1555] of people to criticize Islam or not, if you're in an Islamic country.

[1556] Well, the answer to that is very clear, and the answer is not one that promotes freedom of speech.

[1557] Me saying that doesn't imply that I'm being hateful towards Muslims.

[1558] I'm just literally talking about the Islamic doctrines, just like there are doctrines in Deuteronomy that you and I can decide to criticize, right?

[1559] And I think most Muslims, even some of whom are students in my class who've heard me talk about these things, not in a classroom setting, but in public, are very fair.

[1560] And they'll say, you know, you're a very fair guy, you never, but other ones will send me emails and stuff that are just brutal, that are really, and I have to say, I'm someone who's, if I can speak of myself, quite courageous, but that in -person threat that I received when I was walking with my son was really, truly harrowing because I could never rise to that threat, right?

[1561] Because the way that guy was speaking to me, he always had more, you know, I had more to lose than him.

[1562] And so there was never going to be a situation where if he decided to act on his hatred, I could have ever lived up to that challenge.

[1563] And so for several weeks, I was really being careful, going around, you know, trying to avoid that street.

[1564] And it doesn't make sense that in the 21st century, a professor in Canada should have to worry about, you know, which street he walks on because some idiot is threatening him in front of his 10 -year -old son.

[1565] It's incredible.

[1566] Yeah.

[1567] I was That is very terrifying.

[1568] When you think about rigid things that are in certain religious doctrines, what do you think the roots of some, like the forbidden foods?

[1569] Do you think the roots were initially that those foods got people sick?

[1570] Oh, yes.

[1571] And there was pandemics attached to them?

[1572] Oh, what a great question.

[1573] Thank you.

[1574] In the consuming instinct, one of my earlier books, 2011, I have a whole analysis of certain kosher laws from an evolutionary biological.

[1575] perspective and it's exactly what you just intimated so pork so pork right so the idea so imagine uh ancient jews walking around in an environment where there's no refrigeration where the the shellfish that might be uh tainted with a particular uh pathogen or not you can't smell it you can't see it all that you know is that some people ingested and drop dead and others don't there is no mechanism by which i can learn the statistical regularities between A and B. Therefore, the only possible conclusion that I can come to is that it's a divine prohibition.

[1576] There must be some divine reason.

[1577] So even that theological prescription, I can analyze it from an evolutionary perspective.

[1578] Now, when I did that, let's say for kosher laws, I didn't get rabbis writing to me saying, how dare you?

[1579] We're going to kill you for arguing that it's not divine.

[1580] If I do the exact same thing, some Islamic doctrine, you know, very respectfully, very properly, most Muslims will hear it and say, yeah, fair enough, Professor Saq.

[1581] But a few will say, how dare you, you should be killed.

[1582] Right.

[1583] And that makes no sense in a free society.

[1584] No, it doesn't.

[1585] And it doesn't mean that the root of any of these religious doctrines weren't from God himself.

[1586] Like, it doesn't.

[1587] Like, who knows?

[1588] Who knows what the root of this stuff is?

[1589] But the root of.

[1590] most of them, for sure, has gone through people.

[1591] And the conversations have gone through people.

[1592] It's, like, real clear in the Bible, especially in the New Testament.

[1593] We know the people that, but the origins of it is what's the most fascinating to me. It's like, where did it start from?

[1594] Like, what were the, when the first guy wrote it down, like, especially when you're talking about ancient Christianity or whatever it was before it was even called Christianity.

[1595] You know, when I was in Greece, I was with Brian Murrow Rescue, and he wrote this book about the Illucinian Mysteries called The Immortality Cates, an amazing book.

[1596] And in this book, it all details these rituals that they used to do.

[1597] And, you know, thousands of years ago where they were drinking wine that were laced with psychedelics and coming up with democracy.

[1598] Like, the root, when you're in those kind of a...

[1599] environments when you're in a place that like used to be this like amazing utopian society or at least transformative society that never existed before and then you're walking around the ruins like I wonder if they saw it coming right if they saw the end coming yeah because are we seeing the end coming because it doesn't seem like not I hope not I hope not do you know I mean when you see like and you realize they built they built the parthenon when you're there looking at that thing you're like yeah that's amazing what did you do How did you do this?

[1600] How did you do this 2 ,000 plus years ago?

[1601] And it's all designed with the golden ratio in mind.

[1602] It's wild craftsmanship.

[1603] I actually talk about, in my current happiness book, I talk about different correlates with happiness.

[1604] How does personality correlate with happiness?

[1605] How does culture correlate with happiness, marriage, and so on?

[1606] One of the sections I talk about religiosity and happiness are religious people on average happier.

[1607] And the answer turns out that there is a moderate positive correlation between religiosity and happiness.

[1608] Now, that makes perfect sense in that religion provides me with structure, it provides me with greater commonality.

[1609] It creates a nice demarcation between in -group and out -group.

[1610] Therefore, people in my in -group I can cooperate with.

[1611] I have greater cohesion.

[1612] So there are very functional earthly reasons for why if I am religious, it's going to lead to greater happiness.

[1613] But what I try to also argue in the book is that that shouldn't cause people who are not religious to despair that they're not going to be as happy because I, and I'm not sure what your religious views are, but, you know, I'm very much rooted in my Jewish identity, but in a cultural sense, I'm not very much of a believer.

[1614] But I am very much someone who sees the divine in things, right?

[1615] My having a friendship with you being able to text you for me to come on this show is a divine thing.

[1616] being able to bond with my Belgian shepherds in the way in this pure love is a divine thing.

[1617] Meeting a random stranger with whom I have this fantastic conversation for 30 minutes is a manifestation of the divine.

[1618] So I think we can be quite spiritual in our day to day without necessarily couching it in some supernatural, you know, religious narrative.

[1619] What are your thoughts?

[1620] I would agree with that.

[1621] But I would also say that for a lot of people, those religious narratives are like a scaffolding.

[1622] for which they can establish a better life.

[1623] And I meet a lot of people that are devoutly religious, particularly devoutly Christian or devoutly Muslim, that are very disciplined and live their life because of this extreme belief, live their life in a very, and often very successful way.

[1624] And I think there's a peace that they have in a true belief.

[1625] There's a peace that you have that there's a God that's got a plan for this whole thing and just worship that God and do the right thing, and you're going to be okay.

[1626] But do you, I mean, so again, from a purest perspective, I think it's less impressive for me to do the right thing because otherwise there is a big guy who is judging me than to do the right thing for no other reason than it being the right thing to do.

[1627] I think the latter is a lot more impressive, right?

[1628] Do you agree?

[1629] Sure, but the big guy is a part of you.

[1630] and you're judging you.

[1631] So you're not just doing something so that he doesn't judge you.

[1632] You're doing something so that you don't judge you.

[1633] Fair enough.

[1634] So you are also God because you are also watching you do this thing.

[1635] Well, I've evolved a moral compass to use an evolution thing.

[1636] For social species, it makes perfect sense for us to have evolved a distinction between right and wrong.

[1637] If you wrong me, there's going to be retribution, so we evolve that emotion.

[1638] So I often get frustrated when religious people say, Sure, evolution explains a lot of things, but it can't explain morality.

[1639] That's simply not true.

[1640] There's a lot of very clear evolutionary reasons for why a social species would have evolved a moral compass.

[1641] That makes sense.

[1642] Yeah, it's not something that exists outside of the purview of science.

[1643] And I think, I mean, there are several people, I think, that have been on the show that have, you know, Michael Shermer, Sam Harris, that have written about the fact that, you know, the moral compass can, is.

[1644] totally within the purview of science.

[1645] It completely makes sense that there's a moral compass, and it also makes sense you're talking about these divine moments.

[1646] I think it's all these things and then some.

[1647] I think it's all these things and then some.

[1648] I think to just sort of rationalize it down to survival instincts and sort of have that dismissive reductionist view of what it means to be a person and have these expectations.

[1649] experiences in life and what life is.

[1650] I think we're trying to label something that is almost impossible to believe is true, that I'm saying sounds with my mouth and you know what I'm thinking.

[1651] We're like sharing a context and a language and we have all these words that are connected to very specific things that we're very aware of.

[1652] Meanwhile, we're hurling through infinity on an organic spaceship that's spinning a thousand miles an hour in a shooting gallery of asteroids and comets and.

[1653] this is all these things are true and we're finite life forms that are constantly innovating and trying to escape the boundaries of our eventual demise physically psychologically we're trying to connect each other on the internet and put chips in our brains and it's wild what's happening and in the middle of all this there's a battle a true battle in 2023 over censorship a real battle like the likes of which I've never seen because as a kid growing up there was no arguments against freedom of speech in America right I do not remember ever seeing someone argue against freedom of speech it certainly wouldn't have been someone on the left yeah so go sorry no I'm saying just that that alone is it's a terrifying thing it's like people are literally crafting the shackles that are going to eventually contain them and they're they're doing so greedily and enthusiastically.

[1654] So can I offer a philosophical explanation of why I think this is happening?

[1655] Sure.

[1656] Some of your viewers may have heard me mention this elsewhere, but it's worth repeating.

[1657] So in my last book, in the parasitic mind, I talk about two ethical systems, deenthalological ethics and consequentialist ethics.

[1658] Deontological ethics is an absolute statement.

[1659] For example, if I say it is never okay to lie, that is a deentological statement.

[1660] If I say it is okay to lie to spare someone's feelings.

[1661] So the example that I often give is if your spouse asks you, do I look fat in those genes, then put on your consequentialist really quickly.

[1662] So for most things, most of us are going to be consequentialist.

[1663] But when it comes to certain fundamental principles that define, say, Western values, those have to be deontological.

[1664] Yeah.

[1665] And so as to your point, until very recently, we all agree.

[1666] that presumption of innocence was a deontological statement that can't have a but associated with you can't say I believe in presumption of innocence but not for Brett Kavanaugh right I believe in freedom of speech but not for Donald Trump and so we one of the reasons why I've gotten into a beef with someone that we both know well is because that person has repeatedly violated what he should know better which is that deontological principles by definition should never have the but qualifier.

[1667] But now it has become perfectly okay when talking about freedom of speech to tackle it from a consequentialist perspective.

[1668] Don't criticize Islam because that means you're hurting people's feelings, therefore shut your mouth, right?

[1669] No, you can criticize Islam, you can criticize Judaism, you can criticize evolution, you could do whatever.

[1670] There is no but, right?

[1671] And I think if we can ever return to understanding the, distinction between deontological and consequentialist, I think we'll be back on the right track.

[1672] What do you think got us on the wrong track in the first place?

[1673] So I think it's the distinction between reason and feelings.

[1674] We're both a reasoning animal and a thinking animal, but there's been now too much emphasis placed on feelings, right?

[1675] So if I tell a truth that is hurtful to someone, then I should not tell the truth.

[1676] So I've often, when I went in front of the Canadian Senate as the Jordan.

[1677] For Bill C -16, the transgender bill, neither of us was arguing that transgender people shouldn't live with full dignity and so on.

[1678] But what we were arguing is that in the pursuit of that noble goal, you don't murder truth, right?

[1679] So if I were to say, it's insane for six foot four biological males to walk into female spaces.

[1680] That makes no sense.

[1681] I'm not erasing transgender people, right?

[1682] But if the optimization metric is make sure to not hurt people's feelings, you start conflating these things.

[1683] Yeah.

[1684] Does that make sense?

[1685] Yeah.

[1686] But it's also, there's no way to stop someone from, like if someone is a legitimate pervert and all they have to do is say they're a woman and now they can go to the woman's bathroom, there's no way to stop that.

[1687] I'm not saying that that's the majority of people.

[1688] I'm not, I'm saying there are human beings that are like that.

[1689] And this does not in any way discount trans people.

[1690] This just says there's people that will game the system and there's no safeguards in place.

[1691] So if you want to protect people from that, I don't know how you would do it other than having some sort of security in each women's bathroom to make sure that no one's creeping on people, which is outside.

[1692] possible you cannot have that well and i mean think about again deontological principles until three minutes ago a hundred and seventeen billion people had existed that that's roughly the estimate of how many people have ever existed who fully understood that there were two phenotypes in the human species called male and female and nobody disagreed as to what that was but suddenly now it is really controversial to argue that and that's why i do some of the satire and sarcasm on social media it's not to be mean or flippant.

[1693] It's because the only way you can handle some of the lunacy we're saying is through derision, through mockery, because it's insane.

[1694] I mean, we are the product of 117 billion people who exactly knew how coupling works.

[1695] But now we could no longer say it.

[1696] When we refer to Leah Thomas, the 6 '4 swimmer, we can't say that that's a male because that's a female because she said so.

[1697] It's insane.

[1698] It is insane.

[1699] And it's wild to watch.

[1700] It's wild to watch young people just adopt it wholesale.

[1701] Because if you're a female athlete, it's not good.

[1702] It's not good.

[1703] It's unfair.

[1704] And I mean, that's the exact idea, right?

[1705] Because people talk about it's unfair to this transgender athlete.

[1706] What about the unfairness to all of the biological females who are being screwed by this, right?

[1707] Yeah, there was a woman who came on trigonometry recently, and she had a very detailed depiction of all.

[1708] the different advantages that with, even with a reduction of testosterone, that the male frame has, particularly in developing power, power -related things, the shape of the hips, the angle from the hips down to the knees.

[1709] Joe, I've had conversations with physicians, not that you need a physician to confirm that there's male or female, but how could you be a medical doctor and actually espouse some of the nonsense such as there are no sex differences?

[1710] between men and women.

[1711] I've had anesthesiologist.

[1712] I've had gynecologists who argued that transgender medicine recognizes that the antiquated binary is no longer valid.

[1713] That's insane.

[1714] How could you be a gynecologist and practice gynecology not knowing that?

[1715] Maybe you're on ketamine.

[1716] I don't know.

[1717] I don't know how things got this bonkers.

[1718] But I think that if you have a group where you can't question anything about it, you're going to have problems because then you have a protected group and crazy people can join that group.

[1719] And that is a real factor.

[1720] We've seen it.

[1721] It's a thing.

[1722] You see it with these cases where these males with fully intact penises are wandering around women's locker rooms and women are freaking out.

[1723] And they're like, no, I'm a woman.

[1724] And like, what can you say?

[1725] There's this thing that Matt Walsh did an interview with this guy.

[1726] He's a politician.

[1727] Let me find this because it's so crazy.

[1728] So this guy who is a biological male, here I'll send you this, Jamie.

[1729] I'll send you this story behind it.

[1730] But there's a video of him talking to Matt Walsh.

[1731] On the documentary?

[1732] No, it's not a documentary.

[1733] Here.

[1734] So this guy, we'll pull up the story.

[1735] So he is a biological male who has come out as a woman of color who's a lesbian.

[1736] and he does it with a fully...

[1737] Oh, he's doing it facetiously.

[1738] I've seen that guy.

[1739] But he's doing it with a full straight face.

[1740] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1741] And the way, when you hear them talk, it's amazing.

[1742] Yes, I've seen this guy.

[1743] Because it's checkmate.

[1744] And they're saying, if this was true, we would be clapping and applauding him.

[1745] But we don't think it's true.

[1746] Yeah.

[1747] But this, this like throws the whole thing.

[1748] Find the actual interview, if you could, online.

[1749] because it's amazing the way this guy does this guy deserves he should be in the next Tarantino movie he's an amazing actor but the way he lays it down is so perfect and he does it fully straight -faced and now they're saying if this was true we would be applauding him but it's not true and so that's the problem with the whole thing so you think in the deep recesses of all those folks his minds who come out as in support of men who have penises, are women.

[1750] Do you think of the deep, they know that it's bullshit, or have they been so parasitized that they actually believe their nonsense?

[1751] I think a lot of them believe it, and I think a lot of them, that belief is confirmed by their social groups who also not just believe it, but enforce belief in it.

[1752] There's a social pressure to enforce belief in it.

[1753] And I've seen it.

[1754] I've seen it in action.

[1755] I've seen women have arguments with people that are, you know, pro, trans, right?

[1756] and you know and these women are arguing that there's there's there's pro trans rights and then there's erasing women's rights and including like the athletic argument including the the female spaces like intimate spaces locker rooms bathrooms it's it's a very controversial subject in this strange culture we live in and it's one thing that people can subscribe to one side or the other and find a group willingly vehemently opposed to their position so they engage in instantaneous conflict So they're involved in this psychic war with competing ideologies, and it gives them meaning.

[1757] And that's a real problem with human beings, that we do attach ourselves to things.

[1758] Even if those things don't involve you or your life, you decide, like, this is the movement that I'm going to get behind, stand behind, and I'm going to tell people.

[1759] And it gives you meaning.

[1760] Yeah.

[1761] Like, you're a social justice warrior for the rights of the disenfranchised.

[1762] You know, and there's something to be said for actually doing that.

[1763] Of course.

[1764] There's something to be said for actually standing up for people who don't have a voice and doing the right thing.

[1765] There is something to be said for that.

[1766] But there's also something to be said for, to be able to look at this from both sides.

[1767] And if you're an 11 -year -old girl and there's some guy's dick in your face in the girl's bathroom, like, what?

[1768] This guy's just walking around naked in the locker room and you're a kid?

[1769] Like, is that okay?

[1770] Yeah.

[1771] I mean, how do you know what's happening here?

[1772] Like, you know, are you sure?

[1773] Yeah.

[1774] And in some cases, when someone's like so feminine and so, so, like, seems like a woman, you didn't have any problem with it, right?

[1775] Well, I mean, there is a normal distribution, for example, when it comes to, you know, women who are very masculine, men who are very feminine.

[1776] We've always recognized that.

[1777] Right.

[1778] But we've never taken the step into the abyss of infinite lunacy where we say sometimes women can have penises.

[1779] I mean, that's, I mean, and that's why I wrote the parasitic mind, the last book, right?

[1780] because I was literally arguing that human minds can be parasitized by ideological worms in the way that you can be perestized by actual brain worms, right?

[1781] Because there is no rational mechanism by which you can take a sexually reproducing species involving two phenotypes.

[1782] There aren't any more than two.

[1783] There's male and there's female, nothing else.

[1784] And then argue that that's simply not true.

[1785] It's antiquated to argue that boys have penises and girls have vagina.

[1786] I actually satirically put out a tweet where I argued for finger fluidity and finger diversity.

[1787] I argued that if you're born congenitally with nine fingers or nine toes, then we should no longer be teaching in biology class that boys and girls are born with ten fingers.

[1788] I was being facetious, but that's exactly the logic that they're using, right?

[1789] Of course, there are some people who are born intersex, and of course they have the right to live a dignified life free of bigotry.

[1790] That doesn't mean, though, that we have to go back and rewrite the anatomy and biology books.

[1791] And that's why I fight all these battles online and so on because I truly am allergic to bullshit.

[1792] I am very deontological when it comes to truth.

[1793] And I get personally offended when I see people espousing all that nonsense.

[1794] What is it that Dennis Prager was just talking about?

[1795] There was some video that it came across my Instagram feed, that was him saying that whatever medical organization is recommending that children not be labeled male or female, because they don't have the ability to choose.

[1796] Right.

[1797] They can't tell you how they identify.

[1798] That's right.

[1799] What is, let's find out because it's something crazy.

[1800] Yeah, yeah.

[1801] I remember reading it going, I'm not ready for this.

[1802] I have shit to do.

[1803] I can't or watching it.

[1804] Now children are being taught that, you know, medical professionals, to the best of their ability, take an educated guess as to the sex of a child.

[1805] Really?

[1806] So until three minutes ago, 117 billion people knew exactly how to assort into male and female, but now we no longer abide by those antiquated binaries.

[1807] I mean, it's insane.

[1808] So why can't we chew gum and walk at the same time?

[1809] could be all.

[1810] I think both you and I are very socially liberal.

[1811] I don't care one way or the other about what happened, what transgender people do.

[1812] That doesn't mean that I have to accept the fact that a guy with a penis can call themselves a girl and I have to just say amen.

[1813] Yeah, it's, it seems crazy to have to agree to that.

[1814] And it's not, that's not discounting the idea of trans people.

[1815] It's real.

[1816] But it seems crazy to force everyone to go along.

[1817] with what was called gender dysphoria up until very recently.

[1818] Exactly.

[1819] And there was a psychological condition that they would talk about an issue that people had.

[1820] Well, and to the point, remember earlier I put up the dress, or Jamie put up the dress to gill movie.

[1821] In the past, when you wanted to have a sex change operation, the number of steps that you had to go through before you were accepted for sex change reassignment was quite assiduous.

[1822] And it made perfect sense because it's a really, you know, it's something that you can't undo.

[1823] And so it made perfect sense that you'd have to go through.

[1824] And now a five -year -old can say that they are of, and you're not allowed to question it.

[1825] It's really, it's just insane.

[1826] And you can put them on hormone blockers.

[1827] And you can put them on hormone.

[1828] And there's so many problems that they're finding now the people that have hormone blockers.

[1829] Charles Theron adopts two kids from Africa, two boys, and it turns out.

[1830] out statistically that it's perfectly reasonable that both of them are now girls.

[1831] Have you, have you seen that?

[1832] I saw some meme.

[1833] I wasn't sure that it was true.

[1834] If that is true, that seems very unlikely statistically, doesn't it?

[1835] No, of course.

[1836] I mean, already.

[1837] What are the odds?

[1838] So I think it's one in something like 10 ,000 that you have like full -blown gender dysphoria in the order of that magnitude.

[1839] So if you have two, so it's two independent events, so it's one out of 10 ,000 times one out of 10 ,000.

[1840] That's a very small number.

[1841] Let's steal man this.

[1842] What's the most charitable explanation for this?

[1843] That she, why she's doing this?

[1844] Why this is the case?

[1845] Why this is the case that she adopts two kids and that they turn out to be girls?

[1846] So I don't think it's a charitable explanation, but I think it's the correct one.

[1847] And I talk about it in the last book.

[1848] So I talk about Munchausen syndrome by proxy.

[1849] So Munchausen syndrome is when I fake an illness myself to garner sympathy and empathy.

[1850] Munchausen syndrome by proxy is when I harm someone under my care to garner the empathy by proxy.

[1851] So it could be my child, it could be my dog, it could be my elderly parent.

[1852] And so I've argued that transgenderism as exhibited by many of these progressive is a form of Munchausen syndrome by proxy.

[1853] look at me the super progressive woman who's got two transgender kids so it's a very very diabolically narcissistic i don't pretend to be psychoanalyzing her but you asked me for my prediction or opinion i think that's what it is yeah i was trying to find is there an explanation that would make so like i would like to know like what is what is someone who truly believes that that's normal what do they think who believes that what is that it's just normal that those two boys turned out to be girls.

[1854] It's people who live in La La La La Land because we know that statistically it's like winning the lottery.

[1855] Right, but people do win the lottery, right?

[1856] Yeah.

[1857] So what would be your most charitable explanation?

[1858] That would be the most charitable.

[1859] It's just it just turned out that these two boys, but there's a lot of evidence that if you, like, especially with boys that exhibit that they turn out to be gay.

[1860] Yeah.

[1861] feminine gay men.

[1862] Which used to be fine.

[1863] And now it's like, you know, like Tim Dillon has an argument about it, that a lot of this is really homophobic.

[1864] Yeah, exactly.

[1865] You know?

[1866] Yeah, I got that argument.

[1867] Yeah, it's an interesting argument.

[1868] The guy, the progenitor of this kind of stuff is, I don't know if you know him, John Money.

[1869] Do you know who that is?

[1870] No. John Money was a psychologist at Johns Hopkins University who's really the father of social constructivism who argued basically that you know you could take any bore and any girl raise them in the opposite you know gender role and then they would be that and the classic example which you may have heard of was david rhymer whose penis was botched during a circumcision they put a dress on him said call him whatever linda and then he ended up committing suicide well the guy who started all that was john money at johns hopkins and so we can really lay the him as the original culprit because a lot of surgeons will go to John Money for his expert advice.

[1871] A question about this story.

[1872] Sorry?

[1873] I saw this meme go around too.

[1874] This is where it came from, right?

[1875] This picture.

[1876] Yeah.

[1877] When I'm looking up the story about her adopting kids.

[1878] Yeah.

[1879] All I'm seeing is that she had adopted one daughter and that in 2019, the other one said that she was not a boy and that she is a daughter also and so that they're both daughters.

[1880] Oh, so one of them is a biological girl.

[1881] One is a real daughter.

[1882] And that's why I was trying to find out the actual, I don't know that I come like digging through the stories.

[1883] Nothing actually says biological, anything.

[1884] Well, then I really appreciate, Jills, you're careful when you know, at the start you said, I don't know if that's true or not.

[1885] Yeah.

[1886] So that turned out it's not true.

[1887] That's one of the reasons why I think a lot of people listen to you because exactly of that careful thing.

[1888] I mean, you can get upset at it and you could also, there, There's a lot of people that I know that will say their child is LBGTQ because their child is, they call themselves non -binary.

[1889] I've seen this happen before.

[1890] Like people, they wave it like a flag, that it's like this amazing thing that they have a queer child.

[1891] Yeah.

[1892] And the kid is just like, no, I'm just non -bine.

[1893] I don't want to be this.

[1894] You know what I mean?

[1895] Whatever.

[1896] Or are they just identifying as it?

[1897] Because the identity thing is very new.

[1898] And when you give kids an opportunity to distinguish themselves from other people, whether it's, there's a lot of things that people do that with.

[1899] They get into certain things.

[1900] They get into certain social groups, getting into certain hobbies and sports together.

[1901] But there was a thing that happened recently where they did a study in New Jersey.

[1902] They found out that there's a 4 ,000 % increase in kids calling themselves non -binary.

[1903] It's just like, I mean, at what point in time do we examine whether or not social pressures are playing a part of this?

[1904] Is it Lisa Littman or Lisa Lippman?

[1905] and she was a researcher at Brown University who argued for the rapid onset of transgender thing as a social contagion.

[1906] And I don't know if you remember.

[1907] I talked about this in my last book.

[1908] At first, Brown University had put out all these promotional alerts about, you know, here's one of our researchers publishing this great paper in a top journal and so on.

[1909] And then the transgender activists came after her because how dare you be arguing that it's a social contagion, that it's not a real thing.

[1910] And I'm not sure if they pulled the paper.

[1911] Maybe Jamie can tell us.

[1912] But she really, I'd even invited her on my show to offer her a platform to, you know, to support her.

[1913] And she had laid low because of the blowback she was getting.

[1914] Well, Abigail Shrier has experienced a tremendous amount of that.

[1915] And she was one of the first people to talk about it.

[1916] And when she talked about it on the podcast, I was, I wasn't aware that it was that big of an issue.

[1917] And that there's so many particularly.

[1918] like young autistic girls that dive into this and that also there's a certain thing that happens when they start injecting testosterone that it gives them this like feeling of euphoria you know and that it does alleviate some anxiety because it has an effect there's a physiological effect on and so they think this is what I've been missing my whole life exactly which is really kind of crazy to think that I mean it's it's a weird thing like this either especially when it comes to like encouraging surgery as encouraging it for really young people are we when did we stop believing that young people are impressionable right when did we stop believing that young people should not make life -changing choices when they're really young because they don't know what the fuck is going on well we've always said that with tattoos we've always said that with you know body modifications and and look at the cognitive inconsistency when it comes to age, because if a progressive will say that a 17 -year -old, who's 17 -year -old, 364 days, so in one day he's going to be 18, who lies in weight, kills his parents to pick up the insurance, the progressive will argue, well, you can't put him in prison for life.

[1919] He's just a child.

[1920] His brain is still going to develop until he's 25.

[1921] So for that issue, from this side of my mouth, I say that he's too young.

[1922] But from this side of my mouth, I'll say that a four -year -old is perfectly capable of saying, I am in the opposite body, and shut up, don't question it.

[1923] Those two things can't coexist.

[1924] Yeah, someone has to be a horrible monster for people to agree that this person needs to be tried as an adult.

[1925] Right.

[1926] You know, like some boy stabs his whole family to death, like crazy shit like that.

[1927] Right.

[1928] And which does happen.

[1929] I think there was a case of something like that recently where kids stabbed his mother to death, and they tried him as an adult.

[1930] I think he stabbed a girl to death.

[1931] now I'm screwing it up.

[1932] I think he stabbed a girl that he went to high school with to death and left her in the woods.

[1933] That's what it is, I think.

[1934] There's been a bunch of those guys stabbed their parents.

[1935] I just watched a documentary on the dating show serial killer.

[1936] Have you seen this guy?

[1937] Do you know this story?

[1938] No. The dating show, Jamie, I'm sure, is going to pull it out.

[1939] It's a guy who was really diabolical.

[1940] I mean, he was attacking 8 -year -old girls.

[1941] He was attacking 25 -year -old.

[1942] What year was this?

[1943] this would be 70s oh yeah we did talk about this once yeah then he appeared on it on the famous dating show where you know a woman is interviewing three guys that's guy that's the guy yes i remember that i do remember that yeah and it's funny because he won that show and then the woman decided not to go out with him because she found him creepy so she had the right antenna to pick up his creepy whereas other people didn't and paid so he was a serial killer he was a but but not just a serial killer Joe because he he did not have a you know a unique demographic group right typically serial killers will focus I only go after boys I only go after this guy had was caught in the act of suffocating an eight -year -old girl and she didn't pass away and he was I think sexually assaulting her but he's also done it to 25 -year -olds so this guy was now this is not Now, Progressive will tell you that this guy is like that because something happened in his background that made him that way.

[1944] He couldn't have been born damaged, right?

[1945] It's the social constructivist argument.

[1946] We're all born empty slate, and it's only society that either makes us good or bad.

[1947] And therefore, they would want to rehabiliting.

[1948] And by the way, the justice system released him several times when in a real deontological world, that guy would have been executed.

[1949] By the way, I support the death penalty for guys like that.

[1950] I supported if the legal system was clear.

[1951] Yeah.

[1952] There's just too many people that get accused, and we've had a bunch of them on.

[1953] They get accused of crimes that they didn't commit and spend decades in prison for murders that didn't commit.

[1954] I've actually had a guy on my show, arguably the most remarkable story I've ever heard on my show.

[1955] And I discuss it actually in my current book on Happiness, talking about gratitude.

[1956] He spent 29 years in prison for a murder that he was eventually exonerated of.

[1957] on the show I asked him how is it that you go about your life you're so put together you're not full of vengefulness you don't want to destroy the world you must be Buddha you're a much better man than I am and his answer really speaks to the mindset of being a happy person and having gratitude he said well I have a sister who's been bedridden with cerebral palsy for much of her life and yet she manages to smile and be happy so I don't really have much to complain about so here's a guy who who has had three decades stolen from him, and yet he still had the grace and dignity.

[1958] I think we can all learn a lot from that lesson.

[1959] Yeah, so that's why I have a hard time supporting the death penalty.

[1960] Yeah.

[1961] Because I think there's a lot of, like, very corrupt prosecutors and a lot of very corrupt lawyers.

[1962] And the whole thing is it's human.

[1963] But couldn't we just restrict it to the most?

[1964] So if I find your DNA, in the body of five dead children, that's the only time I will use the death penalty.

[1965] Why not make it so extreme that your concern doesn't apply?

[1966] I could agree with that.

[1967] I see it at least on paper that I could agree with that.

[1968] But the problem is people plan evidence.

[1969] And you could see, like if there's a video of someone in the act of doing something, especially now with deep fakes, that's a problem again, right?

[1970] Right.

[1971] But, yeah, if someone was, especially if they're saying they're guilty, they show no remorse, yeah.

[1972] Like, why should they be alive?

[1973] But I just wish that we knew for sure that everybody who's locked up in jail for a crime was actually guilty of that crime.

[1974] And that's not the case.

[1975] So that's not the case.

[1976] So there would be no context where you would ever sign up for the death penalty as it stands.

[1977] I just think you're giving people the kind of power.

[1978] For sure, if someone does something we know, did it you want that yeah but it's a sort of akin to maybe the principles of free speech free speech applies even to people that you disagree with the holocaust deniers right yeah the insane people Nazis like that was what the uh the ADL used to support right I think that if we were living in a world where there was no lies and there there all the prosecutors and all the judges We're all above board and just impeccable sense of ethics and morals and you could trust them to know the truth Then yeah, but that's not the case.

[1979] So in a flawed society like the one that we live in I can't support something that's killing innocent people Right even if it's killing guilty people too Yeah, it's like if it kills ten guilty guys and one innocent guy we fucked up Yeah, and I think that I don't know what the number is of people that are unjustly accused but it's got to be high yeah you know and then there's people that are in jail for things that are very minor and then while in jail wind up killing somebody well i mean to your point i think the innocence project uh has demonstrated that there have been men who were on death row who were exonerated many cases so that speaks to your point many cases and uh my good friend josh duvin has worked with a lot of these different people and through the show a few of them have actually wind up being exonerated.

[1980] Wow.

[1981] Yeah.

[1982] He's a fascinating guy and he's dedicated himself to finding these cases and helping these people and he's gotten a bunch of them out and their stories are insane.

[1983] And because of that, because knowing that those exist, I can't support something that's going to possibly kill those people.

[1984] It just doesn't, there's just too much corruption.

[1985] It's too much you can demonstrate the you could see it there's cases after case after case a prosecutor's getting arrested d a's getting arrested and lawyers and it's too there's too much fuckery yeah it's a human issue you know and unless we knew that humans were telling the truth you know you can't it's just too it's too much of a and to do it imagine if you're the person who executes this person then you find out that person was innocent like oh my god you got to live with that That person, not only did you steal three decades of your life, but then you took their life or something they didn't even do?

[1986] That's the reason why, isn't it in firing squads when you have a whole bunch of people and they're all, exactly.

[1987] Yeah, but what about lethal injection?

[1988] Yeah, there is someone who's literally doing it.

[1989] You know, oh, we do it with a computer.

[1990] Okay, whatever.

[1991] You fucking, do you know what you're doing?

[1992] You know what you're doing.

[1993] I mean, you can find all sorts of ways to rationalize it.

[1994] Yeah.

[1995] But morally, of course, you'd want that person removed.

[1996] move from society.

[1997] If you found out that someone in your community back in the day in the tribal days was raping children, you'd want to kill them.

[1998] Exactly.

[1999] And justly so.

[2000] Yeah, we actually, I was, I can't remember who, actually yesterday, the guys that came over at the hotel, we were talking about, you know, parenting with the, with the threat of, you know, protecting your children from a pedophile.

[2001] And I've argued that my approach to parenting has been, I don't trust anyone with my children.

[2002] Precisely because the one who is going to commit those infractions is not someone that has, you know, hidden horns that you can see.

[2003] It is your uncle.

[2004] It is grandpa.

[2005] It is the really sweet neighbor.

[2006] It is the person.

[2007] And so, and I've actually had, not heated, but, you know, disagreements with my wife where she thought I was being too paranoid about this.

[2008] And my answer is, my job is to always err on the side.

[2009] side of safety.

[2010] So there's no sleepovers.

[2011] There's no sleepaway camp because there is going to be this, the counselor there who is a pig, and then I would have miserably failed in my job.

[2012] And so my job while you are under my protection is to make sure that I never put you in a position where this could happen.

[2013] What happens after when you're an adult?

[2014] That's your business.

[2015] What are your thoughts?

[2016] I think, no, I think I feel what you're saying.

[2017] I think you also have to let your children expose them they have to be in the real world they have to experience different kinds of people and to protect them too much is actually damaging to their development so there's a fine dance that you do so that's the anti -fragility stuff yeah there's a fine dance and you know you think about just your experience I mean it's horrible to say that any bad experiences were good for you but oftentimes they you develop character through a lot of adversity in your life.

[2018] Oh, I completely agree with that.

[2019] How much adversity do you want to expose your children to?

[2020] And then there's the question of things like predators.

[2021] I've actually argued in the happiness book, I argued that what I went through in the Lebanese civil war paradoxically makes me a happier person.

[2022] Because any time that I start whining about something that's pissing me off, I can always pull back from my memory.

[2023] I had the miracle of escaping the Middle East intact.

[2024] So what am I whining about?

[2025] And so you're exactly on point that the fact that I've gone through those horrors makes me the happier person I am to that.

[2026] Yeah, I think perspective.

[2027] You know, that's the thing about anyone that I've met that's come from some war -torn part of the world.

[2028] When they make it to America, especially if they're in a place that's safe and nice, they just have an immense appreciation and their perspective is very different.

[2029] They're also, like, people that come from comedy's countries in particular, they are just.

[2030] so allergic to that horse shit.

[2031] Yeah.

[2032] Yeah.

[2033] When they see it coming, any Marxist ideology, they see it coming, they're like, fuck you.

[2034] Yeah.

[2035] Fuck you.

[2036] We know where this goes.

[2037] This goes to, you have to give up all your possessions and everything goes to the state and everything gets distributed evenly.

[2038] Like, how do you enforce that?

[2039] Like, who gets to choose?

[2040] Like, what the fuck are you signing up for?

[2041] But these idealistic kids that think that the world could be a better place with socialism, if that we all just, like, no one should.

[2042] I saw this.

[2043] thing argued this guy argued online no one should ever be able to make a million dollars and that you should be restricted to a certain amount of income that allows you to have a certain like you specify the certain size apartment that you should be allowed and anything else is in excess amazing that it's you know an attack on the freedoms of others it's like there's this fascinating takedown by this like, you know, super progressive, probably college kid.

[2044] Well, I've seen it.

[2045] So I think last year when I came on the show, I might have been right in the throes of having all my book royalties stolen from my last book from the tax authorities, right?

[2046] And so I was really pissed about it.

[2047] And whenever I would post a tweet sort of condemning the parasitic taxation system, there would be people who would write to me with complete.

[2048] entitlement, Canadians, and saying, well, why should you get to keep the money instead of you not being a selfish pig and sharing it with others?

[2049] So my book royalties, my thoughts, my ideas, my humor is not mine, as a matter of fact, according to the Canadian government, about 58 % is owned by them.

[2050] But it really comes from having this idea inculcated in you, which is that we should all have equality of outcomes.

[2051] It is a cancer and it is an affront to human meritocracy it's unbelievable the argument against that would be that there's a certain reality to the way you were the the way you're living in this life and that you have resources available and you have things available that other people don't have and it would be better if you had less and then it bounced out so if you give a little bit more and then eventually bounce out the The problem is it's not balancing out.

[2052] The problem is like, where's the money going?

[2053] Right.

[2054] Well, the money is going to the government and they get to decide how it's spent and they get to pass laws and dictate and send a little here and well, there's a war, so we're going to need more and then there's inflation that comes with the war.

[2055] It's the price of gas and food and everything goes up and all this is happening and you can't say shit about it.

[2056] Yeah.

[2057] And you're in this position where you're like, well, if you complain, well, you're a man a privilege.

[2058] You're privileged, and you should be giving that up.

[2059] And if you gave it up, the world be a better place.

[2060] I don't have any faith in their ability to use my taxes to make the world a better place.

[2061] I have zero faith.

[2062] I willingly and happily pay my taxes because I think it's part of being an American.

[2063] You contribute, even if the system is flawed, you contribute to at least some of it is going to fixing roads and some of it is going to education and health care.

[2064] or whatever, whatever it is, some of it's got to be going to people that care and are really trying to make the world a better place.

[2065] Some of it has got to be going to whatever, whatever organizations that are doing a good job.

[2066] But the idea that if you just keep, like some people think they should have a 90 % tax bracket.

[2067] It's like if you're a billionaire, you don't deserve to have a billion.

[2068] You should just give up, well, guess what, they're not going to work.

[2069] Yeah, exactly.

[2070] People are going to get upset.

[2071] They're not going to innovate.

[2072] You don't have a quality of effort.

[2073] There's a lot of equality.

[2074] People talk about equality.

[2075] There's not an equality of effort.

[2076] It's not a quality of intelligence.

[2077] It's not a quality of skill, of talent.

[2078] And it's genuinely anti -human nature.

[2079] And I'm not sure if I've said this before on this show, but E .O. Wilson, the famous Harvard biologist, who he's passed away now last year, I think, he studied social ants.

[2080] And in social ants, everybody is equal other than the reproductive queen.

[2081] So when he was asked about socialism slash communism, his answer, which I love to always quote, was great idea, wrong species, right?

[2082] Which perfectly captures, right?

[2083] We're not all equal.

[2084] Some of us are taller, shorter, harder working, less harder working.

[2085] So there's no reason why we should all have the quality of outcomes.

[2086] It is anti -human nature.

[2087] It's not realistic.

[2088] It's not realistic to expect people to work as hard as some people.

[2089] They don't have to.

[2090] You don't want to be Michael Jordan.

[2091] Well, don't fucking practice 12 hours a day.

[2092] You don't have to be Michael Jordan.

[2093] Like, if you're happy as being a guy who works a job and likes to go hiking and likes to go fishing or something, that's great.

[2094] There's nothing wrong with that.

[2095] But there's all kinds of people.

[2096] And some people are going to be that guy.

[2097] And when they are that guy, like, you can't say you have to give up all your money.

[2098] It's hard to be that.

[2099] It's hard to be Michael Jordan.

[2100] He deserves all that money.

[2101] It's fucking impossible to be.

[2102] Only one guy pulled it off.

[2103] And you deserve all the money you make, my friend.

[2104] No, let's not, let's leave me out of this.

[2105] I'm trying to skirt around that.

[2106] But if you want it to be fair and send some to the Gatsad Trust Fund.

[2107] What do you use your trust fund money for?

[2108] I would use it to be able to use as escape velocity so that I don't have to answer to anybody.

[2109] Have you, because of the oppressive nature of the Canadian government, have you ever thought about jumping ship?

[2110] Oh my God, I think we've discussed it in the past.

[2111] I think about it probably 30 times a day.

[2112] Wow.

[2113] I haven't been able to for two main reasons, Joe.

[2114] Number one, both my family and my wife's family are in Montreal.

[2115] So that's number one that keeps us there.

[2116] Number two, it's very, very hard to walk away from a ten -year professorship.

[2117] That's the truth.

[2118] Montreal's a great city, too.

[2119] It's a beautiful place to live.

[2120] It is.

[2121] It's like it's a perfect amount of cold weather that develops adversity and character.

[2122] I've heard you say that before, but that's spoken from a guy who's lived in Southern California and then Austin for too many years.

[2123] I think you forgot it how bad the winter's going to be.

[2124] Oh, I remember.

[2125] I lived in Boston.

[2126] I remember it sucks It sucks hard But I'm not saying that it's good I think it's good for you Yeah Like cold plunges are good for you You know they don't It's not good why you're doing it It sucks But I think it's good for you And I think there's something about being at the You're at the mercy of nature For many months at a time For there's many months From November Until Wednesday start warming up Around April Yeah it can get cold as fuck in March Cold as fuck in March You got full snowstorm Yeah So there's so many months where it's so goddamn cold that I think there's a certain humility that comes with that.

[2127] Yeah.

[2128] There's a certain of appreciations of the summer days because the summer days are they're enormously novel.

[2129] Yeah.

[2130] It's like what a beautiful thing.

[2131] Like we just, six months ago, we're just digging ourselves out to try to drive to the grocery store.

[2132] You're to dig yourself out of three feet of fucking snow.

[2133] That's true.

[2134] Everybody remembers that.

[2135] Well, and that's why Montreal, there's kind of an orgiastic party field.

[2136] during the summer months because we're making up for cocooning yes i used to love doing comedy up there we used to do the montreal comedy festival and it was in the summer and everybody was so happy that's right and i i really clearly remember thinking that that there's something to the kind of character that comes out of people that live in that place it's not all of them of course right there's fuckheads at every corner of the world but i just think there's something cool about that city and it's also like it's very european even though it's Canadian it's a lot Thank you.

[2137] You're making me feel good that I'm still there.

[2138] I love it up there.

[2139] It's a great place.

[2140] It's great.

[2141] I just don't love the kind of direction that the government is trying to take control of the country.

[2142] That's what freaks me out, taking control of narratives and taking control of what people say on social media and stopping protests and what they did with the Canadian truckers.

[2143] Yeah.

[2144] Well, I think, again, not to blow smoke up your behind, but one of the things that I think people appreciate about you is that you do change.

[2145] change your opinion in light of new evidence.

[2146] And I remember very vividly the first time that you and I spoke about Justin Trudeau, you were quite a fan.

[2147] And then you revised your opinion.

[2148] Well, I felt he's a very handsome man, very good speaker.

[2149] But he's not really a good speaker on the cuff, off the cuff.

[2150] It's really like when he has like a speech.

[2151] It's a template.

[2152] Yeah.

[2153] And, you know, he's a good looking guy.

[2154] It's like when you see like a handsome fellow with nice hair, it's like, oh, I want him to be good.

[2155] But you know, it's funny that you say he's good looking because, Because Megan Kelly came on my show and her view, and we would think that you would know how to judge the masculinity of someone, she said, I would never want that guy on top of me. He doesn't adjude any message.

[2156] I mean, literally almost exactly that to the word.

[2157] I'm sure that Jamie's going to pull it up any second now.

[2158] But that's also him now, right, where you know who he really is.

[2159] I think.

[2160] He's a girly girl.

[2161] You think we had a boxing match.

[2162] He had a boxing match or some other politician.

[2163] Do you ever see it?

[2164] I did.

[2165] Not terrible.

[2166] Yeah.

[2167] Not terrible.

[2168] I mean, I'll defer to your boxing expertise.

[2169] Yeah, that's terrible.

[2170] They threw some pans, you know.

[2171] Is that right?

[2172] Buckham's going after it.

[2173] Yeah.

[2174] But what disturbs me is the way he's willing to discredit people that disagree with them, like the Canadian truckers.

[2175] We're saying that they're often misogynistic and racist.

[2176] Like, what are you talking about, man?

[2177] The fact that they froze the bank accounts of people who donated money.

[2178] That's insane.

[2179] Insane.

[2180] That's like banana republic shit.

[2181] Yeah.

[2182] That's scary.

[2183] That's scary totalitarian shit.

[2184] I had the spokesperson of the trucker convoy on my show.

[2185] Yeah, it's unbelievable.

[2186] It's a test case.

[2187] It really is.

[2188] Yeah, for totalitarian government tactics.

[2189] And they did not fail.

[2190] They did not pass that test.

[2191] They failed that test.

[2192] And to the great discredit of my fellow Canadians, we've now three times.

[2193] I mean, you don't vote for him.

[2194] You vote for the party in a parliamentary system.

[2195] but it's three times now that he's in and each time he's gotten I think no more than about 30 something percent of the vote so that's one of the dangers of a parliamentary system even though two -thirds of the people don't want you there he's now been prime minister since 2015 how does that work well you're basically voting for the party and then depending on how many seats are taken in the parliament that's who becomes the majority so it's not like the American system where I am voting for Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton.

[2196] You're voting for a platform in your writing, right?

[2197] So if I'm voting for the liberal party, I'm voting for the liberal candidate in my writing.

[2198] And now that is tallied up, and since he's the prime minister, the leader of that party, he then becomes the prime minister.

[2199] And does anyone primary him?

[2200] Do they have that sort of a situation where someone tries to challenge him from the same party?

[2201] Only in the, when you're deciding who's going to be the leader of the party.

[2202] So once someone's leader at the party They no longer challenged that person That's right So I don't know the exact details So as long as that party is in power He's in power He's in power For how long?

[2203] There is no I don't think there's a statute Not statute What is it called?

[2204] Term limitations Thank you I don't think there is So he could be dictator forever For like the next 4 ,000 years It's unbelievable Yeah Great One of the other reasons Why I'd like to leave Canada And move to greener pastors Yeah it's just not good For people to have that kind of power it's almost never good and especially when they start using it in that way they start using it the way they're using it up there it's like the clamping down of free speech is never done by the good guys it's not it's not what it is and when you're being fed propaganda and you know you're being fed propaganda and now you're expected to not say it and not talk about it and just accept it that's not good for anybody it's not good for it and it's only good for the people that are in power and it's only good for as long as they're alive because what they're going to leave behind is going to be a disaster and if new people that are from the opposing party get into control they're going to expand their control even further and this is a terrible cycle that if you don't have very rigid rules on what can and can't be done you open the door for tyranny and that's that's what they're doing and the worst part is that it's cloaked under the robe of progressivism it says he'll be prime minister until 2025 they brokered a deal what does it say at the top It says they broke it a deal that will keep minority government in power until the next election.

[2205] Yeah.

[2206] Why do they say minority government?

[2207] What does that mean?

[2208] So that means...

[2209] Minority liberal government, that's the minority of the people in the country?

[2210] No, it's in terms of the number of seats in the parliament.

[2211] I don't know the exact number, but you could either be a majority government or a minority government.

[2212] Usually when you're a minority government, it's because you've set up an agreement with another party allowing you.

[2213] to, right?

[2214] So in this case, it's the NDP.

[2215] So the whole party's behind him, which is a problem.

[2216] And that's what would it take for someone from another party to win?

[2217] Get enough seats in the ridings to overturn this asshole.

[2218] Right now, the top guy in the conservative party is Pierre Pognev.

[2219] I don't know if you've heard of him.

[2220] I have.

[2221] I think Jordan Peterson had him on his show.

[2222] I'm not a huge fan.

[2223] I don't know enough about his policy, so I don't want to mis -speak, but I traditionally I don't like someone who spent their entire career in politics and nothing else.

[2224] I like the guys who, you know, they were surgeons or they were lawyers or they were businessmen and then they come into politics as a second act to their lives.

[2225] Whereas this guy, meaning the Pierre guy, has always been in politics.

[2226] And so for that reason alone, I would prefer someone to be coming in from the outside.

[2227] But short of that, I don't know anything about him.

[2228] It just doesn't seem like it's moving in a good direction in terms of people's ability to express themselves.

[2229] Indeed.

[2230] Yeah, it seems very, very, very, very much a thing that's in danger up there.

[2231] It's weird.

[2232] Yeah.

[2233] Well, have you, what, has Jordan been a support?

[2234] I think he's a supporter of his, right?

[2235] Have you?

[2236] Yeah, Jordan is supportive of his, yeah.

[2237] I've watched some interviews with him.

[2238] Well, there is another guy who, uh, broke from the conservative.

[2239] party named Maxim Bernier who started a new party called the I don't know what the people PPC or something I can't remember what it is but it's very very hard to get it off the ground so I don't even think they got one person to sit in the parliament despite the fact that many of his positions we both probably you and I would agree with but it's just very hard to introduce a new party yeah so it's kind of it's kind of how it is in America as well yeah exactly Exactly.

[2240] Like Cornell West just branched off and he's in another party right now, right?

[2241] What party is he in?

[2242] Cornell West left the Democrats to run for president under another party.

[2243] Yeah.

[2244] As an independent or?

[2245] What is the Green Party?

[2246] The Green Party.

[2247] The Green Party.

[2248] So that's interesting because there's a lot of people that are Cornell West supporters that they're thinking would ordinarily vote for the Democrat, whoever the Democrat is.

[2249] Like there's blue no matter who people.

[2250] Of course.

[2251] There's a certain percentage in this country.

[2252] And there's many of those.

[2253] those who might look at Cornell West and go, you know what, I'm more aligned with what he's saying.

[2254] Right.

[2255] And they might vote for him and it might, you know, sway votes in one way or another.

[2256] They were very worried about that.

[2257] Sort of like what Ross Perrault did.

[2258] I was just going to say exactly that.

[2259] Yeah, Ross Perrault was like conservative.

[2260] But also.

[2261] 92?

[2262] Is that not right?

[2263] Yeah.

[2264] It was when Clinton got in office because they thought, you know, Ross Perot was like he was saying, he, took out ads.

[2265] So this is what people don't understand.

[2266] There was no way to get your word out back then.

[2267] It's hard to imagine in this day of YouTube and the web.

[2268] If you grew up with it, this is going to sound so alien to you.

[2269] But no one really understood how the IRS system worked or the Federal Reserve worked or any of these things work.

[2270] And Ross Perrault was so wealthy that he bought an hour of TV time.

[2271] Yeah.

[2272] So instead of like whatever would Normally beyond whatever channel he did it.

[2273] He literally bought, he goes, how much is it cost?

[2274] How about the whole fucking thing?

[2275] He was a Texas crazy billionaire dude.

[2276] Little dude, right?

[2277] Little dude.

[2278] I've got a big card and I'll fuck you up.

[2279] And he just didn't tolerate anybody's bullshit.

[2280] And this guy laid out, I forget what exactly he talked about.

[2281] But he laid it out of way with charts and explaining to people.

[2282] Like, how are you getting fucked?

[2283] And I remember the conversations that I would have that people I was working with back then, We're all sitting around like, do you fucking watch that shit?

[2284] Like, what is this?

[2285] Like, is that all true?

[2286] And people start researching it and buying books and you've got to read this book and like, what is, what is this?

[2287] And a lot of people wanted him to win.

[2288] And they thought, like, yeah, let's have something different.

[2289] Like someone who understands how to run a fucking business.

[2290] Someone who understands all the waste and corruption and all the evil bullshit that's going on behind the scenes.

[2291] Come on, get in there, Ross.

[2292] And that's probably how Bill Clinton got elected.

[2293] That's right.

[2294] Right.

[2295] Because he split the Republican.

[2296] Yeah, they split the Republicans.

[2297] Because most of the people that were for Ross Perrault were like, you know, fairly conservative -minded people who wanted no nonsense.

[2298] There's no nonsense.

[2299] Texas billionaire comes along, explains everything.

[2300] He's been very financially, you know, successful.

[2301] Are you ready to make a prediction of for the 2024 election?

[2302] I don't, I mean, here's my prediction.

[2303] I don't think Biden runs.

[2304] Okay.

[2305] I think, I don't know what's going on with all this stuff, with his son and with the, with, with, with the, with.

[2306] with the evidence of corruption, how valid it is.

[2307] I see all these articles about all these conversations that they had and the money that was being transferred back and forth.

[2308] I'm thinking it's pretty valid.

[2309] It seems real valid.

[2310] But it also seems like if this is all coming out, like what a good way to remove a president that seems mentally compromised.

[2311] Because it seems like if you were in the Democratic Party and you thought, like, listen, there's a certain amount of people they're going to vote blue no matter who, right?

[2312] We need a better representation because you could not have Kamala Harris.

[2313] She would not win.

[2314] People would be very, very reluctant to vote for her for president, I think, after just listening to her talk for the last three years, like, what?

[2315] And so who else?

[2316] And there would have to be a reason for that who else.

[2317] So she would have to step down.

[2318] It's California and Justin Trudeau.

[2319] It's Gavin Newsom.

[2320] The problem is he did such a bad job with California.

[2321] So they're so vulnerable like he he does spit out some good propaganda.

[2322] He just starts talking about him very high on California and all the fucking companies that have come from this and all the money's generated and all the intellectuals and all the yeah, but you got to know the real stats of like how many of them feel stuck.

[2323] Because if you ask people on the street in California, I think the number was four out of 10 people they surveyed are thinking about moving out of California, which is most people don't have the ability to up and move.

[2324] I was very fortunate when I all the shit was going down in California, in whatever it was, May of 2020, when I first started thinking about moving.

[2325] Yeah.

[2326] I was like, this ain't going in a good direction.

[2327] And I fucking smell chaos.

[2328] And I got out early.

[2329] But if you don't get out early and you don't have the ability to get out early, like, you don't have the financial ability, maybe your parents live there, maybe you're taking care of someone, maybe your job depends on you staying there.

[2330] It's a good job.

[2331] You're fucked.

[2332] Yeah.

[2333] And that's a lot of people.

[2334] I wasn't fucked so I got out and I don't like where it's going because I don't with letting people out of jail and all this this craziness about no bail like letting people they arrest them when they commit a crime and put them right back out on the street no bail no cash bail it's not a felony if it's under $950 all that stuff is crazy when you go to CVS you see like what it looks like in these stores in San Francisco it's mad madman fucking madness yeah close there's so many businesses that are closing down.

[2335] They don't want to be a part of it anymore.

[2336] They're getting out of these states.

[2337] They're getting out of Portland.

[2338] They're getting out of Seattle.

[2339] They're getting out of these places because they're like, this is fucked and it ain't getting better.

[2340] And that's what I don't like.

[2341] I don't like when I don't see any course correction.

[2342] I don't see any readjustment.

[2343] I don't see anything like, hey, we need to take care of disenfranchise people.

[2344] But we also need to make our streets safe and we have to stop crime.

[2345] Okay.

[2346] So we need to figure out a way to, you know, have these things, you know, mutually beneficial to everybody.

[2347] And there's no, none of that.

[2348] There's like more ridiculous laws, more lax on crime, more money for the homeless people.

[2349] Give them free drug, give them needles.

[2350] They need clean needles.

[2351] Like, what?

[2352] Let them camp out anywhere.

[2353] I was asking you offline when we weren't on the show if you regret moving here and what you said was you even love it more here than you did last year when we saw.

[2354] I love it.

[2355] Yeah.

[2356] Texas is great.

[2357] And Austin is particularly great because it's a progressive -minded city that's surrounded by red states.

[2358] Right.

[2359] Like, there's a t -shirt that says, keep Austin weird and surrounded.

[2360] There's something about being surrounded by the rest of, like, the real fucking Texas, Texas people.

[2361] Like, even the progressives here are more reasonable.

[2362] So, like, whatever the chart is, like, where the middle is.

[2363] Like, there's so many people that you would even think of as conservative or you think of as progressive because they're socially progressive or conservative.

[2364] Right.

[2365] But they're kind of more in the middle in terms of the way California was.

[2366] Right.

[2367] California was like radical leftism and then like if you were a conservative, you had to hide it or you're a Nazi or you live in Orange County.

[2368] You know, this is like certain places where the conservatives thrived.

[2369] Yeah, yeah.

[2370] And that was fine.

[2371] But the overwhelming amount of people who are in the big urban areas, like specifically San Francisco and Los Angeles, they're in the fucking fog of it.

[2372] They're in the fog of it.

[2373] They believe all sorts of wacky shit, and they were the first persons that were, like, happy that we were locking down.

[2374] The first person's happy there was a mass mandate and a vaccine mandate, and they were happy to go along with it all.

[2375] I'm going to, I don't know if you've heard of the Commonwealth Club, which is this big she -she event, to talk about this book.

[2376] It's in San Francisco.

[2377] Oh, boy.

[2378] So maybe I need to be wearing a hazmat suit or something.

[2379] Yeah, you need to wear something, like N95 type deal.

[2380] That's right.

[2381] It's the poop smell in the air.

[2382] Exactly, yeah.

[2383] It's, I don't know how you fix that.

[2384] That's the thing.

[2385] I don't think we've ever seen a city fall apart like we've seen Los Angeles and San Francisco fall apart.

[2386] And then have it be brought back.

[2387] I mean, it can be done, clearly.

[2388] But how and how much time?

[2389] So isn't it way easier to just.

[2390] Death spiral?

[2391] I'm worried that it's a death spiral.

[2392] I'm worried that it's going to turn worse.

[2393] Like you could have never imagined when I used to go to San Francisco in the 90s and to do stand -up all the time.

[2394] I would at the original cap city which was this cool little club that seated like 150 people it was great you could walk around the city and cool places to eat and cool bars to go to it was a fucking lovely city filled with culture and artists and interesting people and smart people it's like where the smart people were like not the people that were interested in show business and the vapid pursuit of stardom those are the people up there there were the tech people and the artists and the musicians and so much cool shit came from San Francisco.

[2395] Amazing food, the restaurants, just like just to walking around the streets, people were cool.

[2396] And now it's a hellhole.

[2397] Yeah.

[2398] It's the same place, just 30 years later.

[2399] It's a fucking hellhole.

[2400] How?

[2401] Ideologies have consequences.

[2402] Well, San Francisco is a really good documenting of that.

[2403] Michael Schellenberger's book.

[2404] Oh, I've had it on the show.

[2405] He's amazing.

[2406] He's amazing.

[2407] And Michael Schellenberger, who used to, you know, used to do it.

[2408] be like a hardcore progressive.

[2409] So he understands the mentality behind it and the sentiment behind it.

[2410] He's like a super sweet kind guy.

[2411] He's a lovely guy.

[2412] And his book is amazing.

[2413] Because it really documents and it's about how progressives ruined cities.

[2414] And it uses San Francisco as an amazing example of it.

[2415] And it's unfortunate because I think these people all have the right intentions.

[2416] A lot of them at least do.

[2417] They have good intentions.

[2418] They think this ideology is a kinder, more inclusive, more gentle.

[2419] But the consequences of the way they're enacting laws and allowing people to ruin everything around them.

[2420] Like that is real financial consequences.

[2421] Yeah.

[2422] In the parasitic mind, I actually talk about the fact that all of those parasitic ideas start with a noble goal.

[2423] And then in the pursuit of that noble goal, things go awry.

[2424] So awry.

[2425] How do you turn that around?

[2426] Who could be elected to mayor of San Francisco that could turn that around?

[2427] And how would it be.

[2428] even be tolerated and do you even have the resources well it's hard when you have a super majority like you do in california it's also hard when you have like it's very like it takes a long time to build a building yeah it's really easy to light it on fire yeah it takes just a few minutes yeah just throw gasoline on throw a like step away that fucking building's gone and to rebuild is quite difficult and when you have a city that's just overwhelmed with homelessness and crime in chaos.

[2429] Did you see that video of these kids that stole a car and drove it off a cliff?

[2430] No. In San Francisco?

[2431] No. You didn't see it?

[2432] No. Yeah.

[2433] I don't know the story behind this other than the fact that it was a stolen car.

[2434] But it is wild footage of this car going off the side of like a very steep hill in San Francisco.

[2435] Watch this.

[2436] So here comes the car.

[2437] Stolen car.

[2438] Watch this.

[2439] This is wild.

[2440] So look to the upper left -hand side.

[2441] That's where it's going to come from.

[2442] Oh, this is in the video.

[2443] This is a long -ass video.

[2444] Yeah, this is like an unedited.

[2445] Okay.

[2446] They're joyriding?

[2447] What are they doing?

[2448] It seems like it.

[2449] Here's.

[2450] Oh.

[2451] Bro.

[2452] Sorry, they jumped out of the car before this happened, or they're in the car?

[2453] As the video continues, people try to help them get out of the car, and they sort of all get out of the car, and then at least two of them run away.

[2454] Oh, my God.

[2455] I'll sort of skip ahead.

[2456] So a few people are now out of the car.

[2457] They're climbing out here.

[2458] Oh, my goodness.

[2459] And then you can see him climbing the stairs.

[2460] Does that lady say, I love you?

[2461] Well, yeah, there's something going on.

[2462] It's very confusing.

[2463] I saw it on Twitter last night.

[2464] Wow.

[2465] Wow.

[2466] Is that a person that was in the car?

[2467] I believe so.

[2468] So she's saying, I love you?

[2469] I don't know who's talking.

[2470] I love you, but I'm getting the fuck out of Dodge.

[2471] Is that what she's saying?

[2472] Could be.

[2473] Is she one of the people that opened the door?

[2474] Again, it's hard to say who's...

[2475] Here, back it up a little so we could see.

[2476] Where are you, investigative journalists?

[2477] I know, I don't know who's talking.

[2478] I'm sorry, I love you.

[2479] So someone's hurt, bad.

[2480] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[2481] Yikes.

[2482] Oh, so that's the person driving the car.

[2483] You see the position that she's in?

[2484] That's the front of the car.

[2485] Yeah.

[2486] So that's the driver.

[2487] No, that's not the case because then the...

[2488] Oh, yeah.

[2489] No, that's the back seat.

[2490] Right?

[2491] Wow.

[2492] I don't know.

[2493] Was that the front seat?

[2494] Which was the car holding on?

[2495] the front that's the front no so that's the back the front's in the it does the front is like goes down oh my god this is so crazy look in how it goes down boom I'm looking forward to my yeah so that was someone in the back seat that was in the back passenger seat of course look how the door's open duh um but whatever the fuck happened that lady's like I'm out bitch love you man I gotta go you got fucked up yikes we've covered a lot of ground San Francisco carjacking wish me look they carjacked that car and drove it over a cliff there's a video of it going over the cliff too there's a video of it going straight down the street and going through a fence I'm just launching except for somebody I know really yeah they got he stopped them from actually stealing it and it like the car flipped over they got out and shot at him oh my god it's not in San Francisco though where was that Columbus yeah God damn, Columbus.

[2496] It's a gritty town, right?

[2497] I love Columbus.

[2498] Is that right?

[2499] Yeah, it's fun.

[2500] Fun plays do stand up, fun people.

[2501] Blue collar.

[2502] Yeah, yeah, yeah, fun, fun people.

[2503] But, you know, like all places took a hit during the pandemic.

[2504] All places took a hit economically.

[2505] They took a hit with violence and crime and, you know, and the mostly peaceful protests.

[2506] That's right.

[2507] That's right.

[2508] mostly peaceful protest is a great meme yeah yeah that's that was on CNN right I think it was on a lot of places I think a lot of places the original one was he's saying that and with the fire behind that mostly peaceful protest yeah that's the thing that is the truth though but if if you do light some buildings on fire and most of the people are not lighting buildings on fire it's mostly peaceful well that's one of the things by the way that I think Canada we have better than you guys and that We are less violent, right?

[2509] Except with hockey.

[2510] You guys fuck people up in hockey.

[2511] There is no place in Montreal that you truly would be afraid to take a wrong turn.

[2512] Oh, well, that's nice.

[2513] That's because the cold weeds out the week.

[2514] They're cold weeds out the week up there.

[2515] I remember coming from Boston thinking how fucking cold it is up there.

[2516] Like, whoa, this is another level.

[2517] Another level Like walking from my hotel to get something to eat I remember we walked a couple blocks We're like this is an adventure An adventure and not dying When you're walking to a restaurant like holy shit Minus 40 Yeah and then when you get inside Everybody's like holy shit Holy shit But there's a warmth and hospitality To like going to a place When it's warm inside And it's cold outside And everyone's very appreciative of the warmth Yeah It's very different than going into a cool place when it's hot out.

[2518] Right.

[2519] Going to a cool place when it's hot out, it's nice.

[2520] It's nice, but it doesn't feel the same nice as like you could fucking die out there.

[2521] That's right.

[2522] I have, by the way, when I was 13, they had stopped school, I think the only time ever because it was too cold.

[2523] Usually it's because it's too snowy.

[2524] And it was, I think, minus 70 with wind chill.

[2525] Oh.

[2526] And I decided to walk out just to say, as I am now, that I did it.

[2527] Yeah.

[2528] And I lasted maybe 10 meters.

[2529] It was your, my face was burning.

[2530] So basically it was like playing football in the NFL.

[2531] You lasted about it.

[2532] What a nice way to bring a bat.

[2533] The same way you would walk out with a football.

[2534] God, it gets so cold.

[2535] But I mean, I don't think it's necessary to develop character, but I certainly think it helps.

[2536] Yeah.

[2537] Like, I felt that about Boston.

[2538] Like, I love the people that live there because there's a certain, like, fucking roughness to those people.

[2539] They've dealt with some shit.

[2540] You know, they know how to deal with some shit.

[2541] What is your next visit to Montreal?

[2542] I don't know.

[2543] I've been to Canada since all this shit went down until I couldn't cross the border if I was unvaccinated.

[2544] Oh, right.

[2545] That's true.

[2546] And I'm like, you guys are out of your fucking mind.

[2547] Yeah.

[2548] I mean, it still was in America until May. You couldn't come here.

[2549] That's true.

[2550] If you were unvaccinated.

[2551] We were like the last country to hang in there with that.

[2552] Ugh.

[2553] Weird.

[2554] Just weird to be going through this.

[2555] Well, I remember the last time that at least, that I knew that you came.

[2556] You had kindly invited me to one of your stand -up at the Corona Theater.

[2557] Across from Joe Beef, we're giving a lot of plugs.

[2558] Oh, Joe Beef is amazing.

[2559] He's your friend, yeah.

[2560] Yeah, well, both of those guys.

[2561] That's an incredible restaurant.

[2562] It is.

[2563] Yeah.

[2564] I think it was voter in the top restaurants in Canada.

[2565] Yeah, it should be.

[2566] Montreal is just an amazing place for culture in general.

[2567] It's just a beautiful city.

[2568] It's a great, great old architecture.

[2569] It's a love of a city.

[2570] I'm feeling better by the second about being there.

[2571] If you're going to live in Canada, it's a great spot.

[2572] It is.

[2573] It's a great spot.

[2574] It's a great spot.

[2575] Much less antiseptic than Toronto, that's for sure.

[2576] Yeah, it's just, you know, those kind of policies that are in place that stop the freedom of expression, they're troubling.

[2577] Because I always thought of Canada as being like this really open -minded, liberal place.

[2578] And incidentally, there's a unique dynamic in Quebec that's different from Canada, which is the protection of the freedom.

[2579] French language.

[2580] And in doing that, you do end up also infringing on people's intrinsic rights, right?

[2581] So I'm fully francophone, so it's not as though I've got a, I mean, I'm perfectly happy to speak French, but you shouldn't have to mandate that by instituting draconian laws.

[2582] So you get all sorts of immigrants that come to Quebec that you otherwise should want to have in Quebec, but because they can't pass some French test, they end up leaving.

[2583] Is that really good for society?

[2584] But according to the Quebec government, it is.

[2585] because Quebec is a distinct society that's surrounded by evil English language, and we need to do whatever we can to protect it.

[2586] In my view, you shouldn't.

[2587] It is fascinating that there's a segment of your country that speaks primarily French.

[2588] Amazing, isn't it?

[2589] By the way, as you leave Montreal, it becomes almost exclusively French.

[2590] Really?

[2591] And in Montreal, historically, the more you went west, it was more English, the more you went east, the more French it was.

[2592] But outside of Montreal, 20, 25, 30, 40 minutes, you could pretty much only speak French.

[2593] Wow.

[2594] Kind of cool.

[2595] Cool to visit.

[2596] Kind of cool.

[2597] Come and see us.

[2598] We miss you up there.

[2599] Well, you know, you got to stay there and keep it down.

[2600] Hold it down.

[2601] You're one of the few reasonable voices from up there.

[2602] It's like yelling from the rooftops.

[2603] Well, thank you.

[2604] And you've been at the front lines for a long time, my friend.

[2605] And you were sounding out about the dangers of all this stuff before anybody really recognized where it could go.

[2606] Oh, thank you for saying that.

[2607] You and Jordan.

[2608] Yeah.

[2609] You know, I mean, you were even before him.

[2610] Some of the criticisms that you experienced back then, I thought, like, wow, this is weird that people have this perspective.

[2611] Like, don't they see that he's making so much sense?

[2612] Yeah.

[2613] He's so, I mean, everything you're saying is so rational and reasonable and well thought out.

[2614] Like, oh, he's a Nazi.

[2615] Wait, anyway, he's a Jewish Nazi who escaped Lebanon?

[2616] What are you talking about?

[2617] right right it's weird where people try to categorize people and say and you are in a lot of the ways because of who you are and because of your academic background because you're so articulate and the books you've written you've managed to like avoid a lot of the pitfalls that some other people have fallen into because you're so undeniably respected as an intellectual and when you're talking about these things you're talking about it from a place of like you have a deep understanding of the literature you have deep understanding of the literature you have deep understanding of of like where these problems come from, like what's the source of them?

[2618] How do they arise and how do they permeate through society in a sort of, as you say, parasitic way?

[2619] Thank you.

[2620] Those are very sweet words.

[2621] I really appreciate them.

[2622] Yeah, well, you're a very important voice, my friend.

[2623] You really are.

[2624] And I think that your work has been instrumental for helping other people form arguments against some of this nonsense too, because you've sort of laid it out where it could just repeat what you've said.

[2625] And like, you know, wait a minute, you know, the Godfather's got some points here thank you my pleasure brother and your new book is available right now as of today unfortunately these fucking knuckleheads didn't allow you to do the audio but you can read the book and hear it in your sweet and sultry voice the sad truth about happiness eight secrets to leading the good life available now thank you so much Joe thank you let's do it again anytime anytime we do it again all right love you thank you bye bye bye