Who is Joe Rogan? Part One

[0] Welcome back to the Jordan B. Peterson podcast.

[1] Or if you're new here, welcome to season two, episode 11.

[2] I'm Michaela Peterson, dad's daughter, favorite child, and collaborator.

[3] Just kidding.

[4] Today we're presenting a very entertaining podcast.

[5] Dad's conversation with Joe Rogan, Part 1.

[6] Dad and Joe discussed topics like parenting and divorce, raising kids and teenagers, experimenting with drugs, pot.

[7] conversion therapy, transgender children, which is a touchy subject, shows early years in where he grew up, and much more.

[8] I think people will really like this episode.

[9] I'm excited about it anyway, although I just went to the gym and I am pumped.

[10] Update on personal stuff, mom is still recovering from her surgery, but it's slow.

[11] Every day is a bit better and we'll be updating people on what's going on over my YouTube channel at Michaela Peterson when she feels well enough to explain to avoid all those rumors going around apparently.

[12] Thanks for all the kind messages.

[13] Mums really enjoyed reading them.

[14] So hopefully you enjoy this episode, I did.

[15] When we return, Dad's conversation with Joe Rogan.

[16] Please welcome my father, Dr. Jordan B. Peterson, with his guest, Joe Rogan.

[17] I guess the first thing I'd like to just ask you is how you're doing?

[18] I'm doing great.

[19] How are you?

[20] What's great about what you're doing?

[21] What's so good about your life?

[22] Well, right now, I'm in the process of putting together my next stand -up comedy special.

[23] So I'm at the process now where I've actually put together a full new hour of material since my Netflix special, which came out in October.

[24] So that's great for me. That's always a relaxing moment because it's very difficult to put that hour together.

[25] And so how do you go about doing that?

[26] A lot of writing, a lot of performing, a lot of reading, a lot of going over notes, a lot of examining material, a lot of reviewing sets and trying to find out what I like and what I don't like.

[27] It's a long and brutal process.

[28] It's the most fun, but also the most difficult part of stand -up is the creation of new material.

[29] So how many hours do you think you put in of work to do an hour's worth of stand -up?

[30] Any idea?

[31] That's a really good question.

[32] It's usually about I can do a, I can create a, I can create, create a solid 10 minutes a month.

[33] That's usually what it is.

[34] So it takes me six months to do an hour.

[35] And in that six months, on an average week, I'll do eight or nine sets.

[36] So that's eight or nine, either half hour or hours of material, sometimes 15 minutes, usually an hour, depending upon where I'm working and how many other people are on the show.

[37] And then a lot of time writing.

[38] so you're doing those sets in front of live audiences all the time yes yeah you have to that's that's the weird thing about stand -up comedy it seems to be that it's it's not something that you can do in a vacuum it has to actually be done it actually it has to come alive in front of the audience like i can i can write in a vacuum i can write alone i can contemplate go over my material review uh edit i can do all sorts of things by myself but it really doesn't come alive until it's in front of an audience.

[39] Yeah, well, I guess it's not so easy to figure out what's funny.

[40] Yeah.

[41] You kind of hope that people will laugh.

[42] Yeah, it's that, but it's also, there's a state of mind that you only really achieve when you're performing in front of an audience.

[43] And you can try to recreate it, but it'll be fake.

[44] If you try to do it on your own, like, I don't write, I don't write in joke form.

[45] Like, I don't write the way I say it on stage.

[46] I write in sort of a conceptual form.

[47] I write in an essay form.

[48] And then I sort of extract things that I think are funny out of that.

[49] But they really only find the true way I'm going to do them.

[50] I only find that in front of an audience.

[51] Because it's like when I'm in front of an audience, then it becomes clear to me how I should and shouldn't say things based in part on how they're reacting and based in part on how I feel when I'm performing the idea like I find where the fat of the bit is and that's where you kind of appreciate economy of words and you know what to edit out and what to elaborate on what people aren't totally understanding and what maybe is over explained and all that stuff kind of comes together in front of an audience so the essays that you're writing or the writing that you're doing like are they on serious topic Are they on things you're thinking about philosophically?

[52] Or are you trying specifically to be funny?

[53] Or are you just trying to get some thoughts down, you know, about the way you're thinking about the world?

[54] Both.

[55] You know, it's like the ideas, it's, I always say the stand -up comedy, at least the way I do it, it comes in three forms.

[56] Like there's three steps.

[57] In the beginning, you're really just trying to get laughs.

[58] You're fighting for survival out there.

[59] You're scared.

[60] That's in the early days of your career.

[61] then you start doing what you think is funny like things that would make you laugh but then in stage three you start trying to make ideas funny and you try to cleverly introduce ideas into people's heads that maybe they wouldn't entertain without the humor aspect of it and so when i write if i write on a subject whatever the subject might be i write without thinking oh i have to make each word funny or I have to make each sentence funny.

[62] I write just what are my thoughts on this subject and then along the way I find irony and I find ridiculous perceptions and all the things that lead to stand -up comedy material and then I extract those.

[63] Right and how much of the like humor and the whip just occurs to you spontaneously on the stage?

[64] Sometimes a lot.

[65] It depends on the subject but it's always a possibility some of the best lines that I've ever come up with in my act come up with on the spot while I'm just talking about things right well that should be when you're like into the subject and things are going well with the audience yeah yeah that's basically how it goes it's a tricky business yeah it sounds like an extremely tricky business and one where the cost of failure is humiliation and and emotional pain yeah it's the worst yeah Yeah, there's not that many things that are more embarrassing than, like, trying to be funny, especially if you've put, say, 100 hours into one hour of preparation, which is less than you're doing, and then finding out that you're just not that amusing.

[66] That doesn't sound good.

[67] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[68] So, how many Netflix specials have you done now?

[69] I've done three, and I'm working on my fourth one right now, but overall I've done nine different hours of comedy either a comedy album or a video special yeah uh what and you what's it be like working for netflix it's great they're very easy oh that's yeah they they don't they really don't have any notes they just let me it you know fortunately i got to them at a stage in my career where i was already advanced and i was already a headliner and i'd already been doing stand -up comedy for decades so it was it was good in that sense that I was well prepared but they you know they when we first signed this initial deal they were they were really just wanting me to do what I do best right so they liked it and it's easy there's no there's really relatively little input almost none right so they're not willing to mess with success fundamentally yeah they like what I do so they're just like go ahead just and they know that my goal is to do my best I'm not trying to I mean there are comedians that will release material just for the money.

[70] They'll try to capitalize on their fame and put something out that's sloppy.

[71] And I feel like, for me at least, that's not an option.

[72] And that would taint my legacy and tape my body of work.

[73] I'm not interested in doing that.

[74] Right, right.

[75] Yeah, well, I've seen your Netflix specials and they're pretty damn funny.

[76] Thank you.

[77] That little skit you did on the Kardashians.

[78] That was a killer, man. thank you that took forever to work out i bet out a way to make fun of that guy god god it was it was ridiculous you make it extremely intense demonic gargoyle a very good sense of humor you know so that was killing me i thought Jesus he's not going to go there is he oh yeah yeah he's going to go farther yeah it's good it's good to see that kind of like horrific courage manifest itself on stage you really like that in a comedian You know, when you see them get going, and I used to see this with Sarah Silverman.

[79] You could see her eyes sort of flash, and she'd think, oh, I shouldn't say that.

[80] There's no way it would say that.

[81] Then she'd say it.

[82] You'd think, oh, no one should have said that.

[83] But, man, he was deadly.

[84] Yeah, I think out of all the women doing comedy right now, she's probably the best at that.

[85] She can come up with some pushing that envelope.

[86] Yeah, that's for sure.

[87] She's got, there's some very dark recesses in that woman's mind.

[88] Yes.

[89] Yeah, yeah.

[90] Okay, so the Netflix thing is going well.

[91] Do you enjoy it doing that?

[92] Yes.

[93] Yeah, I enjoy it.

[94] What do you like about it?

[95] The danger of it, the difficulty, the challenge that one, it's done and people enjoy it, that I'm legitimately affecting people.

[96] I love that, well, people, they'll get a chance to sit down and watch it for an hour and it'll make them feel better.

[97] They'll laugh.

[98] It takes them out of the dreary.

[99] dullness of their day or the agony of whatever they're going through in their life and they can escape that for an hour.

[100] Yeah, thank God for comedy, man. It's just in the same domain as music for necessity.

[101] Yeah, I agree.

[102] You know, there are campuses now where there's like no sarcasm rule, say.

[103] Oh, that's hilarious.

[104] God, can you imagine?

[105] I'd last about 15 seconds.

[106] Yeah, is sarcasm considered a microaggression?

[107] Is that what is there?

[108] Definitely, yeah, unless it's real sarcasm, in which case it's a macroaggression.

[109] I just keep thinking that in time, this is going to be one of the most hysterical periods of time that people look back on, periods of history.

[110] Like, you know, when we look at guys with powdered wigs and, you know, preposterous behavior from the past, and we go, God, what were they thinking?

[111] I really think we're going to do the same thing about today.

[112] I think it's one of the most, I think for sure.

[113] I hope so.

[114] That means that we'll be more sane when we're looking back, or at least we'll be insane in a different way.

[115] And I'm pretty much ready for a different form of insane personally.

[116] Well, I think the insane that you're getting is so, it's so pronounced and it's so much more intense that it's less effective.

[117] And then the reaction to it is more popular, the negative reaction to a lot of this insane rhetoric and this insane behavior.

[118] It's more popular now to understand how ridiculous some of these people are.

[119] You know, when you see like what Antifa's doing in Portland blocking traffic and, you know, telling people where to go and what to do and beating people up that don't comply and saying that you're a white supremacist if you don't listen to them.

[120] And like this, this, all this stuff is so ridiculous.

[121] It's so over the top and they keep feeding on themselves.

[122] They keep attacking people that are not progressive enough.

[123] They keep literally eating their own.

[124] And it, it, from the outside, from the perspective of people that don't share their ideology, it looks more and more ridiculous.

[125] And that makes them more and more frenzied and it ramps it all up.

[126] And I think it's ultimately going to crash.

[127] It's just like what kind of damage is it going to do the landscape as it's crashing?

[128] Right, right.

[129] Well, that's the thing that, you know, hopefully can be mitigated so that the landing isn't too hard.

[130] Yeah.

[131] So I thought, look, every time we've talked, we've talked a lot about me. And like, I'm quite sick of talking about me, actually, and probably have been for like a year or maybe even longer.

[132] So I thought that it would be really good to talk about you.

[133] And I'm curious about you because you're such a strange character.

[134] And so, you know, in the most interesting of ways.

[135] And so I thought I'd start at the beginning.

[136] So I don't know that much about you.

[137] So where'd you grow up?

[138] Well, I grew up in a lot of places.

[139] I was born in New Jersey.

[140] I lived there until I was seven.

[141] My mother split up from my dad and married my stepdad.

[142] We moved to California.

[143] We lived in San Francisco from age seven to 11.

[144] Then I lived in Florida.

[145] He was going to the University of Florida at Gainesville.

[146] I lived there from age 11 to right around 13.

[147] Then we moved to Boston.

[148] And I lived in Boston for the next, I guess the next 10 years.

[149] And that's really where I grew up.

[150] I grew up basically when I think of where I come from, I think of Boston.

[151] It's also the place where I started doing stand -up comedy, which means a lot to me. And it's also where I started fighting.

[152] It's where I started doing martial arts.

[153] All the significant things that happened in my life, happened in Boston.

[154] I see.

[155] In my developmental period.

[156] And so you moved to Boston when you were how old?

[157] 13.

[158] 13.

[159] I see.

[160] Right, right.

[161] And then you were there for how many years?

[162] 11, 11 years.

[163] Oh, yeah.

[164] So that's a long time.

[165] Yeah.

[166] Where do you live in Boston?

[167] Newton.

[168] Newton Upper Falls.

[169] It's a suburb of Boston.

[170] Yeah.

[171] Nice and New England, eh?

[172] Yeah.

[173] I love it out there.

[174] Yeah.

[175] You know, the people have a great sense of humor.

[176] It's like Toronto in a way that you have to deal with that wicked winter.

[177] And I think that develops character in people.

[178] It was funny.

[179] You know, when I moved to Boston, because I, well, I'd lived in Alberta and then Montreal.

[180] And Montreal is bloody, horrible in the winter.

[181] And Alberta is even worse.

[182] And so I'd go down to Boston.

[183] And I went down there to interview first.

[184] And it was February.

[185] And, like, it was spring as far as I was concerned.

[186] I didn't even have a coat on.

[187] And when we lived there for years, you know, it was so funny, we lived in this old house by a park.

[188] And we'd get those nor 'easters blow in, you know, with a hurricane -level winds and it bloody well snowed three and a half feet.

[189] And I'd be thinking in my Canadian way that, Jesus, I better not go outside because I'll just freeze to death the second I step outside.

[190] But I'd go outside and it was like, well, it was 34 degrees or some damn thing.

[191] It was like I was expecting minus 40, you know, just horrible.

[192] so Boston winter's never I mean apart from the snow which was you know deadly significant they never really struck me as winter they sort of struck me as well this is the sort of winter that you'd like to have if you wanted a like a showy winter that people could be pleased with rather than one you just sort of killed you yeah yeah Canadians are on another level when it comes to winter I have some pretty good friends that live in Alberta and whenever I go up there it's like whoa yeah where do you go where do you go Um, they're, uh, outside of Edmonton.

[193] They're about, uh, two and a half hours north of Edmonton.

[194] Where?

[195] Uh, I don't know the name of their town.

[196] It's where I go bear hunting.

[197] Uh -huh.

[198] Um, that's, uh.

[199] Yeah, because bear, you know, you might, one thing you notice about bear is they have fur.

[200] See, that's what they can live there.

[201] Human people, they don't have fur.

[202] So they actually can't live there.

[203] Yeah, two and a half hours north of Edmonton in the winter.

[204] Yeah, yeah.

[205] It's rugged.

[206] Yeah, you go outside in the room.

[207] wrong day and you're out there too long then you die so yeah or you run into a grizzly which is also that that that those those are those are nothing to contend those are nothing to take lightly man when we used to go camping especially in british columbia grizzly bears were always a concern because like a black bear if it chases you and first of all it's only about third the size of a grizzly bear and it's still pretty big like it's a black bear you know it's not it's not like a house cap and if those things chase you and you and you play dead they'll usually leave you alone but if you grizzly chases you and you play dead then it eats you and so and then of course if you fight back well it also eats you it just maybe get a blow or two in and probably not so well believe it or not more more people are preyed upon by black bears when a black bear attacks you, it's usually because it's trying to eat you.

[208] When a grizzly bear attacks people, it's usually either mistake or it was scared or it's really hungry.

[209] Yeah, the black bears tend to be like that too.

[210] A lot of them are old if they attack you.

[211] Yeah.

[212] Yeah.

[213] They're getting, so they can't catch a real animal.

[214] So they're, they'll settle for like an, you know, an Arctic monkey with no fat.

[215] Yeah, they get desperate.

[216] Yeah.

[217] So, okay, so New Jersey.

[218] What do you remember about new jersey uh boy that's where i went to catholic school which was a a horror in of itself and uh it's you know where my relatives lived and i just remember the the ethnic italian environment and what that was like you know what it was like being around my relatives are out there very sopranos like if you ever watched the tv show oh yeah that's that's really representative of a lot of new jersey you know i don't remember too much other than that though you know I was pretty little when we left.

[219] Do you still have relatives out there?

[220] I have one uncle.

[221] Well, two uncles that still live there.

[222] Do you ever see them?

[223] I haven't seen them in years.

[224] Okay, so New Jersey, mostly positive memories, do you think?

[225] Or it's just, I mean, seven and below, that's pretty young.

[226] Well, it was a tumultuous time period for me. My parents were always fighting, and it just wasn't a good time.

[227] So when we escaped New Jersey, it was a relief.

[228] And that was also when your mom split up from your dad?

[229] Yeah.

[230] And do you, do you, do you, do you, are you in contact with your dad?

[231] No, I haven't spoken to him since I was seven years old.

[232] Is he still alive?

[233] He's still alive.

[234] And his name's Joe Rogan, which is even crazier.

[235] Huh.

[236] So you ever think about him?

[237] No. No, no, not really.

[238] No, no, it's a long time ago.

[239] go, well, that's, huh.

[240] And do you remember what he was like to you?

[241] He was nice to me. He just wasn't very nice to my mother.

[242] They had a very bad relationship.

[243] Right.

[244] Right.

[245] Okay, so you leave New Jersey and you go to California.

[246] Yeah.

[247] Where do you live there?

[248] We lived in San Francisco.

[249] And that was an interesting time for me because it was during the Vietnam War.

[250] And it was sort of the height of the hippie movement.

[251] Right.

[252] And my stepdad was a hippie.

[253] My father was a police officer in New Jersey.

[254] Oh, yeah.

[255] So I went from being around a cop who was a pretty brutal guy to being around a long -haired hippie.

[256] It was all about peace and love and he was an architecture student.

[257] You know, it was a completely different sort of vibe.

[258] Yeah, sounds like a completely different sort of vibe.

[259] Yeah.

[260] It was around a lot of gay folks.

[261] Yeah.

[262] I was around a lot of hippies, a lot of pot smokers.

[263] A lot of real open -minded thinkers and weirdos around Haydashbury and that sort of area.

[264] We live near Lombard Street.

[265] It was real classic San Francisco in the 70s.

[266] 70s.

[267] So, yeah.

[268] So let's see.

[269] So you would have been, you said seven.

[270] How?

[271] I guess it was like 74.

[272] Seventy.

[273] It was probably 74 because I was seven years old.

[274] Right.

[275] I was born in 67.

[276] Yeah.

[277] So you're five years.

[278] I see.

[279] You're five years younger than me. So that places you.

[280] there.

[281] So yeah, it was still pretty hippie central.

[282] Yeah, it was pretty, it was pretty interesting.

[283] And then I went from there to Florida, which was like a total polar opposite.

[284] You know, that was the first time I'd ever heard anybody say the N word was in Florida.

[285] And I didn't know what it meant.

[286] I had to ask my mother.

[287] My mother got upset at me. She thought I knew what it meant.

[288] I was just playing games.

[289] I was like, I don't know what it means.

[290] I'm like, tell me what it means.

[291] She said it's a bad word for black people.

[292] And I was like, wow, really?

[293] Like, okay.

[294] because I was hearing it all the time.

[295] I never heard it in San Francisco.

[296] I literally didn't hear it until I was 13 years old.

[297] Or, excuse me, 11 years old.

[298] And so, yeah, so where did you move to Florida?

[299] We moved to Gainesville, which is where the University of Florida was, where my stepdad was going to get a, he was studying architecture.

[300] And then we eventually moved to Boston so he could go to the Boston Architectural Center.

[301] That's why we wound up moving there.

[302] and is your mom and as your mom and your step did still together yep still together and do you see them all the time yeah they have a great relationship it's really completely different they've been together forever they they just they get along fantastic and in many ways that sort of modeled my expectations for a real relationship you know like i saw the worst and then i saw a really great one and i'm like okay i want that you know yeah that's a good choice that's that that shows some wisdom on your part picking the second one rather than the first one let's say yeah yeah yeah has that worked out have you had good relationships oh yeah yeah I mean my wife's awesome I get along with they're fantastic yeah you've been married for how long almost 10 years 10 years and you have two girls or three I have three girls three girls right yeah two young ones and one adult one.

[303] Right.

[304] I remember on the special that I was referring to that you were bemoaning the fact that you were absolutely saturated in a feminine environment.

[305] Yeah.

[306] Yeah.

[307] It's interesting, man. It's interesting.

[308] But I think it balances me out.

[309] I think ultimately it's probably good for me. Yeah, you think it's interesting.

[310] Now you wait till they hit teenagehood.

[311] Yeah.

[312] Then it'll be interesting all right.

[313] Yeah, for sure.

[314] Yeah.

[315] I actually enjoyed having teenagers, you know, weirdly enough.

[316] I mean, we had a good rule in our house with our kids brought their friends over to our house a lot and it was funny because when they first came over when my teenager's friends came over they were always afraid of me but after about a month being there you know like getting to know the place a bit not staying there all the time obviously but getting a bit familiar with it they ended up being a lot more afraid of my wife so that was great funny because she's you know she just looked like she doesn't look that dangerous on first impressions.

[317] And she's kind of soft -spoken, but she's very unforgiving.

[318] That might be one way of putting it.

[319] And we had a pretty good rule in our house with the teenage kids, which is, was, it's a good one to know, which was, look, we're really happy you're here, you know.

[320] But if you do something really stupid and we never ever have to see you again, that would actually be okay with us.

[321] That's a good rule.

[322] That's a very good rule.

[323] It's a good rule.

[324] Well, they also knew, we meant it and so the kids could have their friends over you know and they could have a reasonable they could have a reasonable amount of fun or maybe even a slightly unreasonable amount of fun but they couldn't have an overwhelmingly unreasonable amount of fun and so a great way to put it overwhelmingly unreasonable amount of fun is a great way to put it yeah that was too much too much we had a good drug policy too i think how'd that go i think it went well the rule was um look i know perfectly well you're going to experiment they were going to art school you know it's like oh for sure i think i think one of the majors like pot smoking and experimentation like there was just no way they weren't going to experiment and my rule was um i better not be able to tell because you're being too much of a fool so if you're going to experiment you better handle it because otherwise you're pathetic and that seemed to be pretty good well that's you know because i thought the i really thought through you know because There's a literature on experimentation among adolescents, both criminal experimentation, you know, delinquency, minor delinquency and that sort of thing, and drug use.

[325] And you get pathology at both ends.

[326] The ones who are, you know, smoking pot every day and taking drugs on a regular basis, their outcome's not so good.

[327] But the ones who abstain completely and never experiment, their outcome is also not so good.

[328] They tend to be on the dependent, anxious end of the distribution.

[329] And so, you know, you want your kids to, well, play with the rules a little bit.

[330] But then I thought, well, what, so, okay, you got to play with the rules a little bit.

[331] What are the rules about playing with the rules?

[332] And one should be, try not to be a bigger fool than necessary.

[333] That's a good one.

[334] So you're not compromising yourself in the present.

[335] But the biggest issue, I think really, and I think this is the fundamental rule for experimentation with adolescents, is you don't get to screw up your future.

[336] yeah right because that's that's the killer well what I worry about more than anything is opioids um I worry about those uh because people are dying from them yeah you know no one's dying from pot it's very rare that anybody is doing something so stupid that they put their life in danger from pot or mushrooms I'm worried about the ones that kill you you know I mean I worry about pills more than anything that my children my possibly face, especially when I consider the fact that these opiate manufacturers, these opioid manufacturers, they keep making these damn things stronger.

[337] And I don't understand.

[338] I mean, it's not like Oxycontin wasn't strong enough as it is, but now they have fentanyl.

[339] And now they're coming up with things that are stronger than fentanyl.

[340] It's disgusting.

[341] Yeah, well, it's a weird arms race, eh?

[342] Because, I mean, this is something that's really an unexpected consequence of the, of the illegalization of drugs, is that now we've generally.

[343] all these chemists who are really good at making tiny variations on every psychoactive substance known and now instead of like 10 addictive substances you can get yourself into serious trouble with there's 300 yeah that doesn't seem to be a big plus no it doesn't it's it's it's disturbing and it's disgusting and you know they're finally starting to bring some of these guys to justice and they're arresting some of these people and bringing them to court some of these manufacturers but they've been pushing this stuff down people's throats for years and incentivizing doctors to subscribe them and it's you know it's a tough one man like my when my daughter was sick um when she was a kid she was in extreme it's got to be agony is the right word you know for like two years about that because she was walking around on two broken legs you know her story a little bit.

[344] And the physician at sick kids, which was the person who was dealing with her arthritis, would only prescribe her basically, you know, anison, you know, minor league over -the -counter painkillers, which was like trying to kill a grizzly bear with a fly swatter.

[345] It really wasn't the right tool for the job.

[346] And we found a family doctor who had enough courage to prescribe her oxycontin.

[347] That was no joke, you know, because Well, the first couple of weeks, she was on OxyContin.

[348] It was really odd and rough because it was like she was drunk.

[349] And so that was, well, that was weird socially, to say the least.

[350] And also rather frightening, but it did control her pain.

[351] And we actually had the mix oxycontin with Ritalin, which is a strange combination, but a good one to know about because oxycontin sedates and Ritalin stimulates.

[352] But the combination of the two are synergistic, so they can really control.

[353] pain.

[354] And so her pain was controlled enough so that it didn't drive her insane over about a two -year period.

[355] And then once she got her operations and had her legs fixed, she went off the opiates and she went through the whole withdrawal stick, you know, she had like night sweats and she had ants crawling under her skin and like it was pretty brutal, although she stopped cold turkey and never tried them again.

[356] She hated them.

[357] She said they just made her feel dead.

[358] And it's funny, a lot of people, you know, a lot, you hear their horror stories that, you know, if you try opious once, you're pretty much screwed because they're so wonderful, but lots of people don't like them.

[359] But there is a sizable minority of people, you know, who really liked them.

[360] And then there is the danger that you described of overdose.

[361] And that's, you know, that's a frightening thing.

[362] Hopefully your kids aren't enough to stay mostly away from pills.

[363] Yeah, hopefully.

[364] You know, you got to worry about the influence of their friends and peer pressure.

[365] yeah yeah definitely well the terrible thing about teenagers you know is that everybody always says well why do you succumb to peer pressure when you're a teenager and the answer is well that's why you're a teenager you know you're getting away from your family and you're even getting away from your like elementary school best friend and you're starting to join the broader social group and your job is to fit in like not to fit in so much that there's nothing left of you you know But your job is to fit in to the tribe, to the group, and to learn how to do that.

[366] And, of course, the downside is, well, you're susceptible to peer pressure.

[367] But it's hard to distinguish that from actually being properly socialized.

[368] You know, the two things are very tightly aligned.

[369] All right.

[370] So you were in Florida, and you learned some words that you didn't know.

[371] And what was Florida like for you?

[372] You were there only for a couple of years.

[373] Yeah, Florida is a strange place.

[374] I mean, I still have a love -hate relationship with Florida.

[375] It's the land of the lost.

[376] It's where people go to escape wherever they're from.

[377] Billy Corbin, who's a documentary director.

[378] He directed Cocaine Cowboys and a bunch of other great documentaries.

[379] He lives down in Florida.

[380] And every time he and I talk, we just talk about how ridiculous Florida is.

[381] And it's this place where people go to escape.

[382] They go to escape from the brutal cold of the northeast winter, or they go, oh, Jesus, my phone is telling me that I'm running out of batteries.

[383] I'm going to have to switch headsets and plug this in, but it only took a second.

[384] That should be fine.

[385] But I just think that Florida is just like a uniquely stupid place.

[386] It's a weird place.

[387] You know, it's one of the things that's really struck me about the United States that's really different than Canada, for what that's worth.

[388] It's not like Americans, really care why the United States is different to Canada, apart from the fact that it isn't like freezing cold six months of the years.

[389] There's a lot of the U .S., it's like a movie set.

[390] You know, so much of it is like it's manufactured to look like something else.

[391] And Florida is really like that.

[392] Yeah.

[393] It's a very strange place to visit because everything is not in the old towns, but the beach towns are like that a lot.

[394] that there's some genuine old Florida but most of it is it's manufactured fake utopia for exactly the sort of people that you're describing yeah you know that doesn't make it unbearable or anything I mean the weather's nice and the beach is nice and you know there's worse places to live but there's something about it that's like a it's it's like a uh it's not this well obviously it's like a resort but resorts have that sort of fake utopian element to them that is I don't know what it's like exactly kind of like a child fantasy or an adolescent fantasy something like that you know it's what you think you want yeah if you don't think about it very hard I always say that if you want to starve to death open up a bookstore in Miami right right like legitimately there's no reading going on down there it's just a strange place or people go to party and it's just it's weird right now i have to warn you that there is a beam of light shooting directly out of your head oh right here yeah it's very impressive and and i move us around there we go yeah that's probably better because you know i had to plug in because uh the power was dying on my phone i guess this video stuff sucks a lot of power out of your phone i guess so i guess so i mean i didn't like the whole i didn't like the light thing shooting out of your head but You never know.

[395] You don't want to get any rumors started on the internet.

[396] You know how easy that is.

[397] Well, yeah, you amongst all people know how easy that is.

[398] Hey, I haven't been in this scandal for a whole week.

[399] Well, this podcast is still young.

[400] Yeah, fair enough.

[401] Fair enough.

[402] We might be able to cover something that'll cause trouble with any luck.

[403] Yeah, you are, at all the people that I'm friends with, you are probably the most misrepresented friend that I have.

[404] and I defend you quite often, and I don't get where people are coming from with you.

[405] I don't understand their inability to listen to your words, and instead they try to generalize and formulate these distorted descriptions of who you are and what you stand for, and it's very strange to me. And I don't know, I mean, I kind of do know that you're challenging a lot of people's beliefs and the way they, you know, they've structured these beliefs.

[406] but it's very frustrating to me. And I'm sure it must be way more frustrating for you.

[407] Well, it's sort of, it's kind of, it's surreal to me because I was talking with my kids about this the other day.

[408] You know, the way people think I am, especially if they read, you know, the hit pieces that the journalists have written and maybe even watch me in those interactions, you know, they think I'm provocative and they think I like combat and conflict.

[409] And, you know, and I don't I'm not combat eventually and I really don't like conflict that much I go out of my way quite a bit to avoid it and you know I'm misogynist except that almost all the people I've ever worked with in my whole life have been women and I've been in a women dominated field and I never thought of myself as right wing that's for sure I mean I mean maybe now that the far left has gone completely off the deep end it's like well maybe I'm I'd be classified as a conservative, but that's mostly because as a social scientist, I learned that you shouldn't conduct large -scale experiments on huge swaths of the population and assume that your stupid idea is going to work out correctly because it won't.

[410] You can't even get people to behave properly in a lab for like half an hour.

[411] So how you think you're going to get a whole society to do what you want, you know, as a consequence of passing a piece of legislation is beyond me. But yeah, and here's something else that's weird.

[412] You know, like, if you read the newspapers on this new, you knew I got disinvited from Cambridge, Cambridge Divinity School.

[413] I mean, what a thing to be disinvited from, a divinity school?

[414] Christ, you have to be Satan himself to get disinvited from a divinity school.

[415] And, well, it's so crazy.

[416] You know, and I just wanted to go down there and learn some more about the biblical stories, the Exodus stories.

[417] That was the idea.

[418] and and then to get disinvited to have that be a whole big scandal it was just like what the hell man it's it's it's quite the crazy situation and then so you read about all this and and you see this online and you'd think god his life must just be hell because of all the controversy but then when I go out in the streets or to my lectures or anywhere it's completely different it's unbelievably different Like, so now if I walked it, walk down the street, I mean, when you walk down the street, you must just get, you just must get, uh, identified all the time, eh?

[419] Yeah.

[420] Like, if you go out in an hour, how many people will come up to you?

[421] Depends where I go.

[422] But, uh, if I'm in Hollywood, it's pretty, pretty crazy.

[423] If I go around young people, if you see men and they have shaved heads and tattoos, it gets nuts.

[424] Those are my people.

[425] how muscular men yeah so so if I go out you know and I'm walking down the street and it doesn't really matter where usually I get to approach five or six times in an hour by people and you know they're always very polite and they're very apologetic and they they are happy about something they've read or listened to or whatever or often they talk about our podcast that's pretty damn common that was common throughout Europe as well and you know they tell me about some dark part of their life and how they're doing much better and you know how their friends have been watching my videos and are feeling better about it and so it's just ridiculously positive just all the time and then when i go to my lectures it's the same thing yeah it's like crazily positive so you know we've had 350 000 people at the lectures so far and there hasn't been one negative occurrence we had one heckler once who was robin escorted from the building and he knew he was going to get escorted so he was kind of a cooperative heckler but like no one's coming there with anything negative on their mind they're there to listen to a psychological lecture and to have a deep discussion and to try to get their act together and the goddamn journalists they just don't seem to be able to fathom that like they've got this false cynicism or maybe real cynicism that makes it absolutely impossible for them to believe that you know tens of thousands of people could actually be serious about improving their life and that I could be having events that were basically 100 % positive and so online I'm a bloody monster you know I'm a misogynist and racist and a transphobe and what else am I I'm a homophobe and a oh a Nazi lots of times and sometimes a Jewish shill and well there's a bunch of other things too what disturbed me about you is when they pulled your books out of New Zealand when a New Zealand bookstore decided to pull your books because of the Christchurch massacre, like what does a book on self -improvement and taking responsibility?

[426] What does that have to do with a horrific mass murder?

[427] I mean, the idea that they connected those two together and that they decided that in some way or shape your words of encouragement and recognizing the importance of discipline and of taking responsibility and self -reliance, that those things, your book somehow or another had something to do with someone doing something as awful as what happened in Christchurch.

[428] It's so distorted.

[429] And that's like the perfect example that I cite when I say, think about the fact that this guy's book was removed right after something had taken place that had literally nothing to do with anything you've ever said ever.

[430] Yeah, well, they kind of got their comeuppance in some ways because people started to point out that they were still carrying mine camp.

[431] Oh, God.

[432] So that turned out to be a problem.

[433] And then they were also carrying a book that showed you how to turn a semi -automatic into a fully automatic.

[434] And so, you know, you got to be careful when you go after someone for their sins that you don't have a few sins of your own like lying around where people can, you know, sort of observe them.

[435] anyways they did reverse that decision but but that's good yeah yeah that was good but it is it's very weird it's it's it's it's a and I'm going to the UK here right away now we're talking about me and we weren't supposed to be but I'm going to the UK right away because the paperback is launching there and so I'm going to be talking to journalists and talking to UK journalists man that's like jumping into a tub of well not full -grown crocodiles but you know like five footers anyways So what you're trying to say is.

[436] Yeah, they're pretty snappy.

[437] So I've got some trepidation about that.

[438] So it's a funny life to, it's a very peculiar life to be involved in.

[439] And I'm not exactly ever sure what to make of it on a day -to -day basis.

[440] But it does give me a chance to talk to you.

[441] What's most peculiar for you is that you were not famous for most of your adult life.

[442] And then over the last four years, you've been catapulted.

[443] and become one of the most famous, if not the most famous, psychologists on the planet Earth.

[444] Yes, it's very disconcerting.

[445] It's hard to get it.

[446] It's actually rather hard to adjust to that.

[447] I mean, maybe it's a function of age.

[448] I found, you know, when I was younger and I used to move from place to place, take me about a year to adapt, hey?

[449] But I also noticed that as I got older, every time I moved, it took me longer to adapt.

[450] By the time you're 56, you know, if you know someone for 10 years, It's like you feel like you're just starting to get to know them a bit.

[451] You know, when you're 17, you have a roommate for six months and it's like your best friends for the rest of your life.

[452] So it is a very difficult thing to adapt to.

[453] I can't I can't really wrap my mind around it.

[454] And I guess it's also partly because it's true no matter where I go.

[455] Like I went to Slovenia, you know, and it's everybody speaks English in Slovenia, by the way.

[456] And you are a big hit in Slovenia.

[457] I don't know if you know this.

[458] But it looks to me like the podcast YouTube world has even more impact in places where the press is not very reliable.

[459] And so, like, everybody knew about our interviews and our podcasts.

[460] And so I was stopped in Slovenia constantly, which is, that was a real shock too.

[461] So the shock is, and this is the weird thing about YouTube and about podcasts, is that it's not, it's just not one country or two.

[462] two countries it's like every damn country and so it's but i'm i'm really fortunate because like i said all the public encounters i have are are extremely positive they're hard to cope with though you know in some sense because people are always they always tell me a serious story you know they say i was in some sort of hell of some sort six months ago too much drugs or alcohol or bad relationship or not get along with my family or under employed or nihilistic or depressed, whatever, you know, like whatever little corner of hell they have to occupy and they've been practicing something like maybe developing a vision for their life or trying to live a more meaningful life or taking more responsibility or like really making an effort to pull their families together and to advance at work regardless of what their job is and it's working.

[463] And so they're always like shell shocked that it's working and thrilled to death.

[464] But it's so strange to have these intense 20 second, 30 second conversations with people about really deep elements of their life.

[465] And then, you know, it's a shock.

[466] And then you walk along the street and it's a normal day.

[467] And then someone else comes up and does the same thing.

[468] It's like, I don't know what to do with it emotionally.

[469] It's because maybe, you know, someone might tell you that.

[470] I don't know.

[471] Maybe they tell you that something.

[472] If you've been helping them, maybe they tell you.

[473] you that once a year, once every five years or something, but to have it happen all the time is, I don't know, I think it fills me with a kind of sorrow.

[474] Like I'm really happy that it's happening in everything, but there's still something about it that's deeply and deeply moving and difficult to adjust to.

[475] The sorrow because so many people are struggling out there and that you're encounter all these folks?

[476] Well, the sorrow is that.

[477] There's so many people struggling out there, and they don't have this sort of, they have so little support that my lectures and podcasts in the book were what was necessary to help them straighten themselves out.

[478] It's like, you know, you just can't imagine how many people out there haven't heard an encouraging word.

[479] Yeah.

[480] You know, so it's like they're home on the, what's the old song?

[481] Home on the Range?

[482] Yeah.

[483] Except that's where you don't hear a discouraging word.

[484] Well, these people have never heard an encouraging word.

[485] And that's, it's sad to see how common that is and how little it takes to turn that around.

[486] And it's so fun out in the lectures, because, you know, a lot of the people in my lectures are, Greg, they're the same people you were talking about that stop you at Hollywood.

[487] You know, they're kind of rough working class guys.

[488] That'd be about 30 % of my audience, I would think, you know.

[489] And they're not the sort of people that you would stereotypically presume would come to an hour and a half lecture on you know philosophy and psychology but man they're listening they're listening like mad and it's so fun and interesting to watch them think it through and to and to take this seriously and you know and they come up afterwards and they say you know i've been watching your lectures and i'm a much better husband or i'm a much better father and sometimes they have their girlfriend or wife with them and she says the same thing and you know it's really nice man yeah it's really something.

[490] Well, you really are making a giant impact, and it's only understandable that it would be difficult for you to wrap your head around what this is, and it's not something that very few human beings ever get to experience.

[491] A very, very, very tiny percentage of our population worldwide has ever put into a position like you're put into.

[492] So I...

[493] Let's look at your position.

[494] I mean, I asked you this at one time.

[495] So last time we talked, I think you were getting some hundred million downloads a month on your podcast.

[496] What are your figures?

[497] If you don't mind, what are your figures?

[498] It's probably double that.

[499] Double that.

[500] Jesus Christ, that's just unbelievable.

[501] Yeah, it's crazy.

[502] Especially with YouTube, with the YouTube and all the YouTube clips, and it's actually probably more than that.

[503] It's nuts.

[504] It's gone to the point where I try to pay as little attention to the numbers as possible and just concentrate on doing the show.

[505] Because Because I think if I pay attention to it too much, excuse me, I think if I pay attention to it too much, I might lose my mind.

[506] I mean, it's just, it's untenable.

[507] That's just the sheer volume of human beings.

[508] When you, if you, if you were ever on a stage and you were looking out at 300 million people, what would that look like?

[509] I mean, it's not 300 million people because it's 300 million downloads in a month.

[510] But the real number of human beings you're interacting with, I mean, I don't know what that is.

[511] but is it 50 million people?

[512] I don't know how many actual million people are listening to the show or watching the show on a regular basis.

[513] But it's an unmanageable number in terms of like reading comments or trying to pay attention to what they want or what they don't want.

[514] It's very strange.

[515] Yes, it's a very weird position to be in.

[516] There's no doubt.

[517] And the strange thing is too is that, well, we've talked about this before too.

[518] Like this is early days, right?

[519] I mean, this is all.

[520] only been happening for about how long have you been doing your YouTube videos the YouTube videos are only a few years so I think it's only three or four years the podcast will be 10 years in December right okay so 10 years that's starting to become a decent chunk of life but three or four years that's still new yeah and I mean the podcast market and the YouTube market are still their brand new technologies fundamentally yeah fundamentally and now you're seeing corporations trying to capitalize on it and I've started to get these very bizarre offers to make my podcast exclusive on this platform or that platform and you know these these companies are they're throwing crazy amounts of money around at podcast like networks hundreds of millions of dollars to buy podcast networks so it's it's it's becoming very very strange because what was a joke five or six years ago literally like why are you wasting your time doing a podcast I used to hear that all the time.

[521] Now it's, how did you do this?

[522] How did you make this podcast so popular?

[523] That you get a totally different question.

[524] Very quickly.

[525] Yeah.

[526] Well, it's so, well, it's so strange because so many people have, nobody realized that there was a, an audience for on -demand audio.

[527] And you see the same thing.

[528] Not that, not only that, but not just on -demand audio, but long -form conversation.

[529] Yeah.

[530] One of the, I mean, even my friend Ari, who's one of my best friends, would always tell me, you got to edit your shows.

[531] Nobody wants to listen to anything that's three hours long.

[532] So I'd say, well, then they don't have to listen.

[533] And he's like, you're doing yourself a disservice.

[534] And I'm like, I don't think I am.

[535] Like, why not?

[536] If someone only has an hour, then listen to it for an hour.

[537] Like, you're not going to, I mean, you might miss out some information, but it's not going to change your life.

[538] Like, do whatever you want to do.

[539] But I like talking to people for long periods of time because I think you really only get cooking after like the first half hour of 40 minutes.

[540] That's when you get comfortable.

[541] You sort of get into a groove of communication, you know, figuring out this person's rhythm and thought processes.

[542] And it, and then as you expand on these ideas and you share information back and forth with each other, after an hour, an hour and a half, two hours, that's when things really start getting deep.

[543] And oftentimes the last hour of a three -hour podcast is the best hour.

[544] Yeah, well, that intuition was certainly right.

[545] And revolutionary, you never know when you come up with a revolutionary.

[546] idea.

[547] Yeah, I mean, part of my revolutionary idea is just me being stubborn.

[548] It's just like I didn't care.

[549] I wasn't doing it for money.

[550] So the only reason why I was doing it was because I enjoyed talking to people like you or many of my other guests.

[551] I want to talk to.

[552] It's a very rare opportunity where I would get a chance to sit down with someone like you with no distractions, no other people in the room, no cell phones, and just talk for three hours.

[553] That's so unusual in our world and our constantly distracted world and i think i've gotten a fantastic education because of that i mean it's really enlightened me on so many different subjects and expanded my understanding of people in general and conspiracy theories i mean man you're up on those i've got some of those too yeah so that's it's important to be up on the conspiracy theories just to keep track of the damn things well you got to know what people think of you you know i've been lately i'm a zionish shell this is the most recent one.

[554] I didn't know it was a Zionist shill.

[555] Oh yeah, your Zionist shill.

[556] Yeah.

[557] I'm a white supremacist too, depending on who you ask.

[558] Yeah, yeah, well, I've got those two things as well.

[559] So, and that's like, it's real interesting to be able to juggle both of those identities.

[560] It's like, Zionist's still one day, white supremacist the next.

[561] It's sort of like gender fluid, except on the political spectrum.

[562] Yeah, that's a good way to look at it.

[563] Yeah, Why do you have to be conservative or Democrat?

[564] You know, sometimes you're one and sometimes you're the other.

[565] It depends on the day.

[566] And there's no reason to extend that like all the way out to the edges.

[567] Yeah, gender fluid is my favorite.

[568] That's my favorite thing that's going on right now.

[569] Or someone could be like a woman for a few hours and then be a man for the next six.

[570] You know, I read.

[571] Back and forth.

[572] I read, although I don't know if this is true, but I read it several places and I actually looked, I read that the Olympic Committee is going to let trans people compete in the Olympics, in the next competition.

[573] I'm not surprised because the Olympic, the IOC, the Olympic Committee is incredibly corrupt.

[574] And I think what they do, first of all, is disgraceful.

[575] They make billions of dollars.

[576] The athletes make zero.

[577] I think it's disgusting.

[578] I think everything about what they do is corrupt.

[579] and the idea that they're there for fair and pure competition is nonsense.

[580] They're there to make shitloads of money, and that's what they're good at.

[581] And what they're good at doing is putting on these gigantic events where they profit in spectacular and staggering ways.

[582] And the athletes dedicate their entire life to these moments, and they literally make nothing.

[583] And then after that, if they're lucky, if they're very famous and popular, they can eke out a lot.

[584] living with endorsements or you know for the rare person like Michael Phelps or someone like that who's just a true outlier they can actually get wealthy from it but it's very very rare most of those athletes will be in severe debt most of those athletes either have to get sponsored or they have to find someone who is willing to share the burden and help them achieve their goals but without some sort of altruistic uh benefit factor who's got millions of dollars to pour into their camp.

[585] I mean, it's just, it's disgusting.

[586] They're professional athletes.

[587] I mean, that's what they do with their entire life.

[588] If you want to win a gold medal in the Olympics in gymnastics, you can't have a side job.

[589] You can't be working eight hours a day.

[590] No, you have to be a professional athlete.

[591] And the Olympic committee knows this.

[592] And if you've ever paid attention to how they've let people get away with cheating, I mean, There's a fantastic documentary out right now by Brian Fogel called Icarus, and it's all about the Sochi Olympics and how Russia cheated in the Sochi Olympics and the IOC barely punished them.

[593] They punished a few people and how the IOC and the world anti -doping agency all, they have people from each, they have from each organization, they share, like they go back and forth.

[594] They work for one and they work for the other.

[595] and they're totally in conflict.

[596] It's a total conflict of interest.

[597] And it's a dirty business.

[598] So if the tide of political perception is that it's a good progressive thing to have trans women competing in the UFC, or not in the U .S. I shouldn't say the UFC, that'll never happen, but trans women competing in the Olympics and that this was what everybody wanted, they would just do it.

[599] They would do it regardless of whether or not it's fair, regardless of whether or not it made sense.

[600] And they would do it just to get more eyes on the show, just to get more money.

[601] And that's what they're there for.

[602] That's what they're good at.

[603] It would be fascinating to see how all that plays out because it's so absurd.

[604] I looked up some stats the other day because I was curious, you know.

[605] It's like, okay, I know that all the differences between men and women are socially constructed, but nonetheless I went and looked up the biological comparison of strength.

[606] You know, and the typical woman has 30 % of the upper body strength of the typical man. and about 55 % of the lower body strength.

[607] Now, that's like, that's a big difference, man. That makes the average man three times as strong in the upper body.

[608] Jesus, that gives you an advantage that's just, well, it's criminal.

[609] Well, it is, but the question is, how much do you lose from the conversion?

[610] How much do you lose from estrogen?

[611] You lose some.

[612] But if a woman, say, look, if you have an athlete who's a woman who's 32 years old, and it turns out that she's been taking steroids her entire adult life.

[613] So she's been taking steroids for 12 years every day and then decides to stop taking them right before the Olympics.

[614] Wouldn't everybody agree that she has a massive advantage?

[615] Wouldn't everybody agree that most likely her tendon strength, her muscle strength, her bone structure, all of that has been completely altered by taking performance -enhancing drugs?

[616] We would all agree to that.

[617] Well, guess what?

[618] That's what you're doing if you're a man for 30 years and then you decide to transition and become a woman for two.

[619] Even if you're taking estrogen, even if you go through this.

[620] I don't understand is apart from the obvious unfairness of that, what I struggle with understanding is the triumphalism of the victors.

[621] It's like they enter these contests and then they win.

[622] they celebrate their victory as if it's a genuine victory despite the fact that wiped out these women who've been working mostly within the rules for like you know maybe not decades but certainly many many years in succession and they just blow them away especially in like strength contests and then they they actually treat that like they won and then they also claim it as a moral victory.

[623] You know, and for me, that's just that I, the only thing I see in that is a narcissism that's so deep that it's almost unfathomable.

[624] It's like, how can you take pride in that sort of victory unless you don't see who it is that you're defeating?

[625] I don't get it.

[626] Well, it shows how pathological this whole thing really is when you're dealing with the idea that you can turn a person into someone of the opposite gender, not just recognize them as being a woman and treat them as a woman and allow them to use whatever name they would like.

[627] I'm all for that.

[628] But it's that you are going to say, no, this is a woman, and she should be able to compete with women, including in combat sports, rugby.

[629] There's a male to female trans athlete that plays rugby in Australia that's too.

[630] 240 pounds and just smashing women.

[631] And I don't think there's any real standards in a universal in terms of like, what do you have to go through in terms of your conversion therapy?

[632] And like what about size differences when you're dealing with high impact sports?

[633] No, because that's a political minefield, like the radical end of it is, well, you're the gender that you say you are and the medical conversion is irrelevant.

[634] And I don't know how that translates into the sports world, but my sense is that if the same thing happens in the sports world that's happened in the political world, that it will be basically indistinguishable from whim.

[635] It's like, well, now I'm a woman.

[636] Yeah, I had a guy on my podcast recently, and this came up, and it was a big argument.

[637] And he essentially his stance was he is all for inclusiveness, and he wants, he would like to move towards a world where trans athletes can compete and they're included and they can compete as women.

[638] And I was trying to explain the benefits of being a male, the physical benefits of being a male and competing against women.

[639] And he just didn't want to hear it.

[640] It was just in denial of it.

[641] It was going against these preconceived notions that he had and that this and the ideology.

[642] There's a part of progressive ideology that is, you're supposed to look at a trans woman as every bit a woman.

[643] Yeah, well, that's because you're supposed to accept the doctrine that all differences between men and women are socially constructed, which is, of course, a doctrine that's, I think, it's delusional.

[644] It's nonsense.

[645] And it's delusional for some even deeper reason that's even harder to fathom.

[646] I don't know what it is.

[647] Yeah, it is hard to fathom.

[648] I don't understand the root of it.

[649] really don't.

[650] Even when I talk to people who subscribe to these notions, I don't understand the logic.

[651] I don't understand where's the breakdown in their perception of the world where they don't see.

[652] And another thing that we got into.

[653] Some of it.

[654] Go ahead.

[655] Go ahead.

[656] No, say another thing that we got into was children transitioning.

[657] Oh, yeah.

[658] And then he was in the fore.

[659] I keep hearing this.

[660] This is something that I keep hearing that's driving me mad.

[661] That hormone blockers, that these puberty blockers are reversible.

[662] They keep saying that they're harmless.

[663] They're reversible.

[664] If the child changes their mind, they could always just get off the body and the results are reversible.

[665] That's not true.

[666] You're affecting the development of a child.

[667] If you're using these hormone blockers, you are changing the way the child is going to develop because they're not going to have testosterone the way a normal boy would if they're transitioning from male to female.

[668] If you're doing this to a six -year -old kid, The notion that this is completely reversible is completely disingenuous because that child is not going to go through the same developmental period physically as they would if they had access to testosterone.

[669] They're just not.

[670] It's just not true.

[671] It's not true if you talk to medical doctors.

[672] It's not true if you talk to a biologist.

[673] It's just not true.

[674] And it's something that they use to try to justify the, in air quotes, harmlessness of this particular type of therapy that they're in.

[675] encouraging.

[676] And it's just to say that there's nothing wrong with being trans.

[677] And I don't think there is anything wrong with being trans.

[678] But I think there is something wrong with making decisions for a child or allowing a child to make decisions that will massively impact them for the rest of their life and to make that decision when you're six.

[679] Like I could only imagine if I was a person who had gone through that and then having this conversation with my parents going, why the fuck did you let me make that decision at six years old?

[680] Well, it's going to be really interesting to see that play itself out in the courts in about 12 years.

[681] Oh, it's going to be ugly.

[682] It's going to be ugly.

[683] It's going to be ugly, man. Because you don't let, kill it.

[684] You don't let your damn six -year -old get a tattoo.

[685] Right, exactly.

[686] I mean, and a tattoo is fairly reversible.

[687] The whole thing about it is nonsense.

[688] And it's this whole progressive ideology that they're subscribing to.

[689] There's a doctrine, like you have to, there's all these different things that you have to subscribe to if you want to accept that ideology.

[690] And this is one of them.

[691] Yeah, little gods that you have to worship.

[692] Yeah, yeah.

[693] Yes, trans children.

[694] You can't, you can't say, yeah, that is problematic.

[695] You can't, you're not allowed to say that.

[696] You can't even entertain the notion that this could be a particularly egregious offense on a child if they decide that that was a bad idea when they become 18 or 19.

[697] If the primary idea is that our society is an oppressive patriarchy, and I think that's like number one idea, then anything that touches on that in any way immediately becomes untouchable.

[698] And so in order for the adults to make the decision, then you have to believe in authority because the adults have the authority.

[699] And if you're going to believe that the adults have the authority, then you have to believe that hierarchy has some value.

[700] and then that tangles you up with your insistence that, you know, hierarchy is definitely oppressive and especially the Western form of hierarchy.

[701] And so I think that central axiom is so vital that anything that gets near it gets twisted and bent like it's too close to a gravitational field, and the logic is irrelevant because that fundamental central issue has to be supported at all cost.

[702] Well, this is one of the conundrums of our conversation.

[703] One of the, we came to this one point where I said, now, if a child identifies as a girl, I said, why not just let them be a girl?

[704] Why do you have to fuck with their hormones?

[705] Why do you have to chemically engage with their body?

[706] Yeah, if it's all nonsense.

[707] I mean, this is my take on all of this.

[708] Like, be, just be a girl.

[709] Anything where you need medical science to consistently, yeah, right?

[710] Anything where you need medical science to consistently, yeah, right?

[711] Consistently inject chemicals into your body.

[712] They're going to alter your hormones irreversibly at a very young age.

[713] Like, why is that natural?

[714] Why are you saying this is what this person biologically or psychologically needs?

[715] Are you sure?

[716] It seems like something that human beings have constructed.

[717] Well, it's particularly damn weird if you insist that gender is a social construct.

[718] Yes.

[719] Like if it's a social construct, then what the hell are the hormones for?

[720] Exactly.

[721] That was my point.

[722] And he didn't have an answer to that.

[723] No, no, that's a rough one, man. That's, that's, okay.

[724] So, we're going to go back to Boston.

[725] Okay.

[726] Okay.

[727] If you found this conversation meaningful, you might think about picking up dad's books, maps of meaning, the architecture of belief, or his newer bestseller, 12 rules for life, an antidote to chaos.

[728] Both of these works delve much deeper into the topics covered in the Jordan B. Peterson podcast.

[729] See Jordan B. Peterson .com for audio, e -book, and text links.

[730] or pick up the books at your favorite bookseller.

[731] We'll get to Joe's time in Boston next week, along with how he got into martial arts, Insecurities as a young teen, his odd jobs, kind of a more personal look at Joe's life.

[732] He delves into his experiences teaching martial arts, how he got into stand -up comedy, his many surgical procedures, something I can relate to.

[733] Next week's episode will be a great finish to their conversation.

[734] Talk to you guys then.

[735] Hope you enjoyed.

[736] Follow me on my YouTube channel, Jordan B. Peterson, on Twitter at Jordan B. Peterson.

[737] On Facebook at Dr. Jordan B. Peterson and at Instagram at jordan