Joe Rogan Experience #1064 - Eddie Huang & Jessica Rosenworcel

Joe Rogan 0:01 Five, four, three, two, one. And we're live. Uh, welcome aboard, Jessica Rosenworcel. Did I do it?

Jessica Rosenworcel 0:11 You did.

Joe Rogan 0:13 (sighs) I was so nervous about that.

Eddie Huang 0:14 Don't worry (laughs) .

Joe Rogan 0:14 And Eddie Huang, of course. He's been on the podcast many times.

Eddie Huang 0:18 Number one podcast in the world.

Joe Rogan 0:20 Oh, thank you.

Eddie Huang 0:20 JRE.

Joe Rogan 0:21 What's up, brother? How are you?

Eddie Huang 0:22 I'm chilling, man. I'm, I'm good. I just, uh, you know, I wanted to introduce you to the homie-

Joe Rogan 0:27 (laughs)

Eddie Huang 0:27 ... the commissioner from the FCC, Jessica Rosenworcel, 'cause thing- things are, things are bad for the internet right now.

Joe Rogan 0:34 Well, you are very concerned, and a lot of people are, about net neutrality. And, uh, we all have some questions about it and we're excited to talk to you about it, so maybe we could, uh, illuminate some of the issues and, and give us a, an understanding or try to l- uh, help us understand what's at stake here and why are people so concerned?

Jessica Rosenworcel 0:54 Well, I think people are concerned 'cause the future of the internet's the future of everything.

Joe Rogan 0:59 Right.

Jessica Rosenworcel 0:59 I mean, every aspect of our lives is now touched by that connectivity. And it's a funny thing, but the agency where I work in Washington, the Federal Communications Commission, has enormous power and control over our internet experience. And for decades, we've had these policies that have been all about internet openness, and what that means is you can go where you want-

Joe Rogan 1:20 Mm-hmm.

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:20 ... do what you want online, and your broadband provider can't get in the way or prevent you from looking at some websites or looking at some videos or setting up some businesses. But that changed last month in Washington when the FCC, over my objections, voted to end net neutrality. And as a result, all of our broadband providers now have the legal right to block websites, to throttle content, and to set up sweetheart paid-for prioritization deals. And over the long haul, that could really change the internet and the web as we know it.

Joe Rogan 2:03 Now, one of the arguments f- pro-net neutrality, um, one of the arguments for people that were excited about this being signed, what they were saying that net neutrality was really, uh, only over the last couple years. And before the last couple years, net neutrality as we know it, the last couple years everything was fine and that it'll continue to be fine and that people are just panicked. And there was that really bizarre video that that one dude made where he was saying that, "These are all the things you're gonna be able to do." You work with that cat?

Jessica Rosenworcel 2:33 (smacks lips) I do.

Eddie Huang 2:34 (laughs) Ajit.

Joe Rogan 2:34 What is it?

Eddie Huang 2:35 Ajit Pai.

Joe Rogan 2:36 Yeah.

Eddie Huang 2:36 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 2:36 He seems like an odd-

Eddie Huang 2:38 Oof.

Joe Rogan 2:38 ... odd fellow.

Eddie Huang 2:39 Yeah.

Jessica Rosenworcel 2:40 Yeah, well, uh-

Eddie Huang 2:41 (laughs)

Jessica Rosenworcel 2:41 ... he's a, he's a smart guy. He's a seasoned lawyer. I think it's fair to say he and I see the world a little differently.

Joe Rogan 2:47 Yeah. So he doesn't s- he sees this through the eyes of big business, right? He thinks that this is, uh, the free market, let the market decide.

Jessica Rosenworcel 2:55 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 2:55 And, um, and that's what the argument... I mean, I've even... Uh, Mark Cuban was, uh, arguing against it, so I was like, "Wow, this is stunning."

Eddie Huang 3:03 Yeah, and you know, uh, for me, the net neutrality thing is huge 'cause when I was law school, I read this one book called Fighting for Air, and it documented like the Telecommunications Act of '97. It's like boring stuff, right? Don't go read the Telecommunications Act of '97. But like radio mattered to me. Remember like growing up with the radio, like I remember they would actually break records on the radio back in the day.

Joe Rogan 3:25 Yeah.

Eddie Huang 3:25 Like Funk Flex still does it on Hot 97. He'll break records. He broke my boy Old Droog's record the other day. But like recently, the- it's like Clear Channel, iHeart Radio, they own all the radio stations and it really sterilized content, and they play the same songs every hour in every city almost around the world. And I, when I read that book and I went to law school, I realized, I was like, "Yo, it was because of the deregulation of radio that allowed for all these local independent radio stations in every city that were repping local culture and state culture that kind of eroded that means of communication." And I was like, "This happens to every single industry we have, whether it's radio, television, but now it's coming for the internet, and by deregulating it, you're gonna gut it again." And, you know, like when- when technology started popping and podcasts came around, I mean, that's what enabled JRE, and that's why my first place to go is like, "I'ma come see Joe," because you were one of the innovators with this new technology.

Joe Rogan 4:32 Well, thanks. But I, I think, um, what people are super concerned about is things getting blocked, right?

Eddie Huang 4:40 Right.

Joe Rogan 4:40 That's, that's like one of the first ones.

Jessica Rosenworcel 4:42 Yes.

Joe Rogan 4:42 Is, is that something that we legitimately have to worry about?

Jessica Rosenworcel 4:46 It's a good question. Here's what I know. Right now, your broadband provider has the technical ability to block content and websites. It's got the business incentive to block or slow access to some websites if they don't have a special commercial relationship with them.

Joe Rogan 5:04 So-

Jessica Rosenworcel 5:04 And now the FCC just gave them the legal green light. Just go ahead. And so I feel over time, this is something we need to be concerned about. And so this open platform that was full of indeven- independent voices, now you've got this new gatekeeper, your broadband provider. They've got a lot more power than what they used to.

Joe Rogan 5:25 How close was the vote?

Jessica Rosenworcel 5:27 It was three-two.

Joe Rogan 5:29 Hmm. And what's the argument for this?

Jessica Rosenworcel 5:32 Well, that's, that's fair. Um, I think there's an argument that you want government out of the way, deregulation is gonna lead to more competition and we'll have, um, a flourishing of new ideas and content if we just move government out of the way. And even if you're sympathetic to that argument, here's where I think it breaks down. According to the FCC's own data-

Joe Rogan 5:56 Hmm.

Jessica Rosenworcel 5:56 ... half of the households in this country don't have a choice of broadband provider. I, I'm familiar with this. I'm one of them. I only have (laughs) one provider that serves my house. So the thing is, if your broadband provider started blocking your content or throttling your access to some video, in a competitive market, you'd pick up, you'd take your business somewhere else. But about half of our households don't even have that opportunity.So, to me, the idea that the competitive market will prevent this behavior just doesn't fly.

Joe Rogan 6:26 Yeah, that doesn't seem to make sense and that, that's an issue in my neighborhood as well, and a lot of other people I know as well. I mean, I think they make deals where only one company, whether it's Verizon-

Jessica Rosenworcel 6:36 Yep.

Joe Rogan 6:36 ... or whatever has a, an area.

Eddie Huang 6:37 Yeah. They monopolize the areas-

Joe Rogan 6:39 Yeah.

Eddie Huang 6:39 ... they limit the opportunities and choices, and when they say deregulation, it just... Anytime they deregulate things and say, "Hey, we're gonna leave it to the market and have competition," I think it's impossible to have that when you have a country with such an inequality- i- income inequality gap. Right? That's the problem, is that, "All right. Let's all go compete." "Joe, you're not gonna start a Verizon. I'm not gonna start a Verizon."

Joe Rogan 7:00 Right.

Eddie Huang 7:00 You know what I mean? Like, we can't compete with these dudes, and even Comcast can't even compete with Verizon. Like, you know, these dudes are all getting smashed, so there is not actual competition. I think deregulation works when you have multiple players and options and that the market actually can come into play. But with the economy so top-heavy right now, I- I don't think there is a possibility of competition.

Jessica Rosenworcel 7:23 Yeah. I mean, listen, competition is the best regulator we know, right? We want there to be these markets where consumers have lots and lots of choices. But if competition isn't existing, you need a little oversight to make sure that every consumer gets a fair shot.

Joe Rogan 7:37 Well, it seems like, uh, that's where the real argument lies, that if there are monopolies, and there seem to be in certain areas with... in regards to what kind of internet access you can get, that if you don't have regulation then, then what is gonna protect the consumer? What is gonna protect free speech? What's gonna protect... I- say if you are on Verizon and your system is on Verizon, what if you decide to make a podcast that criticizes Verizon? And everybody says, you know, "Hey, Eddie Huang's got a podcast criticizing us. I wanna shut that down." And they could just- (snaps fingers)

Eddie Huang 8:07 It would've been shut down a long time ago. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 8:10 Yeah.

Eddie Huang 8:10 Yeah.

Jessica Rosenworcel 8:11 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 8:11 I'm not... We're not saying that they would do that, but they could.

Eddie Huang 8:13 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 8:14 And-

Eddie Huang 8:14 And that's what's scary.

Joe Rogan 8:15 That's, that's not good.

Jessica Rosenworcel 8:16 And, and you know, so much of our speech these days, it doesn't take place in public places. It takes place on these private platforms.

Joe Rogan 8:23 Right.

Jessica Rosenworcel 8:24 So they have a lot of power, and we have to think about that as a, as a country and a democracy. How much openness do we want? And then, how do we create a framework in Washington that supports that openness? And that's really, to me, what net neutrality was about.

Eddie Huang 8:38 The other question I have is, right... Let's say, um, th- you know, Var- let's say a service provider buys Hulu, right? Or th- or they buy or they create their own streaming platform called, like, Zulu, right? So they start Zulu. They could start to charge Netflix more money for using their service. They could charge Hulu more money. They could charge, you know, Beats more money, whatever, so that they have an advantage for their own streaming services, and then tho- that way, they can culturally control content.

Jessica Rosenworcel 9:14 And you know, you're so right. And what happens is you, as a consumer, you just get online, and you might not even notice, right? You might not even notice they're taking you to the video content that they have a special pay-for relationship with. I think, though, the biggest harm is to entrepreneurship.

Eddie Huang 9:31 Yeah.

Jessica Rosenworcel 9:31 'Cause right now, look, you have a good idea, you got a business, a service, you can go online, and you can almost instantly have global reach. That's amazing. But now you're gonna have to figure out is your broadband provider instead gonna shuffle off all your traffic to someone else who's paying them on the side? Are you gonna have a fair shot to show your wares and your ideas to the world? It's harder.

Eddie Huang 9:55 'Cause I start thinking like a (laughs) a bad one percenter dude, and I'm like, "All right, if there's no net neutrality and I'm the only person that can service Calabasas, California, Woodland Hills, California, well, I'm gonna charge all the other streaming providers more money to use this, and I'm gonna create a competitor in every single one of these sectors. So you can have an advantage if you have your show with me, and if you're on the other one, I'm gonna disadvantage you. I'm gonna tax you, basically."

Joe Rogan 10:24 (sighs) So right now, these are concerns. And, um, there's nothing that's actually happening yet. The- i- this-

Jessica Rosenworcel 10:32 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 10:32 This ruling was just passed.

Jessica Rosenworcel 10:33 That's right.

Joe Rogan 10:34 Um, are there any plans in place for things that we should be concerned with? And is there anything that we can do about this current ruling?

Jessica Rosenworcel 10:44 Yes. There's loads, because I'm not giving up in the fight (laughs) for net neutrality, and I don't want you to either. We got a few different pathways ahead. First, in Congress right now, they are trying to get rid of what just happened at the FCC. They're trying to use this law called the Congressional Review Act that in effect just undid everything that the FCC just did. So it's a way to wipe out what just happened. And while the odds are long, there's more than 40 United States senators who have sponsored that law. And in the House side, there's more than 80 members of the House of Representatives. So there's momentum growing in Congress to take a look at this issue and maybe fix what the FCC did. And if you're sitting out there and thinking they're not listening to you, what you should do is something totally old-fashioned. You should pick up the phone, call your members of Congress and your representatives, and let them know you care about this issue, 'cause that still today is one of the most powerful ways of conveying your opinion to those who represent you.

Eddie Huang 11:47 When is the vote happening on that?

Jessica Rosenworcel 11:49 It is not yet scheduled. I think it's gonna happen first in the United States Senate-

Eddie Huang 11:53 Mm-hmm.

Jessica Rosenworcel 11:54 ... and later in the House. I also think we are gonna have litigation. We've already got a few states' attorneys general who wanna sue to overturn this. We've got some big companies, some public interest groups, so I think it's fair to say we're going to court. And then, we're also seeing activity in state houses and that we've seen net neutrality legislation introduced in Nebraska, Nevada, Washington State, Massachusetts, California.Lots of places. And I'm not sure how that all comes together legally, but what you see is this momentum growing, that people are not happy with what Washington just did.

Eddie Huang 12:32 The thing that I'm worried about with state's laws, right ... So just to lay it out for the listeners, right? The people will, will ... The government will pass the federal law, but then states have their own rights to regulate certain things. Let's say we use marijuana laws as an example, because recently a lot of states passed legal marijuana laws, right? But then Trump gave people the power to enforce federal laws about marijuana more stringently. Right? He was telling the federal government, "Hey, enforce our federal marijuana laws." Um-

Joe Rogan 13:04 Well, it's really Jeff Sessions, right?

Eddie Huang 13:05 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 13:05 Jeff S- ... He's the one who's really behind that.

Eddie Huang 13:07 Yeah, his goon. Yeah, his goon is doing that. But ... So how would federalism work if states started to pass their own net neutrality laws, versus the, the f- the FCC commission ruling?

Jessica Rosenworcel 13:19 Yeah, those are hard questions. I mean, they go right to the Constitution. What's interstate, what's within the state's authority? But I'm just standing back and seeing really just a lot of energy on this issue. There's nothing else that I worked on in Washington where this immediately, state houses decided to put pen to paper and introduce legislation. And I think that that momentum is what's really exciting here.

Joe Rogan 13:43 Well, I think everyone understands the insane power of the internet, and what, what a cultural shift that we've experienced over the last 20 years. I mean, it's unprecedented in human history. There's never been anything like it in terms of access to information, in terms of the rate of change, the way people look at things, the way the issues get discussed. The cycle of news, which is like, what? 10 hours now? Stories come in and out. I mean, Hawaii just had a fake missile attack-

Eddie Huang 14:11 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 14:11 ... and everybody already forgot. It's already on to the next. Like, what's the next thing?

Jessica Rosenworcel 14:15 I didn't-

Joe Rogan 14:15 Keep me posted. Check my phone.

Jessica Rosenworcel 14:16 ... forget, 'cause I think we have to fix that.

Eddie Huang 14:18 Yes. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 14:18 Yeah, we should, certainly should, but-

Eddie Huang 14:19 But what happened in Hawaii?

Joe Rogan 14:21 Someone went crazy.

Eddie Huang 14:22 (laughs)

Jessica Rosenworcel 14:22 Um, we're still learning. It looks like it was a state level issue, but you can't have things like that happen. We gotta figure out a way in this digital world that we get accurate information to people faster. And we, we've gotta come up with better systems than the one we just saw.

Joe Rogan 14:37 You mean somebody pressed a button and sent out a text that said that there's an incoming ballistic missile, a, a possibility, a threat of an incoming ballistic missile, and this is not a drill. And then I have friends in Hawaii, and everyone went crazy. People were crying in the streets, no one knew what to do. And of course, this is a state that was attacked, you know, less than 100 years ago during World War II.

Eddie Huang 14:58 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 14:58 So this is their ... It's not an unusual thing for them.

Eddie Huang 15:01 Yeah.

Jessica Rosenworcel 15:01 Yeah. I had the privilege of working for Senator Inouye from Hawaii years ago, and I think Hawaiians are, you know, they're graceful, they're resilient, but they live with the knowledge that they are susceptible to some attack.

Eddie Huang 15:13 Yeah.

Jessica Rosenworcel 15:13 So this gave them 40 minutes, the worst 40 minutes of their life. And the amazing thing to me is it took like 10 minutes or so for this to be corrected on Twitter.

Eddie Huang 15:23 (laughs)

Jessica Rosenworcel 15:23 It took, took another half hour for our official systems to update and say, "In fact, this was a mistake."

Eddie Huang 15:30 Yeah, once we found out-

Jessica Rosenworcel 15:31 "We gotta figure that out."

Eddie Huang 15:32 It was-

Jessica Rosenworcel 15:32 "You can't let that happen."

Eddie Huang 15:34 Yeah, but then once I figured out it was a mistake, I was like, "Whoa, maybe I should ask Jessica if we could send like a-"

Joe Rogan 15:40 (laughs)

Eddie Huang 15:40 "... national message on my birthday, 12:00 AM March 1st, and be like, 'You up?'"

Joe Rogan 15:44 (laughs)

Jessica Rosenworcel 15:45 Uh-huh.

Eddie Huang 15:45 Just a nationwide booty call.

Joe Rogan 15:47 (laughs)

Jessica Rosenworcel 15:47 I'm gonna officially say the FCC will not be helping-

Eddie Huang 15:51 All right.

Jessica Rosenworcel 15:51 ... in that regard.

Eddie Huang 15:51 I had to ask.

Jessica Rosenworcel 15:52 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 15:52 That's a big question.

Jessica Rosenworcel 15:54 Yeah.

Eddie Huang 15:55 Yeah. No, but what Jo was saying about the internet and how it opened things up, like personally for me, like today's Martin Luther King Jr. Day, right? And, uh, I remember reading Letter from Birmingham Jail as a kid, Jonathan Swift, Modest Proposal as a kid, and Tupac, uh, Me Against the World. Those were like the three works that made me want to write. And I started writing since I was 15 years old, never gave up, but no one would buy my writing, right? The only place that would buy my writing was RotoWire and I would write fantasy sports updates for them. I covered the Magic and I covered the Knicks. But all the way until I was like 28 years old, no one wanted to buy my writing. It was Blogspot that had allowed me to write in my own voice and find my own audience, and then people started to see, "Whoa, there are like weird children on the internet that like Eddie's writing." Like, he's creating a lane. And I talked to my publisher at Random House and they're like, "Yeah, you created a lane selling books to people who don't buy books, non-traditional readers." And so without the internet, without Blogspot, without that ability to just project my voice and hope someone connects, like I never would've happened.

Jessica Rosenworcel 17:02 I know, we're living through it in real time, but it is totally radical as a matter of human history that you can reach out, reach around the world and build community with total disregard for geography, and find people who like fantasy sports or something like that, and, and build community around it. That's an extraordinary thing, and it has no precedent in human culture.

Joe Rogan 17:27 And with translation software, now language is no longer even a barrier.

Jessica Rosenworcel 17:31 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 17:31 I mean, it's changing and shifting as, as we speak. New technologies are being developed. I mean, Samsung has a phone now that, uh, that Note8, where you can just highlight something, it'll instantly translate it. I mean, they have earbuds where you could put that on the Pixel where if you talk to me in Spanish, I'll hear it in English. And this is crazy stuff.

Eddie Huang 17:51 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 17:51 And this is all changing.

Jessica Rosenworcel 17:52 Think about what that does for commerce or diplomacy-

Joe Rogan 17:55 Yeah.

Jessica Rosenworcel 17:55 ... or your ability to talk to me across the table without having a translator-

Joe Rogan 18:00 Yeah.

Jessica Rosenworcel 18:00 ... in some clunky way try to describe what I just said.

Joe Rogan 18:03 Yeah.

Jessica Rosenworcel 18:03 These things are amazing, and you want all of our collective genius to drive them and not have big ca- gatekeepers like our broadband providers in the way.

Joe Rogan 18:12 Yeah, it seems to be a, a real issue, and I think that we should look at the internet as something different than almost all other services, because i- it is our ability ... It's, it's ... It directly affects our ability to evolve as a culture.

Jessica Rosenworcel 18:27 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 18:27 And I think that that's something that we should all be very concerned about and very concerned about the future of our civilization.... our ability to exchange information. It's, it's so critical and it's, it's so unprecedented. And this is a very powerful thing. And, you know, people would love to have it go back the old way and have you get your news on ABC and NBC and CBS and that's it. People would love that.

Eddie Huang 18:45 Because they control you.

Joe Rogan 18:46 Sure. I mean, it would be way easier to keep the world, you know, informed in the way that they would like.

Eddie Huang 18:52 Yeah.

Jessica Rosenworcel 18:52 It, it would be easier for regulators in Washington too. I mean there's this-

Eddie Huang 18:56 Sure.

Jessica Rosenworcel 18:56 ... disorderly chaos on the internet, but it, it, um, it create- it ... Listen, it has challenges, but it, it's unearthed communities and created economic possibility for people like nothing in our history.

Joe Rogan 19:10 Yeah. I think it just- it's changing who humans are. You know, I think there's more of an understanding of each other. There's more, there's more compassion. I mean, there's also a lot of hate and there's a lot of anger and there's a lot of ... But I think with the bad, there's more good.

Eddie Huang 19:27 Yeah. Uh, undoubtedly there's much more good and to me, it feels like a freedom of speech issue.

Joe Rogan 19:33 Yeah.

Eddie Huang 19:33 You know, like, it's- if, if this f- internet kind of super highway is controlled and there's toll booths everywhere and it gets privatized, like ... I mean, I lived in Florida, we didn't have money for roads. I saw when things got privatized, it's- you just pay more, you don't have the same service. It's, it's one of those things, like it has to be regulated, it has to be protected and it has to be guaranteed as a thing for all human beings, not even just Americans.

Joe Rogan 19:57 Well, it's just- it's stunning to me how many people are against the idea of having an open internet. It's- I just ...

Jessica Rosenworcel 20:05 Well, you know most of the polling, I think polls are always- you gotta be careful, right? Because they can ask a question one way and get an answer, but the best one done was right before our vote by the University of Maryland, found 83% of the public supported net neutrality, opposed what we were doing.

Joe Rogan 20:21 But who are those 17% dummies? That's what I wanna know.

Jessica Rosenworcel 20:24 I- I think anything you can get the American public to agree to, an 83% is a pretty high mark.

Joe Rogan 20:29 I think it's wonderful, but I'm stunned there's 17%. (laughs)

Eddie Huang 20:31 Yeah, I wanna be the 17%.

Jessica Rosenworcel 20:33 Yeah.

Eddie Huang 20:33 Seriously.

Joe Rogan 20:34 But isn't there a bunch of people- I feel like there's some- and I, I wrote about this on Twitter recently, that without judgment, I said that net neutrality seems to me to be one of those ideological issues where, um, if you are on the right, you support it. Or if you're on the left, rather, you support it. Where you're on the right, you would like it to go away. It's almost like-

Jessica Rosenworcel 20:56 Well, I'm gonna totally disagree with that-

Joe Rogan 20:58 Okay, please do. (laughs)

Jessica Rosenworcel 20:58 ... 'cause I think if you are a Democrat or a Republican, you benefit from net neutrality and internet openness. If you're conservative or liberal, if you're a big business or a small business, you benefit from internet openness. And the history of net neutrality is something that doesn't get discussed enough, which is that it began ... The first time the FCC put net neutrality policy on paper, it was 2005. And I'm old enough to remember that that was when President George W. Bush was in the White House. In other words, this country's first net neutrality policies were put on paper when a Republican was running the FCC. It is only in recent days we have characterized this as a left/right issue, and I think that's a- fundamentally a mistake.

Eddie Huang 21:44 How did it happen? Like when, when Ajit Pai proposed this legislation and passed it, um, i- it baffled me. I thought net neutrality was a thing we had all agreed on, it was like, "We're never touching this." How did this happen?

Jessica Rosenworcel 21:59 Well, you know, through s- a whole bunch of boring Washington procedures whereby they circulate out a proposed rule-making and tell you what data goes on it.

Eddie Huang 22:05 Oh, no, no, no. But I mean like how did- how did he get the power and leverage to pass this?

Jessica Rosenworcel 22:10 I think that he was supported by people in Washington, including some broadband providers, and was led to believe that with deregulation, we would all be better off.

Eddie Huang 22:23 And then w- uh, what f- what I find interesting is Google, Amazon, Facebook, these, these big power players used to be very vocal, net neutrality, keep the internet free, things like that. They're not as loud as they used to be. They seem to just be quiet on it. What do you think is going on there?

Jessica Rosenworcel 22:42 Well, first I wanna point out that those big companies, through their association, are gonna be intervening in the lawsuits in favor of net neutrality.

Eddie Huang 22:49 Yeah.

Jessica Rosenworcel 22:50 So that's true.

Eddie Huang 22:50 Yeah.

Jessica Rosenworcel 22:51 But to me, net neutrality's never really been about big companies. It's about who's gonna be the next digital platform, who's gonna be the next startup and the next player. Um, the big companies can always find ways to build relationships and manage this kind of lack of neutrality online with their leverage that come from size. It's, it's a question of who's gonna start something up that you and I may not see because they didn't pay off their broadband provider? It's the entrepreneurship that has me most concerned.

Eddie Huang 23:21 Like s- new small business?

Jessica Rosenworcel 23:22 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 23:22 Yeah. So when I was saying that there's a- seems like an ideological rift, there's certain people that are not very well versed in this issue that automatically side one way or another. That's a- this is a thing that we do in this country culturally, a right/left thing. You see it a lot with global warming where you have a conversation with people, they say that global warming's- it's a natural process, natural cycle, the Earth goes through it. And then you actually talk to them about how much research they've really done on it, it's almost none.

Eddie Huang 23:49 Yeah. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 23:49 It- they, they fall into these ideological groups and those pull yourself by- up by your bootstraps, right wing. You know, there, there's this- this sort of conservative way of thinking that- that let the market decide, and this is that, that conversation. I don't think that's an honest conversation if you're dealing with monopolies in, in regards to internet access, which I think a lot of- and I am and you are, a lot of people are. It's a giant part of living in America.

Jessica Rosenworcel 24:14 Yeah.

Eddie Huang 24:15 You have-

Jessica Rosenworcel 24:15 And that tribalism that you're describing right now-

Joe Rogan 24:17 Yes.

Jessica Rosenworcel 24:17 ... it's really deteriorating the quality of our dialogue in Washington.

Joe Rogan 24:21 Yes.

Jessica Rosenworcel 24:21 We gotta find a way to fix it because, um, we're not gonna move ahead-... without actually having some back and forth on these things.

Eddie Huang 24:30 But this is, like, the one issue where I'm like, it actually brings people together. 83% of people supported-

Jessica Rosenworcel 24:35 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 24:35 80%.

Eddie Huang 24:35 ... yeah, i- it's undeniable. But i- that's what scary about this country now is that even when so many of us agree about something, when one very powerful group, a lobby, the broadband companies, get behind somebody with some control, like, they can push the needle.

Jessica Rosenworcel 24:51 You know, it's funny, if y- in my email inbox, which was an explosive thing leading up to this vote, was full of people writing and telling me their stories. But a whole bunch of them were like, "You know, I am r- a registered Republican, but I want you to know..." Or, "I supported the President, but I believe net neutrality is really important." It was striking to me, like, once you get outta the talking head types-

Eddie Huang 25:18 Yeah.

Jessica Rosenworcel 25:18 ... what you found is that there was really broad-based support for net neutrality.

Joe Rogan 25:24 Well, what's s- stunning about this administration is how Trump's administration is just going ham for business. They are going ham for offshore drilling. They're going ham for diminishing state parks and starting to tap into resources, whether it's mining or fracking or-

Eddie Huang 25:42 It's like he knows the world's gonna end in 25 years or something. He's like, "Just go."

Joe Rogan 25:46 Well-

Eddie Huang 25:46 "Just take it all."

Joe Rogan 25:46 ... here's the thing. He doesn't have 25 years.

Eddie Huang 25:49 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 25:49 And so the world is gonna end in 25 years. I mean, if you're a 72-year-old guy-

Eddie Huang 25:54 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 25:54 ... how much time do you have left? If you have 25 years, those last 25 years, you're, you know, you're barely there.

Eddie Huang 26:01 Yeah. It- it's insane. There's n- there's nothing gonna be left after this administration.

Joe Rogan 26:05 Well, it's real weird.

Eddie Huang 26:07 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 26:07 It's r- it's r- 'cause it lets you know, like, people used to think, "Well, the president doesn't have much power." L- look at what's happening.

Eddie Huang 26:12 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 26:13 There's, there's a, a, a giant shift in environmental pro- policies. Environmental Protection Agency has been gutted. There's, that's the scary stuff. The scary stuff is how much emphasis is placed on business and how little on the world in which we live. I mean, we have to balance that out.

Jessica Rosenworcel 26:28 It's also how, we gotta focus on the future right now.

Joe Rogan 26:31 Yes.

Jessica Rosenworcel 26:32 It is not a given that we're gonna succeed in everything if we don't start planning.

Eddie Huang 26:37 Yeah.

Jessica Rosenworcel 26:38 And when I think about the world my kids are going to inherit, it's going to be digital. There are gonna be environmental consequences. Why don't we start doing something about that right now? Um, there's not a lot of urgency.

Joe Rogan 26:51 It's one of the weirdest parts of being a person, is people look so short term and they always feel like someone's gonna fix it.

Eddie Huang 26:58 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 26:59 You know? I mean, isn't that the, the attitude? Someone's gonna fix it. But look at right now, the economy's booming, joblessness is at an all-time low, and they'll just start throwing all the good stuff your way. But yeah, well, when you just start raping the environment and the businesses go, "Hey, there's a lotta proce- pr- uh, profit to be made here, let's, uh, let's get going. Let's l- start hiring some people."

Eddie Huang 27:16 Yeah, it's like all the money goes to the defense and Department of Education is gutted, Department of Energy is gutted, Department of Environments, all these things are gutted. Everything that has to do with our, even, uh, present and future, it's gutted. The, the only thing that's going is business and defense.

Joe Rogan 27:32 And what's the argument for that? The argument for that is that as business booms, as the economy booms-

Eddie Huang 27:37 Trickle down.

Joe Rogan 27:38 ... there'll be, trickle down and there'll be-

Eddie Huang 27:38 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 27:38 ... more opportunities for, you know, businesses to clean up the environment and profit off of it and... pshh.

Eddie Huang 27:45 Yeah, but it's never worked. Commissioner Glacken, can you conf- like, trickle-down economics has never worked in the history of the history.

Jessica Rosenworcel 27:52 He, I have my doubts about it.

Eddie Huang 27:54 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 27:55 Yeah, I've heard b- I've, I've heard pro and con for it. It's, it, it, I think, at the very least, the Trump administration, and I'm trying to look at it through rose-colored glasses, is a fascinating experiment in like, in so many different ways.

Jessica Rosenworcel 28:08 But it's also, I think, made us all more conscious of our role as citizens.

Joe Rogan 28:14 Yes.

Jessica Rosenworcel 28:15 People have to talk back to Washington. They have to speak up. We need our representatives to hear (laughs) what people think. And I think we got a little comfortable there.

Joe Rogan 28:25 Yeah.

Jessica Rosenworcel 28:25 Believing the system just runs by itself. But it does better when people participate. And I think that there's a lot more demanded of us now as citizens. No matter where you fall on the political spectrum, I think it woke us all up to that fact.

Eddie Huang 28:40 Besides just calling state reps, senators, what else can people do?

Jessica Rosenworcel 28:46 Um, uh, participate in letter-writing campaigns. Get things in your editorial page, you know? I don't mean the big papers.

Eddie Huang 28:54 Yeah.

Jessica Rosenworcel 28:54 I wrote something for the LA, uh, Times about this a while ago. But, um, I mean in your, your local papers. Tell them why it's important. Tell them how you built a business using online activities and how maybe, going forward, that's gonna be a little harder. I, I think, um, making efforts to make sure that people understand this at a local level is really powerful.

Joe Rogan 29:17 Well, it's very disturbing to people that 320 million people can be af- is that how many we have? 320, somewhere in there?

Jessica Rosenworcel 29:22 About that.

Joe Rogan 29:23 Can be affected by five people.

Eddie Huang 29:26 I, yeah.

Jessica Rosenworcel 29:26 It's crazy, right?

Joe Rogan 29:27 It's insane.

Jessica Rosenworcel 29:28 Five unelected bureaucrats, 'cause look, that's who we are, have this extraordinary power over what we can watch, see, hear, and learn. I think that, um, there's something in that that strikes me as not right and the idea that, in the end, just three of them voted to roll back this openness.

Joe Rogan 29:53 So three people changed it for 320 million people. That's crazy.

Eddie Huang 29:58 That doesn't seem-

Joe Rogan 29:59 That doesn't seem like the, and three people, by the way, who were not voted in. So they're unelected. Which, this is ba- bananas. I mean, there's no question about it. That's a terrible idea. Like, if you (laughs) gave people the option, you said, "Hey, do you think that five people should be able to decide whether or not the 320 million plus," plus the rest of the world, really-

Eddie Huang 30:18 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 30:18 ... because it's, if your-

Eddie Huang 30:19 Superpower.

Joe Rogan 30:19 ... podcast gets cut off, you know, you're not gonna be able to reach Canada either. W- do you think that they should be able to, uh, stop access to information? I mean, 99%-

Eddie Huang 30:27 I mean three people def- defied 83%-

Joe Rogan 30:30 No.

Eddie Huang 30:30 ... of the American public. It's, it's insane. And that's the type of shit that makes me feel trapped in this country sometimes because we didn't elect these people.

Joe Rogan 30:38 Right.

Eddie Huang 30:39 You know?

Jessica Rosenworcel 30:40 Yeah, I think, I think you gotta make a choice, which is you gotta choose to be optimistic, 'cause it's the only force multiplier we have. Which is, you're gonna decide that if something's not right, you're gonna call, you're gonna write letters, you're gonna write editorials, you're gonna build campaigns around things, because in the end, that's the only way to change things. And if all of us felt a little of that spirit, gosh, today, if not every day, I think that that would make extraordinary difference. And we're already seeing its impact in Washington. There are more people showing up in the capital city for votes, for marches. There are more people reaching out to their members of Congress than ever before, and I just think we're gonna have to sustain that energy if we wanna create some real change.

Eddie Huang 31:26 I think it's about more people who have an opinion, values that are trustworthy in the community running. I think more people need to run, because for a while, we've, I've actually looked at government as something like I maybe could never be part of, this is a totally different thing. Like, I just, I, I research the candidates and I go vote and that's, that's my interaction with it. But I'm starting to realize that even if you don't wanna run or even if you wanna run, it, it's a possibility. And, and you, number one, you can, like, encourage your other friends to go run, and you can look at who is trying to start campaigns. Like, I'm 35 now and, and there are friends from law school that they're like, "Hey, I'm thinking about running," you know, like, "I wanna throw a fundraiser. Who should I speak to?" And then, you know, there's a guy that I played basketball with in a basketball league. He's like, "I'm gonna try to run for governor of California." I'm like, "Good luck, but, like, I'm gonna follow what you're doing." And I think more people need to run, but if you're not running, hold the people that are running responsible. Ask the difficult questions, like, be a part of the, the kind of vetting of that candidate and be hands-on in the process of that person's candidacy.

Joe Rogan 32:33 Are you running for president with Oprah?

Eddie Huang 32:35 No, no, no, no.

Joe Rogan 32:35 That's what I'm hearing here.

Jessica Rosenworcel 32:37 That would be interesting.

Eddie Huang 32:37 No, I'm, I'm not running-

Joe Rogan 32:38 That's what I'm hearing here.

Eddie Huang 32:38 ... but my thing is, is that, you know, I think we all need to have a stake in the cats that are running and, and ask the questions that need to be asked because, you know, I've been one of the people that just shows up maybe two weeks before the election, two weeks before the deadline of, like, the, the absentee ballot, and I go research for two weeks and I go check out all the, like, pros and cons of each candidate, and after two weeks I decide. But, you know, I should be involved more than that-

Jessica Rosenworcel 33:04 Well, you can-

Eddie Huang 33:05 ... as citizens.

Jessica Rosenworcel 33:05 ... announce your congressional run right here, right now if you're interested (laughs) .

Eddie Huang 33:08 (laughs) No, I'm too busy.

Jessica Rosenworcel 33:10 (laughs)

Eddie Huang 33:10 I'm too busy.

Joe Rogan 33:11 Isn't that the problem though? The people that we'd want to run for president or whatever elected official oftentimes are too busy.

Eddie Huang 33:17 I mean, I think if you ran, I mean-

Joe Rogan 33:19 I'm not running.

Eddie Huang 33:19 ... you could really clean up. You could really do it.

Joe Rogan 33:22 I'm not running. I'm not running.

Eddie Huang 33:22 You got a bigger platform than I do.

Joe Rogan 33:23 I'm not interested.

Eddie Huang 33:24 (laughs) I just, I don't-

Jessica Rosenworcel 33:26 It's important though, you know?

Joe Rogan 33:27 Yeah.

Jessica Rosenworcel 33:27 Find a way to participate in public life and give back.

Joe Rogan 33:31 Mm-hmm.

Jessica Rosenworcel 33:31 And whether you run or support someone or encourage your friends, and they don't have to be the person who was the student council president in high school.

Eddie Huang 33:39 Yeah, m-

Jessica Rosenworcel 33:39 Just get some people out there.

Eddie Huang 33:41 My thing with candidates, like, right, so, Joe, we've had disagreements on the show.

Joe Rogan 33:44 (laughs)

Eddie Huang 33:44 We disagree about certain things.

Joe Rogan 33:46 What did we disagree about?

Eddie Huang 33:46 Well, it was the, it was the-

Joe Rogan 33:48 Remember?

Eddie Huang 33:48 ... minimum, uh, universal-

Joe Rogan 33:49 Oh, you changed my mind.

Eddie Huang 33:50 ... basi- ... Yeah.

Joe Rogan 33:51 By the way, I changed, I, I, I, there was a knee-jerk reaction to you.

Eddie Huang 33:54 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 33:55 And we've talked about this. Uh, I was talking about universal basic income. Um, I had a knee-jerk-

Jessica Rosenworcel 33:58 Okay, and you told me net neutrality was sorta nerdy.

Joe Rogan 34:01 Yeah, that's pretty nerdy.

Jessica Rosenworcel 34:02 If you were talking about UBI, I think you, you cleared up.

Eddie Huang 34:04 I nerd out on this show.

Joe Rogan 34:05 I ne-

Jessica Rosenworcel 34:05 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 34:06 ... automatically knee-jerk go, "Ah, don't do that. It's bad for human nature. You give people money, they get lazy." But then I thought about it and I said, "No, you're just giving them food and shelter." You give people food and shelter, you're still leaving open ambition, and you're also freeing them up for the possibility of perhaps exploring things that they would really, truly love to do, where they, they have m- ... And I think when we're, when we start dealing with automated vehicles, automated trucks-

Eddie Huang 34:32 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 34:32 ... and trucking and shipping and driving is a giant business. It's, it's a huge part of what people have d- ... Like, there's some extraordinary percentage of men who drive for a living, and if you eliminate that, you're gonna have a lot of people out of work. You have a, we have automation that's coming to factories and all these different places. It's gonna eliminate the need for humans, cut out all the human error. Well, what are we gonna do with all those people? And what are we gonna do with all those jobs? And how do you give these people this newfound possibility, this, th- this, this avenue for exploring new potential career paths? Well, the best way is have their money taken care of in terms of, like, food and shelter. Like, have, give them the freedom to explore ideas.

Eddie Huang 35:15 Yeah, 'cause it's a benefit a lot of people have and then they-

Joe Rogan 35:18 Yeah.

Eddie Huang 35:18 ... do great work and you take that stress off their plate. But I talked about the conversation, 'cause we had, we had a good discussion about it-

Joe Rogan 35:25 Yeah.

Eddie Huang 35:25 ... and then it went on for weeks on Twitter, we kept talking, and then we both kinda came around on, on things, and I was like, "Yo, this is great." And when I think about candidates, I think about, I would vote for somebody who, they're gonna stick to their guns and they're gonna do what they said they would and their values aren't gonna change once they go to DC. That's all you can ask for from a person.

Joe Rogan 35:46 Right.

Eddie Huang 35:46 Be honest about who you are and be who you are when you go to DC.

Joe Rogan 35:50 Well, I'm looking at the future-

Eddie Huang 35:52 You know?

Joe Rogan 35:52 ... of civilization, right? Like, where are we now and whe- th- this insane change that we've experienced over the last 20 years because of the internet, what is, what is it gonna be like in 20 years from now? And what happens to the, the average person, the average human being? And we have this idea that you're supposed to show up 9:00 to 5:00 for a job and that's what you do and then you work till you retire, but that's all something that people invented. I mean, this, all of this is a new thing in terms of human history. This is not the, the only way human beings can live and the idea that this is the only way to use our tax money or our resources is the, the way we're doing it currently, that doesn't seem to be that logical. And I would like people to have more opportunity to innovate and create and more freedom, where they don't feel shackled down. Like, there's a lot of people out there that just feel shackled down by just the need to feed themselves and survive.

Eddie Huang 36:48 Yeah. And also just even school, like I started reading and listening to these podcasts about sleep, right? And it's a, it's a scientific thing. Some people are not morning people.

Joe Rogan 36:57 She's laughing at you.

Eddie Huang 36:57 (laughs) Yeah. But like th- (laughs)

Jessica Rosenworcel 36:59 I was like, "Reading or listening to podcasts about sleep." (laughs)

Eddie Huang 37:03 Yeah. Well, you could get information any way now.

Jessica Rosenworcel 37:05 I have this image of you with insomnia-

Joe Rogan 37:06 (laughs)

Jessica Rosenworcel 37:06 ... listening to podcasts about sleep.

Joe Rogan 37:08 (laughs)

Eddie Huang 37:09 (laughs) No, but I listened to this dude and he was talking about like, it's a scientific thing. Some people are on a different body rhythm. They just don't do well in the morning. And he looked at schools and the school schedule. And the school schedule is based on mom and dads. They have a nine to five based on traffic, and let's try to get these kids into school for high school the earliest, then middle school later, then elementary school after that. And some people, because they're morning people, they're just so... at such a disadvantage. And high school, college, this is like kind of a educational industrial complex. If you don't fit in, if you're not cookie cutter in the way your body and your mind works, you're not gonna be successful. And, and speaking to what Joe's talking about is I think, I genuinely believe, like even (laughs) with some of the silliest people I've met, everybody has some sort of genius. We're just not like fostering the unearthing of that. And like, look, there's some, there's some hilarious stuff that happens at Bao House, at the restaurant, but I tell myself every time, I'm like, "All right, like this guy totally messed up making this bao. This guy totally messed up butchering this chicken." But like find a place where he can succeed. Like put him in a position to win and, and-

Joe Rogan 38:16 That's a lot of responsibility.

Eddie Huang 38:17 It's a lot of responsibility.

Joe Rogan 38:19 (laughs)

Eddie Huang 38:19 It doesn't always work out, but, but usually it does. Usually you find out like, "You know what? That guy's really good at making the sauce." You know, like put him on the sauce. Like you have to find a place for people to be successful. But our society doesn't do that.

Joe Rogan 38:30 Or they have to find the, their own. The problem-

Eddie Huang 38:32 Find their own.

Joe Rogan 38:33 Yeah. The problem is if you do have a nine to five job and you're trying to feed yourself and get along, you're gonna have less chances to innovate. You're gonna left, less chances to take risky decisions and, and just try things out.

Jessica Rosenworcel 38:47 That is why internet openness is so important though.

Joe Rogan 38:50 Yes.

Jessica Rosenworcel 38:50 Because this was a platform and a space for you to go experiment, build community, find communities, figure out what your genius might involve, which may not be what you're doing at work every day. And I think the idea that Washington is mucking around with that is just crazy.

Joe Rogan 39:10 Well, I definitely don't think they like the fact that people have this ability. I definitely think if you could... if the people who created the internet knew what they were doing when they released this on the general public, they probably wouldn't have.

Jessica Rosenworcel 39:22 S-

Joe Rogan 39:22 Like to give people the kind of access to information and the ability to change things. What, what we've seen through Arab Spring, we've seen through so many different cultures that are using this to change the way they interact with each other.

Jessica Rosenworcel 39:35 You know what was interesting? During our net neutrality proceeding, Tim Berners-Lee, who, um, uh, invented the web, and Vint Cerf, who invented the internet, along with some real icons from early days like Mitchell Baker from Mozilla, all wrote us and said, "Do not change these rules." And it seems like when you've got that incredible genius of these people who created this connected world for you and told you that this agency in Washington is gonna really mess around with it, it strikes me that, um, we should have listened.

Joe Rogan 40:08 Well, we definitely should have listened, but we also shouldn't have this place where five people get to make this decision. It's insane.

Eddie Huang 40:14 Yeah. Going on what you just said, Joe, it's like even, even like let's say my role at, at... Just to explain it to you, my role as the owner or manager at the restaurant, it's not necessarily always my job to create a role for somebody and find a way for them to be successful in my restaurant. I'm hiring a cook. I'm hiring a manager. Like, this is the job description. Hopefully if you're coming for this job, you can do this, right? And I think what you said really opened something in my mind, which is the government should not be always prescriptive about like, "All right. We're all gonna go to school at seven o'clock. You're gonna study hard and you're gonna get these grades and you're gonna go to college." Like that's not a path to success for everybody. But what it should do is enable people to be creative and find out what works for them. We need to give people the freedom to contribute to society. You know?

Joe Rogan 41:01 Well, I think we're trying to manage the masses without looking at the needs and the ideas of the individual. And everybody has their own likes and dislikes and creative kinks and things that... I mean, how many people could have lived a life of misery, but got lucky somewhere along the line and found something that they love-

Eddie Huang 41:24 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 41:24 ... and, and pursued that? And I think that there's not a whole lot of guidance in that regard. But what there is on the internet is examples of other people who've done this. And you can connect with those people and you can... There's so many communities when it comes to, like, I'm into... I'm not... I, I don't... I'm, I'm weird about stuff. I, uh, I like knife making, okay?

Eddie Huang 41:49 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 41:49 I don't make knives.

Jessica Rosenworcel 41:50 (laughs) That feels kind of ominous, but all right.

Eddie Huang 41:52 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 41:52 No, no, no, no, no.

Jessica Rosenworcel 41:53 Yeah. Okay.

Joe Rogan 41:53 Like the, the craft of it. I love the, the idea of forging things. I just think... I, I find, uh, that fascinating and I follow like, uh, dozens of these guys on Instagram that make knives and hatchets and metal work and tools and furniture and shit. I'm not making furniture. I have no desire to make furniture. I'm not even thinking about it. But I like watching this and I like watching these people communicate with each other and explain the methods and the techniques they use. And this is a, you know, an avenue where a young kid could see something like that and go, "I wanna make furniture."

Jessica Rosenworcel 42:30 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:30 Like, that seems like a cool thing. Like, look at this-

Jessica Rosenworcel 42:32 And how-

Joe Rogan 42:32 ... amazing desk.

Jessica Rosenworcel 42:32 ... accessible that is to you now.

Joe Rogan 42:34 Yeah.

Jessica Rosenworcel 42:34 Like when you were growing up-

Joe Rogan 42:35 Yeah.

Jessica Rosenworcel 42:35 ... you wanted to do that, you were gonna go to some library and go to that card catalog-

Joe Rogan 42:39 You probably wouldn't be exposed to it.

Jessica Rosenworcel 42:41 ... and look things up. You would never see the video content-

Joe Rogan 42:45 Right.

Jessica Rosenworcel 42:45 ... the, the, the number of people doing that.

Joe Rogan 42:47 Yeah.

Jessica Rosenworcel 42:48 I mean, at all.... so casually and quickly legitimizes it for you as something to think about, do, or pursue.

Joe Rogan 42:54 Yeah.

Jessica Rosenworcel 42:55 That's amazing.

Joe Rogan 42:56 Yeah. I had a, I had a knife made-

Jessica Rosenworcel 42:58 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 42:59 ... um, out of meteor. It's made out of meteor.

Eddie Huang 43:02 How, how hard is meteor?

Joe Rogan 43:04 Steel. It's metal, it's iron.

Eddie Huang 43:06 Oh, wow.

Joe Rogan 43:06 So they make it with the iron that came out of a meteor. mamausi Fire Arts made it for me.

Eddie Huang 43:11 How did you cop meteor? (laughs)

Joe Rogan 43:13 I contacted him. I contacted him and I, I... Well, I knew there's a guy named Steve Kramer that makes them and he made one for Anthony Bourdain.

Eddie Huang 43:21 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 43:21 And, uh, and I went, "What?" He got-

Jessica Rosenworcel 43:23 I want one of those.

Joe Rogan 43:23 I'm like, "I want one of those." He's got a fucking meteor knife? How do I get a meteor knife? So my kitchen knife is made from a meteor.

Eddie Huang 43:30 Damn.

Joe Rogan 43:30 Yeah, you can... That's Cleopatra's knife-

Eddie Huang 43:32 That's really one-upping the rest of us.

Joe Rogan 43:34 ... is made by a meteor. That's not it. (laughs)

Eddie Huang 43:34 I really gotta step my, my knife game up 'cause I just... I still just use the cleaver, man. I'm so, like, ancient Chinese with my chopping.

Jessica Rosenworcel 43:43 (laughs)

Eddie Huang 43:43 Just a cleaver.

Joe Rogan 43:44 Well, there's nothing wrong with a cleaver.

Eddie Huang 43:45 Yeah, but-

Joe Rogan 43:46 This is... It just looks cool-

Eddie Huang 43:47 'Cause I could really expand-

Joe Rogan 43:47 ... 'cause we know it came from a meteor.

Eddie Huang 43:49 I could... Yeah. No, I could expand the arsenal, add a meteor chef's knife to it.

Jessica Rosenworcel 43:52 Do you tell everyone it came from a meteor-

Joe Rogan 43:54 Yeah, I told-

Jessica Rosenworcel 43:54 ... when they come into your kitchen-

Joe Rogan 43:55 Yeah.

Jessica Rosenworcel 43:55 ... so you're just sort of impress them a little?

Joe Rogan 43:56 No, no, I'm only showed it to a couple people. I just got it recently, but it's, uh... I just, I think that this w- new world of, uh, of the internet w- in terms of, like, uh, the ability to explore these communities and, like you said, video. Like see the video of someone... Like this clock, this, uh, Russell built, made this clock for us, that, that grandfather clock. I mean, that dude made that all out of metal. He welded it all, put it all together. I mean, this, this kind of stuff to me is so fascinating. And I don't just like it because I'm interested in the craft of it all, I like it because I see it as an opportunity for people to get out of the grind.

Eddie Huang 44:35 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 44:36 Like, you can make things. If you can make things and sell things, if you have an internet, uh, connection and you have an Instagram account, which is free, and you have an iPhone, you take your phone, you film something, you ta-... Next thing you know, you're selling things. I mean, uh, we... It's an incredible time for, like, opportunity to escape.

Eddie Huang 44:54 Yeah. The biggest lie people fall for is that they're, they're bad at something or they're not valuable. It's like, you may be bad in the structural definition of a human being that goes to school and gets a nine-to-five job.

Joe Rogan 45:06 Right.

Eddie Huang 45:06 Maybe I was terrible at that.

Joe Rogan 45:08 I was terrible at it.

Eddie Huang 45:08 Yeah. I got fired from a Boston market. I got fired from a waterworks. Like, I couldn't work anywhere.

Joe Rogan 45:14 I got fired as a landscaper.

Eddie Huang 45:16 (laughs) Yeah.

Joe Rogan 45:16 Fucked up people's lawns.

Eddie Huang 45:17 I couldn't do anything, but then it's like-

Jessica Rosenworcel 45:19 (laughs)

Eddie Huang 45:19 ... when you become in control of your own shit and you go do what you're passionate about, it's like, well, then I became successful. And I try to tell people all the time, like, "If this doesn't work for you, the straight and narrow doesn't work for you, like, think of a way... Thi- think about what you think your strengths are and play to that. Don't let anyone tell you you're a failure, you're unsuccessful 'cause you don't fit the stereotype."

Jessica Rosenworcel 45:40 You know, I think it's really important though for successful people like yourself to tell their failure stories. We don't do that enough.

Joe Rogan 45:47 I think you're right.

Eddie Huang 45:47 Well, I mean, I lost a restaurant 'cause I sold all-you-can-drink Four Loko. Like, that was like... I went out in flames.

Joe Rogan 45:52 Ah!

Eddie Huang 45:53 (laughs)

Jessica Rosenworcel 45:53 (laughs)

Eddie Huang 45:53 All-you-can-drink Four Loko-

Joe Rogan 45:54 It sounds like a liability when that happens.

Eddie Huang 45:56 Yeah.

Jessica Rosenworcel 45:56 Okay, so you're, you're good at telling failure stories, but I think that that's true generally. I feel like I wish I could ask every member of Congress to tell a failure story.

Joe Rogan 46:05 They would never do that. Those people are trying to pretend they're something different.

Jessica Rosenworcel 46:08 No, but it's, it's so important.

Eddie Huang 46:10 Yeah, what's your failure story?

Jessica Rosenworcel 46:10 Oh, I was a terrible law student.

Joe Rogan 46:12 (laughs)

Eddie Huang 46:12 Okay. Anything more explosive, like, Four... Did you ever sell Four Loko at a lemonade stand?

Jessica Rosenworcel 46:18 (laughs) I c- I can tell you, I absolutely never did that and probably never will.

Eddie Huang 46:24 Any other failures?

Jessica Rosenworcel 46:26 Uh, yeah, I got some parenting failures that I'm gonna save my children from announcing in public, how about that?

Joe Rogan 46:30 Good call.

Jessica Rosenworcel 46:31 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 46:31 Good call. Yeah, uh, I feel like, um, it's important for people to relate, right? They have to be able to say, "Oh, Eddie wasn't always a successful guy. Like, he was a 19-year-old kid once too that was also struggling." That's very important. It's very... It's, it... I think it's w- one of the most important things that people can understand, that failure is an opportunity to learn, and that horrible feeling of failure is really your friend.

Eddie Huang 46:59 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 46:59 'Cause that horrible feeling motivates you to change.

Eddie Huang 47:02 I mean, I fail all the time. I played basketball yesterday. We had a double-header. I was, I was cooking on a grill, I was making lamb skewers for four hours in the morning, went straight from the kitchen to this basketball game in San Gabriel Valley playing with... It's like an Asian basketball league, so I'm actually, like, kind of tall.

Joe Rogan 47:17 (laughs)

Eddie Huang 47:17 Like, I'm like a small forward. And there's, like, little younger dudes at 25 running around me. I did not... I played well the first game, I was washed the second game, and these kids, probably like 23, 24 years old, running past me, elbowing me. And I got so mad and I acted out. I started, like, yelling at them, and I started, like, beefing. And I got home and I, I told my fiance about it, and she's like, "Yo, why are you beefing with these kids? They're 25. Like, like, you're old. Of course they're gonna run by you. You playing a double-header and you came out of the kitchen." And it w- it was funny 'cause I was, like, not willing to let it go, but then I was like, "I gotta work on myself." Like, every single day, like, I fail at something. And I failed at, like, being, like, the elder statesman in the basketball league.

Joe Rogan 48:01 Being composed.

Eddie Huang 48:02 Being composed. I lost my composure-

Joe Rogan 48:04 Yeah.

Eddie Huang 48:04 ... and I started making fun of these kids for no reason.

Jessica Rosenworcel 48:06 (laughs)

Eddie Huang 48:06 And I was like, "That's not me." You know? Like-

Joe Rogan 48:08 Right.

Eddie Huang 48:08 ... basketball sometimes brings out the worst in me. But I was like, "All right, today I'm, I'm gonna be a better person by going back to that league next week, I'm gonna be like a nice dude. And if some kid washes me and wets me in the face, like, it's fine."

Joe Rogan 48:19 Well, sometimes you just need to experience it so that you know, "Okay, I just have to be more composed when that comes up." And when you didn't expect to experience it and then someone hits you with that elbow, you're like, "What? Fuck you, man."

Eddie Huang 48:30 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 48:31 And the next thing you know, it's intense.

Eddie Huang 48:32 Boxing-

Joe Rogan 48:33 Yeah.

Eddie Huang 48:33 ... basketball, it's the most... Like, sports is the most humbling thing for me.

Joe Rogan 48:36 Of course.

Eddie Huang 48:36 I'm not built for it. Like, I'm built to fail at sports. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 48:40 (laughs)

Jessica Rosenworcel 48:40 (laughs)

Eddie Huang 48:40 You know?

Joe Rogan 48:41 But you try, but you try anyway.

Eddie Huang 48:42 I try 'cause y- I try 'cause it's the thing I'm the worst at, so I, I always wanted to go to sports.

Joe Rogan 48:47 Well, it's great for the mind. The thing about sports is you're forcing your body to do things that are uncomfortable. And in doing that, you're not just exercising your body, you're also exercising your mind. And that's one of the things that I always try to relay to people that are negative about physical exercise and exertion because they think that it's some sort of a frivolous venture that's just vanity, you just wanna look good or use your body. But I...... there's a mental aspect to having the ability to push through discomfort that is extremely valuable.

Eddie Huang 49:19 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 49:19 And if you don't have that switch where you can be comfortable being uncomfortable because you've done it a million times, if you don't, then you're, you're gonna be panicky. You're gonna be weirded out by it, and that is a mental weakness.

Eddie Huang 49:31 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 49:31 So, and that ability to push through discomfort helps you not just in physical exercise and exertion, but it also helps you in work. Like if you have to push through certain work things, instead of getting up and getting another cup of coffee, figure out what the fuck you're doing. Figure out what, what's this problem you're working on. Concentrate. Like focus.

Eddie Huang 49:50 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 49:50 Ge- get a- get after it. Be comfortable being uncomfortable.

Eddie Huang 49:53 I don't believe in trickle-down economics, but I believe in trickle-down mental strength.

Joe Rogan 49:57 Oh, yeah.

Eddie Huang 49:58 You know what I mean? Like I start in the gym every morning and like whatever happens in the gym, it humbles me, it gives me like, you know, some kind of like energy, and I, I bring that throughout the day. Like what got you hooked in jujitsu?

Joe Rogan 50:11 Well, I've done martial arts since I was a little kid.

Eddie Huang 50:13 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 50:13 But I think there's something that is inescapable in my life at least, and that is that there is no disconnect between the mind and the body. That they are one thing and that you can work them individually but not really. Because when you are working your body, you need the mind to do that. The intensity of my workouts is one of the most important aspects of it, and that's fueled 100% by my mind.

Eddie Huang 50:35 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 50:35 It's not by my body.

Eddie Huang 50:36 And Plato said that since fifth century, he always wrote about like how training the body is just as important as training like the rest of your-

Joe Rogan 50:43 Especially martial arts. I mean, it's just ... It's everything 'cause-

Eddie Huang 50:46 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 50:46 ... you're, you're high level problem-solving with bad physical consequences. You're, you're trying to avoid i- injury and humiliation and all, all these various things that are, uh, a part of martial arts. And in the meantime, you're trying to maintain composure under pressure and y- you're tired and you have to u- understand the ability to push and push through discomfort and push through exhaustion. But it also fuels the mind. It's, it's very important.

Eddie Huang 51:14 Yeah. Fighting that three-round fight, I was ... Like my first three-round fight, I got so scared I was shaking the whole time, but I just told myself, "Dude, there's no backing out. You're in the ring. You have to go forward. Keep going forward." And like just out of fear, I'm a pressure fighter. Do you know what I mean?

Joe Rogan 51:30 Right.

Eddie Huang 51:30 Like just out of fear, like I have to be a pressure fighter 'cause I don't think ... In my first fight, I knew I did not have like the calm in me to counter or, or do what like the game plan was. I was like, "I just have to pressure."

Joe Rogan 51:42 (laughs)

Eddie Huang 51:42 Like, "I have to move these hands and move these feet." But then I got through it. I got lumped up a few times, I won the fight, but I was like, "Whoa. I feel like I could do anything now." And so now I keep sparring and I keep-

Joe Rogan 51:52 Yeah.

Eddie Huang 51:52 ... fighting because I, if I can be composed in the ring with someone trying to kill me, then like I, I can be composed on a podcast or in a meeting or like in some negotiation.

Joe Rogan 52:02 Of course.

Eddie Huang 52:02 It's, it's the best.

Joe Rogan 52:03 Martial arts-

Eddie Huang 52:04 The most intense.

Joe Rogan 52:04 ... is a vehicle for developing your human potential.

Eddie Huang 52:07 Amen.

Joe Rogan 52:07 And that those things are all connected, and it's a, it's a critical lesson for y- for young people. And if you can push through hard workouts, you could push through whatever career path you w- you're trying to break into.

Eddie Huang 52:19 It teaches me respect too because it's like you can get bodied anytime. You can get dropped at anytime. Like be-

Joe Rogan 52:26 Yeah.

Eddie Huang 52:26 ... grateful for when you have both arms and legs and you're standing on your two feet 'cause you could be dropped at any second. So ... But I mean, do you, do you do physical activities, sports? You should be sports?

Jessica Rosenworcel 52:37 She does. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 52:37 Look at her. She's jacked.

Jessica Rosenworcel 52:37 Yeah.

Eddie Huang 52:37 Yeah, I know she'd been waiting to jump in this conversation. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 52:39 (laughs)

Jessica Rosenworcel 52:39 Well, I, I grew up in New England in cold country.

Joe Rogan 52:43 Where?

Jessica Rosenworcel 52:43 Uh, in Connecticut.

Eddie Huang 52:45 Oh.

Joe Rogan 52:45 Oh.

Jessica Rosenworcel 52:45 Yeah.

Eddie Huang 52:45 Where in Connecticut?

Jessica Rosenworcel 52:46 Outside of Hartford.

Joe Rogan 52:48 Okay.

Eddie Huang 52:48 You're one of those people.

Jessica Rosenworcel 52:49 I am.

Eddie Huang 52:49 Is that, is there like a Westport, M- I think my girl is from Westport. Uh, West-

Jessica Rosenworcel 52:52 Yeah, that's closer to New York City.

Eddie Huang 52:54 Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, she's from Westport.

Jessica Rosenworcel 52:55 So, I grew up, um, skiing all the time, and, uh, I still love skiing. I still ... I need the thrill of flying off of something that makes me uncomfortable-

Eddie Huang 53:08 Yeah.

Jessica Rosenworcel 53:08 ... in order to relax in a perverse way. So when I have vacations, that's what I do. I take my kids who right now live in DC with me, and it's pretty flat there, so you gotta go take them to see some mountains and you gotta go make sure that they go down something that's a little bit too steep every single time. Because I think you build some resilience when you get down something like that and you turn around and say, "Well, I did that. I can do some other things."

Eddie Huang 53:32 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 53:33 I think there's some resilience in living in Connecticut too.

Eddie Huang 53:36 (laughs)

Jessica Rosenworcel 53:38 Oh. (laughs)

Eddie Huang 53:38 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 53:38 The cold.

Eddie Huang 53:39 What's that about? Oh.

Jessica Rosenworcel 53:39 Yes. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 53:40 It's just weird. And plus it's not really a state.

Jessica Rosenworcel 53:42 Oh.

Joe Rogan 53:42 Connecticut's like a highway between New York and Boston.

Jessica Rosenworcel 53:45 No, I would disagree.

Eddie Huang 53:47 Connecticut-

Jessica Rosenworcel 53:47 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 53:47 Right?

Jessica Rosenworcel 53:47 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 53:48 It's not really a state.

Eddie Huang 53:48 Because Connecticut, Rhode Island, it's di-

Joe Rogan 53:50 Yeah.

Eddie Huang 53:50 They're bridge, bridge, bridge states.

Joe Rogan 53:52 Wills.

Jessica Rosenworcel 53:52 You know, you California people, if you're not grasping-

Joe Rogan 53:54 I grew up in Boston.

Jessica Rosenworcel 53:55 Oh, I married someone who grew up in Boston.

Joe Rogan 53:57 Sorry.

Jessica Rosenworcel 53:57 You Boston people.

Eddie Huang 53:59 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 53:59 (laughs)

Jessica Rosenworcel 53:59 Talk about Boston, the hub, the Athens of America.

Eddie Huang 54:02 Dude, I had no ideas. I never would have thought you were from Boston.

Joe Rogan 54:05 Well, I was born in New Jersey, but I grew up in Boston.

Eddie Huang 54:07 Oh, word.

Jessica Rosenworcel 54:08 You don't have, you don't have a New England accent.

Joe Rogan 54:08 Got rid of it. Got rid of it. Hurt myself on TV when I was 19. I was like, "Fuck that accent."

Eddie Huang 54:13 (laughs)

Jessica Rosenworcel 54:13 Got rid of it. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 54:14 Yeah.

Eddie Huang 54:14 You worked on it.

Jessica Rosenworcel 54:14 Yeah, you worked on it.

Joe Rogan 54:14 I was so embarrassed. Yeah, I was embarrassed. Was embarrassed listening to my own accent.

Jessica Rosenworcel 54:19 I now go home and I hear people with a New England accent and it feels like sweet and comforting, like what I grew up with.

Joe Rogan 54:24 It's great when are drunk. When everybody's-

Eddie Huang 54:26 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 54:26 ... drunk, it seems like it's normal.

Jessica Rosenworcel 54:28 Come on. Can you do, can you do a little bit of one right now?

Joe Rogan 54:30 Yeah, (foreign word) .

Jessica Rosenworcel 54:31 Oh.

Joe Rogan 54:32 I could do it.

Eddie Huang 54:32 See, I thought you ... Like listening to you talk, I thought you were from the South for a second.

Jessica Rosenworcel 54:37 No.

Joe Rogan 54:38 Mm-hmm.

Eddie Huang 54:39 No?

Jessica Rosenworcel 54:39 No. Yes.

Eddie Huang 54:39 Just 'cause you don't have a New England accent.

Jessica Rosenworcel 54:41 No.

Joe Rogan 54:41 No.

Jessica Rosenworcel 54:42 No, but I've been living in Washington for a little while.

Eddie Huang 54:44 Okay.

Joe Rogan 54:44 Plus she's a politician.

Eddie Huang 54:45 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 54:45 You gotta get rid of that. Gotta shake it off.

Eddie Huang 54:47 Yeah, you have the ill politician, like the metered, the metered talking.

Joe Rogan 54:51 Yeah.

Jessica Rosenworcel 54:51 Metered talking. (laughs)

Eddie Huang 54:52 You know what I mean? It's like-

Joe Rogan 54:53 Yes.

Eddie Huang 54:54 It's on a like a metronome.

Jessica Rosenworcel 54:55 No.

Joe Rogan 54:56 Yeah, yeah. She's smooth.

Eddie Huang 54:57 You Americans.

Joe Rogan 54:58 Yeah, it's good.

Eddie Huang 54:58 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 54:59 It's not bad. It's good.

Eddie Huang 55:00 It's good.

Jessica Rosenworcel 55:00 Every day. Yeah.

Eddie Huang 55:00 It's a good thing.

Joe Rogan 55:00 Do you ever do this? Do you ever do this thing with your hands like Clinton used to do? That thing-

Jessica Rosenworcel 55:04 No, I don't, I don't think that-

Joe Rogan 55:04 ... where you hold your tongue like that and do this thing?

Jessica Rosenworcel 55:06 Uh, uh, uh.

Joe Rogan 55:06 What we need to do in this country...

Jessica Rosenworcel 55:08 I never understood the thumb thing.

Joe Rogan 55:10 Yeah.

Eddie Huang 55:10 'Cause people would always tell me when I do voiceover, like "Slow down, slow down," and like I can't slow down. Like my voice totally changes if I slow down. I just gotta come like shot out of a cannon.

Jessica Rosenworcel 55:18 That is true. If you go back to Washington, you decide-... with your congressional campaign, it's all gonna happen. You are gonna slow down when you speak.

Joe Rogan 55:28 Mm-hmm.

Eddie Huang 55:28 Yeah, like, you can hear your periods and commas.

Joe Rogan 55:30 (laughs)

Eddie Huang 55:30 I just, like, run through sentences.

Joe Rogan 55:32 You know what? With Trump as president, I think all bets are off. I think you do whatever you want now.

Eddie Huang 55:36 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 55:37 I don't think there's any rules.

Eddie Huang 55:39 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 55:39 I don't think... You can call other countries shitholes. You can, you can get crazy.

Eddie Huang 55:43 Joe, I'm telling you, I really think you should run.

Joe Rogan 55:45 I'm not running.

Eddie Huang 55:45 'Cause you, you can bring mad people together.

Joe Rogan 55:47 Right. What does that mean? I need to-

Eddie Huang 55:48 You, you bring mad people together and also, like, uh, I think... Number o- number one, like, I think you're one of the few dudes who can get the, like, really wild white people to, like, think about things.

Joe Rogan 56:00 (laughs)

Eddie Huang 56:00 And, like, consider them, be like, "Have some perspective and empathy."

Joe Rogan 56:03 Wild white people. (laughs)

Eddie Huang 56:04 Yeah, like the Wildlings, you know. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 56:06 (laughs)

Jessica Rosenworcel 56:06 Is that like a big internet blog?

Eddie Huang 56:07 Beyond the internet wall. Yeah, I, I-

Joe Rogan 56:09 Oh, no.

Eddie Huang 56:09 ... really believe in Joe as the guy that's like, all right, the crazies trust him, and then, like, he, he, he can get them to think about things from a different perspective.

Joe Rogan 56:17 Hmm. I don't know if that's good.

Eddie Huang 56:19 No, it's a good thing, dude.

Joe Rogan 56:20 The crazies.

Eddie Huang 56:20 Like, you appeal to, you appeal to, like, all people, but, like, like, I meet a lot of people that run up on me, they go, "You were on JRE. You're pretty left. You're a little, you're a little crazy, but I enjoyed talking to you." And I'm like, "Yo. Thank you, man." Like, I, I mean, I come on the show so I can speak to, like, a different audience and just, like, you know, hip-hop Asian dudes in my DMs. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 56:41 (laughs)

Jessica Rosenworcel 56:41 (laughs)

Eddie Huang 56:41 Dudes that like Migos and soy sauce, like, you know, like-

Joe Rogan 56:44 Ah.

Eddie Huang 56:44 ... I gotta branch out.

Jessica Rosenworcel 56:44 And how, how big is that community?

Joe Rogan 56:46 Mm.

Eddie Huang 56:46 It's not that big. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 56:48 Well, that's a, it's-

Eddie Huang 56:48 We're very niche.

Jessica Rosenworcel 56:49 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 56:49 There's a weird thing about the listeners of this podcast, is they don't... They're not left or right.

Eddie Huang 56:54 No.

Joe Rogan 56:54 It's like a weird mixture of people.

Jessica Rosenworcel 56:56 But that's good. That's-

Joe Rogan 56:57 Yeah.

Eddie Huang 56:57 Yeah.

Jessica Rosenworcel 56:57 We need so much more of that-

Joe Rogan 56:59 I agree.

Jessica Rosenworcel 56:59 ... in this country right now. I mean, we're, we're not gonna, we're not gonna do things if we don't start listening to each other.

Eddie Huang 57:05 Like, I don't usually identify as left, as people call me that, but it's like, your content on the show galvanizes cats from, like, all around the world.

Joe Rogan 57:13 Well-

Eddie Huang 57:14 You know?

Joe Rogan 57:14 ... I, I, I, I don't identify as left either, but I do when it comes to so many issues, when it comes to gay rights, when it comes to civil rights, when it comes to just across the board, things that you would automatically consider liberal. But also, the freedom to express yourself, like, that's... That, to me, is... The marketplace of free ideas is one of the most important aspects of developing a civilization. It's one of the most important ways that we understand about each other, and you gotta have an open mind. It's like I was saying, like, you bringing up that universal basic income, and I was like, "Get the fuck outta here with that."

Eddie Huang 57:51 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 57:51 And then I thought about it afterwards, and I was like, "Maybe there's..." So maybe... I, I always like to explore my reactions to things. And if I have a reaction to something and I ma- automatically dismiss it, I go, "Okay, was that valid or did I just dismiss it because it's easier than to have a, a nuanced perspective that's formed over time and a lot of critical thinking?"

Eddie Huang 58:14 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 58:14 And so, I stopped and thought about it all, and I think at the very least, it's something that merits consideration and maybe could be a, a, uh, some sort of a project. L- let's see. Let's see if that works.

Eddie Huang 58:25 Yeah.

Jessica Rosenworcel 58:26 We have some countries doing experiments-

Joe Rogan 58:27 Yeah.

Jessica Rosenworcel 58:27 ... with that right now, though they're different than us culturally, and I think-

Joe Rogan 58:30 Yeah.

Jessica Rosenworcel 58:30 ... culturally is part of it.

Joe Rogan 58:32 That is a problem. Well, America is just so based on competition. Competition is so powerful over here. And I think that's good, and I also think that's bad. Because ultimately, it's like, like if you could g- grab Trump and, and, and get him on mushrooms and l- explain, just somehow or another let the universe explain to him, this is a temporary experience. You're trying to gather up all this money and gather up all these resources and gather up all this influence when this, this is all fleeting. It's sand. It slips between your fingers. There's no way you can grasp it for real. The real experience is the m- the shared moments that we have with each other. And the more we can enhance that for the people around us, and the more you can use your power to enhance people's perspective, change people's way of interfacing with this world that we live in, and w- recognize that we're all just living together.

Eddie Huang 59:34 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 59:34 We're all just a part of this community. This competition thing, most of the competition is with yourself, most of it, the vast majority of it. And those other people that you're competing with, you should cherish them because they're fuel. All those people, instead of looking at them as the enemy, those people are your friends. All the, your, your most bitter rivals are the greatest motivators you're ever gonna experience. Those are the people that are gonna push you.

Eddie Huang 59:59 Yes.

Joe Rogan 1:00:00 But don't be toxic about it.

Eddie Huang 1:00:01 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:00:02 You could be, you could be, you could be peaceful about it.

Eddie Huang 1:00:05 Yeah. Joe, I love competition 'cause it... Number one, it's amazing to watch. Like, you know, lo- uh, uh, uh, Klitschko, Anthony Joshua-

Joe Rogan 1:00:14 (laughs)

Eddie Huang 1:00:14 ... I think greatest fight of like the last 20 years.

Joe Rogan 1:00:16 Amazing boxing match.

Eddie Huang 1:00:17 L- lived for that boxing match.

Joe Rogan 1:00:19 Yeah.

Eddie Huang 1:00:19 Lomachenko-Rigondeaux, that's not competition, you know? Like that, that was-

Joe Rogan 1:00:23 Well, that's an experience though. That's, that's an experience.

Eddie Huang 1:00:26 It's total just snatching of a soul. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:00:28 Well, he's a different animal. Lomachenko is a different thing.

Eddie Huang 1:00:31 Yeah, The Matrix is crazy.

Joe Rogan 1:00:31 Do you know the story about his dad, what his dad made him do?

Eddie Huang 1:00:34 No.

Joe Rogan 1:00:35 Made him stop boxing and do a Ukrainian dance for four years. That's why he's got that ridiculous footwork.

Eddie Huang 1:00:42 Footwork.

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:00:42 Wow.

Joe Rogan 1:00:42 Yeah. 'Cause his footwork is everything.

Eddie Huang 1:00:44 And I know he does a number association too-

Joe Rogan 1:00:46 Yeah.

Eddie Huang 1:00:46 ... which is crazy, but what I was saying about competition is like, you know, peo- politicians are always, "We need competition. We need competition." I'm like, "But who is competing with service providers?" There is no competition. That's just-

Joe Rogan 1:00:58 Yeah.

Eddie Huang 1:00:58 ... beating up on a bum, you know? It's like we, we all live to watch great competition, but you have to foster competitors. You need actual competitors for there to be competition.

Joe Rogan 1:01:08 Imagine if what we're experiencing with internet was also with food. Imagine if like only a certain people could bring you your food.

Eddie Huang 1:01:16 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:01:16 You know? Like, oh, you live in, uh, Charleston. Yeah, you gotta get your food from Mike.

Eddie Huang 1:01:21 Yeah, it's basically like growing up eating food in Orlando. There's like one in a category.

Joe Rogan 1:01:25 Right. Well, food for your mind-

Eddie Huang 1:01:27 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:01:27 Food for your mind is real.

Eddie Huang 1:01:29 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:01:29 I mean, the fuel that you get, the, the information that you get from the internet, that is fuel for your mind. And whether you get it in the form of actual food or whether you get it in the form of information, these are both very critical things that you need.

Eddie Huang 1:01:43 ... a wide re- variety of different sources for. But you're bringing up a good point. Even just, let's say food delivery, right? It started off you would call the restaurants and it was difficult. You had to save the menu from every restaurant. Then Seamless comes around and they're like, "All right, we're putting all the menus on here and we're just helping facilitate you get things from the restaurant." But it wasn't like... For restaurants, we didn't necessarily like Seamless because then you had to have your own delivery workforce. They took a big cut of what you were making. In- in a lot of restaurants, they didn't even break even using Seamless. So then, like, places like Caviar came around and Postmates came around and they supplied the service to delivery people. The consumer pays more for the delivery and the restaurant makes their money. And it's like, whoa, now that actually created competition between delivery services. Now you have an evolution and now, you know, everybody gets what they want. You get better service.

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:02:35 And so much of that all happened over the internet.

Eddie Huang 1:02:38 Yeah.

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:02:38 It wasn't-

Eddie Huang 1:02:38 It was all internet.

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:02:39 ... because we had-

Eddie Huang 1:02:39 All of it.

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:02:39 ... those little-

Eddie Huang 1:02:40 Yeah.

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:02:40 ... those little folded menus-

Eddie Huang 1:02:42 Ha!

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:02:42 ... stuck in the kitchen drawer, right?

Eddie Huang 1:02:44 Yeah. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:02:44 Right, right. Yeah.

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:02:45 Yeah. Like, um-

Joe Rogan 1:02:45 That's how we used to do it.

Eddie Huang 1:02:46 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:02:47 Yeah.

Eddie Huang 1:02:47 And- and if you lived in New York, you get home and it's just like 20 sushi menus under your door. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:02:52 Oh, my God. (laughs)

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:02:53 Emp- No.

Eddie Huang 1:02:53 Remember those?

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:02:53 It was like Empire Szechuan-

Eddie Huang 1:02:54 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:02:55 Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:02:55 ... every three days putting something under my door.

Eddie Huang 1:02:58 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:02:58 Yeah.

Eddie Huang 1:02:59 A lot of slip and fall in your own apartment cases from those fucking menus, man.

Joe Rogan 1:03:02 I mean, look at- look at what's happened- what's happened to the internet in terms of people not drinking and driving because of Uber.

Eddie Huang 1:03:08 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:03:08 That's changed the way people get around. And Lyft-

Eddie Huang 1:03:10 If I went to high school with Uber-

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:03:12 Yeah.

Eddie Huang 1:03:12 ... bro, I would have been good.

Joe Rogan 1:03:14 When- when- when we ... In front of The Comedy Store, Lyft is blocking the goddamn driveway to The Comedy Store. Nine out of ten times when you want to leave, there's a car pulled up there, which is... Look, it's- it's an inconvenience, but, man, it's so nice to see drunk people just getting driven around.

Eddie Huang 1:03:29 Yeah, they need to be.

Joe Rogan 1:03:30 They need to be driven around.

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:03:31 (laughs) It's interesting. We don't talk a lot about the safety element of that-

Eddie Huang 1:03:34 Oh! Yeah!

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:03:34 ... but it's huge.

Joe Rogan 1:03:36 Oh, it's huge! Yeah. It's amazing.

Eddie Huang 1:03:37 It's so critical.

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:03:37 And also young people are not buying cars like they used to.

Joe Rogan 1:03:40 Right.

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:03:40 It used to be that getting a car entailed your freedom, right?

Joe Rogan 1:03:45 Right.

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:03:45 And now-

Joe Rogan 1:03:45 Not anymore.

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:03:45 ... it's all, like, device-centric.

Joe Rogan 1:03:47 Yeah.

Eddie Huang 1:03:47 Yeah.

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:03:47 And where you go and what you do is virtual.

Eddie Huang 1:03:50 Especially as a kid-

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:03:51 It's not the physical car anymore.

Eddie Huang 1:03:52 ... you were segregated 'cause I went to a school where people were bused in from different parts. So you could be friends with someone at school, but if they don't have a car or they live 45 minutes, you can't be friends. But now you can all meet each other up. You can ... They- you know, they may not be able to rent a car or have a car, but they can take an Uber and meet you up.

Joe Rogan 1:04:09 Yeah, and that really is another aspect of the internet that a lot of times we don't take into consideration is cellular.

Eddie Huang 1:04:15 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:04:15 Mobile, apps. Apps are the internet. I mean, it is everything through the internet, but it's in this little device that you keep in your pocket. And Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram-

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:04:24 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:04:24 ... and all these different-

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:04:25 We live in a mobile-first world.

Joe Rogan 1:04:27 Yes.

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:04:27 Like, anyone who's building a website now, it should be built for that device-

Joe Rogan 1:04:31 Yeah.

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:04:31 ... because that's the first place most people, um, experience the online activity.

Joe Rogan 1:04:38 Oh, yeah.

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:04:38 And the only concern that I have about that, though, is that, you know, ultimately we want people to not just be digital consumers, but to be digital creators. And-

Joe Rogan 1:04:47 Some people. Some people stay off-

Eddie Huang 1:04:50 Well, I think more of us-

Joe Rogan 1:04:52 ... stay offline.

Eddie Huang 1:04:52 (laughs)

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:04:52 No, I think more of us should be. I don't- I don't think the only people-

Joe Rogan 1:04:54 Do you think-

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:04:54 ... building things should be, you know, a bunch of guys in hoodies in their 20s, I think.

Joe Rogan 1:04:58 (laughs)

Eddie Huang 1:04:59 Oh, you mean that?

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:05:00 I think we could diversify something.

Eddie Huang 1:05:00 Yeah, yeah, no, I agree with that.

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:05:01 Like, the digital world should look as diverse as all of us.

Eddie Huang 1:05:04 Yeah, sure.

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:05:05 And I hope on a going-forward basis we're gonna fix this internet situation with net neutrality and we are also gonna diversify the universe of people who build things for our online worlds.

Joe Rogan 1:05:14 Well, we really see that in the podcast world. The podcast world's extremely diverse. There's so many different pod- I mean, whatever you're into, you can find a category and a whole shitload of people that are making podcasts about it. I mean, it's- it's really fascinating.

Eddie Huang 1:05:28 You can listen to five podcasts on sleeping. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:05:30 (laughs) You probably can, right? Yeah.

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:05:33 When you have insomnia.

Joe Rogan 1:05:34 There's a ton on food, right?

Eddie Huang 1:05:35 Yeah.

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:05:35 Food. Food is actually ... You know, when I was working on this net neutrality issue, I worked with the Today Show, and they wanted to find someone who built a business online. And they spent time with this woman, I think it was Laura's Kitchen, you know, and she had basically started just putting videos on YouTube showing herself and how she was cooking. And then, you know, that morphed over time into a book and a big empire, and she built something from it. And it's amazing if you look at how much cooking has evolved from just hobby online to actual business. It's extraordinary.

Eddie Huang 1:06:09 Yeah, it's undeniable. Like, I mean, for- for younger people listening, they're- they're probably just like, "Guys, we know, like, the internet ... Like, everything, it's- it's undoubted everything happens on the internet." And so for it to become this thing that's not regulated is insane.

Joe Rogan 1:06:24 Yeah.

Eddie Huang 1:06:24 It's like- it's like getting our roads taken away.

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:06:26 W- you don't want, like, regulation. What you want is just a little bit of oversight to make sure that it's fair.

Joe Rogan 1:06:31 Yes, I think that's a good way to put it.

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:06:32 That's the way to put it. I- 'cause I don't- I think when we break into regulation or deregulation, we lose the point. The point is you just want a little oversight to make sure it's fair and open to all.

Eddie Huang 1:06:41 Yeah, an- an equal playing ground and that everybody's allowed to come to this thing.

Joe Rogan 1:06:44 And recognize it as the important resource that it is. The ability to distribute information is critical to changing the culture, the way we interface with each other, the way we talk, the experiences that we share, the way we, uh, have access to all these new ideas and information. It's just shifting things at this radical rate.

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:07:04 At warp speed.

Joe Rogan 1:07:05 Warp speed.

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:07:06 Warp speed.

Joe Rogan 1:07:06 It's just- it's the weirdest time ever. And so for this to be a monkey wrench thrown into the gears of this by five people, and three of them choose three-

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:07:16 Three. Let's say three.

Joe Rogan 1:07:17 Sorry.

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:07:17 Present company excepted.

Joe Rogan 1:07:18 Present company excluded. Yes.

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:07:20 (laughs)

Eddie Huang 1:07:20 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:07:20 It's just- it's- it's hard to imagine that that's gonna stick, but with this administration, it's not stunning because it seems like net neutrality being dissolved favors these big businesses that would like to maximize their profits.

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:07:34 And one way is net neutrality is the ultimate populist issue, right?

Joe Rogan 1:07:37 Yes.

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:07:38 Because it empowers all of us-

Joe Rogan 1:07:39 Yeah.

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:07:39 ... online. So ...

Joe Rogan 1:07:42 Yeah. So-So write letters, make calls, be annoying. You have to be annoying.

Eddie Huang 1:07:49 Run.

Joe Rogan 1:07:50 Run. Run for president.

Eddie Huang 1:07:51 Make a, make, make a ruckus.

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:07:52 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:07:52 Mom, Eddie, and Oprah-

Eddie Huang 1:07:52 That's how I always put it.

Joe Rogan 1:07:53 ... 2020, Eddie and Oprah.

Eddie Huang 1:07:55 Eddie Joe.

Joe Rogan 1:07:56 Oh, I heard that. Yeah.

Eddie Huang 1:07:56 You've heard it here first.

1:07:56 I'm telling you, Eddie Joe, Eddie Joe is a good ticket, bro.

Joe Rogan 1:07:58 No, it's not happening. I'm not doing it. But good luck. Good luck you and Oprah.

Eddie Huang 1:08:02 (laughs)

1:08:03 (laughs)

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:08:03 I think you're gonna be living your best life.

Eddie Huang 1:08:07 What's that mean?

Joe Rogan 1:08:08 What does that mean?

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:08:08 Oh, that's, that's a Oprah-ism.

Eddie Huang 1:08:10 Oh, my bad.

Joe Rogan 1:08:11 Oh. Oh, boy, Oprah. Is that part of the secret?

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:08:13 You're gonna have to work with your running mate on that.

Joe Rogan 1:08:15 Mm-hmm.

Eddie Huang 1:08:15 (laughs)

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:08:17 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:08:17 So, um, this, w- this situation that we're in right now, do you... Are you confident that there is real potential for it to be reversed?

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:08:29 I am optimistic that the American public are awoke and they're s- paying attention now, and they're making a ruckus. I mean, we had millions of people write us at the FCC. When I got appointed to the FCC, I didn't think millions of people knew what the FCC was. (laughs) I think that's extraordinary, and I'm not ready to give up.

Joe Rogan 1:08:49 Well, the last time the FCC was in the mainstream news was when you guys were fining Howard Stern.

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:08:54 That predates my time there.

Joe Rogan 1:08:55 Of course, it does. That was th- also during the George Bush administration.

Eddie Huang 1:08:59 How'd you get to the FCC?

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:09:01 So, before I was appointed, I served as counsel to the Senate Commerce Committee, and, um, I worked there for Senator Rockefeller-

Joe Rogan 1:09:13 Mm-hmm.

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:09:13 ... for a long time, and for Senator Inouye before that. And, um, so I, I got, like, a front row seat at a whole bunch of digital issues with how we deal with our wireless spectrum, how we change our television technology. So, you know, um, a real kind of nerdy Washington thing, but also a new way to see how everything is changing in our economy because of digitization.

Joe Rogan 1:09:38 What's your thoughts on cryptocurrencies?

Eddie Huang 1:09:39 Yeah.

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:09:40 Hmm. I'm... You know, so I have no special authority on this except that a microphone's in front of me. Um, that being said-

Joe Rogan 1:09:48 That's my whole life.

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:09:48 Yeah. All right-

Eddie Huang 1:09:49 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:09:50 (laughs)

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:09:51 Um, uh, I'm less interested in cryptocurrencies than I am in blockchain-

Eddie Huang 1:09:55 Hmm.

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:09:55 ... which is the ledger that they use to re- to record exchanges in cryptocurrency. Um, it's anonymous and it can be used by anyone. It's extremely low-cost. And I think there are open questions about how you can make government and a lot of business services more efficient using blockchain that I think are really interesting, and, uh, have yet to be explored.

Eddie Huang 1:10:21 Le-

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:10:21 That's what I'm excited about.

Eddie Huang 1:10:22 Like, what's one way a business could use blockchain?

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:10:26 Um-

Joe Rogan 1:10:26 (laughs)

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:10:27 I'll just make this up. Say there's some kind of a... Y- you export fruit. Someone puts a bag of that fruit on the table and they say, "Well, we know that there are certain fields that fruit comes from. You know, there might be a disease in it." How can you figure out how that fruit got here from the field? You know, you can go back through your supply chain and call everyone, get them to tell you how long it sat over here and who held it and put it in the truck. The question is, if you can come up with a digital way where everyone as a collective just contributes to that along the way, can that be low-cost, more efficient, and more effective?

Eddie Huang 1:11:00 Yeah.

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:11:00 I think it will change supply chain economics in a really big way. And we don't fully understand the consequences for our economy yet, but I think it's coming.

Eddie Huang 1:11:11 Oh, that, that makes sense, kind of like a Wikipedia for each thing.

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:11:15 Yeah, I did it with food for you so I thought you'd understand.

Joe Rogan 1:11:16 (laughs)

Eddie Huang 1:11:16 So yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, no, no, no.

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:11:18 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:11:18 (laughs)

Eddie Huang 1:11:18 That makes sense. That makes a lot of sense.

Joe Rogan 1:11:20 It does.

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:11:22 Um, I... Uh, look, uh, here's, here's high, high-level nerd, but our airwaves around us, right, our wireless airwaves that power all of our phones, we have to divide them up. You don't see it, but it's like they're zoned so that your phone works, the television works, all of these things, you know? But we also have a whole bunch of airwaves that are only used sometimes. But what if we could create, like, secondary and tertiary rights to use them so that our phones were more powerful? And what if the best way to do that was to use something like blockchain? I mean, there's, there's so many ways I think the recording ledger for cryptocurrencies could make our economy more efficient and more powerful. And so that's what I'm interested in, and that's probably because I don't own any Bitcoin.

Eddie Huang 1:12:04 I know people also in journalism have been talking about-

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:12:07 Yeah.

Eddie Huang 1:12:07 ... keeping articles on blockchain so they... Like, internet articles don't go anywhere, you know, because people can just erase a website. If a website, uh, uh, goes out of business, then all the articles on that website are gone. So-

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:12:20 Yeah.

Eddie Huang 1:12:20 ... some people are putting websites on blockchain.

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:12:22 Actually, figuring out how we maintain our history in this digital world is actually... It's a real thing.

Eddie Huang 1:12:28 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:12:28 Hmm.

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:12:29 Um...

Joe Rogan 1:12:30 Yeah, especially-

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:12:31 We haven't thought about that. It's like cultural preservation.

Eddie Huang 1:12:33 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:12:33 Right. If we have some sort of a solar flare and y- you know, it, it kills the grid and we lose hard drives and... I mean, we... Th- that's real. That, that actually could be a real thing.

Eddie Huang 1:12:44 Yeah. And blockchain is kind of an answer for keeping information.

Joe Rogan 1:12:48 My hope is that we're gonna eventually shift to voting online.

Eddie Huang 1:12:53 I hope.

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:12:53 Doesn't Oregon do that?

Joe Rogan 1:12:54 Do they?

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:12:55 I think the state of Oregon does some ex-

Joe Rogan 1:12:56 Powerful organ.

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:12:58 ... uh, um, experiments with that, which-

Joe Rogan 1:13:00 (laughs)

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:13:00 ... we should study that.

Joe Rogan 1:13:00 I hope they do.

Eddie Huang 1:13:01 (laughs)

Jessica Rosenworcel 1:13:01 We should make voting easier.

Joe Rogan 1:13:02 Yes.