Joe Rogan Experience #1091 - Daniele Bolelli

Joe Rogan 0:04 Boom, and we're live. Daniele Polelli, the man with the most beautiful accent in the world.

Daniele Bolelli 0:09 I just read, uh, iTunes review saying, "It's kind of weird listening to this guy describing this horror story with the accent from... it sounds like he's making you pizza while he's talking."

Joe Rogan 0:19 (laughs)

Daniele Bolelli 0:20 And the thing is, they don't know I am making them pizza while I'm talking. That is what's happening.

Joe Rogan 0:24 Yeah. And if they s- could see you, you look like a professor that was kidnapped by a biker gang-

Daniele Bolelli 0:29 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 0:30 ... and for- forced to... came in here with this red brotherhood jacket on, this leather jacket from these Native Americans with his big red fist on it.

Daniele Bolelli 0:38 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 0:38 He's got a bandanna on.

Daniele Bolelli 0:39 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 0:40 You, you just... You're missing a motorcycle, that's all you're missing.

Daniele Bolelli 0:43 Right? That's, uh, that's next.

Joe Rogan 0:45 You could be in, like, some Easy Rider type movie.

Daniele Bolelli 0:47 Right?

Joe Rogan 0:47 I could see it.

Daniele Bolelli 0:49 Just carrying a shotgun too. I dig that.

Joe Rogan 0:51 Yeah. So, uh, are you digging doing this podcast?

Daniele Bolelli 0:54 Are you kidding me?

Joe Rogan 0:54 History on Fire.

Daniele Bolelli 0:55 Oh, man. I'm, I'm loving it. I'm having fun. Well, let's put it away. I love doing it. It's a royal pain in the ass, the research. 'Cause the-

Joe Rogan 1:03 Well, your podcast, much like Dan Carlin's, is very different. I always feel ashamed calling my podcast a podcast 'cause it's just, you sit down and talk. But yours is like... It's an audio lesson on history, an in-depth audio lesson on, like, very extreme aspects of history.

Daniele Bolelli 1:21 Yeah. It gets... A- and, you know, that part I enjoy because the storytelling part is awesome.

Joe Rogan 1:26 Yeah.

Daniele Bolelli 1:26 You get to spin a story, make it exciting, connect it with pop culture, do something that's fun. That's the part that I love. It's the month prior to that of just brutal research, just combing through boring historical book after boring historical book to find those little nuggets that are amazing-

Joe Rogan 1:42 Yeah.

Daniele Bolelli 1:43 ... and then spin it into a narrative. That's the part that gets a little old sometimes where you're like, "Man, I... Do I really need to read 200 hours of stuff for this one thing?" It's like, that's a lot.

Joe Rogan 1:54 Yeah. I can only imagine. Now, when you do that, when you're going over, combing over all these different, uh, history books and all these different, uh, papers written on-

Daniele Bolelli 2:02 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 2:03 ... various times, do you... are you, like, extracting chunks and, like, putting them in Microsoft Word and then going over it and then, like... How do you... Do you form it... Well, the question is kind of, like, do you form it as a script-

Daniele Bolelli 2:13 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:14 ... or how much of it... So everything is completely written out?

Daniele Bolelli 2:16 No.

Joe Rogan 2:17 No?

Daniele Bolelli 2:17 Not exactly because otherwise then it sound like-

Joe Rogan 2:19 Right.

Daniele Bolelli 2:19 It sound like you're a guy reading a thing and it's boring.

Joe Rogan 2:22 Right.

Daniele Bolelli 2:22 And it doesn't sound right. I just take super extensive notes, kind of like if you are to give a lecture that you've never given.

Joe Rogan 2:28 Mm-hmm.

Daniele Bolelli 2:28 You're not gonna sit down and read it, but you are going to, you know... You have something to keep you on track to make sure it's like, "Oh, where am I going next? Okay, great. There's that thing."

Joe Rogan 2:38 Right.

Daniele Bolelli 2:38 So it's, uh, as, uh, detailed as possible without turning it into a dry, guy reading his page, type of stuff.

Joe Rogan 2:47 Yeah. I mean, (sighs) history is such a fucking awesome subject because p- people are crazy and throughout history-

Daniele Bolelli 2:55 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 2:56 ... people have done so many crazy things that it's just... It's, it's such a great thing to know, like when you... If you only had today, like, if we only had o- our current era-

Daniele Bolelli 3:08 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 3:08 ... and we're looking around on how fucking maniacal people are and how crazy the world is, we'd be like, "God, how did this happen? How, how do we get here?" And then you just listen to your podcast and you go, "Oh, this shit's been going on forever." (laughs)

Daniele Bolelli 3:21 Yeah. Seriously.

Joe Rogan 3:22 This is the good times.

Daniele Bolelli 3:23 Yeah. Exactly. (laughs) This is... In case you are wondering, this good times. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 3:28 And yes, there's much to complain about, and yes, there's much we can do better, without a doubt, ladies and gentlemen. But this is as fucking good as it's ever been by far.

Daniele Bolelli 3:37 Yeah. The human psyche is a very weird place because there's so much amazing stuff that human beings do, there's just-

Joe Rogan 3:43 Yeah.

Daniele Bolelli 3:43 ... so much, and then there's the amount of horror that can be unleashed throughout hi- that has been unleashed throughout history by people against other people is just insane.

Joe Rogan 3:54 Yeah. What is, like... when you go back and you, you go over history, what is the most confusing or disturbing era?

Daniele Bolelli 4:02 You know, to me it's not so much a particular period o-... Because the same patterns emerge a lot of the times-

Joe Rogan 4:09 Mm-hmm.

Daniele Bolelli 4:09 ... at different point in time, is, uh, is more of those moments, you know, when, uh, when mob mentality takes over. Because-

Joe Rogan 4:17 Yeah.

Daniele Bolelli 4:17 ... the reality is, the average person is not... I- I don't have the world view where I think the average person is evil.

Joe Rogan 4:22 Right.

Daniele Bolelli 4:22 I don't think that. I think the average person is weak, which means that when, uh, in conditions where everybody's pushing in one direction, it's very easy to jump on the bandwagon, and in some cases then, a very ordinary human being can do horrible actions. You meet them for dinner and you think, "A pleasant person, good enough." But you put them in the wrong context and everything turns to shit. I just did, um... I just finished right now this two-part series that's probably the most disturbing, and now I wanna do a podcast about flowers and puppies-

Joe Rogan 4:52 (laughs)

Daniele Bolelli 4:52 ... 'cause this one was heavy, man. I did this series on kind of compare and contrast on the Sand Creek Massacre of the Cheyenne in Colorado in the 1860s and then My Lai in Vietnam in, uh, 1968. And m-... Actually, I split it because I had... I did the Sand Creek and I had, um, this guy, Darrell Cooper was the Martyr Made podcaster. He's an amazing podcaster, and he covered My Lai and then in the third episode we're gonna sit down and kind of chat about-

Joe Rogan 5:19 Hmm.

Daniele Bolelli 5:19 ... what does this all mean, about the human nature? Why do... The reason why that particular story in those two stories interests me is because it's, um, it's a brutal massacre of civilians, but in both cases there are soldiers who refuse to participate or actually try to stop it. They're not the majority, they're a minority, but they are there and they try. So it's not just a story of people doing ugly stuff, it's like, what is that make one guy when order, "Hey, go shoot that three year old," one guy goes-

Joe Rogan 5:49 Right.

Daniele Bolelli 5:49 ... "Yes, sir." And does it, and the next guy goes, "No, that's not what we are. Screw you, I'm not doing that." That's what interests me, like the individual element of what make people in the exact same circumstances one person go down a really dark path and somebody else instead having the balls to say, "No, that's not who I am. That's not what we do."

Joe Rogan 6:06 With the Native American massacre, what, who was... how many people were the ones that refused? 'Cause you never hear about that.

Daniele Bolelli 6:11 Right.

Joe Rogan 6:11 All you hear about is the horrific actions of the soldiers.

Daniele Bolelli 6:14 Yeah. Which was the majority-

Joe Rogan 6:15 Was true.

Daniele Bolelli 6:16 ... but there was also, like, there was this one guy, um, what's the guy name? Sila- Silas Soule. He was...Talk about a guy with bolts of iron, 'cause the guy, he and a couple of other officers refused to let the men under them, 'cause they were divided in different companies. So their companies, they said, "No, we're not participating in this. This is just straight-up slaughter. These guys are not even our real targets. These are a bunch of civilians." So they refused and then, uh, Silas Soule testified against his commander at the inquiry and then he was promptly murdered shortly after that.

Joe Rogan 6:48 Wow.

Daniele Bolelli 6:48 So it's like, it's a crazy story, but still to this day there are people from the Cheyenne tribe who, every year they have a ceremony for Silas Soule because they say, "Had it not been for him, a lot more of us would have died on that day." And he did a really brave thing and paid a price for it, so you know, if you're looking for heroism, you can do a lot worse than look at this guy's story, 'cause that guy was seriously, you know, stand up for his conviction under most extreme circumstances. So can't help but I admire that.

Joe Rogan 7:17 Yeah, it had to be incredibly difficult to just imagine what those people were doing. I mean, when- when you hear some of the accounts of the slaughters of Native Americans, it's just terrifying that people can just look at someone and just decide, "That's not a person," or, "That's not us."

Daniele Bolelli 7:34 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 7:34 "This is the other, they've got to be eliminated, so we're just gonna kill all these kids."

Daniele Bolelli 7:38 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 7:38 "Going to kill all these women."

Daniele Bolelli 7:39 Yep.

Joe Rogan 7:40 And it happened all over the country. I mean, y- there's, there's two things that happen to Native Americans. One, the big one, is disease.

Daniele Bolelli 7:49 Sure.

Joe Rogan 7:49 And it wasn't on purpose. There's this big f- myth that people put like, uh, they put smallpox-

Daniele Bolelli 7:56 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 7:56 ... in blankets and that's all bullshit.

Daniele Bolelli 7:58 Right.

Joe Rogan 7:58 It's pretty much been proven that they didn't really understand-

Daniele Bolelli 8:01 Right.

Joe Rogan 8:01 ... bacteria or diseases.

Daniele Bolelli 8:03 There's one story that's possible, it's not a proven thing, during... 'Cause initially nobody understood bacteria and disease.

Joe Rogan 8:10 Right.

Daniele Bolelli 8:10 So the first 100 plus years, completely unintentional. There was one tale about the French and Indian War, where during a break the British are talking about it saying, one of the commanders saying, "Hey, maybe we should give them some blankets from the smallpox hospital."

Joe Rogan 8:24 Ah.

Daniele Bolelli 8:24 But, you know, while we do know that he suggested it, we have no proof whatsoever that it was actually done.

Joe Rogan 8:30 Mm.

Daniele Bolelli 8:30 So, it's-

Joe Rogan 8:31 So that's probably how the rumor got started, right?

Daniele Bolelli 8:33 Probably.

Joe Rogan 8:33 But m- in most cases what happened is just that the Europeans came over and just inadvertently-

Daniele Bolelli 8:39 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 8:39 ... introduced Native Americans diseases and 90% of them were wiped out.

Daniele Bolelli 8:44 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 8:44 That's a crazy number if you really stop and think about it.

Daniele Bolelli 8:47 Yeah. It's considered probably the most dramatic demographic disaster in human history, because, you know, ne- never before you had a situation where a whole continent was not exposed to a series of diseases. And so of course there is no immunity the first time they are exposed. They, you know, you don't need to even have smallpox. You can sneeze-

Joe Rogan 9:04 Yeah.

Daniele Bolelli 9:04 ... on somebody and the next day half the village is dead, you know?

Joe Rogan 9:07 Yeah, that's crazy. It's just, it's amazing that if, uh, a group of people just has not come in contact with something that other people come in contact with all the time-

Daniele Bolelli 9:16 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 9:16 ... and just, "Ah, well you got a cold, you'll be fine. Just have some chicken soup, take a nap." Meanwhile these people are just dead.

Daniele Bolelli 9:22 That's probably-

Joe Rogan 9:23 It just kills them off.

Daniele Bolelli 9:23 ... that's probably why aliens don't show up. It's like, those motherfuckers are dirty.

Joe Rogan 9:27 Maybe.

Daniele Bolelli 9:27 If they show up, they sneeze on us and we, our whole planet will die.

Joe Rogan 9:31 Or maybe the opposite, they know they'll kill us.

Daniele Bolelli 9:33 Exactly.

Joe Rogan 9:34 Maybe they have like some super advanced diseases.

Daniele Bolelli 9:36 That's the other possibility.

Joe Rogan 9:37 Yeah. I guess it's just a immune system thing, right? If your immune system-

Daniele Bolelli 9:40 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 9:40 ... is not prepared for it.

Daniele Bolelli 9:42 That's how it is.

Joe Rogan 9:43 The, there's a great, uh, book by a guy named Dan Flores. Um, well, he wrote two, but one of them actually, well I mean, actually it was a paper that he wrote, um, about the buffalo and he's saying that it's really interesting because he compares the initial encounters that European settlers had and European travelers had, um, before the Native Americans were wiped out.

Daniele Bolelli 10:07 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 10:08 And they talk about how many animals were on the plains and they make a, a direct account of it.

Daniele Bolelli 10:13 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 10:13 And then after the Europeans had come and 90% of the Native Americans had been wiped out, that's when the buffalo population increase goes through the roof.

Daniele Bolelli 10:21 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 10:22 And you're seeing these gigantic packs of mil- it wouldn't be packs, herds I guess, of millions and millions of buffalo. And he said that's directly attributed to the lack of predators.

Daniele Bolelli 10:33 Of course.

Joe Rogan 10:33 Which means lack of Native Americans.

Daniele Bolelli 10:35 Yep.

Joe Rogan 10:35 'Cause they were preying on these buffalo.

Daniele Bolelli 10:38 Of course.

Joe Rogan 10:38 Really interesting.

Daniele Bolelli 10:39 Yeah, that guy, you had him on the podcast once, right?

Joe Rogan 10:41 Yeah, I gotta get him on again.

Daniele Bolelli 10:43 I loved it.

Joe Rogan 10:43 I love that guy.

Daniele Bolelli 10:43 That was awesome. Um-

Joe Rogan 10:44 His book, Coyote America.

Daniele Bolelli 10:46 Yeah, yeah, that one. That was great.

Joe Rogan 10:47 Whoo. Man, that book changed the way I feel about coyotes.

Daniele Bolelli 10:49 Yep.

Joe Rogan 10:50 I used to be like, "Fuck those little rats. I'll run them over."

Daniele Bolelli 10:52 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 10:52 And now I'm like, "Those are little wolves, man. They're pretty badass."

Daniele Bolelli 10:56 Yeah, they're smart. Yeah, that was a great episode. I enjoyed that one.

Joe Rogan 10:58 Yeah, du- they are so gangster. One just stared me down the other day. I stopped my fucking car and, uh, just, you know, because he was in, it was, uh, kind of, uh, not a lot of people in this area. It was l- it was fairly late at night and he was on this road. I said, "I'm gonna just pull over and just see what this coyote does." And he just fucking stood like 30 feet from my car just staring at me.

Daniele Bolelli 11:18 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 11:18 Just staring at me.

Daniele Bolelli 11:19 That's badass right there.

Joe Rogan 11:20 Just like, "Whatever, dude. What are you gonna do? I'm about to run into these woods, you're never gonna see me again. Or I'll stick around, maybe if you fuck up I'll eat you."

Daniele Bolelli 11:28 Right. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 11:29 (laughs) I'm just trying to figure out what to do right here.

Daniele Bolelli 11:31 Those guys don't mess around.

Joe Rogan 11:33 It's crazy that they just can live and e- and be completely embedded in our society. Like, there, we had a biologist, what was the gentleman's name that we had from the, um, Department of, uh, Parks and Services? See if we can find this guy. But, um, he's actually a biologist who tracks coyotes.

Daniele Bolelli 11:51 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 11:52 And, uh, he tracks them all over the state and, and even tracks mountain lions, they tag them and put those collars on them and stuff. Uh, but he said that there's a pack of coyotes that lives in downtown LA.

Daniele Bolelli 12:03 Yeah, I believe it.

Joe Rogan 12:04 In the heat of everything.

Daniele Bolelli 12:05 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 12:05 They found some abandoned building and they, they'd end up in this abandoned building and that's where they live. Like how?

Daniele Bolelli 12:11 Those guys are resilient, they thrive in anything.

Joe Rogan 12:14 They thrive.

Daniele Bolelli 12:15 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 12:15 Yeah.

Daniele Bolelli 12:16 Here, you like crazy animal stories, so check this out about a coyote. There's... My mom went for a walk with her dog and her dog is a big mean dog, right? So they are walking and they see ahead of them this little girl, probably 10 years old with this tiny little five pound dog type of thing.And there's a coyote maybe like 20 yards behind her that's clearly stalking them and the girl-

Joe Rogan 12:36 Mm-hmm.

Daniele Bolelli 12:36 ... didn't see it. And he's obviously aiming for the five-pounder and is just ... And so my mom yell at her like, "Hey, watch out." So the girl freaks out, pick up the, her dog and she figures she's safe. Coyote doesn't give a fuck, he's still stalking them down. And so at that point my mom kind of let their dog go and the dog chased the coyote off and that was that. But I was like, "Man, those guys are dumb. Yeah, you don't want to leave little dogs running around in-"

Joe Rogan 13:01 You don't wanna leave little girls around.

Daniele Bolelli 13:02 I know. It's like why a 10-year-old-

Joe Rogan 13:04 Yeah.

Daniele Bolelli 13:04 ... is walking the dog by herself? That's probably not the best idea.

Joe Rogan 13:07 They, um, there was this, an instance that happened a few years back where a 19-year-old girl was murdered, not murdered, killed, partially eaten, uh, by coyotes.

Daniele Bolelli 13:18 Coyotes? Serious?

Joe Rogan 13:19 Yeah. Yeah. I think they bit some chunks out of her, tore her apart and she died in the hospital. Pretty sure that was the story.

Daniele Bolelli 13:25 19-year-old? An adult?

Joe Rogan 13:27 Yeah. Yeah. But there, it was unusual circumstances. And then one of the unusual circumstances that the coyotes in this area are very limited in terms of what game is available.

Daniele Bolelli 13:37 Okay.

Joe Rogan 13:37 So much so that they've been known to go after moose, that these-

Daniele Bolelli 13:42 Right.

Joe Rogan 13:42 ... little coyotes actually go after moose and have successfully taken moose out.

Daniele Bolelli 13:46 (laughs) Jesus.

Joe Rogan 13:47 Yeah. So these are gangster coyotes.

Daniele Bolelli 13:48 Heck, when you look at that, they don't look that big, you know, they are-

Joe Rogan 13:51 They're like 50 pounds.

Daniele Bolelli 13:52 Exactly, right.

Joe Rogan 13:52 The really big ones, like 50 pounds.

Daniele Bolelli 13:53 Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 13:55 I watched a video the other day of a, a mother moose trying to, uh, stop these wolves from eating her cow.

Daniele Bolelli 14:01 Yeah, good luck.

Joe Rogan 14:02 Or eating her calf.

Daniele Bolelli 14:02 Yeah. I've seen that same stuff.

Joe Rogan 14:04 It's horrific, man.

Daniele Bolelli 14:05 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 14:05 She's running around stomping these wolves and they're circling her, and then they just grab the calf and drag it away. And she's fighting off the other wolves and stomping them. She stomped the shit out of a few of them though.

Daniele Bolelli 14:15 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 14:15 She fucked a few of them up, probably forever.

Daniele Bolelli 14:17 Small satisfaction though as uh-

Joe Rogan 14:19 Yeah.

Daniele Bolelli 14:19 ... when ...

Joe Rogan 14:20 Yeah.

Daniele Bolelli 14:20 Yeah. I saw that one. That one sucks 'cause you, you feel for her.

Joe Rogan 14:23 There he is, Justin Brown, that gentleman. Very nice guy. Gave, gave us a lot of interesting insights to like what happens in, um, you know, like with biologists, how they, how they track these animals.

Daniele Bolelli 14:35 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 14:35 And what, what some of the problems are. But we, we're, we're in such a unique place in Southern California because there's such a massive population of people, but there's all these predators that are sort of like entangled-

Daniele Bolelli 14:48 Oh, yeah.

Joe Rogan 14:48 ... in our system, you know?

Daniele Bolelli 14:51 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 14:51 Like hawks everywhere. Everywhere you look, there's hawks swooping down, snatching doves and shit.

Daniele Bolelli 14:57 Yeah. My, my daughter got a little dog. I always thought little dogs were nasty rats, but I, I started liking this thing. So I'm like, "Okay, I, I, I'm changing my mind about it. This is a cool dog." But he's still like eight pounds or something.

Joe Rogan 15:08 Right.

Daniele Bolelli 15:08 So I'm like, "You can't let him alone in the yard," not because there's ... Probably not coyotes in the yard, but there are definitely hawks around.

Joe Rogan 15:16 Mm-hmm.

Daniele Bolelli 15:16 There's definitely owls.

Joe Rogan 15:17 Owls, yeah.

Daniele Bolelli 15:17 That thing look like a big rabbit.

Joe Rogan 15:19 Yeah.

Daniele Bolelli 15:19 They're gonna snatch it in three seconds. Y- you cannot leave him in the yard like that.

Joe Rogan 15:23 Yeah.

Daniele Bolelli 15:23 And, uh ... 'Cause, yeah, I mean, that's how it is. That's when you have predators around, you need to keep your eyes open.

Joe Rogan 15:29 Yeah. There's no getting around it. There's no getting around it. You know, and when we look at how horrific the wild world is-

Daniele Bolelli 15:37 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 15:37 ... it's not a surprise that people who are just like recently civilized over the last, you know, like really realistically-

Daniele Bolelli 15:43 But, but that's the thing, it's like-

Joe Rogan 15:44 ... 10,000 years.

Daniele Bolelli 15:45 Yeah. Everybody is like, there's this really dark thing, uh, in people's minds where it's an option on the table. Most people are never gonna pull the trigger and go down there.

Joe Rogan 15:56 Right.

Daniele Bolelli 15:56 But that's part of who we are as, uh, as human beings. And, and I think that's why I enjoy doing this, uh, The Sand Creek Meal Lie, because it's a story that's not trying to bash any side. It's not like, "Oh, look at those bad Americans doing these massacres."

Joe Rogan 16:09 Mm-hmm.

Daniele Bolelli 16:09 It's more there were horrible people there, there were also great people belonging to the same side.

Joe Rogan 16:14 Yeah.

Daniele Bolelli 16:14 So it, to me, is not about one particular group of people, that one nation or that one ethnic group or anything being the bad guys. It's on an individual level, what is it that makes one guy go down this horri- in these horrible directions and other people instead choosing? You know, 'cause that's what it boils down, is choice.

Joe Rogan 16:33 Yeah.

Daniele Bolelli 16:33 Choosing not to be that person, you know. That's what fascinates me.

Joe Rogan 16:36 Yeah. You know, it's just, um, there's a, a great book by Sebastian Junger called Tribe.

Daniele Bolelli 16:42 Tribe.

Joe Rogan 16:42 Have you read it?

Daniele Bolelli 16:42 Yeah, I read that one. Great.

Joe Rogan 16:43 Wasn't it interesting when they talked about, when he talked about all of the people that were kidnapped by Native Americans that chose to live with them?

Daniele Bolelli 16:50 Yep.

Joe Rogan 16:51 And then when they were taken back by the Americans, by the, the settlers, you know, they were like, "Fuck this, I'm going back. I'm going back to the Native Americans." And they went and lived with them again.

Daniele Bolelli 17:01 There's a-

Joe Rogan 17:01 But no one went the other way.

Daniele Bolelli 17:03 No. Not at all. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 17:04 Yeah. Which is really crazy.

Daniele Bolelli 17:05 It says something not flattering about-

Joe Rogan 17:07 Yeah.

Daniele Bolelli 17:07 ... the Euro-American culture of the time. Yeah, there's a great, uh, Benjamin Franklin quote. I'm, I'm gonna butcher it 'cause I, I only remember the beginning. Something about no European has tasted savage life and then basically going to can bear to come back to living in settlements.

Joe Rogan 17:21 Yeah.

Daniele Bolelli 17:21 Or something like that.

Joe Rogan 17:22 Yeah.

Daniele Bolelli 17:23 And I'm like, "Yeah, that says something about-"

Joe Rogan 17:25 'Cause it's fun.

Daniele Bolelli 17:26 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 17:26 (laughs) The way they're living, they're camping.

Daniele Bolelli 17:28 Right.

Joe Rogan 17:29 They're hunting and fishing every day, and you go back and these assholes are wearing powdered wigs and banging a wooden mallet on a table for everybody to pay attention. Fuck off.

Daniele Bolelli 17:37 Exactly. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 17:38 You know?

Daniele Bolelli 17:38 That's hilarious. But that's-

Joe Rogan 17:39 Hear ye, hear ye. (laughs)

Daniele Bolelli 17:41 And that's what I mean about cultures, right? People sometimes will then romanticize native cultures as like, "Oh, they're all, you know, hug trees and talking with the furry creatures of the forest." And I'm like-

Joe Rogan 17:53 Right.

Daniele Bolelli 17:53 ... "Well, yes and no." There are, like, in what you mentioned, right? If you were captured, especially in the East when, like, French and Indian War or stuff like that were going on. If you were captured by, during a native raid, one of two things happen. The good one is that they like you and they decide to adopt you, and then you end up replacing one of their dead family members. So like if they lost a brother or a father.

Joe Rogan 18:16 Yeah.

Daniele Bolelli 18:16 Then you become that person for reasons and purposes.

Joe Rogan 18:19 That's crazy.

Daniele Bolelli 18:19 Yeah, it is.

Joe Rogan 18:19 That's a weird thing that they did.

Daniele Bolelli 18:21 It's very weird. But, but the thing is, the adoption process was so thorough that they love you like you're the real deal, and you end up feeling like you're part of this family and, you know, everything works out, everything is great.

Guest (secondary, likely in-studio commentator) 18:34 If they don't like you, then they torture you to death over a three-day period. And so, it's like-

18:39 Oh, wonderful.

18:39 ... and these are the same people, right?

18:41 Yeah. Right.

18:41 So, they can be the sweetest, most awesome humans or really messed up. Same culture, same individuals.

18:49 Do you think that's just because people have evolved be- dealing with tribal warfare and just we have to have that switch?

18:56 I think it's, uh... 'Cause the thing that's interesting about Natives is that it wasn't a racial thing. They adopted anybody, right? It didn't matter what skin color you have. That they did not have a barrier to.

19:06 Hmm.

19:07 But there is a big insider, outsider.

19:09 Ah.

19:09 You know, if you are part of our tribe, and you may become part of our tribe. Race doesn't matter. You can become part of our tribe. But once you're part of our tribe, you're one of us. But if you're not part of our tribe, then, you know, the same rules do not apply to you. You are the other. You are an enemy. You are...

19:27 Hmm.

19:27 And, and in that case, that's when it gets really brutal.

19:30 Yeah, even with other Native Americans.

19:32 Yeah.

19:32 That's the thing that people need to really get in... Like, we... Especially people that only have a peripheral understanding-

19:38 Mm-hmm.

19:38 ... of Native American culture. Like, the reason why Sioux are called Sioux is 'cause that's a Native American word for enemy.

19:44 Yep.

19:45 They, they call themselves Lakota people.

19:46 Right, exactly.

19:47 So all the other Indians were like, "Fuck these crazy assholes." (laughs)

19:50 Of course. (laughs)

19:51 "They're taking over." (laughs) "They're the enemy."

19:53 Yeah, totally.

19:54 They were just dominating. Yeah. It's, uh, it's really fascinating when you consider that these people had these hunting grounds that they were trying to protect and one of the things that they found is that there are areas where wildlife thrived, and the wildlife thrived in these, like, uh, gray areas.

20:13 Yep.

20:14 'Cause, like, this one area would be, you know, one Native American tribe and then their hunting grounds went to a spec- specified distance.

20:22 Yep.

20:23 You know, obviously always in conflict, but then past that was another Native American tribes. But in the middle, that's where you'd find all the fucking animals.

20:29 Of course.

20:30 'Cause they were like, "I get it." (laughs)

20:31 Nobody hunts me. (laughs)

20:32 Yeah.

20:33 They are worried about killing each other in the danger zone.

20:36 Yeah.

20:36 So, no, totally. That's how it is.

20:37 It's crazy that they figured that out.

20:38 Yeah.

20:39 It's like, um... Have you been to Yellowstone?

20:41 Yeah.

20:41 It's beautiful, right?

20:42 It is beautiful.

20:42 It's amazing.

20:43 Yeah.

20:43 But one of the things that's really crazy is if you go around the tourist center-

20:46 Mm-hmm.

20:47 ... there's elk everywhere.

20:48 Mm-hmm.

20:48 Just lounging around. They tell you don't get more than 20 yards-

20:52 Right.

20:53 ... uh, closer to an, an elk 'cause they will charge you occasionally.

20:56 Mm-hmm.

20:56 They're, like, tired of people taking fucking selfies.

20:58 Half the time. (laughs)

20:59 Turned on them. Yeah.

20:59 Always the tourists going like, "Hey, look at me." Boom. Of course. Dude, I fucking did it, man. I did it. I was out there with... I, and I've seen elk in the wild, wild.

21:06 Yeah.

21:06 But they figured out that wolves don't come to the tourist center.

21:10 Mm-hmm.

21:10 So they're like, "I got an idea." And then they realize these people are different than the people that hunt us.

21:15 (laughs) Exactly.

21:15 Somehow or another, they put it together. Like, like one day, you know, it all could go wrong, right? Civilization could collapse-

21:23 Mm-hmm.

21:23 ... and you just go right to Yellowstone, go to that fucking tourist center. There's meat everywhere.

21:27 (laughs) Just mow down the elk.

21:29 Yeah, 'cause you need food.

21:30 Right.

21:31 There's hundreds of them on the lawn at the tourist center.

21:33 Yeah.

21:33 It doesn't make any sense. But I, I don't know what it is. Like what is the intellectual process that allows, uh, an elk to r- understand that these people are not going to try to eat me and that the wolves are not gonna be around these people.

21:48 It probably took some really stupid elk to stick around people before they realized those were the good ones-

21:54 (laughs)

21:54 ... and that everybody was looking back and like, "Hi." They didn't get killed. I mean-

21:57 "Look at Frank over there. They're feeding him peanuts."

21:59 Yeah. "Maybe-"

21:59 "Look at him."

21:59 "... we can try too." (laughs)

22:01 (laughs) Yeah, I wonder what it was. I, I don't know if we really know, like the mechanism that allows them all as a group to go, "Yeah, you can just chill out around these people."

22:11 Right.

22:11 "Just lie down."

22:13 (laughs)

22:13 "They just lie down in front of us." (laughs)

22:15 I know. (laughs) You're right. It is funny. All the national parks, you see the most animal-

22:18 Yeah.

22:18 ... right there by... It's, it's hilarious.

Guest (secondary, likely in-studio commentator) 22:21 But it's always... It's fascinating that no... There's never been, like, a non-warring successful group of humans.

22:30 'Cause it only takes... You know, you can't really be a pacifist around somebody who isn't, you know? (laughs)

22:35 Right.

22:35 'Cause, uh, yeah, you decide to go in this mellow, peaceful, happy society and you get your ass kicked by... There's a great story about the origins of not even... Before the United States, like, British colonies in what will become the United States. Everybody hears about, uh, Plymouth Rock, right? There's the whole... The Puritans, they show up, all of that. What usually people don't hear, um... And there was also played a little with this story in his book. There was this other settlement called Merrymount that was just down the street from Plymouth, but they were completely different. Their interpretation of Christianity was pretty much a pretty Christian Paganism mixed with a couple of Christian ideas. They had the exact opposite approach of the Puritans. They were having drunken orgies with the Native tribes. They were just-

23:21 Really?

23:22 ... yeah, they were the equivalent of, like, the hippies of the 1600s, just kicking back-

23:27 (laughs)

23:27 ... having fun. And the Puritans started getting edgy because when new people would show up on the coast, they would take a look at the Puritans, they would take a look at Merrymount and be like, "Yeah, I'm going to Merrymount."

23:38 Right.

23:38 "Fuck the Puritans. These guys are weeping themself and life sucks over there." And so, of course, that was bad competition. Even some Puritans were like, "See you, honey. I'm gone for a couple of weeks," 'cause... And so the, the hardcore guys decided, "Well, we can't have that." So they got their guns, showed up, and closed down Merrymount. And, and that's the problem. Like, had the Merrymount guys not been such a lazy hippies and actually got their act together and trained with guns and stuff, they would have been able to keep their community going with those values. All you just, you need a minimum of self-defense, otherwise- Yeah.

24:14 ... somebody else squash you, which is exactly what happened.

24:17 Was that the... from the, the name Loyola, Merrymount? Does it come from those people?

24:21 I doubt it because, uh... You know what? I have no idea, so I'm gonna lie. But, but you know-

24:26 (laughs)

24:26 ... the thing is... (laughs) 'Cause, you know, Loyola doesn't strike me exactly as a drunken orgies-

24:31 Right.

24:31 ... with Native stories.

24:31 No, not at all. That's why I was confused.

24:33 Yeah.

24:33 Yeah, I never heard of that before, but it makes sense that there'd be someone that would deviate.

24:37 Mm-hmm.

24:37 There's always someone who just looks at the way everyone else is doing it and just says, "This is fucking not for me, man."

24:42 Totally.

24:42 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 24:43 But it always goes bad. Like, there's never been a cult where, uh, you know, they got together, formed a commune, and just really were cool to each other. (laughs)

Daniele Bolelli 24:51 We ... I'm actually fascinated with exactly the thing you said. Why?

Joe Rogan 24:55 (sighs)

Daniele Bolelli 24:55 Why can't ... What's so damn hard about-

Joe Rogan 24:58 It's power. It's the one-

Daniele Bolelli 24:59 That's what it is?

Joe Rogan 25:00 The one person in power. The one person in the position of power is almost always, um, abusive and they almost always use that power to their own ego, ego gratification and dominance. They always fuck all the other guys' wives.

Daniele Bolelli 25:15 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 25:15 That's all. Th- They all father a bunch of children. They take everyone's money, you know? It's ... I'm fascinated by that kind of stuff because one of the things that you, you see when you, um ... If you become famous or if you do something that gets you a lot of notoriety is ... I know how I feel around certain famous people, like, uh, I mean like, I've talked about, like, first time I met Anthony Bourdain-

Daniele Bolelli 25:39 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 25:39 ... who I respect a great deal.

Daniele Bolelli 25:41 Of course.

Joe Rogan 25:41 I was, like, a little f- school kid. I was, like, I was just such a dork. I was like, "Dude, I fucking love your show."

Daniele Bolelli 25:47 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 25:47 You know? I was like ... I was, I was ... It was genuine. And I love his writing too.

Daniele Bolelli 25:51 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 25:51 So I was genuinely excited to see him and meet him. You know, still to this day, when I talk to him, I'm a little dorked out. So when, you know, you take a person who's not ... And I'm used to being around celebrities. I've been around a lot of them.

Daniele Bolelli 26:03 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 26:03 But when you take someone who's not used to being around someone who is in this position of adoration, and they don't know how to handle it-

Daniele Bolelli 26:12 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 26:12 ... and they just, they just give in to whatever, you know, beta tendencies they have, and this alpha just takes over, there's a, a natural thing that human beings do in these small, isolated groups that don't get checked. And it almost always is the, the man who is in charge of it winds up abusing everybody.

Daniele Bolelli 26:31 Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which, again, it goes back to that part of human nature, is why-

Joe Rogan 26:36 Yeah.

Daniele Bolelli 26:36 ... do you have to go down that path? You can have a great life.

Joe Rogan 26:39 Right.

Daniele Bolelli 26:39 You can enjoy. Be nice to people. Making ... You are in a position of leadership. Use that to make sure the whole thing runs smoothly, everybody's taken care of.

Joe Rogan 26:47 It never works that way. (laughs)

Daniele Bolelli 26:48 Yeah. Ooh. And it pieces me off because, you know-

Joe Rogan 26:51 It's weird.

Daniele Bolelli 26:52 ... that, to me, is... I mean, I understand it and I don't understand it because I, I mean, I get it. I've seen it enough times that I know it, you're exactly 100% right. But at the same time, I really don't get it because you can still have a great life.

Joe Rogan 27:05 Yeah.

Daniele Bolelli 27:05 Nobody's denying you all the good things that you want. Just be a semi-decent human. It's not that hard. Come on.

Joe Rogan 27:12 You would think it's not that hard, but when there's no one checking you, like you're in the Oregon woods-

Daniele Bolelli 27:17 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 27:17 ... and you've got this fucking yurt and everybody lives together and you just bang everybody. (laughs)

Daniele Bolelli 27:22 (laughs) See, it's the-

Joe Rogan 27:22 And you make them give you all your, all their gold. It's ... People, for whatever reason, when there's a person that is the king, or a person that is, like, some, you know, cult leader or whatever, y- yeah, messiah, whatever you want to call them-

Daniele Bolelli 27:34 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 27:34 ... people just want that person to have the answers. They, they gravitate towards them.

Daniele Bolelli 27:39 Yeah. And I think that's precisely one of the things that bugs me about, um, a lot of people who are willing to put themself in that position of like, "I am your big leader."

Joe Rogan 27:49 Yeah.

Daniele Bolelli 27:50 To me, there's a way to be a leader that's awesome, that's great. Sort of the Daoist approach where people shouldn't even feel they are led by or like subtly moving things along to make sure everybody's taken care of.

Joe Rogan 28:01 Right.

Daniele Bolelli 28:01 That's a leader. But that's not ... Because it's not obvious, most people need exactly what you said. It's they need their father figure to lay down the law-

Joe Rogan 28:10 Mm-hmm.

Daniele Bolelli 28:10 ... to be very dogmatic and certain in their, "I know it all. Don't worry. I have all the answers."

Joe Rogan 28:16 Yeah.

Daniele Bolelli 28:16 "This is good, this is bad." And people love that. They love that in dictators. They love that in religious cult leaders. They love it in, in everything. That type of personality gathers a whole lot of followers who need somebody to look confident and sure of themself. Doesn't matter whether they are or they aren't. If they put on a good show, people will buy it.

Joe Rogan 28:38 Yeah, it seems like a pattern that just sort of gets established in human beings from being a child and having your parents, "Don't touch that. That's hot."

Daniele Bolelli 28:46 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 28:46 "Come with me. This is the way to go. This is what you have to do. This is how you put your shoes on. This is how you tie your shoe. This is how you get to work. This is how you do this, this is how you do that."

Daniele Bolelli 28:53 Yep.

Joe Rogan 28:53 And then you ... All of a sudden, you don't have anybody telling you what to do anymore. And then along comes the cult leader.

Daniele Bolelli 28:59 Yep.

Joe Rogan 28:59 Like, "I've got the answers. Guess what? They're coming straight from God, so fuck your parents."

Daniele Bolelli 29:03 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 29:03 "Your parents didn't know shit."

Daniele Bolelli 29:05 But that, but that's what's funny is that the same people who growing up would be like, your parents tell you, "Hey, tie your shoes," and you're like, "Fuck you."

Joe Rogan 29:11 Right.

Daniele Bolelli 29:11 Suddenly, somebody come along when they are 20 or 30, "Tie your shoe," and you're like, "Oh, you're so wise."

Joe Rogan 29:16 Yeah.

Daniele Bolelli 29:16 "Let me listen to you."

Joe Rogan 29:17 "This is the way to tie my shoe, oh great master."

Daniele Bolelli 29:19 Exactly.

Joe Rogan 29:20 Yeah.

Daniele Bolelli 29:20 And it's just ... Ah. I don't know, man. It's just ... Yeah. It was interesting. I don't know if you have been following, like, where, um, Dan Carlin, the stuff that he has been saying about his other show, Common Sense.

Joe Rogan 29:32 I haven't listened to it lately.

Daniele Bolelli 29:33 Yeah, he hasn't been releasing an episode lately. That's probably why you haven't, because he has kind of shut down with that. It's not officially done, but ... And his thing is, "My approach," meaning Dan talking, "My approach is to be com- somewhat subtle, somewhat, like, play and not be overly dogmatic one way or another, to think on my feet, to mix things together." And that's something that most people don't want in the current climate. Most people-

Joe Rogan 29:59 Right.

Daniele Bolelli 29:59 ... want the very black and white type of approach. Now, I disagree with Dan because I think that still there is an enormous need for what it provides.

Joe Rogan 30:08 Mm-hmm.

Daniele Bolelli 30:09 And I don't think that just giving up is the solution, but I do get it because it really doesn't take much. You know, if you start screaming at very dogmatic, either super leftist or super conservative approach, you get automatically a bunch of followers.

Joe Rogan 30:22 Mm-hmm.

Daniele Bolelli 30:23 If you are thinking on your feet and just going, "Hmm, this thing, yeah, you're right, but let's look at the other side," and constantly having, you know, what any decent human being should do, just being intellectually honest and thinking things through, not-

Joe Rogan 30:39 Right.

Daniele Bolelli 30:39 People don't respond to that because it's not that easy. Or rather, people do. Some people respond.

Joe Rogan 30:43 Yeah.

Daniele Bolelli 30:43 But it's ... Number-wise, it's way a minority compared to what you get by being a, a black and white kind of guy.

Joe Rogan 30:50 Yeah, people desire very clear a-... resolutions and very clear thinking in terms of, like, uh, enemy, friend.

Daniele Bolelli 30:58 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 30:58 This is a black and white issue. There's ... But D- I think Dan also just felt overwhelmed by the times.

Daniele Bolelli 31:04 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 31:04 He was like, "This just seems like everything's so fucked up, I'd rather not even talk about it and just sit back and- "

Daniele Bolelli 31:09 I know.

Joe Rogan 31:10 "... see what is, is really happening."

Daniele Bolelli 31:12 We were on the phone, uh, I swear, I spent like an hour on the phone with you, where we went back and forth. I was playing, in my mind I was playing, uh, remember the second movie of Lord of the Rings where there's... Frodo carrying the ring, he's all like-

Joe Rogan 31:24 Yeah.

Daniele Bolelli 31:24 ... "I can't do this anymore."

Joe Rogan 31:26 (laughs)

Daniele Bolelli 31:26 And there's Sam going, "Come on! You need to..." I think I, I need to step up my game. I'm a shitty Sam, 'cause I was trying to do that for Dan, and just kind of-

Joe Rogan 31:34 Yeah.

Daniele Bolelli 31:34 ... motivate him, and I miserably failed, so.

Joe Rogan 31:37 I respect where he's coming from. He said that when he was on the show recently, um, he w- he was talking about that sort of same thing, that he's kind of put that podcast on hold. Long as he keeps doing his podcast, Hardcore History is just so important, I think. I think him and you are providing, you guys are providing a, an entertaining and interesting history lesson that really wasn't available before. I mean...

Daniele Bolelli 32:01 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 32:01 ... before you could get a book on tape, and if it was a really well-written book and it was read by someone with, like, good dramatic flair, it was exciting stuff, but nobody really got into it. I b- I bet the numbers, if you consider the numbers of people that have listened to his podcast and your podcast in comparison to, like, before you guys were around-

Daniele Bolelli 32:19 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 32:19 ... there's probably a radically improved number of people that know a lot about history.

Daniele Bolelli 32:25 Yep. For sure.

Joe Rogan 32:25 Particularly at things like the Mongols. I never even thought-

Daniele Bolelli 32:28 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 32:29 ... about the Mongols until I listened to his podcast, which apparently right now, if you're in the LA area, in Simi Valley at the Ronald Reagan, um, Museum... The Reagan Museum or Library? What is it? There's a giant Genghis Khan, uh, exhibit.

Daniele Bolelli 32:43 Really?

Joe Rogan 32:44 Yeah, they have the bows and all the-

Daniele Bolelli 32:46 Oh, I wanna check it out.

Joe Rogan 32:47 ... fucking stuff they stole, and-

Daniele Bolelli 32:49 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 32:49 ... the textiles and all the diff- different things they wore and their yurts that they slept in, all kinds of crazy shit.

Daniele Bolelli 32:55 Awesome.

Joe Rogan 32:55 Dude.

Daniele Bolelli 32:56 I wanna go.

Joe Rogan 32:56 Yeah, I mean, that stuff's over 1,000 years old, right? Or close to it?

Daniele Bolelli 33:00 Yeah, what is it? Genghis Khan-

Joe Rogan 33:01 It was 1200s?

Daniele Bolelli 33:01 Yeah, exactly.

Joe Rogan 33:01 Yeah, 1200s, so close to 1,000 years old.

Daniele Bolelli 33:04 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 33:04 Yeah, but... Oh, there it is right there, yeah.

Daniele Bolelli 33:07 Check that out.

Joe Rogan 33:08 They had bows that required 160 pounds to pull back.

Daniele Bolelli 33:11 I know, who the hell wear these guys? Who pulls 160-pound bow? It's insane. I mean, you-

Joe Rogan 33:16 They must've been animals. They must've been so fucking strong.

Daniele Bolelli 33:19 Yeah, you pull 60 pounds and you're like, "Holy hell, this is heavy." 160 is insane.

Joe Rogan 33:24 Well, I have a, um, a compound bow, and a compound bow... I don't have a regular, like a recurve like these-

Daniele Bolelli 33:30 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 33:30 ... guys show. I believe they invented the recurve too.

Daniele Bolelli 33:33 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 33:33 They didn't invent it. They were around in the era when the recurve was invented. Which, just by the design of the bow, it g- it pulls, i- it's, it gives you, uh, more power, more energy gets released through the arrow. But w- with a compound bow, there's a big let-off, so it's only difficult... So if you had a 60-pound bow, it's only diff- it's only 60 pounds for, like, the first six inches or so-

Daniele Bolelli 33:55 Right.

Joe Rogan 33:55 ... pulling it back. Then, as you completely pull back, there's, like, an 85% let-off, so it's much easier to hold.

Daniele Bolelli 34:01 Right.

Joe Rogan 34:02 Th- they were pulling 160 the whole time.

Daniele Bolelli 34:04 All the way.

Joe Rogan 34:05 And at the end, it was harder.

Daniele Bolelli 34:06 Yeah, of course.

Joe Rogan 34:07 Yeah.

Daniele Bolelli 34:07 And they could aim perfectly on horseback while riding in full gallop. It's like, who the... I mean-

Joe Rogan 34:13 They apparently used to time the arrow release while the horse was in the air.

Daniele Bolelli 34:17 Yeah, 'cause then you don't have the unevenness of it.

Joe Rogan 34:19 Yeah.

Daniele Bolelli 34:19 You know, fucking crazy.

Joe Rogan 34:20 Those guys are fakes.

Daniele Bolelli 34:21 It just... That series that Dan did on the Mongols is one of the greatest series ever.

Joe Rogan 34:25 Of all time.

Daniele Bolelli 34:26 It's just amazing.

Joe Rogan 34:26 Of all time. I urge people. It's, I think it costs a dollar an episode, so just go through iTunes, get it for a dollar.

Daniele Bolelli 34:33 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 34:33 Or, I don't know what other, um-

Daniele Bolelli 34:35 Whatever, it could be-

Joe Rogan 34:35 ... app do you have, if you're-

Daniele Bolelli 34:36 ... Yeah, it's cheap and it's worth it.

Joe Rogan 34:37 ... cheap Android, but it's a dollar an episode.

Daniele Bolelli 34:39 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 34:39 And it's worth fucking hundreds of dollars.

Daniele Bolelli 34:41 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 34:41 It's amazing. I've listened to it, no bullshit, at least six times.

Daniele Bolelli 34:45 You know, I need to stop bringing up Dan because by now people are accusing me of, like, "You know, you like Dan probably a little more than a heterosexual man should."

Joe Rogan 34:53 It's okay.

Daniele Bolelli 34:53 I always give praise to-

Joe Rogan 34:54 He's a beautiful guy.

Daniele Bolelli 34:55 He's awesome, man.

Joe Rogan 34:56 There's nothing wrong with it.

Daniele Bolelli 34:57 I love Dan. He's one of my favorite humans.

Joe Rogan 34:59 Well, listen, your podcast is fucking awesome too, man, and I really particularly enjoyed your first one because you talked about that one story that you brought up on here-

Daniele Bolelli 35:06 Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 35:06 ... that freaked me the fuck out. S-

Daniele Bolelli 35:09 Right, when at the end of Spartacus Rebellion, they, uh, they capture all the re- remnants of Spartacus army and crucify every single one of them on the way between Naples and Capua, but next to Naples, in Naples and Rome? Every, whatever, 30, 40 yards, there's a new guy crucified, and 30 yards down, another one, kind of like lampposts all the way between these two cities.

Joe Rogan 35:31 And how many miles is that?

Daniele Bolelli 35:32 That's like 120, something like that.

Joe Rogan 35:35 120 miles of crucified people.

Daniele Bolelli 35:38 Yeah, where you have at every 30 to 40 yards, there's a new one, and then another one, and then another one, and it's...

Joe Rogan 35:46 Phew.

Daniele Bolelli 35:46 Yeah, that's a intense kind of story.

Joe Rogan 35:49 Since the last time you were on the podcast, I went to Rome.

Daniele Bolelli 35:52 Oh.

Joe Rogan 35:52 Yeah.

Daniele Bolelli 35:52 Oh, yeah, I saw that you did-

Joe Rogan 35:53 I traveled.

Daniele Bolelli 35:54 ... the Italian trip, yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 35:55 Dude. It's, uh, that's one of those things where you just have to, like, "No one talk to me for a second. I'm gonna try to process this."

Daniele Bolelli 36:02 Okay.

Joe Rogan 36:02 You know? Like, we had a great guide, uh, who was a professor, who was really, was really cool. Um, he guides people-

Daniele Bolelli 36:09 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 36:09 ... in the meantime, and he was just so excited to talk to me because I was so into it.

Daniele Bolelli 36:14 Of course.

Joe Rogan 36:14 You know, because most of the time, you know, people are just, like, barely curious about what he has to say, but, you know, we talked about the significance of the pineal gland and the pine cone-

Daniele Bolelli 36:23 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 36:24 ... in the, in the Vatican, and, you know, he takes you on a tour of all the different artifacts. That's, that's a trip that I feel like ... But just going there, especially the Vatican, going there, the Colosseum was big too, but going to the Vatican and just seeing all that artwork and getting an understanding of what those people were really up to for hundreds and hundreds of years-

Daniele Bolelli 36:46 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 36:46 ... just conquering the world for hundreds and hundreds of years, and all this artwork.

Daniele Bolelli 36:50 Yep.

Joe Rogan 36:51 Seeing it live in person just sort of reset my perspective.

Daniele Bolelli 36:55 Yeah, it's amazing. It's, uh, yeah, Rome is a place that you have never... Once in your lifetime you've got to do it, you know? It's just, uh... I don't know if you have been, there's a place...... uh, Castel Sant'Angelo, which is kind of close to the Vatican. And, but if you go to the top of this castle, you basically get a panoramic view of all of Rome from there.

Joe Rogan 37:11 Mm-hmm.

Daniele Bolelli 37:12 It's so spectacular. It just... It's wild.

Joe Rogan 37:14 Yeah.

Daniele Bolelli 37:14 You see the river, you see all the buildings, you see everything, and then you climb back down and you just do your walks. And, and, uh, what was I seeing in... Oh, one thing that I saw in Rome that I was blown away by, you know this artist, um, Caravaggio, who was, uh, the painter? Never... That, that guy, I love that guy because basically what happens with this dude is, he was around in the, what was the end of the 1500... Yeah, end of the 1500s, early 1600s. And Caravaggio was a straight-up gangster. Like, he was probably the best artist of the era. To me, he's probably the best artist of all time. It's like, you look at his paintings and he's just insane what he could do with paint. But then, he had this life on the street as a, as a literal gangster. He would just get... He, at one point, killed a guy in a duel, was wanted for murder. Every time he would get close to power and they would... Yep, that's Caravaggio for you right there.

Joe Rogan 38:07 Look at how amazing that painting is.

Daniele Bolelli 38:09 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 38:09 And what year was this made? Around-

Guest (secondary, likely in-studio commentator) 38:11 1599.

Daniele Bolelli 38:12 Yep.

Joe Rogan 38:12 God, look how good it is.

Daniele Bolelli 38:14 I know. It's, that's go-

Joe Rogan 38:15 That's insane. I mean...

Daniele Bolelli 38:16 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 38:16 ... that's... That is so close to photographic. And you think that this was in the 1600s.

Daniele Bolelli 38:24 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 38:24 And these people, they couldn't even stand still for him. I mean, how do you think he did that? Did he have a guy pretend that he's getting choked? Did he do this all from his mind?

Daniele Bolelli 38:34 No, I think he used models. There was... Actually, one of the scandals is that he-

Joe Rogan 38:38 He was banging his models?

Daniele Bolelli 38:39 Well, of course, but that was not the scandal.

Joe Rogan 38:41 'Cause they all did that, right?

Daniele Bolelli 38:41 That was part of the deal. No, the scandal part-

Joe Rogan 38:43 (laughs)

Daniele Bolelli 38:44 ... was the fact that, you know, the Church was commissioning a lot of his work.

Joe Rogan 38:47 Mm-hmm.

Daniele Bolelli 38:47 But he clearly was not the most pious guy in their sense.

Joe Rogan 38:50 Right.

Daniele Bolelli 38:51 His view of Christianity was, "Hey, these guys were... Jesus and his followers were poor men from the street. They were not the cardinal in purple robes." So, he used as models, more than once, for the Virgin Mary, he used the hookers that he was sleeping with.

Joe Rogan 39:07 Really?

Daniele Bolelli 39:07 And so, the Church was like, "You cannot use a hooker for the Virgin Mary."

Joe Rogan 39:11 (laughs)

Daniele Bolelli 39:11 "That's just not okay." And he would be like, "Yeah, yeah, don't worry. Okay, next time." And again, he does it again. So, it's...

Joe Rogan 39:17 See if you can get some of his paintings of the Virgin Mary. See if you can find some of them.

Daniele Bolelli 39:21 Yeah, there's, uh...

Joe Rogan 39:21 That's amazing.

Daniele Bolelli 39:22 It's hilarious. There's one... Let me see if I remember the ti-... There's one where there's a naked baby Jesus with Mary squashing a snake.

Joe Rogan 39:31 Mm-hmm.

Daniele Bolelli 39:31 Uh, see if that pops up. That one is great because, uh, you know, they-... That was his big shot at making it big. The Church was trying, "Okay, keep it together, s-... Be a good boy 'cause you are the best painter there is, but you're fucking crazy. So, please just tone it down."

Joe Rogan 39:46 (laughs)

Daniele Bolelli 39:46 And he turns in this painting where the Virgin Mary has a... Just big cleavage showing in a red dress. Uh, she-... Baby Jesus is butt-naked, squashing this snake supposed to symbolize the devil and stuff, and they were like, "Yeah, that's not what we meant." So-

Joe Rogan 40:01 Wow.

Daniele Bolelli 40:01 ... yeah, that's the one.

Joe Rogan 40:02 That's the Virgin Mary?

Daniele Bolelli 40:04 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 40:04 She looks like a freak.

Daniele Bolelli 40:05 I know. Well, she was his, uh, lover hooker, so yes, that was-

Joe Rogan 40:09 Wow.

Daniele Bolelli 40:10 ... part of the problem there.

Joe Rogan 40:11 And the baby Jesus squashing a snake-

Daniele Bolelli 40:13 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 40:14 ... with his dick showing.

Daniele Bolelli 40:15 Exactly. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 40:15 (laughs) That was... The other thing that, um, this guy was explaining to me was that the penis sizes-

Daniele Bolelli 40:20 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 40:21 ... of the Roman statues, they were all small because big penises were supposed to mean stupid people-

Daniele Bolelli 40:27 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 40:27 ... and, like, aggressive animals that were just, you know, not a part of the civilized, amazing culture that Rome represented.

Daniele Bolelli 40:35 So there was pride in the micro penis? (laughs)

Joe Rogan 40:37 Yeah. Well, it wasn't micro, but it was, uh, definitely not-

Daniele Bolelli 40:40 That's funny.

Joe Rogan 40:40 ... not optimal.

Daniele Bolelli 40:42 That's hilarious. (laughs)

Guest (secondary, likely in-studio commentator) 40:44 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 40:44 Yeah, I was like-... 'Cause I was asking, I was like, "What do you think that is?" We were trying to figure it out.

Daniele Bolelli 40:49 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 40:49 You know, we were talking about it before the professor gave me an answer, and I was like, "Maybe they just, like, had littler dicks back then." Like, maybe it was just, you know-

Daniele Bolelli 40:57 Right.

Joe Rogan 40:57 ... that was just how it went. And he's like, "No, it just..." I think they probably associated big dicks with rape, with, like, the, the barbarians-

Daniele Bolelli 41:06 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 41:06 ... and the Moors and all these people coming in and chopping people up and fucking the shit out of everybody. And like, "No, no, no, we don't want that."

Daniele Bolelli 41:13 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 41:13 "We don't want that." Little tiny dicks, like, so-... Sophisticated dicks.

Daniele Bolelli 41:16 Sophisticated dicks. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 41:17 Dicks of people who write poetry, you know what I'm saying?

Guest (secondary, likely in-studio commentator) 41:20 Vandalism, maybe? They stole the big dick off the statue. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 41:22 No, no, they didn't steal the big dicks. No, they were, they were clearly made by the artist. One thing they did do, though, in certain eras, they covered the dicks with leaves. It wasn't initially what they would do.

Daniele Bolelli 41:32 Right.

Joe Rogan 41:32 And they went back on a lot of them and repurposed them and p- put new leaves over dicks.

Daniele Bolelli 41:37 I think you know right now that there are gonna be about seven punk bands borrowing the name from you, like Sophisticated Dicks-

Joe Rogan 41:43 (laughs)

Daniele Bolelli 41:43 ... will be the name of a new punk band coming out tomorrow.

Joe Rogan 41:46 That would be a good band.

Daniele Bolelli 41:47 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 41:47 Sophisticated Dicks?

Daniele Bolelli 41:48 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 41:48 I like that name.

Daniele Bolelli 41:49 That's a good one.

Joe Rogan 41:50 Yeah, it's ha-... It's a weird thing that people have done throughout history is, like, sort of, um, trying to, uh, trying to control artistic expression and trying to have it represent the time.

Daniele Bolelli 42:04 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 42:04 You know? And so, you don't necessarily get a full version of what was going on then, but you do get a version of the suppression, which gives you insight into the full version of the times.

Daniele Bolelli 42:15 Definitely.

Joe Rogan 42:15 You know, that they were cov-... covering dicks with leaves and stuff, so... It's so strange.

Daniele Bolelli 42:20 And sometimes they would have the painter do-... Uh, giving the, the edited version of the painting-

Joe Rogan 42:25 Yeah.

Daniele Bolelli 42:25 ... for public consumption, but then the same guy who commissioned, he was like, "Okay, give me one for my private collection."

Joe Rogan 42:31 (laughs)

Daniele Bolelli 42:31 And so that's where they would have all the way more explicit stuff and-

Joe Rogan 42:34 Oh, yeah. They, I mean, they didn't have pornography back then, so they must have been painting off the paintings and stuff.

Daniele Bolelli 42:40 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:40 It had to be.

Daniele Bolelli 42:41 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:41 Yeah, I mean, it had to be thought of as being arousal-inducing, so much so that... What was it, during the, uh, Victorian era where they put legs up tables?

Guest (secondary, likely in-studio commentator) 42:51 (laughs)

Daniele Bolelli 42:51 They would put dresses on them.

Joe Rogan 42:53 (laughs)

Daniele Bolelli 42:53 Yeah, they would wrap the legs of the tables because, you know, they are legs.

Joe Rogan 42:57 Yeah.

Daniele Bolelli 42:57 And if they are bare, they may give you ideas, which-

Joe Rogan 42:59 Yeah.

Daniele Bolelli 42:59 ... I don't know about you, man, but, you know, look at the leg of the ta-... That i-... really doesn't do it for me, so the level of-

Joe Rogan 43:03 But there had to be something to it-

Daniele Bolelli 43:05 But, but-

Joe Rogan 43:05 ... where people got so horny-

Daniele Bolelli 43:07 Right.

Joe Rogan 43:07 ... that a table leg, like, oh, this smooth skin, uh.

Daniele Bolelli 43:11 But that's when you know you really have problems, right?

Joe Rogan 43:13 Yeah.

Daniele Bolelli 43:13 When you look at the leg of a table and you got all excited. It's like, "Man, d-..."

Joe Rogan 43:18 Yeah, that's not good.

Daniele Bolelli 43:19 No, you may want to revisit your life choices up until that point.

Joe Rogan 43:23 It's fascinating that these people must have agreed to that too. What's up, Jamie?

Guest (secondary, likely in-studio commentator) 43:26 I just looked it up. It says it, that it originates from a satire that was written, and people, I guess, took it as truth.

Joe Rogan 43:32 Oh, so it's not real? (laughs)

Guest (secondary, likely in-studio commentator) 43:33 Yeah, supposedly not.

Joe Rogan 43:34 But they definitely did cover the legs.

Guest (secondary, likely in-studio commentator) 43:36 Yeah, I think they did, but the reason why-

Joe Rogan 43:37 Hmm.

Guest (secondary, likely in-studio commentator) 43:37 ... is exaggerated. It says here it's poking fun at Americans that did something like that.

Daniele Bolelli 43:41 Oh, come on. Don't spoil the meat. The meat is too cool.

Joe Rogan 43:44 That's, "Prosperous farmhouse parlor in 1900s." And that has a cover. This is 1900s, right? This is, um, the Victorian era is when they did this.

Guest (secondary, likely in-studio commentator) 43:56 1839.

Joe Rogan 43:56 Oh, wait. Oh. "In 1839, an Englishman wrote a satire of American tour. He wrote, 'American propensity to use the word limb in place of leg.' Though he says the English do it too. Then he says that he visited a boarding school, young ladies, New York St- sorry, a square piano fort with four limbs. The mistress of the establishment had dressed all these four limbs in modest trousers with frills at the bottom of them. His exaggerating are not subjects ... Uh, his exaggerating or not subject to speculation, he is certainly poking fun, or whether, whether Mar- Mer- Mariette, Mariette is exaggerating or not is subject to speculation. He is certainly poking fun at Americans, but I can attest that having paged through dozens of books showing old black and white piano photos of Victorian interiors, I saw not one example of a table piano or any other piece of furniture with skirts around the individual legs." That's interesting.

Daniele Bolelli 44:50 Boo.

Joe Rogan 44:50 'Cause I had always heard that.

Guest (secondary, likely in-studio commentator) 44:51 (laughs)

Daniele Bolelli 44:51 I like the legend so much better.

Joe Rogan 44:53 Hadn't you always heard that? I had heard that from-

Daniele Bolelli 44:55 Yeah, I thought that.

Guest (secondary, likely in-studio commentator) 44:55 I did. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 44:56 ... professors.

Guest (secondary, likely in-studio commentator) 44:56 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 44:57 I thought I'd heard it too. I remember hearing that from a history professor.

Daniele Bolelli 45:01 I'm all of the, you know, between boring history and a fun legend or which side which fun legend. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 45:06 (laughs)

Guest (secondary, likely in-studio commentator) 45:06 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 45:06 Yeah, I would like to think that people were way more stupid than they were.

Daniele Bolelli 45:09 Yeah, sometimes.

Joe Rogan 45:09 Makes me feel good about this era-

Daniele Bolelli 45:11 Exactly.

Joe Rogan 45:11 ... we're in now.

Daniele Bolelli 45:12 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 45:13 Maybe this, um ... I mean, you look at the dresses that people had to wear, you know, that went all the way down to the ground.

Daniele Bolelli 45:18 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 45:18 I mean, this is not really much different than what we see in the Middle East.

Daniele Bolelli 45:22 Yep, it's the same.

Joe Rogan 45:23 It's, it's very similar.

Daniele Bolelli 45:24 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 45:24 I mean, what we see in the Middle East, they have to cover their face, the hijab and the whole deal and the-

Daniele Bolelli 45:28 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 45:28 ... the head scarves and ... That's a little, little more extreme, but not much.

Daniele Bolelli 45:32 Yep.

Joe Rogan 45:33 I mean, they, they wore shit that went all the way to the ground.

Daniele Bolelli 45:36 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 45:36 If you showed any ankle, people would lose their mind.

Daniele Bolelli 45:38 It's an ankle. Oh my God.

Joe Rogan 45:40 Isn't that crazy?

Daniele Bolelli 45:41 Yeah. Well, you know, repression does it.

Joe Rogan 45:44 Yeah. I wonder w- if, if they were more hyper-sexualized than we are. I bet not. I bet because of porn, we're probably more hyper-sexualized, right?

Daniele Bolelli 45:52 There's, I think, different arguments there because some people say the more you repress stuff, the more then you're gonna obsess with it.

Joe Rogan 45:57 Mm-hmm.

Daniele Bolelli 45:57 So that's all you think about all day.

Joe Rogan 45:59 That's true. Sure.

Daniele Bolelli 45:59 Whereas the one that kind of indulge more in it is less likely to obsess. Then again, there are lots of people who are so addicted to internet porn that I don't know-

Joe Rogan 46:07 Yeah.

Daniele Bolelli 46:07 ... if that idea works, but you know, that's the ...

Joe Rogan 46:10 Well, internet porn is ... The problem with internet porn is the availability.

Daniele Bolelli 46:13 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 46:14 It's just, it's just you don't have to go some- ... Like, at least back in the day when you had VHS tapes or DVDs or something like that, you had to go to a store-

Daniele Bolelli 46:22 Yep.

Joe Rogan 46:22 ... you had to buy 'em, you had to put 'em in a TV, you had to sit back, you had to get-

Daniele Bolelli 46:26 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 46:26 ... the remote control. You know, it was a process.

Daniele Bolelli 46:29 There was work involved, right. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 46:30 The minorst of minor work.

Daniele Bolelli 46:32 Yes.

Joe Rogan 46:33 Right?

Daniele Bolelli 46:33 Yes.

Joe Rogan 46:34 Now, it's just far too easy.

Daniele Bolelli 46:36 Yes.

Joe Rogan 46:36 It's far ... I mean, how many people that work, that have jobs, go into the bathroom, lock the door, and beat off?

Daniele Bolelli 46:42 Mm, that's, uh-

Joe Rogan 46:43 'Cause there's a lot of people listening right now.

Daniele Bolelli 46:45 Who are doing exactly that.

Joe Rogan 46:46 D- doing that right now.

Daniele Bolelli 46:47 Right. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 46:47 Beating off right now. Stop it. Go back to work.

Daniele Bolelli 46:51 Jesus is watching.

Joe Rogan 46:53 That's what I hear. Yeah, um, it's just, it's interesting. I guess if you have to think about it, like, they were trying to control those people and trying to b- control their urges because it was beneficial to society. It was beneficial to society that, that these people needed to do their fair share-

Daniele Bolelli 47:09 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 47:09 ... and get to work, and they couldn't just be staring at legs all day and, and, you know, engaging in im- impure thoughts.

Daniele Bolelli 47:16 But you know, that's the, that's the problem with any kind of prohibition. It's completely misunderstanding how the human mind works.

Joe Rogan 47:23 Yeah.

Daniele Bolelli 47:23 It's, it's you do not say no to things as, "You are not gonna do this." You're guaranteeing that people are gonna obsess with this, right?

Joe Rogan 47:31 It doesn't work. Yeah.

Daniele Bolelli 47:31 There's, um ... There was a zen story that I heard once that I thought it was hilarious. Can't remember where I heard it, but like, guy go to a zen master saying, "Hey, you know, you recall a peace and happy, and I wanna be just like you. What do I need to do?" Zen master says, "Okay, just for the next 24 hours, don't think about monkeys." Guy's like, "Monkeys? Never thought about monkeys in my ... How is that gonna make me enlightened?" Zen master says, "Shut up, go away, come back in 24 hours. Don't think about monkeys." Guy's like, "Okay, well, be- becoming enlightened is gonna be a piece of cake 'cause all I have to do is not think about monkeys." And of course, the next 24 hours become the most monkey-filled hours-

Joe Rogan 48:07 (laughs)

Daniele Bolelli 48:07 ... of his life 'cause that's all he can think about, right? (laughs)

Joe Rogan 48:10 (laughs)

Daniele Bolelli 48:11 Point being, the more you make something a taboo-

Joe Rogan 48:14 Yeah.

Daniele Bolelli 48:14 ... the more you guarantee that people are gonna obsess with it, you know?

Joe Rogan 48:17 Yeah.

Daniele Bolelli 48:18 It's, uh ... Like, even think of, like, drinking at 21 in US, right?

Joe Rogan 48:23 Mm-hmm.

Daniele Bolelli 48:23 It's like, growing up, I don't even know if there was an age in Italy where you are supposed to not drink, but it's not that glamorous, you know? It's what your grandparents have for lunch and you know-

Joe Rogan 48:33 Right.

Daniele Bolelli 48:33 ... you are maybe six year old and you wanna try a little wine and they give you a tiny bit saying, "If you have a little more, you'll get a headache, so just got a..." And then one day you do got a little more, you get a headache and you go, "Oh shit, you are right. Okay."

Joe Rogan 48:45 Yeah.

Daniele Bolelli 48:46 And you kind of learn how to drink rather than being like, "We got away, cool. Now we got all these booze," and people drink, throw up all over themselves. It's like, that's just gross. Why are you doing that?

Joe Rogan 48:57 Yeah, I think there's definitely a, a healthier attitudes than Americans' attitudes about alcohol. But also, like, wine is a good way to start.

Daniele Bolelli 49:05 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 49:06 Like, you start off a kid with whiskey. (laughs)

Daniele Bolelli 49:08 Yeah, that's not the way start. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 49:10 That's too potent.

Daniele Bolelli 49:11 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 49:11 Uh, one of my first times I ever got drunk was on Jack Daniels.

Daniele Bolelli 49:14 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 49:14 And it took years for me to smell Jack Daniels and not want to throw up.

Daniele Bolelli 49:17 I'm sure. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 49:18 (laughs) ... you get those triggers in your head where you smell it. Like Jagermeister, I used to smell Jagermeister like (sniffs) and just be like, "Blah!"

Daniele Bolelli 49:26 Yep. Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 49:27 'Cause you just think about just getting violently ill, where your body's trying to purge it from your system so you don't die. Yet it's ... We ... To, to just to hide it from kids and tell them it's ... That, that it's taboo, but then you drink it.

Daniele Bolelli 49:39 Yeah, it's bullshit.

Joe Rogan 49:40 And then they're like, "I can't wait until these fucking people can't tell me what to do anymore."

Daniele Bolelli 49:44 Yep.

Joe Rogan 49:44 "Get myself a nice cold glass of whiskey."

Daniele Bolelli 49:46 Yeah, I mean, it's kind of like ... That goes also to education in general. You know, when ... If a parent has to come to the place where you say, "These are the rules. You live under my roof. You need to obey them."

Joe Rogan 49:57 Right.

Daniele Bolelli 49:57 That's like raising the white flag in that meeting, "I've lost already. I lost control."

Joe Rogan 50:02 Yeah.

Daniele Bolelli 50:02 "I don't know what the fuck I'm doing," 'cause it's like, of course all they are gonna do is wait for you to turn around and do exactly the thing you're prohibiting-

Joe Rogan 50:08 Mm-hmm.

Daniele Bolelli 50:09 ... 'cause you are coming across as a dictator or you're coming across as an asshole. If instead you can teach somebody, like, "Look, man, you can do whatever you want. The goal here is we want to make sure ... We both want to make sure that you're happy and you're safe." Simple enough.

Joe Rogan 50:23 Yeah.

Daniele Bolelli 50:23 "So let's figure out a strategy to make sure you can be happy and safe, and we are on ... I'm on board, whatever." That's a lot easier for people to respond to and being like, "Okay, so you're not just a killjoy who's trying to squash my life. You're somebody who's concerned about me not ending up dead. Fair enough, we can work with that," you know?

Joe Rogan 50:41 Yeah, but parents have to work.

Daniele Bolelli 50:43 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 50:43 And they don't have any time.

Daniele Bolelli 50:44 Exactly.

Joe Rogan 50:45 I don't have to tell you, you're a parent.

Daniele Bolelli 50:46 Right.

Joe Rogan 50:46 They're like, "Uh, just fucking listen to me."

Daniele Bolelli 50:48 (laughs) Just shut up and-

Joe Rogan 50:49 "I'm busy."

Daniele Bolelli 50:50 Right. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 50:50 "I'm writing my book over here."

Daniele Bolelli 50:52 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 50:52 "I'm, um, fucking getting my lectures ready," and-

Daniele Bolelli 50:54 (laughs) Yeah.

Joe Rogan 50:55 ... your kid's like, "Hey, hey, hey, what about whiskey?" "Don't fucking touch that shit."

Daniele Bolelli 50:59 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 50:59 "Get out of there. Get out of that liquor cabinet."

Daniele Bolelli 51:02 Right.

Joe Rogan 51:03 Yeah, I remember when I was a kid, I couldn't wait to drink.

Daniele Bolelli 51:05 Yes, of course.

Joe Rogan 51:05 I was like, "Oh, this is gonna be fun."

Daniele Bolelli 51:06 Of course.

Joe Rogan 51:07 It's gotta be. It's taboo.

Daniele Bolelli 51:08 Yep.

Joe Rogan 51:09 It's forbidden.

Daniele Bolelli 51:09 Yep, so ... But that's the problem with forbidding stuff.

Joe Rogan 51:13 Yeah.

Daniele Bolelli 51:13 It, it never works.

Joe Rogan 51:14 Well, it's also, uh, Italian food and wine seem to go hand in hand.

Daniele Bolelli 51:20 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 51:20 And, uh, and, and it's ... I think ... I mean, the ... That used to be what they drank because they were concerned with getting sick, right? And one of the best ways to not get sick was to drink wine, because-

Daniele Bolelli 51:33 The alcohol content?

Joe Rogan 51:34 Well, yeah, the alcohol content would keep the water from ... I mean, like, if you just drink water all the time, especially if it's sitting still-

Daniele Bolelli 51:40 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 51:40 ... like, you could get some bad fucking water, right? You can get bad water from a lake. I mean, how many ... They didn't know jack shit about parasites back then. How many people got some terrible diseases from drinking puddle water and shit, you know?

Daniele Bolelli 51:51 I'm sure a lot.

Joe Rogan 51:52 Oh, yeah, you just find some water and like, "Oh, we're thirsty. Time to drink."

Daniele Bolelli 51:55 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 51:56 And ... Or even a creek. You drink in a creek and you think like, "Oh, this is a beautiful stream. This is, uh, clear water." Yeah, but a beaver took a shit-

Daniele Bolelli 52:04 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 52:04 ... just 100 yards ahead.

Daniele Bolelli 52:05 Exactly.

Joe Rogan 52:06 (laughs) And because you don't know about it, you, you get what's called beaver fever.

Daniele Bolelli 52:09 Yeah. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 52:10 That's what ... For real, that's what they call giardia. They call it beaver fever.

Daniele Bolelli 52:14 Yeah, that can't be good.

Joe Rogan 52:15 No, it's terrible. So they used to drink wine to prevent what they would call traveler's disease.

Daniele Bolelli 52:19 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 52:20 Because people would take these, those ... What are those things called? The, the leather things that they would carry wine in. I want to say flask, but it's not a flask. What are those, those leather satchels that they would carry-

Daniele Bolelli 52:31 Yeah, I know what you're talking about.

Joe Rogan 52:33 ... wine in.

Daniele Bolelli 52:33 I thought they ... I thought they used flask for that, but I'm not sure.

Joe Rogan 52:36 Might be. There's a, uh, term. It's like a leather bag, and it had like a, on the end, like a cork-

Daniele Bolelli 52:43 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 52:43 ... and they would just drink from that, and that's how they would hydrate.

Daniele Bolelli 52:46 Yep.

Joe Rogan 52:47 People must have been just hammered all day.

Daniele Bolelli 52:49 Yeah. When you read the statistics of how much people used to drink, it's amazing that anything ever got done 'cause it's just people were drinking morning through night.

Joe Rogan 52:58 And horri- they must have been horrific to each other-

Daniele Bolelli 53:01 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 53:01 ... then. Just, just to imagine like a whole civilization that is a drunken bar at 1:00 AM.

Daniele Bolelli 53:08 Angry drunk-

Joe Rogan 53:09 Yeah.

Daniele Bolelli 53:09 You know, it's funny because I never und- ... I mean, I've seen it enough that I get it, people get edgy and weird where, uh ... when they drink too much, but I never got it because to me it's like if I'm drunk, it's like that's when I'm happy.

Joe Rogan 53:22 Right.

Daniele Bolelli 53:22 I want to hug people.

Joe Rogan 53:23 Yeah.

Daniele Bolelli 53:23 Fuck, why would I want to be in a bad mood? This is awesome. This-

Joe Rogan 53:25 Well, you're a nice guy. That's when-

Daniele Bolelli 53:27 That's what it is that comes out, the ... Yeah, if you're a fucking asshole and you get drunk-

Joe Rogan 53:31 It shows up. (laughs)

Daniele Bolelli 53:33 I see. You're-

Joe Rogan 53:33 Especially if you're just barely keeping that asshole under the surface, just barely-

Daniele Bolelli 53:37 Right.

Joe Rogan 53:37 ... and you just want to fucking stab everybody and club them and steal their women. (growls)

Daniele Bolelli 53:42 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 53:42 And then you get a couple of drinks in you. And al- this, this ... Alco- alcohol is a great social lubricant, right?

Daniele Bolelli 53:48 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 53:48 It's great for releasing inhibitions and, and letting people communicate with each other more freely and have fun.

Daniele Bolelli 53:54 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 53:54 But this ... It's also ... It removes doubt.

Daniele Bolelli 53:59 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 54:00 And that's not good.

Daniele Bolelli 54:01 Right.

Joe Rogan 54:01 I think doubt is critical.

Daniele Bolelli 54:03 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 54:03 Like, doubt is one of the pieces of the great puzzle, right?

Daniele Bolelli 54:07 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 54:07 The g- the great puzzle has many ingredients, and one of those ingredients is doubt. And doubt is important. You should look at anything you're about to contemplate and go, "Hmm, let me think about this. Let me think what could go wrong." When you get a couple of drinks, "Fuck it, let's do it!"

Daniele Bolelli 54:22 Let's go.

Joe Rogan 54:22 Whoo! And then next thing you know, you know, you're on an internet meme.

Daniele Bolelli 54:26 Hold my beer!

Joe Rogan 54:27 Yeah, exactly.

Daniele Bolelli 54:28 Right. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 54:28 We talked about that yesterday, like some of the mos- more ridiculous ones, but there's so many of those out there, and almost all of them have to do with alcohol.

Daniele Bolelli 54:34 Yeah. No, uh, you, you are totally right. And I think what you are saying about that with there's a great, uh ... Alan Watts, the guy who popularized zen and Taoism and all of that stuff, he had this great line. He called it the wisdom of insecurity.

Joe Rogan 54:47 Mm.

Daniele Bolelli 54:47 You know, this idea of tread real careful.

Joe Rogan 54:50 Yeah.

Daniele Bolelli 54:50 There's a wisdom there in not being-

Joe Rogan 54:52 Sure.

Daniele Bolelli 54:53 ... overly dogmatic, and ... Which doesn't mean ... The problem is then people take that concept too far and that turn it into having no balls and not being able to take a stand.

Joe Rogan 55:02 Right.

Daniele Bolelli 55:02 That's not a solution either. That's the other side of the problem. But there's a sweet spot in between where you can take stances, but they are careful stances. They are se- stances that are very willing to be changed at the drop of a dime if you show the good evidence to, to change them, you know?

Joe Rogan 55:17 Yeah.

Daniele Bolelli 55:18 It's ... That, to me, is what intellectual honesty looks like, you know?

Joe Rogan 55:22 Yeah. I, I agree.I think it's good to be aware of all the possibilities. I used to tell people that when I was a teaching TaeKwonDo-

Daniele Bolelli 55:30 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 55:30 ... like, people that wouldn't compete. If they were really, really nervous, I'd be like, "The really smart people are really nervous because you're aware of all the possibilities, of everything that could go wrong. The people that aren't worried about it at all, they're usually dumb."

Daniele Bolelli 55:44 There's that, but also, to me, there are some people, like, I look at some of the people who are able to keep it together in this... Like, kind of like Chuck Liddell, right?

Joe Rogan 55:53 Mm-hmm.

Daniele Bolelli 55:53 Take a nap right before a fight kind of thing.

Joe Rogan 55:55 Right.

Daniele Bolelli 55:55 I can tell by looking at those guys and just be like, "You know something I don't know."

Joe Rogan 55:59 (laughs)

Daniele Bolelli 55:59 You know? There's something there that you're doing that's, uh-

Joe Rogan 56:01 Confidence, for sure. I mean, Chuck had been knocking people unconscious-

Daniele Bolelli 56:04 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 56:04 ... for many, many years, and he knew exactly what to do.

Daniele Bolelli 56:07 And I think-

Joe Rogan 56:07 And he knew he was good at it.

Daniele Bolelli 56:08 There's that, for sure.

Joe Rogan 56:09 Yeah.

Daniele Bolelli 56:09 And I think there's the other side is knowing that, "Okay. If I have decided to do it, fear is not gonna help me now." You know?

Joe Rogan 56:15 Right.

Daniele Bolelli 56:15 "It helped me to make decisions earlier, but right now it's not gonna help me, so let's figure out..." Man, it was hilarious. There's, um... My girlfriend fights MMA professionally and she's-

Joe Rogan 56:25 Yeah, I've noticed that.

Daniele Bolelli 56:26 Yeah, she's wild, man. She's-

Joe Rogan 56:27 I've been paying attention to, uh, your escapades online. (laughs)

Daniele Bolelli 56:30 Yeah. It's... She's-

Joe Rogan 56:32 She's crazy, huh?

Daniele Bolelli 56:32 She's crazy. She's, uh-

Joe Rogan 56:34 (laughs)

Daniele Bolelli 56:34 She literally had that Chuck Liddell mode, where she, she took a nap right before a fight. And, you know, like, 45 minutes before, you have to wake her up going like-

Joe Rogan 56:42 Yeah.

Daniele Bolelli 56:42 "Hey, you ready?" And she's all like, "Okay. Ready to roll." And I'm like, "I would not sleep for a week prior." How do you manage to keep it together like this, you know?

Joe Rogan 56:51 It's good to do. I used to do that. I used to sleep before fights. It's good.

Daniele Bolelli 56:54 That's awesome. That's-

Joe Rogan 56:55 Yeah, but it... You- you- you- you just can get yourself into a more calm state.

Daniele Bolelli 56:59 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 56:59 It's so much better than, um, frantically running around and freaking out and fretting. Plus, it's, uh... It's, uh, it freaks out your opponents. I would sleep, like, right on the bleachers.

Daniele Bolelli 57:08 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 57:08 I'd just go to sleep right there and everybody else would be nervous and shit, and you're sleeping.

Daniele Bolelli 57:12 Exactly. You look at them-

Joe Rogan 57:14 You know? Wait a minute.

Daniele Bolelli 57:14 ... "I'm supposed to fight that guy?"

Joe Rogan 57:15 Yeah.

Daniele Bolelli 57:15 "The guy who's sleeping right before the fight? Hell no." Like, the first match I did, man, it was nuts because, you know, you're in the locker room, and there's the guy sitting next to you. Goes out for his match, come right back. His side is split open-

Joe Rogan 57:28 Covered in blood, yeah.

Daniele Bolelli 57:29 ... covered in blood and they're telling you, "Okay, you get ready. You're going next."

Joe Rogan 57:32 (laughs)

Daniele Bolelli 57:32 And I'm dying, right?

Joe Rogan 57:33 Right.

Daniele Bolelli 57:33 I'm just thinking, "How the hell..." And she's all like, "La la la." (singing)

Joe Rogan 57:38 Where'd you meet her, at a gym?

Daniele Bolelli 57:39 Uh, no. She literally live across the street from me, so-

Joe Rogan 57:42 That's crazy.

Daniele Bolelli 57:42 Yeah, that's where-

Joe Rogan 57:43 Just random.

Daniele Bolelli 57:44 And it was funny because I used to say... This is where the universe has a sense of humor because I used to say all the time, like... I'm kind of... I can get along with anybody, but I don't necessarily click with a lot of people, so my thing was like, "Yeah, where do I find somebody I click with? Across the street?" And I said that, like, 10,000 times, right?

Joe Rogan 58:00 (laughs)

Daniele Bolelli 58:01 And one day, I'm like, "Look at that." (laughs) What the-

Joe Rogan 58:03 That's hilarious.

Daniele Bolelli 58:04 Yeah, I know. It was... That's when I was looking at the universe going like, "Okay, that's funny. Ha ha." But, uh-

Joe Rogan 58:10 There's definitely, like, little things that almost, like, slap you in the face. But yeah, there's a whole system going on, stupid. Just-

Daniele Bolelli 58:17 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 58:17 ... pay attention.

Daniele Bolelli 58:18 I know.

Joe Rogan 58:19 Like, I know you make fun of Oprah-

Daniele Bolelli 58:21 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 58:21 ... but The Secret might be real, motherfucker. Oprah's got $3 billion.

Daniele Bolelli 58:25 (laughs) Seriously, man. She's-

Joe Rogan 58:27 There might be something to it all.

Daniele Bolelli 58:28 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 58:29 Yeah, it seems completely preposterous, but, eh.

Daniele Bolelli 58:32 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 58:32 I've... Intellectually, I always want to say, "Nah." You know, things don't happen for a fucking reason. You decide they happen for a reason afterwards-

Daniele Bolelli 58:40 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 58:40 ... because it helps fit your sense of order.

Daniele Bolelli 58:42 I ag-... It's fun-... The funny thing is I completely agree with that, and I also completely-

Joe Rogan 58:47 Yes!

Daniele Bolelli 58:47 ... agree with the fact that sometimes things click in a way that you're like, "Okay. You're fucking with me. This is just too-"

Joe Rogan 58:51 I think about people all the time, out of nowhere, I'll get an email from them.

Daniele Bolelli 58:55 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 58:55 Like, out of nowhere. Like, I haven't talked to this guy in 10 fucking years, and then all of a sudden, I get an email.

Daniele Bolelli 59:00 Yep.

Joe Rogan 59:00 Or, you know, you run into them somewhere. You're like, "What?"

Daniele Bolelli 59:03 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 59:03 "How is it possible I'm running into you at the airport? This doesn't even make sense."

Daniele Bolelli 59:07 I know.

Joe Rogan 59:07 You reconnect. It's very strange.

Daniele Bolelli 59:10 Yeah. There... Those are the times when it really humbles you and makes you think, "Okay. The universe is such a weird place, and what I understand is, like, probably 0.01% of what's out there."

Joe Rogan 59:21 Yeah. We're connected in some other weird, bizarre way-

Daniele Bolelli 59:24 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 59:24 ... that we haven't figured out yet.

Daniele Bolelli 59:25 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 59:26 And maybe we'll never will. Maybe we'll become symbiotes. Maybe we'll become, like, completely ingrained technologically before we figure out the biological connections that we share. 'Cause I think there's... I think there's, like, the obvious senses that we all have, but I think there's some other stuff going on when you think about someone and then, boom, they're calling you on the phone.

Daniele Bolelli 59:43 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 59:43 Like, there... That just, to me, is too coincidental sometimes.

Daniele Bolelli 59:49 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 59:49 Sometimes it's random.

Daniele Bolelli 59:50 Sure.

Joe Rogan 59:50 Like, say if it's someone that you talk to all the time-

Daniele Bolelli 59:53 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 59:53 ... and then they call you.

Daniele Bolelli 59:54 Of course.

Joe Rogan 59:54 That's just coincidence.

Daniele Bolelli 59:55 Yeah, no big deal.

Joe Rogan 59:56 But there's some times, man, where you just... You're talking about someone and all of a sudden, the fucking phone rings and I go, "Look at this. This is crazy."

Daniele Bolelli 1:00:04 Yep.

Joe Rogan 1:00:04 You haven't talked to them in four years-

Daniele Bolelli 1:00:05 Exactly.

Joe Rogan 1:00:06 ... and they're calling you right there.

Daniele Bolelli 1:00:07 Exactly.

Joe Rogan 1:00:07 There's something to that.

Daniele Bolelli 1:00:08 Yep.

Joe Rogan 1:00:09 And they... And you ask them, like, "Why'd you call me? Just stop right now." And I'm not, I'm not saying, like, "Why you calling me, man?"

Daniele Bolelli 1:00:14 Sure, sure, sure.

Joe Rogan 1:00:15 I'm saying, like, "What was going on? Like, what caused you to call me?" "I don't know, I just had a weird feeling."

Daniele Bolelli 1:00:19 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:00:19 What the fuck, man? That's crazy.

Daniele Bolelli 1:00:21 I know. Happens all the time.

Joe Rogan 1:00:23 It's crazy.

Daniele Bolelli 1:00:23 Yeah. It's... yeah. That-

Joe Rogan 1:00:25 And you can also tell when people are creepy too, right? You can tell when someone's a creep.

Daniele Bolelli 1:00:30 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:00:30 There's like... There's something weird-

Daniele Bolelli 1:00:31 The vibe that you pick up.

Joe Rogan 1:00:32 Weird vi-... Like, what is that? Like, what's that?

Daniele Bolelli 1:00:35 I really do think that there's something that... You know, verbal communication is a very small way in which we communicate.

Joe Rogan 1:00:41 Right.

Daniele Bolelli 1:00:41 There's so much more to it because, you know-

Joe Rogan 1:00:43 Yeah.

Daniele Bolelli 1:00:43 ... there are times when you walk into a room and you already know who you're gonna like and who you don't, who you... And the ones that you don't, then you need to spend the next whatever long it takes you to find the reason why you don't click.

Joe Rogan 1:00:56 Yeah.

Daniele Bolelli 1:00:56 But you already know it. There's that something there is going on and it's-

Joe Rogan 1:01:00 It's a smell.

Daniele Bolelli 1:01:01 And I don't-... I think most people trust their perceptions, so they're like, "No, no, I need to find out the rational reason. Why would I have these preconceptions?" I ne-... To me, it's like, if you feel it, there's probably a good reason for it, you know?

Joe Rogan 1:01:13 Yeah.

Daniele Bolelli 1:01:13 If you have a strong feeling about it, I would trust it rather than not.

Joe Rogan 1:01:18 Fuck yeah. Yeah. Trust it rather than not is a good way. And, you know, don't trust it like, "That's definitely a witch."

Daniele Bolelli 1:01:25 Yeah. No, not that. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:01:26 (laughs)

Daniele Bolelli 1:01:26 No way. Do not burn-

Joe Rogan 1:01:27 I knew it.

Daniele Bolelli 1:01:28 Do not burn your people at the stake. That's a bad idea.

Joe Rogan 1:01:31 Yeah.That was a weird time too, right? It's just amazing to me that, um, the United States is such a recent sort of experiment in self-government in that no one has done anything like that since then. Mm-hmm.

Daniele Bolelli 1:01:46 That's what's kind of really amazing to me when I stop and think about all the wacky shit that's tak- taking place in America over the last 300 plus years, and then that no one else has done that. No one else has said, "No, look, we found this spot in Australia, and, uh, the Australian government has allowed us to carve off a big chunk." And- Right.

Joe Rogan 1:02:04 "Let's, let's call it, you know, whatever."

Daniele Bolelli 1:02:06 Dan- Danielle-ia Land. I'm all for it, and I swear I'll be a good leader. I won't screw all your wives. Maybe. We'll see.

Joe Rogan 1:02:14 But it seems, it seems like what it's also amazing is that the United States has managed to become the number one superpower in the world-

Daniele Bolelli 1:02:21 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:02:22 ... as a, a group of all crazy immigrants that all moved into one spot.

Daniele Bolelli 1:02:27 Yup. Yeah, no, the story of the United States is fascinating because you don't... And probably is never gonna happen again because, you know, that was the product of a war that did not know about, "Oh, there's this other con-" You know, you find out-

Joe Rogan 1:02:39 Right, right.

Daniele Bolelli 1:02:39 It's all new. It's exciting. It's everything. Now you know what's out there. I mean-

Joe Rogan 1:02:43 Right.

Daniele Bolelli 1:02:43 ... unless you go for space exploration, nothing like this will happen in the history of planet Earth. It just-

Joe Rogan 1:02:49 The only way it can happen is a reset, a civilization reset.

Daniele Bolelli 1:02:52 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:02:52 Like, there would have to be, like, a bunch of people die, like most people die.

Daniele Bolelli 1:02:56 Apocalypse.

Joe Rogan 1:02:57 Yeah.

Daniele Bolelli 1:02:57 Most people lose the knowledge of what was going on before.

Joe Rogan 1:03:00 Yeah.

Daniele Bolelli 1:03:00 Then yeah, sure, you can have a post-Graham Hancock kind of story.

Joe Rogan 1:03:03 Yeah.

Daniele Bolelli 1:03:04 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:03:04 Yeah, post-Graham Hancock. That's entirely possible too.

Daniele Bolelli 1:03:07 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:03:07 That's entirely possible. Although I did read something very recently that they think, um, um, what was the, uh, super volcano that killed most people on the planet 70,000 years ago? They found one pocket of humans that actually survived-

Daniele Bolelli 1:03:24 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:03:24 ... and thrived in Africa, but they think that the entire population of, uh, human beings at that point in time, 70,000 years ago, the entire population in the world was only around 100,000 people.

Daniele Bolelli 1:03:38 Wow. That's nothing.

Joe Rogan 1:03:40 And then it dropped down to 10,000.

Daniele Bolelli 1:03:42 Wow.

Joe Rogan 1:03:43 10,000 people because of the super volcano. So the super volcano blew. It wiped out most life. It wiped out most people. It plunged the Earth into some sort of a nuclear winter.

Daniele Bolelli 1:03:56 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:03:57 I forget where it was. I want to say it was Bali or Indonesia.

Guest (secondary, likely in-studio commentator) 1:04:00 Mount Toba.

Joe Rogan 1:04:01 Where was that?

Guest (secondary, likely in-studio commentator) 1:04:01 Indonesia.

Daniele Bolelli 1:04:02 Indonesia.

Joe Rogan 1:04:02 Yeah.

Guest (secondary, likely in-studio commentator) 1:04:02 Sumatra.

Joe Rogan 1:04:03 Sumatra. Killed literally 90% of the people.

Daniele Bolelli 1:04:07 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:04:08 And 10,000 were left. So 70,000 years ago, we were down to 10,000 humans.

Daniele Bolelli 1:04:14 Which makes all the things about racism so silly 'cause it's like-

Joe Rogan 1:04:17 Dude, that's a, that's a good show for Kevin Hart.

Daniele Bolelli 1:04:19 Right?

Joe Rogan 1:04:19 Not even. That's a light crowd for Kevin Hart.

Daniele Bolelli 1:04:22 Exactly. It's like- (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:04:24 10,000 people.

Daniele Bolelli 1:04:24 We think I've got that. Yeah, exactly.

Joe Rogan 1:04:26 It's like a fucking Blink-182 concert.

Daniele Bolelli 1:04:28 Yeah. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:04:29 10,000 people, man. That's nothing.

Daniele Bolelli 1:04:32 Yeah, that's nothing.

Joe Rogan 1:04:32 If you stop and think about that.

Daniele Bolelli 1:04:34 It's insane.

Joe Rogan 1:04:35 I've done 10,000 people a night before in, uh, Denver. I did two shows. They were 5,000 each.

Daniele Bolelli 1:04:40 Whoa.

Joe Rogan 1:04:41 That's 10,000 people. That's the fucking entire population of Earth.

Daniele Bolelli 1:04:44 Yup.

Joe Rogan 1:04:45 And that now became seven billion 70,000 years later.

Daniele Bolelli 1:04:50 It's nuts.

Joe Rogan 1:04:51 We're so weird.

Daniele Bolelli 1:04:52 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:04:52 We're such a weird animal. Like if you could study us without being us, like if somehow or another you could remove all of your cultural conceptions and all the, all the things that you've just sort of accepted and established as fact-

Daniele Bolelli 1:05:07 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:05:07 ... as a human and just look at it completely objective, you'd be like, "What a nutty animal this thing is. What the fuck are we doing?"

Daniele Bolelli 1:05:15 Yeah. That's why it never gets old to study the human psyche. Like what makes people choose this... 'Cause that's the beauty of human beings. We have choices that, you know, uh, a wolf is a wolf. There are only so many things you can choose as a wolf.

Joe Rogan 1:05:30 Right.

Daniele Bolelli 1:05:31 You're, you know, yeah, you could have a wolf that adopts one strategy, one another, but the range of choices is pretty limited.

Joe Rogan 1:05:36 Yeah.

Daniele Bolelli 1:05:36 As humans, we have this insane range of choices and it's fascinating to see what is it that makes some people go in one direction and a completely different one. And it's fun.

Joe Rogan 1:05:47 It is fun. And what's fascinating to me about human beings of today is I've never seen a time where people are more interesting, more interested rather, in other people doing what they want them to do.

Daniele Bolelli 1:06:00 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:06:01 Like other people thinking the way they want them to think, other people behaving the way they want. People wa- it seems to me, are more concerned with controlling people's expression and thinking today than ever before. And even more so on the left. It seems like I'm seeing this interesting trend today where people like, it's almost like we don't like where things are headed. We don't like what's happening. We don't like who the president is. So people are, are being real adamant about enforcing certain types of behavior. And that in turn, just like we're talking about suppressing people from drinking alcohol, that in turn makes people rebel.

Daniele Bolelli 1:06:40 Of course. That's, uh-

Joe Rogan 1:06:42 I feel like there's more people that are leaning right today than ever before, and I, I attribute it entirely to the people on the left.

Daniele Bolelli 1:06:49 But you know, the thing that's funny about it is that most human beings, even if you just look at United States, right, most people are not the extreme right or the extreme left.

Joe Rogan 1:06:59 No.

Daniele Bolelli 1:06:59 The overwhelming majority are not.

Joe Rogan 1:07:01 Right.

Daniele Bolelli 1:07:02 I think a lot of this stuff is also a little bit media created in the sense that it's like let's find the most batshit crazy person on that side.

Joe Rogan 1:07:09 True.

Daniele Bolelli 1:07:10 Let's put the spotlight on them which make everybody go like, "What the fuck?"

Joe Rogan 1:07:14 Yeah.

Daniele Bolelli 1:07:14 "Who are those crazy people?" And that's how... It's kind of like if you were to pick, you know, the Westboro Bas- Baptist Church and make it be representative of Christianity.

Joe Rogan 1:07:24 Mm-hmm.

Daniele Bolelli 1:07:24 Like it's not, you know?

Joe Rogan 1:07:26 Right.

Daniele Bolelli 1:07:26 But if you keep putting the spotlight there, you'll create this perception, will create a backlash, and it becomes this thing where... Like that's one of the funny things that I was noticing because-... like, I really don't like political correctness. I really don't like academia. I really don't ... You know, there are 10,000 of these things where I'm like, "Yeah, that's ... I'm completely on board with not liking some of these things." But then there's another side where, you know, I have been teaching at university since 2001.

Joe Rogan 1:07:53 Right.

Daniele Bolelli 1:07:54 I don't think I've seen once a case of the kind of political correctness that I see in articles in media. Not once, you know. Like, I was doing the math. I had probably maybe 11,000 students in my classes over the course of these years and I don't ... I haven't heard one person ever defend hardcore communism or make an argument. Even among my colleagues, which I have issues for other reasons, that's never been one of the things.

Joe Rogan 1:08:20 Yeah.

Daniele Bolelli 1:08:20 So, I'm like, I keep hearing about it, I read it on papers, but why is when I spend, you know, that's how I make my living, I'm on college campuses all the time, I hardly ever see it.

Joe Rogan 1:08:31 Mm-hmm.

Daniele Bolelli 1:08:31 And so I'm thinking ... I'm not saying that it's not true. Of course, it's tr- I mean, of course these stories are true.

Joe Rogan 1:08:35 Right.

Daniele Bolelli 1:08:35 There's no argument. But what I'm wondering is, how much do they get blown out of proportion because you get clicks, because it-

Joe Rogan 1:08:41 Mm-hmm.

Daniele Bolelli 1:08:42 ... makes for an interesting narrative, which then some people also live off-

Joe Rogan 1:08:46 Right.

Daniele Bolelli 1:08:46 ... that kind of narrative. And I'm like, how much is it something where we are putting the spotlight on a rare exception and make it the norm, versus how much it's a real thing? Because, you know, you would expect ... I mean, I teach in Southern California and some of the most li- you know, Santa Monica is one of the most liberal places around.

Joe Rogan 1:09:04 Right.

Daniele Bolelli 1:09:04 If this thing was as dominant as advertised, I should be running into it all the time, right? And I don't like that stuff, so I would be sensit- you know, I would be paying attention and yet I don't see it, so I'm like, "Hmm, what's going on here?" You know?

Joe Rogan 1:09:17 That's interesting. Well, I think the instances are more frequent than ever before, but I also think if you put it into perspective and think about how many universities there are-

Daniele Bolelli 1:09:27 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:09:27 ... across the country, I mean, there are hundreds and hundreds of universities.

Daniele Bolelli 1:09:32 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:09:32 And if you have one incident that breaks out one month in one place-

Daniele Bolelli 1:09:40 Exactly.

Joe Rogan 1:09:40 ... and it was about one conservative speaker that's going to give a lecture and everybody freaks out and