Joe Rogan Experience #1147 - Dr. Debra Soh

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   Five, four, three, two,…

   1. JRJoe Rogan0:01

      Five, four, three, two, one. (claps) Hello, Dr. Soh.

   2. DSDr. Debra Soh0:08

      Hi.

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:09

      What's happening? Pull this sucker-

   4. DSDr. Debra Soh0:11

      I'm good.

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:11

      ... about a fist from your face. There you go.

   6. DSDr. Debra Soh0:12

      Is that good?

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:13

      Yeah, perfect.

   8. DSDr. Debra Soh0:14

      All right.

   9. JRJoe Rogan0:14

      Thanks for doing this. Appreciate it.

   10. DSDr. Debra Soh0:15

       Thank you for having me.

   11. JRJoe Rogan0:17

       Uh, I've watched a bunch of your videos. I've listened to a bunch of your talks, read a bunch of your work. Y- very interesting person.

   12. DSDr. Debra Soh0:23

       Thank you.

   13. JRJoe Rogan0:24

       And this is a good time for a person like you. Things seem to be kind of scrambled.

   14. DSDr. Debra Soh0:27

       (laughs) A little bit, yeah.

   15. JRJoe Rogan0:29

       It's a little topsy-turvy out there these days.

   16. DSDr. Debra Soh0:30

       Yeah, a little bit crazy.

   17. JRJoe Rogan0:32

       So you're a sex neuroscientist? Is that an accurate description?

   18. DSDr. Debra Soh0:36

       Yeah, I'm a former academic sex researcher. Uh, my PhD is in sexual neuroscience research, and now I work as a science journalist and a columnist.

   19. JRJoe Rogan0:44

       And why former?

   20. DSDr. Debra Soh0:46

       Because the climate in academia has changed so much. Like you mentioned how things are topsy-turvy, but that's pretty much how you can describe academia nowadays, even in the hard sciences.

   21. JRJoe Rogan0:57

       Yeah, it's, um, it's getting a little weird. What do you attribute it to?

   22. DSDr. Debra Soh1:03

       I think it's a combination of things. I think it's, uh, particular ideologies coming in and taking over, but they've been there for a while, but I think it's th- that- that they've reached the mainstream. I see it as political correctness running amok, and I see it as legitimate researchers not being able to speak out because they've got enough on their plate with their research, their teaching, they've got their students, you know, they're super busy. And then on top of it, they don't want to deal with the mobbing that will inevitably happen if they do speak out. So things are kind of in favor right now of the craziness.

   23. JRJoe Rogan1:35

       But it's fascinating though, uh, as an outsider, to watch the craziness.

   24. DSDr. Debra Soh1:39

       I bet. (laughs)

   25. JRJoe Rogan1:40

       T- yeah, it's a, I mean, I'm glad I don't have to be in school right now and, and deal with it, but to watch it from the outside, it's just so interesting.

   26. DSDr. Debra Soh1:48

       Interesting in what way, though?

   27. JRJoe Rogan1:49

       Well, because it's almost like there's a sort of a delusional aspect to it, like a, uh, an agreed-upon delusional aspect.

   28. DSDr. Debra Soh1:58

       Mm-hmm.

   29. JRJoe Rogan1:58

       It's like, like the gender one in particular, g- the gen- gender is very strange right now.

   30. DSDr. Debra Soh2:04

       Yeah.
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   Mm-hmm. …

   1. DSDr. Debra Soh15:00

      feel better. My issue's with the kids. Uh, it's ... I don't think it's appropriate for children to be transitioning, and I can talk a bit more about why. But I think in terms of the pathology aspect, I think for ... Because gender is so trendy right now. And in the past, you might have seen this kind of pathology manifest in a different way, but now because everyone is saying gender is the way to express, you know ... I, I think people also see, if you have a problem in your life, they think it's gender-related. So say with someone with a personality disorder and people like a lot of attention, they like to, um ... It's always about them and their identity, and their identity shifts a lot.

   2. JRJoe Rogan15:34

      Mm-hmm.

   3. DSDr. Debra Soh15:35

      So it, this could very well be what it is, and now they're being basically rewarded for that.

   4. JRJoe Rogan15:39

      Yeah, that's the issue, right? That y- y- you're dealing with incredibly indulgent people, which do exist.

   5. DSDr. Debra Soh15:44

      Mm-hmm.

   6. JRJoe Rogan15:45

      And they, then they find this pathway-

   7. DSDr. Debra Soh15:47

      (laughs)

   8. JRJoe Rogan15:47

      ... to massive amounts of attention.

   9. DSDr. Debra Soh15:49

      Yeah.

   10. JRJoe Rogan15:49

       You know? I mean, this is ... I, I had to construct a bit to mock Caitlyn Jenner. I had-

   11. DSDr. Debra Soh15:55

       I saw it.

   12. JRJoe Rogan15:55

       But it was a very complicated bit.

   13. DSDr. Debra Soh15:57

       Mm-hmm.

   14. JRJoe Rogan15:57

       Like, I had to figure out how to do this.

   15. DSDr. Debra Soh15:59

       Yeah.

   16. JRJoe Rogan15:59

       I was like, o- obviously this is nonsense and foolish, but I don't want to appear cruel.

   17. DSDr. Debra Soh16:03

       Mm-hmm.

   18. JRJoe Rogan16:03

       So what is a way to do this? So my way was to mock myself mercilessly-

   19. DSDr. Debra Soh16:08

       (laughs)

   20. JRJoe Rogan16:08

       ... and which is kind of true. Like, I really do have three daughters, and I really do get brutalized in my house. Like-

   21. DSDr. Debra Soh16:14

       (laughs)

   22. JRJoe Rogan16:14

       ... I really do think they chip away at my manhood. It's kind of a joke. But, I mean, it really is, it's all girly in my house. My fucking house is so girly. Everyone's girly. They're always talking about girly shit. It's kind of-

   23. DSDr. Debra Soh16:25

       Yeah.

   24. JRJoe Rogan16:25

       ... hilarious.

   25. DSDr. Debra Soh16:26

       Yeah.

   26. JRJoe Rogan16:26

       But the joke was that if my manhood was a mountain of marbles, every day, they'd take two marbles.

   27. DSDr. Debra Soh16:32

       (laughs)

   28. JRJoe Rogan16:33

       They'd just take one.

   29. DSDr. Debra Soh16:34

       Yeah.

   30. JRJoe Rogan16:34

       Be like, "You don't even need these."
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   Yeah. …

   1. DSDr. Debra Soh30:00

      just 'cause there has been a history of there being sexism and-

   2. JRJoe Rogan30:02

      Yeah.

   3. DSDr. Debra Soh30:03

      ... and say, so with, um, the whole Google memo thing-

   4. JRJoe Rogan30:06

      Mm-hmm.

   5. DSDr. Debra Soh30:06

      ... um, and this idea that women are biologically, we are different, not to say we're not as capable, but if there are any sort of biological correlates to what women find interesting, could that be extrapolated to capability, extrapolated to women should go back to the kitchen, women aren't good at math, things like that. I, I mean, I get why people don't like biological explanations for things. I think, like you said, I think it's just a lot easier and it's a lazy way to just dismiss the whole thing and say, "You know, we don't need to think about it. Nothing to see here."

   6. JRJoe Rogan30:36

      Yeah. Nothing to see here. But it just, it's...... clearly not true in terms of the scientific research. So, th- there has to be some cognitive dissonance in order to accept that and to preach it and to say it, and everybody has to agree upon it, which is one of the reasons why I think any, uh, s- a- any statements contrary to that get aggressively attacked.

   7. DSDr. Debra Soh30:59

      Mm-hmm.

   8. JRJoe Rogan31:00

      And this is part of the reason why these ideas are so supercharged.

   9. DSDr. Debra Soh31:05

      Mm-hmm.

   10. JRJoe Rogan31:05

       It's that there's, there's a know- there's an understanding that it's horse shit, and so when someone challenges it and says it's horse shit, you've been living your whole life with this horse shit. It's almost like a religious thing.

   11. DSDr. Debra Soh31:16

       Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well, okay, I think some people know what the truth is and they actively lie because they think they're doing something good for women. So they'll say gender's a social construct even though they know it's biological. And I, I think people who are younger, maybe going through school now or being taught this actually don't know the difference and actually believe it.

   12. JRJoe Rogan31:34

       But why would they aggressively attack the scientific research that's contrary to that claim, then?

   13. DSDr. Debra Soh31:43

       You mean the people who don't know any better?

   14. JRJoe Rogan31:44

       Yeah.

   15. DSDr. Debra Soh31:44

       Well, they actually believe that gender's a social construct and these scientists are just sexist and misogynistic-

   16. JRJoe Rogan31:49

       Right.

   17. DSDr. Debra Soh31:49

       ... and wanna keep women down.

   18. JRJoe Rogan31:50

       But, I, I can get that if you didn't research it-

   19. DSDr. Debra Soh31:53

       Mm-hmm.

   20. JRJoe Rogan31:53

       ... if you didn't look into it. But once you start looking into it, you go, "Oh, wow, this is weird." Like there's clearly... I mean, there's-

   21. DSDr. Debra Soh31:59

       Do you think people actually look into it though? I don't think they do. The sense I get is they, they find someone or some journalist who has, has some sort of decent sounding criticism of the literature and they just parrot that.

   22. JRJoe Rogan32:11

       Mm-hmm.

   23. DSDr. Debra Soh32:11

       I don't think they actually go and look at the studies.

   24. JRJoe Rogan32:14

       Well, I think there's part of... There's definitely something to that, and I think there's something to this problem that human beings have, um, where they, they have an idea and that idea becomes a part of their identity.

   25. DSDr. Debra Soh32:25

       Yeah.

   26. JRJoe Rogan32:25

       And then they start arguing for that idea, and any argument against that idea is an argument against them as a person.

   27. DSDr. Debra Soh32:33

       Yeah.

   28. JRJoe Rogan32:33

       'Cause they're trying to win.

   29. DSDr. Debra Soh32:34

       Yeah.

   30. JRJoe Rogan32:35

       They're not necessarily looking at things in an objective way where they're detached from the idea and studying it as a thing. Instead, they're arguing to try to win.
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   (laughs) …

   1. JRJoe Rogan45:00

      I'm like, "Okay. All right."

   2. DSDr. Debra Soh45:02

      (laughs)

   3. JRJoe Rogan45:02

      "Maybe." But what... But it's kind of fucking weird that you can't figure out whether or not a phone is being used to, like... How are these hackers, how are these, like, super genius people who program phones, you can't, like, look at one of those phones and s- and figure out what it's doing?

   4. DSDr. Debra Soh45:16

      Mm-hmm.

   5. JRJoe Rogan45:16

      Is it, like, doing some magic or somehow or another it's stealing people's information and there's no mechanism that you can detect?

   6. DSDr. Debra Soh45:22

      Well, do you think there's another reason why they're not letting them in then?

   7. JRJoe Rogan45:25

      But this is what I'm worried about-

   8. DSDr. Debra Soh45:27

      Uh-huh.

   9. JRJoe Rogan45:27

      ... is that they're scared that these companies, which are fanatical, maniacal in their, uh, uh, aggressive pursuit of dominance in the cell phone markets and technology in general, are gonna take over.

   10. DSDr. Debra Soh45:40

       Mm-hmm.

   11. JRJoe Rogan45:40

       And they're gonna squash all these American companies.

   12. DSDr. Debra Soh45:43

       Mm-hmm.

   13. JRJoe Rogan45:43

       And I was like, "How much..." I w- I mean, this is my own personal speculation, but I'm looking at this, I'm like, "How much of, uh, how m- uh, much legitimacy is in that?" 'Cause they're, right now, worldwide, I believe they're the number three cell phone manufacturer. I think it's Samsung, Apple, and then Huawei.

   14. DSDr. Debra Soh45:59

       Hmm.

   15. JRJoe Rogan46:00

       But you can't buy Huawei phones in America.

   16. DSDr. Debra Soh46:02

       Hmm.

   17. JRJoe Rogan46:02

       And I'm wondering.

   18. DSDr. Debra Soh46:03

       Yeah. Yeah.

   19. JRJoe Rogan46:04

       We're scared of the Chinese taking over.

   20. DSDr. Debra Soh46:06

       (laughs)

   21. JRJoe Rogan46:06

       Dun, dun, dun.

   22. DSDr. Debra Soh46:07

       Are you, are you gonna try and get one of these phones anyway?

   23. JRJoe Rogan46:09

       I did try to get one, but what I found out is they're not, um, they're not set up for the US market. They're GSM phones and I'm on a CDMA network-

   24. DSDr. Debra Soh46:18

       Mm-hmm.

   25. JRJoe Rogan46:19

       ... but the GSM phones, they're using different bands. They're not using all the same bands. Like, when you buy a phone from China-

   26. DSDr. Debra Soh46:27

       Mm-hmm.

   27. JRJoe Rogan46:27

       ... even if it's for the UK, they don't use... Uh, so if you... There's some places where you would sacrifice coverage. Say if you bought a, uh... And if you're a cell phone genius out there and you listen to me butcher this, I'm so sorry.

   28. DSDr. Debra Soh46:40

       (laughs)

   29. JRJoe Rogan46:40

       But this is all I got. What's up? Could you just use it with wifi only and not connect it to the network? Why the fuck would you do that? 'Cause you're in a wifi almost everywhere you are. But I'm talking about as a phone. I know, but- Where's wifi... You're driving your phone. Everywhere. You're getting wifi when you're driving your car? Yeah. How you doing that? Time Warner has wifi all over LA. They have wifi in the air? I mean, it's not... They're probably tracking you, but yeah, definitely. 100%. Okay, so if you're driving in your car, you could be on wifi and have your cell phone service shut off? And your car also... Cars also now have them built into their thing too. There's LTE built into cars. Right, but those are cel- those are cellular. I know, but I'm just saying WiFi. They're cellular wifi. No, it's just a question. Couldn't you also- But that's a cellular wifi, so you'd have to have a cellular account. So, like, who would be your cellular provider? But then you're, then you're just connecting your phone to a wifi thing in your- Right, that's a different thing. ... BMW or Mercedes or whatever. Right, right. So whatever that is- Yeah. ... would be a local thing. So you could use the phone for something. But that... You'd have to be right next to your fucking car to use your phone. That's stupid. What I'm saying is, like, the problem with the... This is, uh, what I... An article that I read- Yeah, yeah. ... that was explaining the problem from... I think it was one of those tech sites. But it was saying that in certain places with limited coverage, you probably would have no coverage-

   30. DSDr. Debra Soh47:40

       Mm-hmm.
5. 1:00:00 – 1:10:44

   Mm-hmm. …

   1. JRJoe Rogan1:00:00

   2. DSDr. Debra Soh1:00:00

      Mm-hmm.

   3. JRJoe Rogan1:00:01

      Or, uh, if you are doing it, you're going to be categorized, "Oh, he's alt-right."

   4. DSDr. Debra Soh1:00:06

      Yeah.

   5. JRJoe Rogan1:00:06

      Or you're, you know, you're a conservative, or you're-

   6. DSDr. Debra Soh1:00:09

      Yeah.

   7. JRJoe Rogan1:00:09

      ... a s- you know, a ... Whatever. Whatever you are.

   8. DSDr. Debra Soh1:00:12

      Bad person.

   9. JRJoe Rogan1:00:13

      You're a bad person.

   10. DSDr. Debra Soh1:00:14

       (laughs)

   11. JRJoe Rogan1:00:14

       You're, you're wrongspeak.

   12. DSDr. Debra Soh1:00:15

       Yeah.

   13. JRJoe Rogan1:00:15

       Yeah.

   14. DSDr. Debra Soh1:00:16

       Yeah, exactly, and I-

   15. JRJoe Rogan1:00:17

       And so why did you decide to call your podcast that?

   16. DSDr. Debra Soh1:00:19

       Um, I mean, it's, uh, it's a throwback to Orwell, obviously, and 1984-

   17. JRJoe Rogan1:00:23

       Mm-hmm.

   18. DSDr. Debra Soh1:00:23

       ... and this idea that by controlling language, we can control, the government can control how people think and what reality is. And what I find interesting is, with the topics we covered, so first episode, we talked to James Damore. Second episode, we talked to Lindsay Shepherd and looked at the whole what happened at Wilfrid Laurier University. Um, and then the third one is rapid onset gender dysphoria, so looking at this trend in adolescent girls.... who come out as transgender even though they've had no previous signs of gender dysphoria. And so with all of them, these t- these issues are all super taboo, and all these people have been mobbed. Um, and in the case of rapid onset gender dysphoria, you see the parents who are being called transphobic for questioning, "Is my daughter really trans?" You know, we're just trying to get at the truth, really. We're trying to understand, you know, why is it we can't talk about these things? Why is it we are in such a situation now that the, the response to any sort of, um, unpopular idea is to be mobbed and to attack people and intimidate them and shut the conversation down? Like, how do we stop that from happening?

   19. JRJoe Rogan1:01:24

       Explain rapid onset gender dysphoria, because I'm not really aware of that.

   20. DSDr. Debra Soh1:01:28

       So it's this phenomenon that's been growing more recently bef-

   21. JRJoe Rogan1:01:31

       How recently?

   22. DSDr. Debra Soh1:01:32

       I'd probably say in the last 10 years, there's been a switch. So before, uh, referrals to gender clinics of kids who are feeling that they were born the opposite sex was predominantly boys, and then suddenly, there's been this explosion of girls. And so when you talk to the parents, um, and it's interesting, when, when you listen to the episode that we did, their stories are so similar. They're literally identical. They, their daughters have always been gender typical, so they were always very girly girls. They've never been gender dysphoric. They go through puberty, they develop, you know, there's no problem there. And then usually what happens is there's some sort of, I don't know, educational session at school or one of these girls, their friends come out as trans, and then the daughter says, "Oh, I, I want to be a boy." And so if you take that child to a professional, like a therapist, the therapist has to affirm. The therapist can't question that. And so you have these girls, and a lot of them have autism or they have other mental health issues. They're not getting treated for those issues. Instead, they're being told, "Okay, if you want to transition, w- we'll help you." And like I said, I'm not against adults transitioning. I, I don't think i- it's anyone's place to tell an adult what to do, and I think transitioning can be beneficial. But you want this... You... If someone transitions, you want it to actually help them feel better. And for these girls, if the issue is not even about gender, it doesn't make sense for them to transition.

   23. JRJoe Rogan1:02:50

       Now, this rapid onset gender dysphoria, is this typically females?

   24. DSDr. Debra Soh1:02:54

       Yeah, almost all females.

   25. JRJoe Rogan1:02:55

       Why? What, what is the cause of that?

   26. DSDr. Debra Soh1:02:57

       I think it's social contagion. I think part of it is for some of these girls, they are, you know, a bit socially awkward, and so when they come out as transgender, suddenly everybody loves them and wants to support them. And I, I think as people should for trans people, because obviously it's a difficult thing to go through, but I, I think there's an aspect of it that people aren't talking about, that kids are coming out as transgender just because it gives them acceptance.

   27. JRJoe Rogan1:03:19

       An extra reward.

   28. DSDr. Debra Soh1:03:20

       Yeah.

   29. JRJoe Rogan1:03:21

       There's a reward in terms of the attention they get.

   30. DSDr. Debra Soh1:03:23

       Yeah.

Episode duration: 3:09:47