Joe Rogan Experience #1241 - Sam Harris

1. 0:00 – 3:24

   Blowback from the Jack Dorsey interview: censorship, softball questions, and sponsor suspicions

   1. JRJoe Rogan0:00

      ... five, four, three, two... (claps) Hello, Sam Harris.

   2. SHSam Harris0:05

      Hey, man.

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:06

      Good to see you.

   4. SHSam Harris0:07

      Ha- happy to be here. It's great.

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:07

      Good. I listened to your podcast with Jack. Let's just get right into the-

   6. SHSam Harris0:10

      Let's jump in.

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:11

      ... the Jack stuff.

   8. SHSam Harris0:12

      Yeah.

   9. JRJoe Rogan0:12

      'Cause I listened to your podcast with Jack, and I found something very... When I did my podcast with Jack, first of all, was not anticipating the blowback that I received. It was-

   10. SHSam Harris0:20

       Yeah.

   11. JRJoe Rogan0:21

       ... stunning. Uh, but, um, he... What, what I thought was... I was just gonna have a conversation with this guy, be fun, see what it's like to run this gigantic network that helps people communicate. You o- You okay, Jamie?

   12. SHSam Harris0:34

       I'm good. I'm good.

   13. JRJoe Rogan0:35

       All right. Helps people communicate-

   14. SHSam Harris0:37

       (clears throat)

   15. JRJoe Rogan0:37

       ... and distribute information worldwide. What is it like to start something like that up and have it become what it is? Like, how have you managed to try to keep up with it and what have the headaches been?

   16. SHSam Harris0:46

       Right.

   17. JRJoe Rogan0:47

       Apparently, people online, particularly the people that wanna comment about this, all they wanted to know about was censorship. And that was an issue with me, there was a question with me, but it became a far... It was a far bigger question for people online. They felt like that I tossed him softball questions, um, and that I didn't press him.

   18. SHSam Harris1:05

       Yeah.

   19. JRJoe Rogan1:06

       And then I listened to your podcast. And, uh, one thing about Jack is very smart guy, very nice guy, but he talks in a very slow and methodical way. And when you ask him a question, he takes these routes. And if you don't wanna jump in and press him, like, you're in this weird situation where he's not totally answering your question-

   20. SHSam Harris1:29

       Mm-hmm.

   21. JRJoe Rogan1:29

       ... but he's talking about the same subject that you're talking... Like, f- for instance, you brought up Louis Farrakhan.

   22. SHSam Harris1:34

       Right.

   23. JRJoe Rogan1:35

       Like how is Louis Farrakhan in good standing on the platform? And someone like, you know, fill in the blank, Milo Yiannopoulos or Laura Loomer or whoever it was, they get kicked off. He never got to that. He went around and around and around with you.

   24. SHSam Harris1:48

       Yeah.

   25. JRJoe Rogan1:48

       And, um, he recognized this after the podcast. Uh, I received a lot of blowback. He received a lot of blowback. So I, I contacted him and he said he'd be more than happy to come back on again and, and address all these things. And I said okay. What I'd like to do is address specific instances of people being censored. And he said, "Okay, what I'll do is I'll bring in someone from the company that's in charge of that stuff."

   26. SHSam Harris2:11

       Right.

   27. JRJoe Rogan2:11

       So I'm starting to put together a picture of what it's like to be a CEO of something as big... And he's also a CEO of Square. He's runs the Cash App. There's a lot of stuff going on there, right? So he's obviously busy. How much day-to-day involvement does he actually have and who gets censored and why they get censored and how much is he willing to share about that? So we're gonna find out in the next follow-up podcast, but I got accused of everything from being a shill, to being a cuck-

   28. SHSam Harris2:40

       Yeah.

   29. JRJoe Rogan2:40

       ... to being a... And there's also an issue that you've managed to avoid, wisely so, of advertising. The Cash App's an advertiser on my podcast. So because the Cash App's an advertiser on my podcast-

   30. SHSam Harris2:51

       Right, right. The man had you by the throat.
2. 3:24 – 7:05

   Why Jack Dorsey is hard to interview: boilerplate transparency talk and the "brick wall" effect

   1. SHSam Harris3:24

      Yeah. So i- it's interesting because you and I have, uh... We had different interviews because they were timed differently. I mean, it's, uh, this, uh... It's an interesting topic because this opens the door to all the ways in which our podcasts are different. I mean, they, I mean, you stream live, I sit on my podcast for at least a week. In, in Jack's case, it was like two weeks before I released it. So, um, I did my interview with him before this flurry of interviews with him came out. I mean, there's a Rolling Stone interview, there was a, uh, uh... I think only... I think maybe a Huffington Post interview had come out, but basically there was nothing out there, so I had no real examples of how he dealt with these questions. Um, yeah.

   2. JRJoe Rogan4:01

      Or how he talked.

   3. SHSam Harris4:02

      Yeah, yeah.

   4. JRJoe Rogan4:02

      Yeah.

   5. SHSam Harris4:02

      Well, I mean, slow talking is not a problem for me because I'm one of the great slow talkers, so-

   6. JRJoe Rogan4:06

      (laughs)

   7. SHSam Harris4:07

      ... so we're, we're in a groove there. Um, but he, um... I, I, I didn't know what his boilerplate was and, and how he would, he would answer any of these questions. And, uh, your podcast came out before mine did, but mine wa- mine was before the Covington High School Catholic-

   8. JRJoe Rogan4:25

      Oh, wow.

   9. SHSam Harris4:25

      ... circus happened, right? So the, the real missed opportunity for me was just a sheer matter of timing, like I, uh... You know, because the Covington thing put such a fine point on everything that's wrong with Twitter and the way journalism interacts with it, right? I mean, it was... It just, you know... Uh, I think it was, uh... Farhad Manjoo wrote a, uh, an op-ed in the New York Times saying Twitter has destroyed journalism, and, and, and it was not a crazy op-ed, in fact, uh, after the Covington thing, and the whole... And so... And, and Kathy Griffin would have been the perfect example to talk about it, like, well, you know, why she's still on if she's calling for the doxing, right?

   10. JRJoe Rogan4:58

       Yeah.

   11. SHSam Harris4:59

       But, you know, I, I think I had a substantially similar interview with him that you did, uh, because he's... There's two things. One is he's great at sort of pirouetting around the, the, the, the sharp pointed question of, you know, wh- "What is the policy and why are, why are you applying it in this seemingly disparate way?" Uh, and it seems to skew politically in one direction all the time, right? Uh, but, you know, I think you also, uh... I mean, you know, I did and I, I think you did naturally, w- we cut him some slack in that he's the CEO of these two corporations. He can't be expected to actually know what happened in every one of these micro cases. Like, I think I brought up the case of... I think her name is Meghan Murphy. I mean, I, I hadn't even heard of her before.

   12. JRJoe Rogan5:46

       That's the lesbian woman that-

   13. SHSam Harris5:47

       She's like a feminist who said sort of the wrong thing, uh, uh, in the transgender space. She said something like, "Men are not women."

   14. JRJoe Rogan5:54

       Okay. Right, right, right.

   15. SHSam Harris5:55

       And she got banned. And-

   16. JRJoe Rogan5:57

       For life or temporary ban?

   17. SHSam Harris5:58

       No, I, I think it was temporary, but, you know... So I, I raised it and, you know, he, he obviously can't know exactly what happened in that case, or at least it would be surprising to me if he knew, uh... So the fact that he doesn't have his finger on each one of these cases and what the, what the rationale was, and he has this sort of generic answer that-... what you're seeing, you know, in public is not necessarily what we're seeing. In fact, in, in ver- virtually every actionable case, it's not what we're seeing in private with respect to how these people are op- open- opening multiple accounts and doing seemingly nefarious stuff behind the scenes. Now, whether that is true, I don't know. But I, I mean, I can just say that Jack seemed, um ... One, I, I, I liked him and he, he seemed l- unusually open to talking about anything I wanted-

   18. JRJoe Rogan6:47

       Yes.

   19. SHSam Harris6:47

       ... to talk about. And so I, I saw one allegation that got hurled at you was that, you know, you must have been constrained by, you know, the topics you couldn't touch in advance. You must have had a g- some agreement with him in advance. You know, it didn't happen with me, right?

   20. JRJoe Rogan6:59

       No. I should address that.

   21. SHSam Harris7:00

       Yeah.

   22. JRJoe Rogan7:00

       There was no, no discussion whatsoever about what was off limits.

   23. SHSam Harris7:03

       Yeah. Yeah, and he-

   24. JRJoe Rogan7:03

       There was no nothing.

3. 7:05 – 12:46

   Live vs edited podcasting: workflow, risk management, and why Sam offers edits

   1. SHSam Harris7:05

      And he asked for no ... So w- in my, in my case, I tell all my guests, and this is the difference between you streaming live and, and me not, I tell all my guests, "Listen, if at any point in this interview you put your foot in your mouth or I put my foot in there, we can edit it," right? Like, "We ..." You know, "I want y- I want you to be totally happy with what you say over the next two or three hours."

   2. JRJoe Rogan7:24

      Mm-hmm.

   3. SHSam Harris7:25

      Uh, "so if you have to take something again, take it again, and, you know, we'll just hide the seams as we go." Now, that virtually never happens, right? And in Jack's case, it, there wasn't even a wrinkle like that. So, um, but, you know, I, I just, you know, I, I, I recognize it's a high wire act for a lot of these people, especially for someone who's running two publicly traded companies, right? And, um, you know, I also, when I invited him on, I said, I said, "Jack, you know," y- y- y- uh, we were DMing on Twitter and I said, "Listen, I promise I'm not gonna make you smoke a blunt on video."

   4. JRJoe Rogan7:54

      (laughs)

   5. SHSam Harris7:55

      And that, that got him. So I don't know how you got him, but, but-

   6. JRJoe Rogan7:57

      I didn't try to get him to smoke a blunt.

   7. SHSam Harris7:59

      (laughs)

   8. JRJoe Rogan8:00

      I, I didn't-

   9. SHSam Harris8:00

      Oh, no?

   10. JRJoe Rogan8:00

       ... even think about it.

   11. SHSam Harris8:01

       Yeah.

   12. JRJoe Rogan8:02

       Yeah. We weren't drinking, we were just talking. Maybe it would've been better if we were drinking because it did seem very stiff. Um, I listened to it after the fact-

   13. SHSam Harris8:08

       (clears throat)

   14. JRJoe Rogan8:10

       ... and (sighs) I mean, I get from their anticipation why it would be disappointing. I just thought it was kinda boring.

   15. SHSam Harris8:17

       Right.

   16. JRJoe Rogan8:17

       I thought my podcast with him just wasn't very good. I sometimes do too many podcasts. And when I sometimes do too many podcasts, I think I run low on juice and I'm not as, uh, I don't know, I'm not as engaged or I'm not as fired up about it. And maybe I just should have ... I definitely should have prepared more for him, but I really thought it was just going to be a conversation about what it's like, and I thought that would be really easy to do.

   17. SHSam Harris8:42

       Yeah.

   18. JRJoe Rogan8:42

       Because it's such a unique-

   19. SHSam Harris8:43

       Yeah.

   20. JRJoe Rogan8:43

       ... position to be running something like Twitter. But he, you know, I don't know if he was evasive in t- because he didn't know the things or because he didn't want to talk about the things, but there was things like he didn't know exactly why Alex Jones was ultimately banned. He didn't, he couldn't recall or didn't know. Now, is that because he couldn't recall, is it because he didn't want to talk about it, or is it because he didn't remember it? I mean, I don't, I don't know. I mean, you'd have to-

   21. SHSam Harris9:09

       Right.

   22. JRJoe Rogan9:09

       ... you'd have to be inside his head to get that answer.

   23. SHSam Harris9:11

       Yeah. And he, he's clearly got a, a very practiced line that he uses to answer these questions.

   24. JRJoe Rogan9:19

       Yes.

   25. SHSam Harris9:19

       And I mean, 'cause I, you know, I know what it's like to have boilerplate. I, you know, I've been on bo- on a book tour and you're just basically getting asked the same questions again and again. And here he's getting asked fairly pointed questions about, you know, where Twitter's going. And he's got, you know, I don't think this is dishonest, I just think, but it has this amazing ability to close the door to further inquiry because he, he gives you the full mea culpa right up front. You ask like, uh, "What's, what's the situation with, you know, the seemingly asymmetrical banning of people?" And he'll say, you know, "Yeah, we really, I mean, we've got to get much better at communicating our process. We're not nearly transparent enough. This whole thing-"

   26. JRJoe Rogan9:59

       Yes.

   27. SHSam Harris9:59

       "... is in disarray and my job is to fix it." Right? So it's like a global, you know, "We're fucked up and we're gonna get better, I promise you," right?

   28. JRJoe Rogan10:07

       Yeah.

   29. SHSam Harris10:07

       And there's, and there's-

   30. JRJoe Rogan10:07

       But that doesn't do any good for the people that are already banned, right?
4. 12:46 – 19:33

   YouTube comments, moderation conspiracies, and how platforms shape audience behavior

   1. JRJoe Rogan12:46

      There's also the visual element of it. And the visual element of it in- initially was almost like a side effect. I mean, we, uh, we first started it out visually, but then when it started going to iTunes, the iTunes aspect of it became the focus, the, uh, audio version of it, rather, became the focus. But then we decided to stream on YouTube and put it up on YouTube, but it was totally not profitable. It was just for, for a goof, like-

   2. SHSam Harris13:11

      Right.

   3. JRJoe Rogan13:11

      ... "Oh, we'll have the video up. Why not? Some people like video." It was one of those things.

   4. SHSam Harris13:14

      (clears throat)

   5. JRJoe Rogan13:14

      But then you realize ultimately that YouTube becomes a viable source of revenue. And then, it's also the way a lot of people like to watch it, you know? And they also like to watch it because they can comment under it.

   6. SHSam Harris13:26

      Yeah.

   7. JRJoe Rogan13:26

      So that was the other thing that came out of the Jack podcast. We got into a controversy about comments and about how comments are deleted or how they're sh- they're shown and hidden and what happens 'cause people were accusing Jamie of deleting all the derogatory comments. The- we don't touch any. We don't, we don't delete any of them.

   8. SHSam Harris13:45

      Right.

   9. JRJoe Rogan13:45

      We don't do anything to them. We just leave them up there and it's, uh, mostly a cesspool.

   10. SHSam Harris13:50

       Yes. Yeah.

   11. JRJoe Rogan13:51

       But (laughs) I mean, even, even on a good podcast, there's a lot of crazy shit that happens on these things. But from what we think, and Jamie, correct me if I'm wrong, you think that what's going on is that people are marking other people's posts as spam. There's that. And then Brandon also has a theory-

   12. SHSam Harris14:06

       Mm-hmm.

   13. JRJoe Rogan14:06

       ... that a lot of alt-right people are targeted, um, by the algorithm that YouTube uses, like in, in, in one case, there was a guy who had a Pepe the Frog avatar, and he said, like, his, his comment immediately went to spam. And that the other thing is that the comments are curated depending upon who is watching it and what account it'll be, they'll be different.

   14. NANarrator14:29

       Sort of, yeah. They, they'll propagate different comments to the top. It's not a... This- you can sh- actually change it if you, if you prefer to see the most new comment, like the newest comment, right.

   15. JRJoe Rogan14:37

       From your own personal YouTube when you're watching.

   16. NANarrator14:40

       Yeah, but you, you as a viewer-

   17. JRJoe Rogan14:41

       Yes.

   18. NANarrator14:42

       ... or user of YouTube-

   19. SHSam Harris14:42

       Mm-hmm.

   20. NANarrator14:42

       ... have to make that actual-

   21. JRJoe Rogan14:44

       Yeah. So that-

   22. NANarrator14:45

       ... distinction.

   23. JRJoe Rogan14:46

       ... that conspiracy theory just heightened the whole thing, right? Okay, now they're deleting negative comments. Like, I, look, I don't like doing bad podcasts, but I will be the first one to tell you when I think a podcast sucked.

   24. SHSam Harris14:56

       Yeah.

   25. JRJoe Rogan14:56

       Um, that podcast was definitely disappointing. It wasn't good. Mine wasn't good. It was, I, like I said, when I listened to it, I was like, "God, this is kind of boring."

   26. SHSam Harris15:03

       Yeah, yeah.

   27. JRJoe Rogan15:03

       Just wasn't, wasn't juicy. There was nothing, he, we, he, we didn't get a flow. It wasn't like he, he and I were just shooting the shit, having a good time.

   28. SHSam Harris15:11

       Well, so take that one decision. So you have decided to make video a main component of this podcast.

   29. JRJoe Rogan15:16

       Yeah.

   30. SHSam Harris15:16

       Now, it's still probably a, a small percentage of your actual listens, your actual-
5. 19:33 – 42:18

   Podcast monetization wars: ads vs audience support, Patreon fallout, and the "illusion of free"

   1. JRJoe Rogan19:33

      ... that's online forever. But there's so many fucking conspiracy theories about all this stuff. It's, it's fascinating. And as, you know, we were talking about earlier with your f- with the way you do yours, you used to use Patreon and now you use your own website, um, after the Sargon of Akkad incident-

   2. SHSam Harris19:52

      Yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan19:52

      ... which you nobly stepped back away from Patreon. Now-

   4. SHSam Harris19:55

      Mm-hmm. Or, or not so nobly-

   5. JRJoe Rogan19:56

      Or, or whatever. (laughs)

   6. SHSam Harris19:57

      ... depending on, on what you think of Sargon of Akkad, yeah.

   7. JRJoe Rogan19:59

      Yeah, well, it's not even that. It's, uh ... Yeah. Yeah. Well, even-

   8. SHSam Harris20:03

      There's so many misconceptions about what happened there and my ... I, I, you know, I tried to clear them up o- on my podcast, but, yeah, there's an interesting implication to not taking ads. I mean, I, I, I think-

   9. JRJoe Rogan20:15

      Yeah.

   10. SHSam Harris20:15

       ... what's happening, and this is much bigger than even podcasting, I think ... Um, and I'd be interested to know what you feel about this. I mean, yo- you have, you are the, the, the quintessence of the successful ad model in, in podcasting, right? It's like th- this is y- ... It's working fantastically well for you and for people like Tim Ferriss and, you know, probably Marc Maron. I mean, there's, there's, there's some ... There's kinda like a winner take all thing happening in this space where ads are working great. Um, and I am a really ... Also, a, a, uh, a highly successful example of the, the support model. It's like the PBS model or the NPR model. And what's weird is that I can't like ... That we, you know ... You and I are both surrounded by people who have podcasts, want to have podcasts, and are asking us for advice about how to succeed and how to monetize. And like, I'm, uh, not even in a place where I can recommend my model to anyone else, right? Because it's, it's a very, uh, you know, it's, it's very hit or miss. I mean, I ha- just happen to have developed an audience that will support my work.

   11. JRJoe Rogan21:18

       And you had developed that audience previously, ironically enough, on YouTube. There's a lot of YouTube-

   12. SHSam Harris21:23

       Well, yeah, just-

   13. JRJoe Rogan21:23

       ... debates and ... Yeah.

   14. SHSam Harris21:24

       ... random people putting, people putting my content on their YouTube channels.

   15. JRJoe Rogan21:27

       Right. Well, no-

   16. SHSam Harris21:28

       Yeah.

   17. JRJoe Rogan21:28

       Yeah. The, uh, mostly debates, right?

   18. SHSam Harris21:30

       Yeah.

   19. JRJoe Rogan21:31

       It's, it's a debate.

   20. SHSam Harris21:31

       And as a, you know, as an author, but it w- I mean, it was just the, the podcast grew and I had this, uh, sort of for- forced choice where I w- am I gonna go the, the, the ad route or, or not? And I found that ... I mean, I have two things to, uh, to say, you know, fairly strongly against ads, but o- only, really only o- one of them applies to me, and I, I don't think it applies to you or Tim or, or anyone else. Um, I just felt personally I couldn't use ads because of sort of just what my platform is and, and the kinds of topics I'm engaging, and it just didn't work. I mean, there was nothing high-brow enough where I felt like my credibility wasn't getting subtly undermined by, by shilling for it. I mean-

   21. JRJoe Rogan22:14

       Mm-hmm.

   22. SHSam Harris22:14

       It could be something that I just legit loved. I mean, it could've been the Oxford English Dictionary, you know? Like-

   23. JRJoe Rogan22:18

       Right.

   24. SHSam Harris22:18

       ... you, you guys ... It's the best dictionary in the world. You guys should use it. I still couldn't do it, and I mean, I tried it with... The only thing I, I took on as a sponsor was Audible, and I did that for some weeks, and then it just ... You know, I love Audible, but, but it, it just felt wrong, and so I decided to just experiment with a different business model. And it's working for me, but th- it's ... I don't think it can work for most people, and I th- I view that as a problem. And I, and I, and the thing that I, I think is, is interesting is that n- there's the ... This is much bigger than podcasting. So you have like ... You have Facebook on the one hand, which is just a, a totally free platform whe- where the users don't even realize that they're not the customers, they're the actual product, right? The users are, the users are having their attention sold to advertisers, and it's this enormous business. And on the other end of the digital spectrum, you have Netflix, which is just a stark paywall, right? And, um, there's no way in but to pay the subscription, and you know, that's ... And, and you know, Netflix could run ads and get more money if they wanted to, but they're, you know, uh, not, they're not doing that, and presumably won't do that. And I'm hoping, just generally speaking, that the digital future looks much more like Netflix and much less like Facebook. And because I see, uh, what ads has, uh, ads have done is they've anchored everyone to the illusion of free. Everyone expects their digital content for free.

   25. JRJoe Rogan23:45

       Mm-hmm.

   26. SHSam Harris23:46

       Except in places like Netflix, right? So like if ... When you release a, a comedy special, when you re- release your next hour and you sell it to Net- Netflix, I would imagine there are very few people in, in your fan base who are thinking, "Well, fuck Joe Rogan. Why didn't he just put that out on YouTube?" Right? "Why is this on Netflix?" They, they sort of understand that this piece of content is ... Belongs on that shelf and that if they want it, they have to subscribe to Netflix. Uh, whereas if you did something slightly different, but you know, functionally the same, if you put it on Vimeo and charge people $5 or whatever, you know, Vimeo on Demand, um, you, I think you'd get a lot more pain, right?

   27. JRJoe Rogan24:25

       Yeah.

   28. SHSam Harris24:25

       You, people would say, "Well, fuck you, you greedy bastard." Like, you, you're already doing great. Just release your stuff, right?

   29. JRJoe Rogan24:30

       Yeah.

   30. SHSam Harris24:30

       And I, I view that as a problem. Uh, it's like, it's like a psychological problem. People have been anchored to the ad subsidized model more or less everywhere, and they expect everything for, for free. And in my world, I'm trying to, just to c- continually brook that expectation and push people into a different sense of you get what you pay for.
6. 42:18 – 45:45

   Guest optics and public pressure: Elon Musk, streaming live, and how interviews can go sideways

   1. JRJoe Rogan42:18

      Some people. Like Elon took a while.

   2. SHSam Harris42:20

      Oh.

   3. JRJoe Rogan42:20

      Like, we had to start drinking.

   4. SHSam Harris42:22

      No, that was brutal. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

   5. JRJoe Rogan42:24

      (laughs)

   6. SHSam Harris42:24

      But, so like, but that... I mean, you know how much I tried to micromanage that behind the scenes, right?

   7. JRJoe Rogan42:28

      Yes, and, and thank you for that. Yeah.

   8. SHSam Harris42:28

      Like, I was all in your, in your grill to, you know, trying to figure that out.

   9. JRJoe Rogan42:31

      (laughs)

   10. SHSam Harris42:31

       And, you know, you guys basically broke all the rules I la- I thought I laid down. Uh-

   11. JRJoe Rogan42:36

       (laughs)

   12. SHSam Harris42:36

       And, but Elon did it 'cause El- Elon tweeted, "Y'all, be on Joe's podcast Thursday night at 9:00," whatever.

   13. JRJoe Rogan42:41

       Yeah. I was like, "Oh, no."

   14. SHSam Harris42:42

       And it was like, "Okay, this is so..." But you know, I mean, I, I didn't want you guys to go live.

   15. JRJoe Rogan42:45

       Right.

   16. SHSam Harris42:46

       I wanted, I wanted you to both have a chance to say, "Wait a minute. Is, is smoking a blunt really the thing we wanna be doing here?"

   17. JRJoe Rogan42:51

       (laughs)

   18. SHSam Harris42:52

       Uh, so, you know, you didn't take my advice, and it was what it was, and it was-

   19. JRJoe Rogan42:56

       Well, we were drunk by the time the weed came out.

   20. SHSam Harris42:58

       Yeah.

   21. JRJoe Rogan42:58

       That was what's... What's interesting to me is we were drinking from the beginning of the podcast. We started drinking whiskey. We both had Th- two or three glasses of whiskey-

   22. SHSam Harris43:07

       Right.

   23. JRJoe Rogan43:07

       ... before the weed came out. Nobody cared the fact that the CEO of Tesla was drunk.

   24. SHSam Harris43:11

       Right.

   25. JRJoe Rogan43:12

       Like, no one cared about that. I mean, he wasn't drunk, but he shouldn't have been driving.

   26. SHSam Harris43:15

       Although I, I, I don't, I don't know if that was obvious. I, I, I don't know if they saw that you were drinking-

   27. JRJoe Rogan43:19

       It was obvious.

   28. SHSam Harris43:19

       ... in, in the beginning.

   29. JRJoe Rogan43:20

       We were pouring the whiskey.

   30. SHSam Harris43:21

       Right. Okay.
7. 45:45 – 53:26

   Liam Neeson and the crisis of redemption: apologies, forgiveness, and outrage incentives

   1. JRJoe Rogan45:45

      Well, the Liam Neeson-

   2. SHSam Harris45:46

      ... in other words-

   3. JRJoe Rogan45:46

      ... story is a perfect example.

   4. SHSam Harris45:48

      Yeah, let's, let's go there. Okay.

   5. JRJoe Rogan45:49

      Yeah, let, let's go there. A perfect example of a story where, you know, if you were Liam's friend, you would go, "Don't tell that one."

   6. SHSam Harris45:57

      Right, yeah.

   7. JRJoe Rogan45:57

      "Don't tell that one." He's like, "But I wanna be honest."

   8. SHSam Harris45:59

      Yeah.

   9. JRJoe Rogan46:00

      Like, "Don't, don't." You could be honest with me. I'm not gonna judge you. If you tell me that someone got raped and you went out with a baseball bat for, uh, a week looking for a Black man to beat up, I would kill.

   10. SHSam Harris46:12

       To kill, yeah.

   11. JRJoe Rogan46:12

       To kill.

   12. SHSam Harris46:12

       Yeah, yeah.

   13. JRJoe Rogan46:12

       I'd be like, "Oh, Jesus Christ, man." Like, "What the fuck was going through your head at that point in time?" Like, "That's terrible." Like, "Yeah," like, "I feel awful about it, I can't believe that was me," but-

   14. SHSam Harris46:21

       Right.

   15. JRJoe Rogan46:22

       ... but it didn't happen. Nothing happened. And now, you know, people are calling him a racist-

   16. SHSam Harris46:26

       (clears throat)

   17. JRJoe Rogan46:26

       ... and they don't want him in movies, and ...

   18. SHSam Harris46:29

       Well, I mean, this is, this is fascinating to me because a- again, this is a much larger problem with, with massive implications. We need to think through the whole process of redemption for people-

   19. JRJoe Rogan46:41

       Yes.

   20. SHSam Harris46:41

       ... in our society, right? Like, like we, we have to understand what are the, what are the criteria for successful apologies and for forgiveness, right? What, and like, well, just what, uh, because especial- ... I mean, we're in, we're in a world where people are, are having their, their reputations destroyed and their careers threatened for tweets that they sent as teenagers.

   21. JRJoe Rogan47:04

       Yes.

   22. SHSam Harris47:05

       Right? And, and, you know, more, and this, this is to Dorsey's point, things are not disappearing online anymore. At a certain point, you know, uh, everyone, there's just gonna be a 360 kind of panopticon view of everyone's life, you know? There are people who have grown up on social media and everything is out there. And, um, I mean, the irony here for me is that you have, uh, you know, progress- progressives and, you know, people on the far left who receive a disclosure like, you know, Liam Neeson's, let's, let's take his, and they just want, you know, they just wanna see him burned alive, right? "Let's, let's just do The Wicker Man on this guy because this is, you know, this is so awful." And yet, alongside that, these same people on the left are people who have as a, as a genuine ethical norm the rehabilitation of murderers.

   23. JRJoe Rogan47:57

       Yes.

   24. SHSam Harris47:57

       Right? Like, you could be somebody who spent, you know, 20 years in prison for a crime you admit you committed, and there's this norm around redemption. And, uh, so there's, you know, there's no way to square those two things, right?

   25. JRJoe Rogan48:11

       Well, they, they're constantly holding these two, two contradictions, right?

   26. SHSam Harris48:14

       Yeah.

   27. JRJoe Rogan48:14

       I mean, here's another one. Women's rights and support of the hijab. I mean-

   28. SHSam Harris48:18

       Yeah.

   29. JRJoe Rogan48:19

       ... what-

   30. SHSam Harris48:19

       Yeah, this is-
8. 53:26 – 1:06:56

   Covington, tribal doubling-down, and how social media rewards the worst interpretations

   1. SHSam Harris53:26

      I mean you have ... Like so for instance, I missed the whole Covington High School Catholic fiasco, right?

   2. JRJoe Rogan53:32

      Because you're not on Twitter.

   3. SHSam Harris53:33

      I basically was ignoring Twitter.

   4. JRJoe Rogan53:34

      Nice.

   5. SHSam Harris53:35

      I saw it out of the corner of my eye, like man, this is interesting.

   6. JRJoe Rogan53:37

      Yeah.

   7. SHSam Harris53:37

      This is, this is blowing up. But I, I was so off Twitter that I had ... there was no temptation for a hot take from me, right? And I saw these people just torching their reputations by taking these ... Like Kathy Griffin, right? Basically calling for the doxing of these kids, you know, given all that she has suffered, you know, from, from mob behavior online and she's, you know, whipping up her own mob. It was just nuts.

   8. JRJoe Rogan54:02

      But it's normal.

   9. SHSam Harris54:03

      Uh-

   10. JRJoe Rogan54:03

       That's what people do.

   11. SHSam Harris54:04

       It's what the platform is calling out of people, yeah.

   12. JRJoe Rogan54:06

       But it's also when people have been shamed and they've done something awful, then they reinforce their base. Like now she's like so heavily hard left-

   13. SHSam Harris54:17

       Right.

   14. JRJoe Rogan54:17

       ... because the right wing went after her. Like anyone on the right that does anything, she's calling for her side to go after this person. Like reinforcing that she's a part of that tribe, that she's a part of that left wing tribe.

   15. SHSam Harris54:29

       Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's ... So obviously everyone has a lot to lose doing this, especially in a case where all the facts aren't in and if you just wait at a beat. I mean even the New York Times-

   16. JRJoe Rogan54:41

       Yeah.

   17. SHSam Harris54:41

       ... got this wrong. The New York Times writes an article about the kids and the MAGA hat that, that they have to rescind. And the ... So then as the dust is settling and I see these people, some people are doubling down, some people are issuing public apologies, I see somebody who's actually kind of cr- you know, branded herself as one of my enemies for some- for a reason I can't fathom, but this journalist, Kara Swisher, uh, who, um, you know, she works for Re/code and Vox now, but she's got a big podcast and she's a big ... She actually writes for the New York Times now. She's got an opinion piece, you know, a regular column for the New York Times. She's a tech journalist, um, and I happen to know she doesn't like me because she's tweeted against ... You know, she's said some disparaging things about me on Twitter and we had a, you know, an offline conversation about it. Uh, but I saw her ... She said one of the most vituperative and, you know, fairly crazy things in response to the kids initially-... and then once more information came out, she walked it back and she basically apologized, you know-

   18. JRJoe Rogan55:44

       Well, good for her.

   19. SHSam Harris55:45

       ... on Twitter. And so, so I said, "Good for you, Kara." I- I- I just wanted to, to support this norm of-

   20. JRJoe Rogan55:51

       Yeah.

   21. SHSam Harris55:51

       ... acknowledging that you got something wrong. And I wanted to do it even, I wanted to actually do it for someone who I know really doesn't like me. Like I mean-

   22. JRJoe Rogan55:59

       Okay.

   23. SHSam Harris55:59

       ... that was an added bonus for me because that- that's another norm that I- that I think we should support. It's like, like we should, we should play fair even with our enemies, right?

   24. JRJoe Rogan56:08

       Yes.

   25. SHSam Harris56:08

       And yeah, I mean, honestly I, you know, I try to play fair even with people who never play fair with me, even someone like, you know, Glenn Greenwald or Ray Zazulon. I mean people who have just, you know, lied about me endlessly. If I get something wrong about them, I publicly apologize for it. Um, so I did this and... So this was at the- the absolute 11th hour with respect to this- this, um, you know, scandal online. And I, when I saw the kind of pain I was getting just for con- you know, s- supporting Kara in her walk-back of this thing, at- at a moment when it was obvious she should have walked this back, I got people saying, you know, "Unsubscribing from your podcast."

   26. JRJoe Rogan56:47

       (laughs)

   27. SHSam Harris56:47

       "You are, you know, now I know you're a fucking racist." You know it was just-

   28. JRJoe Rogan56:50

       (sighs)

   29. SHSam Harris56:50

       ... just pure pain. And I just thought, "Wow man, that's..." You know, it's like you- you just touch this thing at its very end and you're- you're, you know, it's, uh, uh, the slime gets on you. Um, so yeah, it is, it's the medium, you know.

   30. JRJoe Rogan57:05

       It is-
9. 1:06:56 – 1:15:10

   2020 politics and identity politics: why the left eats its own and risks losing to Trump

   1. SHSam Harris1:06:56

      A- and it's, um ... Yeah, it's very ... I, I mean, I'm just ... I- it'll be interesting to see how the, the 2020 campaign plays out.

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:07:03

      Let's-

   3. SHSam Harris1:07:03

      I'm certainly worried that we could totally blow it with some leftist-

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:07:08

      Socialist.

   5. SHSam Harris1:07:09

      ... SJW uprising.

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:07:10

      Yeah.

   7. SHSam Harris1:07:10

      You know, so ...

   8. JRJoe Rogan1:07:10

      Well, yeah. That would be unfortunate-

   9. SHSam Harris1:07:12

      Yeah.

   10. JRJoe Rogan1:07:12

       ... because I think that would just double down the other side. We, we'd be better off with some sort of a reasonable centrist, right?

   11. SHSam Harris1:07:17

       Yes.

   12. JRJoe Rogan1:07:17

       Someone who just made sense and-

   13. SHSam Harris1:07:19

       Yeah.

   14. JRJoe Rogan1:07:19

       ... you know, one of the things that I liked about Tulsi is that she's a veteran, and, you know, I mean, like, she's ... she seems very reasonable to me. But ...

   15. SHSam Harris1:07:26

       Except I, I, I haven't followed her, um, career closely, but i- it just seems like she's not making the right noises on things like Syria and Assad and ...

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:07:36

       Yeah, I don't know enough-

   17. SHSam Harris1:07:37

       Yeah.

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:07:37

       ... about that to comment.

   19. SHSam Harris1:07:38

       Yeah.

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:07:38

       I don't know enough about Assad and the controversy over whether or not he gassed his ...

   21. SHSam Harris1:07:42

       Well, no. That, that-

   22. JRJoe Rogan1:07:42

       ... population.

   23. SHSam Harris1:07:43

       That is, I think, uncontroversial. I, I-

   24. JRJoe Rogan1:07:45

       It's not?

   25. SHSam Harris1:07:45

       In terms of what she ... I mean, th- that is uncontroversial. What, what sh- in terms of what she is saying about it ...

   26. JRJoe Rogan1:07:51

       About him.

   27. SHSam Harris1:07:52

       Um, I mean, she's capable of putting both feet in her, her mouth on that, and-

Episode duration: 2:43:00