Joe Rogan Experience #1248 - Bill Ottman

1. 0:01 – 1:54

   Bill Ottman joins: impersonation hoax, notebooks, and losing handwriting skills

   1. JRJoe Rogan0:01

      5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Legit? (slaps hands) Hello, Bill.

   2. BOBill Ottman0:09

      Hey, man.

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:10

      What's going on?

   4. BOBill Ottman0:11

      (smacks lips) Here.

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:12

      You are here.

   6. BOBill Ottman0:12

      Yes.

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:13

      With a book, you got a book of shit.

   8. BOBill Ottman0:14

      I got a book.

   9. JRJoe Rogan0:14

      You, you come prepared.

   10. BOBill Ottman0:15

       I mean, yeah, I'm trying to write. I'm trying to get back into handwriting.

   11. JRJoe Rogan0:18

       Uh, for people who don't know, Bill is the CEO and co-founder of Minds.com, and we've been going back and forth through email, and you got hoaxed by some dude who said he was Joey Diaz.

   12. BOBill Ottman0:27

       It did happen.

   13. JRJoe Rogan0:28

       He really believed. He's like, "Joey's been on my network," and I'm like, "Mmm." (smacks lips) "I doubt it."

   14. BOBill Ottman0:32

       He was imagining me, messaging me-

   15. JRJoe Rogan0:34

       "I doubt it."

   16. BOBill Ottman0:34

       ... in Joey's voice-

   17. JRJoe Rogan0:35

       Yeah.

   18. BOBill Ottman0:35

       ... like, basically cloning it. Like, there's weird people out there, man.

   19. JRJoe Rogan0:38

       Yeah. Well, that's not hard to do.

   20. BOBill Ottman0:40

       Yeah.

   21. JRJoe Rogan0:40

       You know?

   22. BOBill Ottman0:41

       Yeah.

   23. JRJoe Rogan0:41

       You watch enough Joey-

   24. BOBill Ottman0:42

       Basically just cloning his, his tweets.

   25. JRJoe Rogan0:44

       (laughs) "Cocksucker."

   26. BOBill Ottman0:45

       Yeah.

   27. JRJoe Rogan0:45

       Yeah, yeah. Yeah, every Monday morning or so, there's a, uh, there's a tweet about, "Someone needs to suck your dick." (laughs) That's it. "They need to suck your dick. You need to let them know." That's, uh, o- on the regular. Um, what's the notes, man?

   28. BOBill Ottman1:02

       (smacks lips) Just some ramblings from this morning.

   29. JRJoe Rogan1:05

       Yeah?

   30. BOBill Ottman1:05

       Yeah.
2. 1:54 – 4:14

   College “critical theory” and the culture of academic hoaxes

   1. BOBill Ottman1:54

      Though I did write my, uh, college thesis in all lowercase.

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:58

      Why?

   3. BOBill Ottman1:59

      Typed. I don't know, I just-

   4. JRJoe Rogan2:00

      What, are you protesting?

   5. BOBill Ottman2:01

      Yeah, kinda. It was stupid.

   6. JRJoe Rogan2:03

      Hmm. It's like a cool move, right? "I'm not gonna use any uppercase. Who cares, man?"

   7. BOBill Ottman2:07

      There's weird, like, postmodern theory about, like, capitalization.

   8. JRJoe Rogan2:12

      Oh, really?

   9. BOBill Ottman2:12

      And that's kind of what I was talking about. I got a little bit indoctrinated at, at UVM to be-

   10. JRJoe Rogan2:16

       Really?

   11. BOBill Ottman2:16

       Yeah. Yeah, they're like, they... This one class was called Critical Theory.

   12. JRJoe Rogan2:20

       What is, which one is UV- what is UVM?

   13. BOBill Ottman2:22

       Vermont.

   14. JRJoe Rogan2:23

       Vermont?

   15. BOBill Ottman2:23

       Yeah.

   16. JRJoe Rogan2:24

       Oh, Vermont is like-

   17. BOBill Ottman2:25

       Yeah.

   18. JRJoe Rogan2:25

       ... super social justicey.

   19. BOBill Ottman2:27

       I mean-

   20. JRJoe Rogan2:27

       Right?

   21. BOBill Ottman2:27

       Mm-hmm. And-

   22. JRJoe Rogan2:29

       And cool.

   23. BOBill Ottman2:29

       ... paved with good intentions.

   24. JRJoe Rogan2:30

       Yeah, yeah, yeah.

   25. BOBill Ottman2:31

       So-

   26. JRJoe Rogan2:31

       They have great ice cream up there too.

   27. BOBill Ottman2:32

       Mm-hmm.

   28. JRJoe Rogan2:33

       Nice folks.

   29. BOBill Ottman2:34

       But, like, this one class was called Critical Theory, and we had to watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer and apply, like, Marxist theory to it-

   30. JRJoe Rogan2:44

       Wow.
3. 4:14 – 9:28

   Do platforms have to police “disinformation”? Manila Principles and court-order takedowns

   1. JRJoe Rogan4:14

      Yeah. What do you, uh, you know, what do you think- make of all this hoaxing? You've been hoaxed twice then (laughs) , that, that you've just admitted in the first minute of the show.

   2. BOBill Ottman4:23

      (sighs) I mean, I think that you sort of have to have the right to-

   3. JRJoe Rogan4:27

      To hoax?

   4. BOBill Ottman4:28

      ... to hoax.

   5. JRJoe Rogan4:28

      Yeah.

   6. BOBill Ottman4:29

      To be wrong.

   7. JRJoe Rogan4:29

      Mm-hmm.

   8. BOBill Ottman4:30

      To, to mess up.

   9. JRJoe Rogan4:31

      Well, that's not messing up. That's deceiving people.

   10. BOBill Ottman4:34

       True.

   11. JRJoe Rogan4:35

       Um, but you kinda have the right to do that too. You kinda have the right to troll.

   12. BOBill Ottman4:39

       Yeah, you don't have the right to impersonate, but I have the right to get, uh, trolled and be wrong.

   13. JRJoe Rogan4:45

       Well, you don't have the right to impersonate, like, you can't have a verified account and pretend you're Joey Diaz, but-

   14. BOBill Ottman4:49

       Oh, no, of course not. I'm s-

   15. JRJoe Rogan4:51

       But harmless trolling, like that guy did to you, isn't that kind of, like, part of freedom?

   16. BOBill Ottman4:56

       Yeah.

   17. JRJoe Rogan4:57

       Yeah.

   18. BOBill Ottman4:57

       Yeah.

   19. JRJoe Rogan4:58

       Just comes with-

   20. BOBill Ottman4:58

       Like, taking down disinfo from social networks because it's wrong, that doesn't make sense. It, it, it also depends on the intent.

   21. JRJoe Rogan5:05

       It doesn't make sense?

   22. BOBill Ottman5:06

       I mean... (sighs)

   23. JRJoe Rogan5:09

       Like, if someone-

   24. BOBill Ottman5:10

       It's slippery.

   25. JRJoe Rogan5:10

       ... is purposely... Okay, let's say that you find some Chinese bot that's purposely disseminating incorrect and negative information about maybe a p- potential presidential candidate. Let's pick one. Tulsi Gabbard. They're, they're disseminating fake news about her, and you know for sure that it's fake. You know for sure who the s-... I don't know how you know, but you know for sure who the source of it is. You don't think that should be taken down?

   26. BOBill Ottman5:37

       I think that if it's illegal, it should be taken down.

   27. JRJoe Rogan5:39

       If it's illegal?

   28. BOBill Ottman5:40

       Yeah.

   29. JRJoe Rogan5:40

       Hmm, okay. What if it's just lies?

   30. BOBill Ottman5:44

       Then that could be illegal. I'm not a lawyer, so-
4. 9:28 – 13:34

   Surveillance capitalism: why open source and privacy-focused tools matter

   1. BOBill Ottman9:28

      DuckDuckGo it.

   2. JRJoe Rogan9:29

      DuckDuckGo?

   3. BOBill Ottman9:30

      Have you heard of that one?

   4. JRJoe Rogan9:31

      No, what's that?

   5. BOBill Ottman9:31

      It's like a privacy-focused search engine. It's like pretty much the only privacy alternative to Google. It's like this idea that we say, "Oh, just Google it."

   6. JRJoe Rogan9:41

      Right.

   7. BOBill Ottman9:41

      But why do we ... I mean, our whole process has been to, like, purge proprietary surveillance tools from our company. And I've been trying to do it myself, like getting off Facebook, getting off Twitter, getting off Instagram. It's just, like, they're so abusive to everybody.

   8. JRJoe Rogan10:00

      Mm-hmm.

   9. BOBill Ottman10:00

      And it's like, there's brilliant people who work there. I mean, Instagram is such a well-designed app. Are you kidding me?

   10. JRJoe Rogan10:06

       Yeah.

   11. BOBill Ottman10:06

       Beautiful. But-

   12. JRJoe Rogan10:08

       So what do you think is abusive about it, particularly?

   13. BOBill Ottman10:11

       There's-

   14. JRJoe Rogan10:11

       Let's start with Twitter.

   15. BOBill Ottman10:13

       They're all the same.

   16. JRJoe Rogan10:14

       They're all the same?

   17. BOBill Ottman10:14

       Yeah.

   18. JRJoe Rogan10:15

       Do you think they're all the same because they're all gigantic businesses?

   19. BOBill Ottman10:20

       Yeah. And they're all the same because none of them share their source code, and they all spy on everybody, and they don't show you what is happening behind the scenes. They don't show you what the code's doing. So like in that- in that note I wrote to you the other day, it's like, it's- I compare it to, like, food transparency. You know, 50 years ago, nobody thought about that. And then 20 years ago, everyone's like, "I wanna know what's in my food." Why, but why wouldn't you want to know what's in your apps?

   20. JRJoe Rogan10:49

       Yeah.

   21. BOBill Ottman10:49

       I mean, it's super sketchy what they're doing.

   22. JRJoe Rogan10:53

       But how so? Like, what- what's super sketchy?

   23. BOBill Ottman10:55

       We don't know. But we know that they're spying on everyone and tracking you everywhere you go. They're targeting things at you based on physical location, browser history. Even when you're not on those websites, some of- they're following you around where you're going on the internet.

   24. JRJoe Rogan11:06

       Right. And so some people accept that f- for this free search engine with free email and things along those lines. They ac- accept the fact that a certain percentage of what they're doing is not going to be private.

   25. BOBill Ottman11:19

       Mm-hmm.

   26. JRJoe Rogan11:20

       Or at least their searches are not gonna be private. Like say if you search, like you're thinking about buying a Jeep, and you search Jeeps, you look at, you know, 2019 Jeep, and then all of a sudden all your Google ads are about Jeeps.

   27. BOBill Ottman11:31

       Right.

   28. JRJoe Rogan11:32

       They're like, "We know, we know you're thinking about a Jeep, Bill."

   29. BOBill Ottman11:35

       And I don't think that that makes people want to spend more time on Google and Facebook. It freaks people out.

   30. JRJoe Rogan11:40

       What do you think it does? Do you think it freaks them out?
5. 13:34 – 20:14

   Network effects, contact harvesting, and Facebook’s outrage machine

   1. JRJoe Rogan13:34

      Yeah, I think one of the problems with these giant companies is that once they become big, you kinda use them as a default and it's very difficult to get people to communicate with you off of them. You know, it's, it's so hard to say, "Hey man, I'm, I'm launching this new social media app." I would imagine you could speak to this. "I'm launching this new social media app and, uh, I want you to join it." People are like, "But I'm already on fucking Facebook, I'm already on Google, I'm already on Instagram. I don't wanna do that, man. It's too much."

   2. BOBill Ottman14:01

      Yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan14:01

      "Too much extra."

   4. BOBill Ottman14:02

      And we make it a million times harder for ourselves because we're not scooping into people's contacts and, you know, taking all their information-

   5. JRJoe Rogan14:09

      But you're not?

   6. BOBill Ottman14:10

      ... which reminds. No.

   7. JRJoe Rogan14:11

      Okay.

   8. BOBill Ottman14:11

      So, like, when you give your address book to a app-

   9. JRJoe Rogan14:15

      Who does that?

   10. BOBill Ottman14:16

       Every, most apps.

   11. JRJoe Rogan14:17

       You'd be, you gotta be an asshole.

   12. BOBill Ottman14:18

       You know. No, but when you say, "Oh, I wanna find my friends who are on this app," and you share your contacts-

   13. JRJoe Rogan14:23

       Well, you're not supposed to do that.

   14. BOBill Ottman14:24

       ... you're not supposed to do that, yeah. But most people do-

   15. JRJoe Rogan14:26

       (laughs)

   16. BOBill Ottman14:26

       ... and y- and y- you know, your friends didn't give you permission to give Facebook their phone number.

   17. JRJoe Rogan14:30

       Do you do that?

   18. BOBill Ottman14:32

       I probably used to, like, uh, seven, eight years ago or whatever, but I don't do it anymore.

   19. JRJoe Rogan14:36

       I always say the same thing when it pops up, "Get the fuck outta here."

   20. BOBill Ottman14:40

       (laughs)

   21. JRJoe Rogan14:40

       That's always what I say. "Would you like to share your, your contacts?" "Get the fuck outta here. No, you can't have my contacts, you asshole. I know what you're doing."

   22. BOBill Ottman14:47

       Yeah.

   23. JRJoe Rogan14:48

       Facebook is a weird one, man. It's so, it's such a sneaky one. You know, f- Facebook and y- you know, like, all this, uh, the, the, the congressional hearings and the inner workings of it all and y- we, there... The, the fact that it profits off of outrage, so it wants people to argue. Like, the, the AI, the computer learning specifically wants people to have, like, contentious debates about things 'cause that keeps their eyes focused on the website.

   24. BOBill Ottman15:20

       Mm-hmm.

   25. JRJoe Rogan15:21

       And if your eyes are focused on Facebook, you know, then those Facebook ads are very valuable. It's really fascinating, man.

   26. BOBill Ottman15:28

       I think the outrage is unavoidable on any network. It's more, you know, are you gonna, are you gonna take down? They're taking down outrage.

   27. JRJoe Rogan15:38

       Some, yeah, sure.

   28. BOBill Ottman15:39

       Yeah.

   29. JRJoe Rogan15:39

       Yeah.

   30. BOBill Ottman15:39

       So, and it just seems so inconsistent and subjective how they're applying...
6. 20:14 – 34:41

   Advertiser pressure, demonetization, and Minds’ token-based boosting model

   1. BOBill Ottman20:14

      ... that an advertiser, in reality, doesn't ... Like, say you're an advertiser and you wanna advertise your computer.

   2. JRJoe Rogan20:23

      Okay.

   3. BOBill Ottman20:24

      And there's a video on YouTube that is about something controversial. Does it actually make sense for that advertiser to not show their product on that controversial video? Don't they wanna sell computers?

   4. JRJoe Rogan20:38

      Uh, well, it depends. I mean, if the controversial videos are about how Jews are evil, and you have this video about Jews being evil-

   5. BOBill Ottman20:45

      Mm-hmm.

   6. JRJoe Rogan20:45

      ... and then, you know, you're like, "Buy Razor computers. Come on." Da, da, da, da, da, da.

   7. BOBill Ottman20:48

      Right. But do you think that people actually ... I can understand not wanting to support certain types of content, and maybe advertisers feel like they're supporting that content by advertising next to it. But I also don't think that people, when they're watching a controversial video on the internet, say, "Oh my gosh," you know, "this advertiser is completely outta line for being next to this controversial thing." I, I, I don't think that's a, a healthy direction to move.

   8. JRJoe Rogan21:17

      Well, okay. That's one way to look at it. Another way to look at it is if you are a giant company that sells things. Let's say you're Toyota and you're selling Tundras. You don't want your Tundras to be associated in any way with something that you might think is negative. It's their prerogative. If they're paying for advertising, they can kinda decide. This is one of the things that's l- leading, um, YouTube in specific, and I've had ... a d- a ton of conversations about this. They're ... It's leading them specifically to try to demonetize things that could be considered distasteful or insensitive or controversial. And it's very frustrating to content creators.

   9. BOBill Ottman21:56

      Mm-hmm.

   10. JRJoe Rogan21:56

       When you talk to them, they're essentially saying that they need to do better and that their tools are very blunt, that they, they don't really have the correct, uh, computer learning tools to figure out what is offensive and why. And then there's a human review system, which is very weird. And we've run into that many times, where, like, we'll have, like, a podcast with, like, say, Tom Papa, who's an uncontroversial, fantastic standup comedian, and it's, like, demonetized. And then we're like, "Why? What happened?" And then we go, "What the fuck didn't we talk about? We didn't talk about anything crazy."

   11. BOBill Ottman22:28

       And it's really damaging for brands when it gets demonetized right away 'cause it's that initial time period that generates the most revenue.

   12. JRJoe Rogan22:34

       Yeah.

   13. BOBill Ottman22:35

       So when you have to go back and do it ... I mean, so I agree with that, but ... So we built a tool that's like a peer-to-peer advertising tool. So it's not w- ... There's two options. You can ... So you earn crypto for your contributions, and then-

   14. JRJoe Rogan22:50

       Uh, which cryptos do you support?

   15. BOBill Ottman22:52

       We have an E- Ethereum-based token, but we're gonna support all of them eventually.

   16. JRJoe Rogan22:56

       So what is a Ethereum-based token?

   17. BOBill Ottman22:58

       So it's an ERC-20 token.

   18. JRJoe Rogan22:59

       What does that mean?

   19. BOBill Ottman23:00

       It means that we basically reward people for all of their activity. So we-

   20. JRJoe Rogan23:04

       Okay. So, like, say if Jamie's posting on Minds and, uh, people love his posts, he gets rewarded in some-

   21. BOBill Ottman23:11

       Yeah.

   22. JRJoe Rogan23:12

       How much? How much you get?

   23. BOBill Ottman23:13

       Well-

   24. JRJoe Rogan23:14

       Can I go buy a house?

   25. BOBill Ottman23:15

       ... one token will give you 1,000 impressions.

   26. JRJoe Rogan23:17

       Oh.

   27. BOBill Ottman23:18

       So you ... It ... We're not focused on, like, "Oh, you're gonna make money from this."

   28. JRJoe Rogan23:21

       Wait a minute.

   29. BOBill Ottman23:22

       That's not what we're saying.

   30. JRJoe Rogan23:22

       One, one token will give you 1,000 impressions?
7. 34:41 – 51:16

   Decentralization vs moderation reality: ‘engineer control out’ and tough edge cases

   1. JRJoe Rogan34:41

      Mm-hmm. And what do you think you would like to do with Minds in the future that you haven't been able to do yet?

   2. BOBill Ottman34:49

      Engineer the control out of ourselves so that we aren't even in a position to really, you know, take people's stuff down or, um-

   3. JRJoe Rogan35:02

      Well, what if someone posts your house and your information, where your kids go to school?

   4. BOBill Ottman35:07

      I think that on the central servers, obviously, yes, we're always going to moderate. I- And if it's legal, it can stay. If it's not illegal, it can't. But a decentralized social network is definitely where we have to go, because ... And yeah, okay, it's, it's scary. And, you know, you've talked about this. Like, things are getting more transparent. Our lives ... This is sort of like the inevitable evolution of technology. I mean, how many hours a day do you stream? A couple? You know, 25 years ago, would you have thought you'd be sharing, you know, 20% of your life livestreaming to, you know, millions of people? Like, your, our lives are becoming more transparent, just inevitably. It's just pulling us.

   5. JRJoe Rogan35:52

      Mm-hmm. Yeah. I agree.

   6. BOBill Ottman35:53

      So, you know, Bitcoin, crypto, DAT, torrent ty- Stype, torrent-type architecture, that is just where we're going, because it's more resilient. It's less censorship prone. There's just benefits of it. I think that we can balance it too. Like maybe when you post, you have a, a decision. Do you want to be able to delete this at any point? All right, fine. Then you can post to the central server. Do you want this to get unleashed? Yeah, it's scary because-... you know, there's scary stuff on the internet. It's already like that. But, you know, getting into censorship more, does censorship even solve the problem or does it make it worse?

   7. JRJoe Rogan36:37

      What problem?

   8. BOBill Ottman36:38

      The problem of crazy content, illegal content.

   9. JRJoe Rogan36:41

      Does it... How could it make it worse?

   10. BOBill Ottman36:43

       Well, I mean, it seems like it can often amplify radicalization.

   11. JRJoe Rogan36:47

       It definitely can, right?

   12. BOBill Ottman36:48

       Yeah.

   13. JRJoe Rogan36:48

       Yeah. And it, it definitely, um... When you censor people, it just makes them aware that there's a plot against them too, right? It's, uh, like-

   14. BOBill Ottman36:57

       Yeah.

   15. JRJoe Rogan36:57

       A lot of conservatives on Twitter are finding that. Somebody at... Uh, Sam Harris actually just sent me an article, um, that was, uh, detailing the bias against conservatives on Twitter, that they've actually done, you know, like some real... Studying it. And it's pretty d- demonstratable. Demonstrable?

   16. BOBill Ottman37:14

       It affects both the left and the right.

   17. JRJoe Rogan37:16

       That's not real.

   18. BOBill Ottman37:16

       Demonstrable.

   19. JRJoe Rogan37:17

       Yeah. Yeah. The way I'm saying it wrong. Um, but it's... It affects the left and the right, for sure. Yeah.

   20. BOBill Ottman37:22

       That's what Kyle was saying. I watched that video that he did. And he's-

   21. JRJoe Rogan37:25

       Yeah.

   22. BOBill Ottman37:25

       It's anti-establishment that seems to be getting targeted.

   23. JRJoe Rogan37:27

       Mm-hmm.

   24. BOBill Ottman37:28

       And so, you know, Abby's been censored on Facebook.

   25. JRJoe Rogan37:31

       Abby Martin.

   26. BOBill Ottman37:32

       Abby Martin.

   27. JRJoe Rogan37:32

       Yeah.

   28. BOBill Ottman37:32

       Um, and yeah, this person today. Th- I mean, most of the stuff coming out of RT is progressive, which is weird.

   29. JRJoe Rogan37:39

       Mm-hmm.

   30. BOBill Ottman37:39

       And who knows what kind of games are getting played behind the scenes with the Russia... I mean, who knows?
8. 51:16 – 55:20

   Porn, nipples, and platform policy contradictions (plus app store gatekeepers)

   1. BOBill Ottman51:16

      ... before. And so we're just not gonna risk it. But I, I still, you know, in a... All right, nipples.

   2. JRJoe Rogan51:23

      Nipples?

   3. BOBill Ottman51:23

      Look.

   4. JRJoe Rogan51:24

      Right.

   5. BOBill Ottman51:25

      Did you know that Free the Nipple started out with-

   6. JRJoe Rogan51:28

      On 4chan? (laughs)

   7. BOBill Ottman51:29

      Well, e- everywhere. It's a whole, it's a whole movement.

   8. JRJoe Rogan51:32

      (sighs)

   9. BOBill Ottman51:32

      To be honest-

   10. JRJoe Rogan51:32

       Right.

   11. BOBill Ottman51:33

       ... a- and Time Magazine just did a really interesting piece about a, a statue that got banned from Facebook.

   12. JRJoe Rogan51:37

       A statue? (laughs)

   13. BOBill Ottman51:37

       And it was, it was a naked ancient statue that has a nipple. Like, I'm sorry, that's not, that's not realistic. That, th- that, that's not helping society taking down-

   14. JRJoe Rogan51:48

       Well-

   15. BOBill Ottman51:48

       ... a, a naked statue.

   16. JRJoe Rogan51:50

       What we were talking about the other day, uh, during the Super Bowl, that, uh, Adam Levine had his shirt off and Brian Redband was like, "Hey, d- wasn't that, like, what Janet Jackson got in trouble for?"

   17. BOBill Ottman52:00

       Yeah.

   18. JRJoe Rogan52:00

       Like, yeah. Why does, why is it okay if Adam Levine shows his nipples and Janet Jackson's nipples are offensive because they're sexualized because she's a woman?

   19. BOBill Ottman52:09

       Mm-hmm. This is the weird fact. Men had to gain the right to f- have their nipples shown in public back in the day.

   20. JRJoe Rogan52:19

       When's the day?

   21. BOBill Ottman52:20

       I, I'm, if you, if you go on the, the Free the Nipples site, there's this-

   22. JRJoe Rogan52:24

       (laughs)

   23. BOBill Ottman52:24

       (laughs) Go on their Instagram or something. I think that's maybe where I saw it back when I used Instagram. But w- you know, society is evolving. We're gonna get there. We're gonna be able to handle it, I think.

   24. JRJoe Rogan52:36

       Right.

   25. BOBill Ottman52:36

       Or give people the controls so that they can only see the types of things that they wanna see. That's ultimately what it's about.

   26. JRJoe Rogan52:42

       So, like, y- you should have, like, a filter, like, do I want 18 plus? Do I want, um, PG-13? Like, what, what kind of distinction do I want?

   27. BOBill Ottman52:51

       Yeah.

   28. JRJoe Rogan52:52

       Yeah. And then when, when things come up... Like, one of the things that Instagram's been doing is, like, they say... I follow a lot of hunters, and Instagram has things where they say, "Warning, this is sensitive content." Uh, Nature is Metal gets popped on that a lot too, 'cause Nature is Metal is an Instagram site that's all, like, these crazy images and videos of animals eating other animals and attacking other animals. And sometimes some of them, they just decide, "This one's too fucked up." You know? They just decide.

   29. BOBill Ottman53:21

       Right.

   30. JRJoe Rogan53:21

       You know, like, there's one of them where a, a lion is, uh, looking out of, uh, a wildebeest asshole-
9. 55:20 – 56:50

   Kids, mental health, and algorithmic ‘soft censorship’ of reach

   1. BOBill Ottman55:20

      He was talking about an interesting thing where, you know, should there be an age where we really get into social media?

   2. JRJoe Rogan55:29

      Mm-hmm.

   3. BOBill Ottman55:30

      I don't know. I mean, people should be free what they w-... Free to do what they wanna do, but, you know, the internet is the wilderness.

   4. JRJoe Rogan55:38

      Well, his book, uh, The Coddling of the American Mind, uh, I'm- I'm in that right now. I just finished his other one and I'm working on that one, and a lot of it has to do with social media, and a lot of it has to do with the impact that it has on young people. You know, w- p- people are not really designed for this, and you might be able to handle it if you're a 32-year-old man or a 35-year-old woman, or whatever you are. But if you're a 15-year-old girl, this might- it might be overwhelming. I mean, and the- the angst and the anxiety and, you know, wanting-

   5. BOBill Ottman56:09

      That's what I was saying about the-

   6. JRJoe Rogan56:10

      Yeah.

   7. BOBill Ottman56:10

      ... the depression. You know, they see if they're not at a party-

   8. JRJoe Rogan56:13

      Mm-hmm.

   9. BOBill Ottman56:13

      ... or their stuff's not getting liked-

   10. JRJoe Rogan56:15

       Mm-hmm.

   11. BOBill Ottman56:15

       ... that has an impact on them. And ultimately, I think the networks need to be helping educate people how to... You know, whether it's dis-info, educate people how to research. I did see that YouTube is starting to do, like, a, "You've been on this for too long," type thing.

   12. JRJoe Rogan56:31

       Pfft. Really?

   13. BOBill Ottman56:32

       Yeah.

   14. JRJoe Rogan56:33

       Like, "Get a life, you fuck."

   15. BOBill Ottman56:34

       Yeah, I-

   16. JRJoe Rogan56:35

       They tell you that?

   17. BOBill Ottman56:35

       ... I wanna build stuff like that. That- that's really important. Yeah.

   18. JRJoe Rogan56:38

       Hmm.

   19. BOBill Ottman56:39

       Helping people get off.

   20. JRJoe Rogan56:41

       Yeah. I haven't, uh, I haven't seen that. I'm- I haven't done enough time on YouTube where they're kicking me off.

   21. BOBill Ottman56:48

       I have.

10. 56:50 – 58:59

    Disinformation debates: flat Earth, anti-vax, and educating users vs banning claims

    1. JRJoe Rogan56:50

       (laughs) It's easy. You know, I was, uh, I sent, uh, Eddie Bravo this thing from The Guardian about, uh, the upsurge in people that believe in the flat Earth, and all of it because of YouTube videos. And that apparently now YouTube is... They want to censor those. They want to, uh, they- they- they feel like flat Earth videos and, uh, I think another one... Check this... Uh, check this if- if I'm wrong about this, but I think they also wanna lean on those anti-vaccination videos. I think there's a concern with those. I think they're worried about a bunch of different things along those lines, you know? Like, they feel like there's disinformation and outright lies that are being spread. How do we combat it? We own this platform, what do we do? They feel like they have a responsibility.

    2. BOBill Ottman57:36

       I think there is responsibility, but I-

    3. JRJoe Rogan57:39

       Okay, but what is the responsibility?

    4. BOBill Ottman57:40

       ... f-

    5. JRJoe Rogan57:40

       If there's a debate.

    6. BOBill Ottman57:41

       ... I think it's more to educate people how to research.

    7. JRJoe Rogan57:44

       Mm-hmm.

    8. BOBill Ottman57:44

       As opposed to saying, "This is or is not true."

    9. JRJoe Rogan57:47

       Right.

    10. BOBill Ottman57:47

        Because who's deciding that?

    11. JRJoe Rogan57:49

        Well, I believe the Earth is round, but, uh, um, I also believe it's such a stupid conspiracy that you should have it. You should be allowed and it should be something you should show your friends. Like, "Dude, I need you to go look at this. This has 37,000 thumbs up."

    12. BOBill Ottman58:08

        (laughs)

    13. JRJoe Rogan58:09

        "And they really believe that the fucking Earth is flat. They really believe there's an ice wall outside Antarctica. They really believe that the sky doesn't move." That it's... That the, you know, that we're in some sort of a... They think it's, like, projected images or something. Like, there's a bunch of, like, really, really wacky theories. Like, I think those are okay.

    14. BOBill Ottman58:30

        Yeah. Of course.

    15. JRJoe Rogan58:31

        Yeah.

    16. BOBill Ottman58:32

        But, uh, I think freedom of information sort of transcends a lot of these little debates. So, if there was more freedom of information so we actually knew everything the government knew-

    17. JRJoe Rogan58:42

        Yeah.

    18. BOBill Ottman58:42

        ... about all of the different conspiracies and black projects, the black budget.

    19. JRJoe Rogan58:47

        Yeah.

    20. BOBill Ottman58:49

        More information is going to give both sides the ability to understand what is happening.

    21. JRJoe Rogan58:54

        That's true.

    22. BOBill Ottman58:55

        The reality is that we don't know what's happening, and there is lots of secret stuff.

11. 58:59 – 1:17:50

    Russian troll farms and the ‘web of trust’: fighting manipulation without silencing debate

    1. JRJoe Rogan58:59

       The problem with that though is then you're dealing with foreign governments that are way better at keeping secrets than we are. And if they have access to our secrets... Like, one of the things that's been kinda disturbing is seeing y- uh, the actual influence of these Russian troll farms have had on not just our political process, but sowing seeds of dissent amongst people and s- and starting conflict amongst people, and how people are buying into it. You know, like, this, uh, podcast I've been talking about a lot with Sam Harris and Renee DiResta. That's her name, right? Um, where they talked about how these Russian troll farms set up, uh, a conflict by having a pro-Muslim rally across the street from a pro-Texas Pride rally. And they just set it all up and- and had it there, and then a skirmish broke out 'cause these people were across the street from each other. And that they do this with... They were having, um, these African American groups that were saying, "Anyone but Hillary," and they were go- like, tr- really trying to get people to vote for Jill Stein, really trying to get people to even consider Trump, but d- anyone but Hillary. And then you... They were also having, like, uh, w- ones that were against them. They're trying to, like, make debate. They're trying to make anger. And then-

    2. BOBill Ottman1:00:11

       I don't think you can stop that.

    3. JRJoe Rogan1:00:13

       But it's a fascinating thing, isn't it? That this is like a concerted effort.

    4. BOBill Ottman1:00:16

       Yeah. Yeah, it's-

    5. JRJoe Rogan1:00:17

       Like, how do you feel about that?

    6. BOBill Ottman1:00:18

       ... psychological warfare.

    7. JRJoe Rogan1:00:18

       When you s- when you are... You know, you're in a, uh, a position where you have a fairly small network but it's influential, right? And then so you're watching Zuckerberg and the Facebook shit on TV, and they're talking to these congresspeople and senators, and they're talking to all these politicians about what's going on and how to stop it and what they're trying to do. And, and you feel like, "Oh, God." Like, "This is kind of a... This is, uh, an arena that I'm getting into." What would you do?

    8. BOBill Ottman1:00:44

       I mean, I think more conversation needs to happen, not less.

    9. JRJoe Rogan1:00:49

       Yeah.

    10. BOBill Ottman1:00:49

        So-

    11. JRJoe Rogan1:00:50

        I think you're right.

    12. BOBill Ottman1:00:50

        ... I just, I want more information from the government, from the corporations-

    13. JRJoe Rogan1:00:54

        From the trolls?

    14. BOBill Ottman1:00:55

        ... from the trolls.

    15. JRJoe Rogan1:00:57

        (laughs)

    16. BOBill Ottman1:00:58

        I mean-

    17. JRJoe Rogan1:00:58

        Yeah.

    18. BOBill Ottman1:00:59

        ... I, you know, I feel like I have a pretty good ability to discern what is and is not troll behavior. I think help people understand how, how to re- how to absorb information, like-

    19. JRJoe Rogan1:01:14

        Yeah.

    20. BOBill Ottman1:01:14

        ... just banning an account that is trying, that has an agenda is... Everyone has an agenda. It's a propaganda back and forth between everybody. I don't, I mean, just because somebody posts a Jill Stein meme, okay, what's your point? Like, their intention... Okay. I'm not saying that, you know, regime change behavior is positive or negative. I don't know how we, we sort of switched gears.

    21. JRJoe Rogan1:01:47

        No, we did, but let, let me, let me step in here. When you, when you're saying a, a Jill Stein meme, there's absolutely nothing wrong with you posting a Jill Stein meme. Like, say, if you have a, a joke about Jill Stein, you wanted to post it in a meme, there's nothing wrong with that. What's weird for people is that people are being hired to make these memes, and they, these memes may not have anything to do with their own personal ideology. They might just, might just decide, "Hey, I'm gonna collect this check, and I'm gonna," and they make... Apparently, according to Renee, in this podcast she did with Sam Harris, they make really hilarious memes. Like, some of them are really funny.

    22. BOBill Ottman1:02:18

        I listened to that podcast. Yeah.

    23. JRJoe Rogan1:02:20

        It was great, right?

    24. BOBill Ottman1:02:20

        She said that she, she started laughing at a couple times too.

    25. JRJoe Rogan1:02:22

        Yeah, yeah, yeah. And she would, you know, she would have to go through thousands and thousands of them.

    26. BOBill Ottman1:02:26

        Mm-hmm.

    27. JRJoe Rogan1:02:27

        That's weird, right?

    28. BOBill Ottman1:02:28

        Yeah. There's this idea of a web of trust, which is interesting, sort of like a peer-to-peer, it's not like a Chinese social score, but it's like if you... The people that you're connected with show a certain account to be untrustworthy then, you know, 'cause you trust your little network. So there, it's sort of like a peer-to-peer score. I, we, we're looking at different ideas. I think that transparency and understanding what's going on with different accounts and if it's the real person, that's all important stuff. We don't, we don't want frauds. We don't want disinfo, but, you know, we just have to really step back and think about how we're doing it rather than letting AI and algorithms run the show.

    29. JRJoe Rogan1:03:16

        Right. I see what you're saying. Um, do you think that there's a... I don't wanna say there's a market. Is there a demand for this? Like are a lot of people responding in a positive way to the way you guys are approaching the game?

    30. BOBill Ottman1:03:29

        Yeah, for sure. Every time there's a big scandal, every time, whether it's, you know, data manipulation or, you know, our first big growth spurt was during the Snowden days when he released all the information-
12. 1:17:50 – 1:25:46

    Augmented reality, always-on tech, and why blockchains don’t magically scale

    1. JRJoe Rogan1:17:50

       (laughs) Oh, I lost it. I lost it in my, uh, holding back a sneeze. Um, that ... Oh, that's what I was worried about. AI. Um, not AI, augmented reality, that's what I'm really worried about, not artificial but augmented. And, uh, my c- my concern is that what we're experiencing right now in this flat form of two-dimensional text is, uh, something that is very overwhelming to a lot of people's time, and you're looking at some kids that are online, social media, eight, ten hours a day just staring at their phones. Um, I'm extremely concerned, and I have some jokes about it in my act, about the next wave, because I think that we are overwhelmed by this incredibly attractive medium, where we're, we're attracted to our phones, we're attracted to this style of engaging in information and receiving information and passing information and, and online arguments and debates and, and looking at pictures and this constant stream, which, you know, just looking at your phone-... it's not that thrilling. It's just like, hmm. It's not that thrilling. You're just like, "Okay, yeah." But it's still getting you, all day long. Like, there's nothing really crazy happening. What my concern is if something really crazy does start to happen, when you really can have experiences that are hyper-normal. Like that are, that are more powerful than anything you can experience in this regular, carbon-based, physical touch and feel world. And once we start experiencing augmented reality, the integration between humans and technology, and then the ability to share augmented reality. Like, this shit, like, if you were at work and you have these fucking goggles on, and then your girlfriend is at work on the other side of town, and you, you guys both have like these similar video pets that are with you and dancing around and providing you with fucking advertisements, and giving you things. There's, there's, there's next levels to this stuff that I'm trying to like see the future, but I'm too fucking stupid, and I don't really know anything about technology. But I, I know that they're gonna get deeper into our lives. I know that these technologies, not they, like the government, but these technologies, they're going to get deeper into your life, and that they got you by the balls and the clit with a fucking phone. And it doesn't even do much. Take some pictures, look at some pictures, look at some text, watch some videos. That's all it does.

Episode duration: 2:27:24