Joe Rogan Experience #1248 - Bill Ottman

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   5, 4, 3, 2,…

   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. 15:00 – 30:00

   Mm-hmm. …

   1. JRJoe Rogan15:00

      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.

   2. BOBill Ottman15:20

      Mm-hmm.

   3. 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.

   4. 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.

   5. JRJoe Rogan15:38

      Some, yeah, sure.

   6. BOBill Ottman15:39

      Yeah.

   7. JRJoe Rogan15:39

      Yeah.

   8. BOBill Ottman15:39

      So, and it just seems so inconsistent and subjective how they're applying...

   9. JRJoe Rogan15:44

      Mm-hmm.

   10. BOBill Ottman15:44

       I mean, even just yesterday I think some, uh, journalists got banned-

   11. JRJoe Rogan15:48

       Yes.

   12. BOBill Ottman15:48

       ... from Facebook.

   13. JRJoe Rogan15:49

       Yeah, you aware of this story?

   14. BOBill Ottman15:50

       Who... Yeah.

   15. JRJoe Rogan15:50

       Yeah, let me... I'm gonna send this to you, Jamie, 'cause it's a r- it's a really crazy one.

   16. BOBill Ottman15:54

       Because they wanted her to show who her funding sources were-

   17. JRJoe Rogan15:58

       Mm-hmm.

   18. BOBill Ottman15:58

       ... and I didn't even know that there was an area where you could show that. So, it's almost like they're making this up as they go along.

   19. JRJoe Rogan16:05

       Yeah. Kyle Kulinski sent me this today. I'm gonna send this to you right now, Jamie. Hang on one second. Hold on. I'm very quiet. Unfortunately, this is an audio show, but I'm gonna-

   20. BOBill Ottman16:20

       This is live air.

   21. JRJoe Rogan16:22

       Yes.

   22. BOBill Ottman16:22

       Not dead air.

   23. JRJoe Rogan16:23

       (clears throat) There you go. Okay, buddy, I just sent it to you. Okay, uh, Facebook suspended In The Now tweets, uh, page at the behest of CNN and the US government-funded think tanks. It says, "We had almost four million subscribers, did not violate Facebook rules, were given no warning, and Facebook isn't responding to us." So yeah, what is, what was the... What i- what actually started this off?

   24. BOBill Ottman16:50

       I mean, who knows? They don't communicate with anyone. They've been banning legit accounts for years. They w- you cannot even send a minds.com link through Facebook Messenger right now. It's blocked.

   25. JRJoe Rogan17:03

       What?

   26. BOBill Ottman17:03

       Yeah.

   27. JRJoe Rogan17:04

       What? Like, what?

   28. BOBill Ottman17:05

       If you post in the news feed, it says, "Careful, this i- could be an unsecure website."

   29. JRJoe Rogan17:12

       Oh.

   30. BOBill Ottman17:13

       Actually, just, I clicked on a link from TMZ yesterday and got the same thing from, on Twitter. Twitter said, "This might be malicious. There's spam. There could be-"
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   I'm really not paying…

   1. BOBill Ottman30:00

      you know, the algorithms are showing you what you typically like. Have you noticed that?

   2. JRJoe Rogan30:04

      I'm really not paying much attention-

   3. BOBill Ottman30:06

      Mm-hmm.

   4. JRJoe Rogan30:06

      ... but I believe you.

   5. BOBill Ottman30:08

      So, yeah, for creator- ... It's hurting creators. People who post are getting hurt. People who are sitting there just scrolling, they're the ones who are really getting, you know, addicted.... more so with the algorithms.

   6. JRJoe Rogan30:24

      So how are the people that are posting getting hurt? They're getting hurt because their stuff is being seen by less people?

   7. BOBill Ottman30:28

      Yeah.

   8. JRJoe Rogan30:28

      Because it's not chronological and it's not organic 'cause it's curated.

   9. BOBill Ottman30:32

      Mm-hmm.

   10. JRJoe Rogan30:33

       Huh. But aren't they doing it because they think it's gonna be a better and, uh, an experience that's more conducive to your likes?

   11. BOBill Ottman30:39

       That's what they say.

   12. JRJoe Rogan30:40

       What do you think they're doing it for, then?

   13. BOBill Ottman30:41

       They're doing it because they have studied through looking at the data how to keep people on the app more.

   14. JRJoe Rogan30:49

       Right. And that way is to give them ... Like, say if I google, or if I look at muscle cars on Instagram. Now if I go to my search, it's all muscle car stuff. So that's what it is. They say, "Oh, he likes that."

   15. BOBill Ottman30:59

       Mm-hmm.

   16. JRJoe Rogan31:00

       "So we're gonna ... We're just gonna give him a lot of that."

   17. BOBill Ottman31:01

       And I think that's okay as an alternative feed, or to put that somewhere ... I just think the core feed always needs to stay pure.

   18. JRJoe Rogan31:10

       Hm.

   19. BOBill Ottman31:11

       Because otherwise you're just down the slippery slope again. And-

   20. JRJoe Rogan31:15

       I understand.

   21. BOBill Ottman31:15

       ... it's just feeding ... They're, they're injecting things into your head that you didn't ask for.

   22. JRJoe Rogan31:20

       Right. And they're doing it because they want to keep you around. Yeah. That makes sense. Um, how many different companies are subscribing to that? Is ... It seems like all the big ones, we're saying, are curating and moving things around. And all the big ones have an algorithm that's designed to keep you on board, right?

   23. BOBill Ottman31:38

       Mm-hmm. And that's okay to pursue. I think there's really cool things you can do with AI and machine learning and algorithms that is really beneficial. But it's just ... Taking away people's reach when they have worked years and years to achieve it, it's not okay.

   24. JRJoe Rogan31:54

       Do you think that this is this marriage between something that is this social media network that's designed to allow people to communicate with each other, and then commerce, like this business? Like, how do we maximize this business? How do we get more profit out of this business?

   25. BOBill Ottman32:09

       Mm-hmm.

   26. JRJoe Rogan32:09

       How do we get these people to engage more? And then they start monkeying with the code and screwing with what you see and what you don't see. You think that's what's happening?

   27. BOBill Ottman32:17

       Yeah. But in, in the short term, it's probably working. But in the long term-

   28. JRJoe Rogan32:21

       Right.

   29. BOBill Ottman32:21

       ... they're betraying everybody's trust. It has to be more of a consent-based system.

   30. JRJoe Rogan32:25

       Mm-hmm.
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   Yeah. …

   1. JRJoe Rogan45:00

      people like that all over the world. Um, uh, Majid, Majid Nawaz-

   2. BOBill Ottman45:05

      Yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan45:05

      ... another perfect example. He was an Islamist. I mean, he was l- you know, trying to form a caliphate, was l- literally thinking about radical Islamic terrorism as being some sort of a solution. Now he's the opposite. Now he's trying to get people to leave and he's trying to get people to be more reasonable m- and secular, and-

   4. BOBill Ottman45:23

      Did you see what happened to him?

   5. JRJoe Rogan45:24

      Yeah, he got punched in the street. Yeah. Um, yeah, some guy called him a fucking Paki, I guess, and punched him in the head and fucked his head up, and he's got this giant cut on his head from a ring and his face is swollen up. But apparently they have the guy on video and, um, you know, they think they- they're gonna be able to arrest the guy.

   6. BOBill Ottman45:41

      But I-

   7. JRJoe Rogan45:41

      I've had Majid on the show, he's a super nice guy.

   8. BOBill Ottman45:43

      The, the hard thing is that... All right. Yes, we see these transformations take place, it makes us feel warm inside. And yes, people, people can change. But at the same time, what? Are people have... Shou- should people have to go apologize to Twitter? "Oh, I'm sorry." Like, "Can I come back?"

   9. JRJoe Rogan46:00

      Right.

   10. BOBill Ottman46:01

       I mean, that's not like-

   11. JRJoe Rogan46:02

       Mm-hmm.

   12. BOBill Ottman46:02

       ... sometimes people are gonna think completely differently than you and you just have to deal with it.

   13. JRJoe Rogan46:06

       Right.

   14. BOBill Ottman46:06

       And it... That should be okay. We, we shouldn't force people to come into our way of thinking in order to have discourse.

   15. JRJoe Rogan46:14

       No, that's a good point. That's a very good point. Um, and like, who is to decide what this path of redemption is and whether or not you've completed it, right?

   16. BOBill Ottman46:23

       Yeah.

   17. JRJoe Rogan46:23

       Who is to decide? Like, maybe y- you are a, like a hyper radical lefty and maybe Jamie's points of view and yours are just never gonna line up, f- so you're like, "Fuck him. He's banned for life." Which a lot of people have been banned for life. And when you look at some of the infractions they've been banned for, it's like, "Boy, I don't know about that one. That doesn't really make sense."

   18. BOBill Ottman46:43

       Almost none of the high-pro- profile banning cases make much sense.

   19. JRJoe Rogan46:47

       No. It's like a short-term solution that's creating a long-term problem.

   20. BOBill Ottman46:53

       Yeah.

   21. JRJoe Rogan46:53

       That's really what it is.

   22. BOBill Ottman46:56

       So, I just think that we have to talk about it more. Uh, I don't know. I, I... It's like, why can't we just get everyone to talk about it?

   23. JRJoe Rogan47:05

       Yeah.

   24. BOBill Ottman47:06

       Like, at the same time. I mean, it's like we're just wasting time here.

   25. JRJoe Rogan47:11

       Well, sort of, but I also think we're figuring it out as we go along with a bunch of different competing ideologies. Um, you know, you have yours, which like, you... Dude, you look like a hacker on like House of Cards. You look like the guy you call in to break into the, the, the mainframe server.

   26. BOBill Ottman47:28

       I'm not that, honestly.

   27. JRJoe Rogan47:29

       (laughs)

   28. BOBill Ottman47:29

       I-

   29. JRJoe Rogan47:29

       I believe you're not.

   30. BOBill Ottman47:30

       I, I, I hang out on, on GitLab-
5. 1:00:00 – 1:15:00

   I don't think you…

   1. JRJoe Rogan1:00:00

      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-
6. 1:15:00 – 1:20:15

   Yes. …

   1. BOBill Ottman1:15:00

      you know, are allergic to it. I'm allergic to it.

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:15:02

      Yes.

   3. BOBill Ottman1:15:02

      I cannot handle it. Like, it's not ... No one wants t- to talk like that.

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:15:06

      Right.

   5. BOBill Ottman1:15:06

      It's one thing if you're having a good time, yeah, and trying to just, like, show someone up.

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:15:10

      Yeah.

   7. BOBill Ottman1:15:10

      And y- and it just ... You can have fun with it, and it's more comedic. But when you're actually taking yourself seriously, like, it's not gonna work.

   8. JRJoe Rogan1:15:18

      No. It's not gonna work. And it actually has the exact e- opposite effect. It's like, um, the expression ... What did, what ... Uh, how's the expression? Like, uh, jealousy is like a poison that ... How does it go? Jealousy is like a poison that you take yourself because you don't like what someone else is accomplishing. I forget the, uh ... I did a terrible job paraphrasing that. That might have been my worst paraphrasing of all time. Mumble-mouth motherfucker that I am. But, uh, but the idea is that it has the exact opposite effect. Like, if you're g- jealous about someone, it actually makes you feel bad instead of them feel bad.

   9. BOBill Ottman1:15:56

      It also makes them not wanna hang out with you.

   10. JRJoe Rogan1:15:58

       Eh, well, you know, they probably don't wanna hang out with you anyway, let's be honest. But, (laughs) the, but the, th- the, uh, you know, what you're doing by back and forth on so ... I know, and I know people who do engage in it. And sometimes they have these, uh, anxiety moments where they don't sleep for days because they're involved in these Twitter feuds. I mean, I know people that have done this, where they've gotten involved in Twitter feuds, and they'll wake up at 3 o'clock in the morning. They check their Twitter feed, and like, "Oh, Christ, man." Like, "You gotta go, go, uh, go on a yoga retreat or something. You c- you can't do this. You can't live your life like this."

   11. BOBill Ottman1:16:30

       I think there may be some value to the debate hap-

   12. JRJoe Rogan1:16:37

       Debate.

   13. BOBill Ottman1:16:37

       It should be there.

   14. JRJoe Rogan1:16:38

       Yes.

   15. BOBill Ottman1:16:38

       It should be there.

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:16:39

       Debate.

   17. BOBill Ottman1:16:39

       And it's like, okay, I'm not gonna spend my time doing it that way. Some people wanna spend their time doing it that way.

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:16:45

       Yes.

   19. BOBill Ottman1:16:45

       And if there's cool mechanisms for, you know, the most voted content to be seen so that ... I mean, okay, that's interesting to check out sometimes, to, to look at feedback. But it's, uh, it's, it's not nearly as an effective way of communicating your ideas as, like, making something more personal-

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:17:04

       Right.

   21. BOBill Ottman1:17:04

       ... that's, you know, more, uh ... I mean, even video is, is, is more effective than that because people actually have a chance to look at you, or obviously, in person-

   22. JRJoe Rogan1:17:13

       Yeah.

   23. BOBill Ottman1:17:13

       ... would be even better.

   24. JRJoe Rogan1:17:14

       Yeah. Well, in-person is obviously the best. Um, and I think w- my concern, really, about the future is ... I'm holding back a sneeze right now, sorry. Trying to keep it together.

   25. BOBill Ottman1:17:25

       Do it.

   26. JRJoe Rogan1:17:26

       I don't think I can. It's one of those borderline ones. What are you supposed to do? Are you supposed to stare at the light?

   27. BOBill Ottman1:17:32

       Are you trying to resist it?

   28. JRJoe Rogan1:17:34

       No, I'm trying to get th- Okay, we're good. We're out of the woods. Um, uh, I lost my train of thought. What was, what were we just saying?

   29. BOBill Ottman1:17:40

       AI something?

   30. JRJoe Rogan1:17:42

       No.

Episode duration: 2:27:24