Joe Rogan Experience #1266 - Ben Anderson

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   ... chain on. …

   1. BABen Anderson0:00

      ... chain on.

   2. JRJoe Rogan0:01

      It's been a while. Working? Live? We're live. Do you wanna talk about that? Or no?

   3. BABen Anderson0:14

      I-

   4. JRJoe Rogan0:14

      The chain thing, did you have something to say?

   5. BABen Anderson0:15

      Ev- ev- everyone sent me the clip and, uh-

   6. JRJoe Rogan0:17

      Oh.

   7. BABen Anderson0:17

      ... and I think you said something about taking a knee i- in the middle of a gunfight, and he said, "Yeah, that was Ben. He's a fucking savage."

   8. JRJoe Rogan0:23

      What did you do?

   9. BABen Anderson0:24

      And, uh-

   10. JRJoe Rogan0:25

       What happened? Refresh my memory.

   11. BABen Anderson0:27

       We're in Afghanistan.

   12. JRJoe Rogan0:28

       Right.

   13. BABen Anderson0:28

       And the guys I'm with, the Afghan soldiers I'm with, get ambushed by the Taliban. And I just went down on one knee and carried on talking.

   14. JRJoe Rogan0:35

       Ugh.

   15. BABen Anderson0:35

       Um, and Shane said, "Yeah, he's a fucking savage."

   16. JRJoe Rogan0:38

       (laughs)

   17. BABen Anderson0:38

       And that... Apparently, that's a compliment. (laughs) I wasn't sure.

   18. JRJoe Rogan0:41

       War journalists are very fascinating people to me because, uh, oftentimes, you guys move towards the gunfire with the camera to get the shot. And, y- you know, I've talked to folks before who have worked as a, a war journalist and they say you almost don't think you're... Y- y- you, you, you're f- so concentrated on getting the shot, you don't think about the fact that you might get shot.

   19. BABen Anderson1:07

       Oh, it's, it's a safety mechanism, yeah. You think you're protected by looking at it on a screen rather than realizing it's, it's actually happening in real life right now.

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:14

       That's-

   21. BABen Anderson1:14

       I mean, it's stupid. (laughs)

   22. JRJoe Rogan1:15

       That is so... It's so strange.

   23. BABen Anderson1:17

       There was a-

   24. JRJoe Rogan1:17

       Try, try to keep this, uh, like a, like a fist from your face. Perfect. There we go.

   25. BABen Anderson1:21

       I was with, um, the US Marines for Operation Moshtarak, like the biggest operation of the Afghan war. Um, and there was a town called Marja that was controlled by the Taliban. And I met up with this one group of Marines. I, I used to love going out with the Marines 'cause they'd... If you were willing to run the same risks as them, they'd let you film everything. Um, and their mission was to get dropped by helicopter in the middle of this town at 3:00 AM on day one, and then just fight their way out from the middle of the town. And as soon as the sun came up, all of the speakers on the mosques were saying, "The infidels are here, the infidels are here. Get your weapons, get your weapons." And General McChrystal had introduced this rule of courageous restraint saying you're not allowed to shoot unless you're shot at, or unless you see someone preparing a hostile act. And the Taliban had figured out how to use this. So, I'm sitting in this field with about 28 Marines watching the Taliban drop off guys in buildings all around us with their weapons wrapped in blankets, knowing the Marines can't shoot them. So they're setting up the perfect ambush. Um, and as soon as we started walking across the field, it started and it's like nothing I've ever heard or experienced before. And we ran and dived into a ditch. The guys either side of me got, got hit, one of them badly. A guy was killed on the other side of the field almost straight away. Um, and I was there alone filming it myself. And because I was watching the whole thing through this tiny little screen on my camera, it felt like I wasn't, you know, in, in as much danger as, as they were. And I, I was so f- afraid... And the adrenaline runs out after a while and you just become numb, and you... I mean, then I'd resigned myself. I thought we were all gonna get killed. We were completely surrounded and outnumbered, and there were RPGs and snipers. Um, and I watched it back, and the footage is pretty good.

   26. JRJoe Rogan2:56

       (laughs)

   27. BABen Anderson2:56

       You know, I'm, like, changing shots, I'm zooming in, I'm focusing.

   28. JRJoe Rogan2:58

       God.

   29. BABen Anderson2:59

       And I think focusing on that helped me, helped me, you know-

   30. JRJoe Rogan3:02

       How did you get out of it?
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   I mean, it feels…

   1. JRJoe Rogan15:00

      all it would take is one massive world event, one ma- to, to completely remap how we, we view each other and how we view things. It's v- v- very disconcerting to me at this p-

   2. BABen Anderson15:11

      I mean, it feels like without that one big world event, we're not that far away from that right now.

   3. JRJoe Rogan15:15

      Right.

   4. BABen Anderson15:15

      And there are parallel universes right now that exist on things that you would've thought everyone can accept as a basic fact.

   5. JRJoe Rogan15:21

      Like what?

   6. BABen Anderson15:22

      You know. Um, uh, I mean, Syria.

   7. JRJoe Rogan15:26

      Yeah.

   8. BABen Anderson15:26

      You know, the White Helmets. There, there are some fairly serious people saying the White Helmets are, you know, some kind of media front for Al-Qaeda or Al-Nusra.

   9. JRJoe Rogan15:34

      Would you explain the White Helmets for people?

   10. BABen Anderson15:37

       So when there's a, when there's a bombing and a building collapses, they go in and, and drag people out and get them medical attention as, as quick as possible.

   11. JRJoe Rogan15:44

       And people think that they're somehow or another involved in it, that they're a front?

   12. BABen Anderson15:49

       Yeah, to, to... And, and the, the footage is faked in order to drum up sympathy for the rebel-held areas.

   13. JRJoe Rogan15:55

       (sighs)

   14. BABen Anderson15:56

       I mean, that's... I've, I've heard, you know, serious people say that. Um-

   15. JRJoe Rogan15:59

       Serious people?

   16. BABen Anderson16:00

       Yeah, yeah. Not, not, not loons on Facebook. I've heard, you know-

   17. JRJoe Rogan16:02

       Like journalists or?

   18. BABen Anderson16:03

       Yeah, yeah. Um, yeah. I mean, I mean, Seymour Hersh, I think has, has walked it back a little bit since, but he said that in the early days.

   19. JRJoe Rogan16:09

       Why do you think he believed it?

   20. BABen Anderson16:11

       I read really interesting article about him just a few days ago. Where was it? Um, I forget what, what... It was, it was, you know, the ... not exposé, but a really good look at, look at, look at him. And I think he's just spent his career believing, rightly, that the government lies about all kinds of things. And that's got him into a point where he thinks, "Well, they always lie no matter what."

   21. JRJoe Rogan16:31

       Mm.

   22. BABen Anderson16:31

       Um, so, and I, I... It's happened to a lot of journalists, uh, Robert Fisk, uh, Seymour Hersh, um, Martha Gellhorn, one of my favorite war correspondents of all time. I reread some of her stuff recently and, and the first batch of war reporting she did, I think is the, the best war reporting I've ever read. Spanish Civil War, Vietnam, um, and then she spent 25 years writing novels and then later on wrote about, I believe it was the Yom Kippur War and was denying that massacres had happened and saying, you know, "Arabs lie, they always lie. There was no massacre." And we now know there was a massacre or there were massacres, um, in the aftermath of these, of these wars. Um, so I don't know what happens. I mean, maybe if you just do this for too long, you just become so cynical-

   23. JRJoe Rogan17:13

       (sighs) Mm.

   24. BABen Anderson17:13

       ... um, that, that you're open to these things. But it's... Yeah, I'm amazed that Seymour Hersh is, is open to that idea.

   25. JRJoe Rogan17:20

       (sighs) When the, the very people that are calling it, the very people that have boots on the ground and that are in these war zones are... and calling these things, th- when they become cynical and they become jaded, that's when it gets really, really sketchy. And, and we rely so heavily on people like you. Like there's... I'm not going over there.

   26. BABen Anderson17:41

       Yeah.

   27. JRJoe Rogan17:41

       You know, Jamie's not going over there. Look at him. (laughs) The... You know what I'm saying? I mean, and, and you wouldn't be able to really get... Like I know people that have gone to Venezuela and they come back and they go, "I don't know what the fuck is going on over there. I don't know who to believe. I don't understand it."

   28. BABen Anderson17:54

       Yeah.

   29. JRJoe Rogan17:54

       Venezuela is a very strange one and I get messages all the time and, you know, I've had Abby Martin who goes over there and she has one take on it, and I have other people that I talk to that have a different take on it, and I do not know. I don't know who to believe. And I think you'd have to go over there and do... You'd, you'd have to spend a lot of time to try to figure this out, and it would have to be the entire focus of your life to really try to parse it out.

   30. BABen Anderson18:16

       I think that's true of a lot of conflicts. I mean, there-
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   Please. …

   1. BABen Anderson30:00

      you know, there's a piece came out in The New Yorker, I don't mean to just keep on going on about The New Yorker (laughs) -

   2. JRJoe Rogan30:04

      Please.

   3. BABen Anderson30:04

      ... but a piece came out, uh, about The New Yorker today by Ed Caesar, a friend of mine, about Brexit, and about Arron Banks, and, and, and I haven't read the piece yet, but I know, I know what he's been working on, and, you know, there may be evidence that the Russians directly influenced the, the Brexit vote. Are the Brexit voters really gonna look at that article and think, "Oh, maybe I was misled. Maybe I, maybe I read 10 ar- articles on Facebook that, that made me vote wrongly"?... you know, how many people actually have their minds open enough to-

   4. JRJoe Rogan30:31

      Right.

   5. BABen Anderson30:31

      ... to consider that. Like, I mean, it, especially with American politics, it feels like football. Um-

   6. JRJoe Rogan30:36

      Yes.

   7. BABen Anderson30:37

      ... you know, if your player fouls someone, of course it's not a foul.

   8. JRJoe Rogan30:39

      Right.

   9. BABen Anderson30:40

      If your player gets fouled, "Oh, that's a blatant foul, he should get sent off." It's-

   10. JRJoe Rogan30:43

       100%.

   11. BABen Anderson30:44

       You know?

   12. JRJoe Rogan30:44

       Blatant tribalism. Yeah.

   13. BABen Anderson30:46

       Yeah.

   14. JRJoe Rogan30:46

       Very few objective people, very few legitimate centrists. Everyone seems to be digging their heels in on one side or the other.

   15. BABen Anderson30:53

       Yeah.

   16. JRJoe Rogan30:54

       And it seems to me that a lot of them have just picked a team.

   17. BABen Anderson30:58

       Yeah.

   18. JRJoe Rogan30:58

       I don't, I don't necessarily think they've curated these opinions and cultivated these ideas over many years of soul-searching and reading and trying to understand who they are and how they interface with the world. I don't think that's happening.

   19. BABen Anderson31:13

       Or, or your family-

   20. JRJoe Rogan31:14

       Yes.

   21. BABen Anderson31:14

       ... picked a team.

   22. JRJoe Rogan31:15

       Exactly.

   23. BABen Anderson31:15

       You know, so if your family has always been Republican-

   24. JRJoe Rogan31:17

       Mm-hmm.

   25. BABen Anderson31:17

       ... then s- suddenly saying, "Maybe I'm gonna vote for Hillary-

   26. JRJoe Rogan31:19

       Sure.

   27. BABen Anderson31:19

       ... instead of Trump," feels like coming out with something (laughs) , you know?

   28. JRJoe Rogan31:21

       Or-

   29. BABen Anderson31:21

       Like, it's, it's that big a deal.

   30. JRJoe Rogan31:23

       ... your occupation, you know, depending upon your occupation. I mean, good luck finding a job in tech if you're right wing, you know? Good, good l- good luck working in the arms industry if you're left wing.
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   Yeah. …

   1. JRJoe Rogan45:00

      trying to figure out what he wants to do, and he's thinking about moving to New York and getting a job in Wall Street. But he's hesitant 'cause he's a nice guy. He doesn't wanna go dark, you know? And I'm like, "Man, you could- it could- you could go to the dark side." Like, these people are... Look, not all of them, but a- a lot of them are just straight-up materialists.

   2. BABen Anderson45:18

      Yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan45:18

      They're just chasing money. When you're in the money business and you're just chasing money, like, there's... Your reward is things. Your reward is objects and status and clothes and houses and shit.

   4. BABen Anderson45:34

      Yeah. And sometimes you talk to those guys and you say, "So what- what do you do?" "I work in finance." "Yeah, yeah, but what do you actually do?" "I work in finance and I'm very well rewarded, as you can see." "Yeah, but what do you actually do?" "Oh, I- I look for fluctuations in international grain markets." "Congratulations. What an amazing thing to dedicate your life to," you know? And if you just said what they do rather than what the reward was-

   5. JRJoe Rogan45:55

      Right.

   6. BABen Anderson45:55

      ...you'd think this is ridiculous. What a waste of your time.

   7. JRJoe Rogan45:59

      It is, but the- the status of being super wealthy, for a lot of them, is worth it-

   8. BABen Anderson46:06

      Yeah.

   9. JRJoe Rogan46:06

      ...because they don't have a passion, right? They don't have a thing they're... They're not trying to write a book, they're not trying to make a painting or whatever the fuck it is that...

   10. BABen Anderson46:14

       Yeah.

   11. JRJoe Rogan46:14

       You know, they're just trying to make the money and they're making the money, so everything is great.

   12. BABen Anderson46:19

       Yeah. But then, I-

   13. JRJoe Rogan46:19

       They're doing coke and shots.

   14. BABen Anderson46:20

       I mean, if I, if I pulled up here in a, you know, a purple Lamborghini with a diamond-studded watch...

   15. JRJoe Rogan46:26

       I'd be like, "Look at this motherfucker. He must be robbing people."

   16. BABen Anderson46:28

       (laughs) Yeah, yeah.

   17. JRJoe Rogan46:29

       (laughs)

   18. BABen Anderson46:29

       But not that many people would be- would be that impressed. I think most people would think, "What a douche."

   19. JRJoe Rogan46:33

       "What a tool." Yeah.

   20. BABen Anderson46:34

       (laughs) Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

   21. JRJoe Rogan46:35

       Yeah. It's cer- it's certain circles, right? It's whatever circle that you're in.

   22. BABen Anderson46:39

       Yeah.

   23. JRJoe Rogan46:39

       It's certain circles, like in finance circles, it is m- m- about those things more than it's not because those things represent success in your industry.

   24. BABen Anderson46:48

       Your friend should read a piece, may, may, maybe even in a book by Michael Lewis, um, and he talks to a bunch of graduates who, you know, are about to get approached by the big banks-

   25. JRJoe Rogan46:56

       Hmm.

   26. BABen Anderson46:57

       ...and financial institutions. And he says, "Listen, you think you're going to do this for two or three years-

   27. JRJoe Rogan47:01

       Yes.

   28. BABen Anderson47:01

       "...earn a few million dollars, and then do something worthwhile with your life. But what's going to happen is you're going to get seduced and you're going to get the mortgage and you're gonna-"

   29. JRJoe Rogan47:08

       Hmm.

   30. BABen Anderson47:08

       "...and your, suddenly 20 years of your life will have gone by and you'll think, 'What the fuck have I just done with my life?'"
5. 1:00:00 – 1:07:11

   Or maybe I didn't…

   1. JRJoe Rogan1:00:00

      the war that lost friends have that horrible feeling that it should have been them, that they're not as good as the person who died, or that somehow or another them being alive is the reason why their friend was dead, irrational thoughts.

   2. BABen Anderson1:00:12

      Or maybe I didn't really experience it because I came out unscathed.

   3. JRJoe Rogan1:00:15

      Right.

   4. BABen Anderson1:00:16

      Um, yeah, which is one of the reasons why I didn't seek treatment for years and years and years. 'Cause I've got friends who lost their legs, I've got friends who were kidnapped and killed, you know, so maybe I've only just dipped my toes so there's nothing, nothing... I've got nothing to complain about.

   5. JRJoe Rogan1:00:29

      What was your number one issue?

   6. BABen Anderson1:00:32

      Um, I think the numbness to danger and to, to pleasurable things back here. Um, I mean, like, my, my cameraman in Mosul, we were there when the Iraqi Army beat ISIS and it was, I mean, it was house to house fighting, we were stepping on bodies to get through rooms.And at one point, um, I was with, we were with three or four Iraqi soldiers trying to get to the river to cut off these two ISIS positions and they got a radio message saying, "There's a suicide bomber and a gunman running down the street towards you now." So we stepped into this, what used to be a shop that's all blown up and smashed to bits, and I sat down as the two soldiers tried to shoot this suicide bomber as he was running towards us-

   7. JRJoe Rogan1:01:08

      (sighs)

   8. BABen Anderson1:01:08

      ... and someone said, "IED, IED." And right next to me under the rubble was an IED. The day before I think, or two days before, two French journalists and a Kurdish journalist had been killed when they stepped on an IED trying to get out. And Javier Manzano, my, my cameraman, just said, "You looked bored." Um, and he, he filmed it, like, we got that moment on camera and I remember just looking so bored and I couldn't give a shit about the suicide bomber, the IED. I was just bored out of my brains and that's when I thought, "This is, this is not a natural reaction to, to what's going on around you right now."

   9. JRJoe Rogan1:01:41

      What did you think your natural reaction should've been?

   10. BABen Anderson1:01:43

       I mean, blood rate increasing-

   11. JRJoe Rogan1:01:45

       Right.

   12. BABen Anderson1:01:45

       ... heart rate increasing-

   13. JRJoe Rogan1:01:47

       Right.

   14. BABen Anderson1:01:47

       ... you know, um, vigilance, um, you know.

   15. JRJoe Rogan1:01:49

       And what did you think at the time was the cause of you being numb? Like, while it was happening.

   16. BABen Anderson1:01:55

       I, I hadn't really thought that much about PTSD. I just thought I'd become so used to this and, and one of the things that came up in the, in, uh, one of the last sessions I did, um, was I didn't think I was im- I was important enough to get, to get shot and hurt and have medics rush over to help me and maybe a helicopter take me out and, you know. Um, and I know that sounds ridiculous now but, uh, I think part of me thought, "Yeah, you're not important enough to have something so dramatic happen to you. You're just, you're just witnessing other people-"

   17. JRJoe Rogan1:02:21

       (sighs)

   18. BABen Anderson1:02:21

       "... in these dramas."

   19. JRJoe Rogan1:02:23

       Wow. To be right next to an IED and not freaking out is pretty crazy.

   20. BABen Anderson1:02:30

       Yeah, with a suicide bomber (laughs) running down the street towards you.

   21. JRJoe Rogan1:02:33

       (laughs)

   22. BABen Anderson1:02:33

       I mean, that's... And also, you know, people, people... One of the reasons you feel guilty is you do get respect for being brave. And I would say I, it wasn't bravery. I wasn't scared and then did it anyway. I wasn't scared. I was just-

   23. JRJoe Rogan1:02:46

       You-

   24. BABen Anderson1:02:46

       ... numb and just, you know, kept on-

   25. JRJoe Rogan1:02:47

       You get respect from other journalists? From the soldiers? Like, who are you getting respect from?

   26. BABen Anderson1:02:51

       Yeah, or, or people that watch the films or-

   27. JRJoe Rogan1:02:53

       Everyone? People, right.

   28. BABen Anderson1:02:54

       Yeah, yeah. And, uh, it doesn't, yeah, it doesn't feel like bravery. It just feels like you're, you know, you've, you've, you've become stupid about the risks you're taking.

   29. JRJoe Rogan1:03:02

       So talk me through this therapy. So you fasted for 24 hours, you take the MDMA, and then they just start talking to you about the things that are troubling you?

   30. BABen Anderson1:03:12

       Yeah. So you take 125 milligrams and then when that hits about an hour-

Episode duration: 2:18:36