Joe Rogan Experience #1282 - Adam Conover

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   (sighs) …

   1. NANarrator0:00

      (sighs)

   2. Yes, uh-

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:03

      Is it good?

   4. NANarrator0:04

      Yeah. Yeah, it's fine. Go ahead.

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:08

      (laughs)

   6. ACAdam Conover0:08

      All right.

   7. NANarrator0:09

      Cut all this out, so-

   8. JRJoe Rogan0:10

      Right, right, right, right.

   9. ACAdam Conover0:11

      (laughs)

   10. JRJoe Rogan0:11

       Hello, Adam.

   11. ACAdam Conover0:12

       Hey, thanks for having me, Joe.

   12. JRJoe Rogan0:13

       Hey, thanks for being here, man. I appreciate it.

   13. ACAdam Conover0:14

       Of course.

   14. JRJoe Rogan0:14

       I'm a, a giant fan of your show.

   15. ACAdam Conover0:16

       I really appreciate that.

   16. JRJoe Rogan0:17

       I love the fact that it annoys people too.

   17. ACAdam Conover0:18

       (laughs)

   18. JRJoe Rogan0:19

       (laughs)

   19. ACAdam Conover0:19

       It really pisses people off. That's the goal pretty much, you know. I mean, I'm not the kind of person where I'm like, "Ah, if you're pissing people off, you're doing something right." But, eh, there's some truth to that, you know.

   20. JRJoe Rogan0:27

       There's some truth to that. And also, the way you structured the name. I mean, I don't know if you came up with the name of it, but Adam-

   21. ACAdam Conover0:31

       Yeah.

   22. JRJoe Rogan0:31

       ... Ruins Everything.

   23. ACAdam Conover0:33

       I, I think I might have to give that to my, to my, uh, former boss, Sam Reich at CollegeHumor, might've, might've, uh... I think, uh, we, we came up with the, with the name together. He might've been the first person to say it, but, uh, yeah.

   24. JRJoe Rogan0:42

       It's perfect.

   25. ACAdam Conover0:43

       Thank you. I'm really... Uh, yeah, it like, lets you know, it lets you know that, hey, this is gonna annoy you a little bit. That like-

   26. JRJoe Rogan0:48

       (laughs)

   27. ACAdam Conover0:48

       ... I'm gonna be telling you shit that you don't wanna hear that's gonna make everything a little bit worse, you know. But at the end of the day, it makes it better. It's an optimistic show at the end of the day, where-

   28. JRJoe Rogan0:55

       Sure.

   29. ACAdam Conover0:56

       Yeah.

   30. JRJoe Rogan0:57

       Yeah, yeah. You, you give them the truth.
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   I mean, look, I'm…

   1. JRJoe Rogan15:00

      tall, handsome men with great bodies?

   2. ACAdam Conover15:04

      I mean, look, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna say that, like... Fir- first of all, you're positing, like, a value judgment in it that, that the, that the bodies are great, right? So, like, are women attracted to attractive bodies? If that's the question, then, then I would say, of course, but-

   3. JRJoe Rogan15:15

      Dad bods are more attractive to women, study finds. Some, some, some-

   4. ACAdam Conover15:19

      That's what I'm talking about.

   5. JRJoe Rogan15:19

      ... fucking guy with a dad bod made that.

   6. ACAdam Conover15:21

      Look, here's something, here's something that I was really influenced by. I read-

   7. JRJoe Rogan15:23

      But what do you think of that, what I just said, though? Th- that doesn't make sense to you, that women would be attracted to someone who's fit?

   8. ACAdam Conover15:30

      Look, I mean, it's a, uh, it's a hypothetical, right? Like, I, uh, certainly athleticism, right? Is something that is attractive, right?

   9. JRJoe Rogan15:37

      Mm-hmm.

   10. ACAdam Conover15:37

       Um, that's something that many people find attractive, right? Not everybody finds that attractive. Um, and I don't think that we can necessarily reason backwards to, uh, like, a specific evolutionary relationship, right? Um, because the truth of what those evolutionary relationships are is, like, often a lot more complicated than, you know, our, our immediate intuition about it. And what we're specifically pushing back against in that segment is, like, the really sort of unscientific, you know, uh-

   11. JRJoe Rogan16:05

       Use of alpha and beta.

   12. ACAdam Conover16:06

       Yeah.

   13. JRJoe Rogan16:06

       Yeah.

   14. ACAdam Conover16:06

       Exactly. Where it's like, you know, you've got people, you know, just on internet forums, like, sort of doing amateur pseudoscience, right? Saying, like, "This is the, how the relationships between men and women are, like, designed evolutionarily."

   15. JRJoe Rogan16:18

       Mm-hmm.

   16. ACAdam Conover16:18

       Um, and we were just pointing out on a very, very simple level, like, the alpha and beta social hierarchy theory, right? Um, that, like, uh, humans are organized in a social hierarchy and alphas are above betas. Not true, right? Um, even someone who is the person who you posited, right? The, um, person who is, uh, athletic and confident, right? The, uh, you know, the high school football quarterback, right?

   17. JRJoe Rogan16:42

       Mm-hmm.

   18. ACAdam Conover16:42

       Versus the high school football nerd, right? Well, take those two people and then put them in a different situation, right? If those two people are, like, in gym class together, right? Of course the high school f- quarterback is, like, on the top of that social interaction, right? Um, looking at the sort of, you know, classic wolf pack model, they're the one who's s- sort of running the show, right? And the other guy's, like, hanging out in the bleachers talking to his friends, right? Or talking to nobody 'cause he's a, he's a beta in that situation, right? If you then take that kid and then you, you know, send that kid to, like, nationals, right? (laughs) Or whatever, uh, you know, and that kid... Uh, sorry, take the, the quarterback character, um, and, you know, he's suddenly, like, you know, from a, the little Podunk town, right? He's not from the big school. Um, he's, like, way down on the totem pole, right? That person is no longer gonna be in that high social hierarchy, right? Um, and if you take that nerd and you put that, you know, take that kid and maybe he's the dungeon master of his, you know, Dungeons and Dragons group, right? Um, uh, that, uh, that kid is gonna be the alpha in that situation, right? That's how humans work. You know, humans aren't organized in sort of, like, little pods that stay together for life and there's one person who's dominant the whole time, right? And that's the simple point that we were making, uh, uh, in that piece, right? Um...

   19. JRJoe Rogan17:50

       And people got upset.

   20. ACAdam Conover17:51

       Yeah. People got upset because there are so many people who... We talked about this later on the show. There's this idea called the backfire effect, right? Where when people are told something that they don't agree with, um, that when they, when they... Someone has told somebody a fact, when somebody is told a fact that contradicts, like, a really deeply held belief, it can often cause them to, uh, disbelieve it even when it's true, right?

   21. JRJoe Rogan18:11

       Mm-hmm.

   22. ACAdam Conover18:11

       And fight back, fight back even harder.

   23. JRJoe Rogan18:13

       Yeah.

   24. ACAdam Conover18:13

       One of the reasons that happens is because of an idea called identity protective cognition. It's, um, if the fact that is being debunked is literally part of your identity, like, if it's something-

   25. JRJoe Rogan18:21

       Mm-hmm.

   26. ACAdam Conover18:21

       ... that you believe really, really deeply, it's incredibly hard for you to disbelieve it, right? The classic example of this is, like, you know, Sean Hannity do- Sean Hannity doesn't believe in climate change, right? Uh, uh-

   27. JRJoe Rogan18:32

       Really?

   28. ACAdam Conover18:33

       Uh, well, you know what? Uh, I actually don't know that specifically what Seany- Sean Hannity thinks about climate change. So let's just say somebody who's made their whole career on climate change doesn't exist, right?

   29. JRJoe Rogan18:42

       Okay.

   30. ACAdam Conover18:42

       All their friends are in the anti-climate change community, right? Uh, they met their wife at an anti-climate change fundraiser. You know what I mean? They make their money, they write a new anti-climate change book every year, right? Now, uh...... climate change is real, right? There's no evidence I could present that person with that is going to make them take the social risk of ending all their relationships, changing their whole life, right? Uh, because if they were to say, "Okay, you know what? Actually I'm convinced. Climate change is real," they would lose all their friends, their wife would leave them, they would lose their revenue stream. They can't possibly come to that conclusion, right?
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   Mm-hmm. …

   1. ACAdam Conover30:00

      uh, and, you know, that means sort of like overcome adversity, right? Don't complain too much, right? If you have a problem, solve it yourself kind of thing, right?

   2. JRJoe Rogan30:08

      Mm-hmm.

   3. ACAdam Conover30:08

      Um, and he talked about, and they also talked with medical professionals who said the same thing, that that idea, um, can, doesn't give men the tools they need to deal with PTSD, right? And can actually exacerbate PTSD-

   4. JRJoe Rogan30:19

      Mm-hmm.

   5. ACAdam Conover30:19

      ... because it means that they're not trained how to reach out for help-

   6. JRJoe Rogan30:21

      Yes.

   7. ACAdam Conover30:21

      ... for those problems.

   8. JRJoe Rogan30:22

      No, I couldn't agree more.

   9. ACAdam Conover30:23

      Um, and so-

   10. JRJoe Rogan30:24

       That's a different situation, I think.

   11. ACAdam Conover30:25

       Oh, yeah, yeah. It's a different example-

   12. JRJoe Rogan30:27

       Yeah.

   13. ACAdam Conover30:27

       ... of, of, of just a way that that sort of narrow idea of be a man, being a man means this, a real man would do this, right?

   14. JRJoe Rogan30:32

       Right. Mm-hmm.

   15. ACAdam Conover30:33

       It, that does, that works in some situations. Maybe that works when you're, you know, in a foxhole, right? Um, it doesn't work so well when you're out of it, right?

   16. JRJoe Rogan30:40

       No. Bring-

   17. ACAdam Conover30:40

       And so that's a narrow idea that can lead to a bad outcome.

   18. JRJoe Rogan30:43

       Sure. But that's basically what we were just saying that, you know, you should be emotionally vulnerable and, and know how to express yourself with your friends and be honest-

   19. ACAdam Conover30:51

       Mm-hmm.

   20. JRJoe Rogan30:51

       ... and true about how you feel about things. But you also should know when you're being a bitch.

   21. ACAdam Conover30:55

       (laughs)

   22. JRJoe Rogan30:56

       Both of those things are real.

   23. ACAdam Conover30:57

       Fa- fair enou- fair enough. Fair enough.

   24. JRJoe Rogan30:58

       If you're on a hike with a friend and he has to stop every five minutes 'cause his foot hurts, like, "Come on, man."

   25. ACAdam Conover31:04

       (laughs)

   26. JRJoe Rogan31:04

       "My foot hurts too. Just fucking walk. You're walking fine."

   27. ACAdam Conover31:07

       I completely, I completely agree with you.

   28. JRJoe Rogan31:09

       Just, "I just don't think this is worth it. I mean, this is not what I had in mind when we started hiking."

   29. ACAdam Conover31:13

       (laughs)

   30. JRJoe Rogan31:13

       That guy's being a bitch, right?
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   (laughs) …

   1. ACAdam Conover45:00

      mic, and it was like her third open mic. And we saw each other, uh, her and a couple of friends, I was like, "You guys are funny. You're funny." And she was like, "Yeah, we're going to this other mic. You wanna come?" "Yep, let's go." And then I've known her ever since. And then, like, to see her do that white horse cor- White House Correspondents Dinner-

   2. JRJoe Rogan45:13

      (laughs)

   3. ACAdam Conover45:13

      ... was like, I just felt all that history all at once. I was like, "This is fucking amazing," you know? I was so-

   4. JRJoe Rogan45:18

      What did you think when the president was tweeting at her? (laughs)

   5. ACAdam Conover45:21

      (laughs)

   6. JRJoe Rogan45:21

      I was like, "Damn, she got him on the hook."

   7. ACAdam Conover45:23

      I was like, "This is the best."

   8. JRJoe Rogan45:24

      Look at the wheel.

   9. ACAdam Conover45:25

      That's what a comic's supposed to do, you know? Like, the way-

   10. JRJoe Rogan45:27

       Of course.

   11. ACAdam Conover45:27

       ... that she pissed people off, that was such a beautiful, that was such a beautiful moment.

   12. JRJoe Rogan45:32

       Mm-hmm.

   13. ACAdam Conover45:32

       I loved it. She was so fucking funny and-

   14. JRJoe Rogan45:35

       It was great writing too.

   15. ACAdam Conover45:36

       It was great writ-

   16. JRJoe Rogan45:37

       It was funny shit.

   17. ACAdam Conover45:37

       Yeah, she wrote it. A bunch of our friends from those days, Anthony DeVito, Greg Stone, Dan St. Germain, I believe, helped to write jokes. And yeah, they were really funny. And guess what? Like, the crowd didn't want comedy apparently, but they got one of the best comics in the country, you know, who's like on the ... She's in her prime right now, and she fucking tore it up. She did her job better than they wanted, and they got pissed off about it, and it was beautiful.

   18. JRJoe Rogan46:00

       Did they really get pissed off? I think some people did.

   19. ACAdam Conover46:01

       They got so ... You, you ... Uh, did you forget? It was like a three-day news cycle of how much-

   20. JRJoe Rogan46:05

       Yeah, but people that-

   21. ACAdam Conover46:06

       ... everybody hated her.

   22. JRJoe Rogan46:06

       ... were there didn't get pissed off.

   23. ACAdam Conover46:08

       Some of them, they were like tweeting, like Maggie Haberman from The New York Times was tweeting like, "Oh, I feel bad for, you know, S- Sarah, uh, Huckabee," like, for the, for the, you know, light jab that she got about her eye makeup. (laughs)

   24. JRJoe Rogan46:18

       (laughs) That was so-

   25. ACAdam Conover46:19

       Give me a break.

   26. JRJoe Rogan46:20

       ... nothing.

   27. ACAdam Conover46:20

       It was nothing.

   28. JRJoe Rogan46:21

       That was so nothing, and they were talking about, what did they say? She, uh, they, uh, appearance shamed? She appearance shamed her?

   29. ACAdam Conover46:26

       No, she didn't.

   30. JRJoe Rogan46:26

       What was the word they were looking-
5. 1:00:00 – 1:01:46

   Right. …

   1. ACAdam Conover1:00:00

      divisions, it's like the rest of the drug war, right? The divisions we make between the things that are acceptable and not acceptable are so arbitrary, right?

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:00:07

      Right.

   3. ACAdam Conover1:00:08

      So the example I always use is like, okay, why don't, why don't we like performance enhancing drugs? Not everyone has access to them, so they're unfair, right?

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:00:15

      Mm-hmm.

   5. ACAdam Conover1:00:15

      They're bad for your health-

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:00:16

      Mm-hmm.

   7. ACAdam Conover1:00:16

      ... and we think they're unnatural, right?

   8. JRJoe Rogan1:00:18

      Yes.

   9. ACAdam Conover1:00:18

      Okay. So-

   10. JRJoe Rogan1:00:19

       Cheating too.

   11. ACAdam Conover1:00:19

       So yeah, their, yeah their-

   12. JRJoe Rogan1:00:20

       They're cheating.

   13. ACAdam Conover1:00:21

       Yeah, well that's, those are the reasons-

   14. JRJoe Rogan1:00:22

       It's not just their ente-

   15. ACAdam Conover1:00:22

       ... why we think they're cheating, right?

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:00:23

       Yeah. But well it's also like-

   17. ACAdam Conover1:00:24

       But there's some drugs you can take that aren't cheating, right? Like you could take uh-

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:00:28

       No, but unfair advantage is the reason-

   19. ACAdam Conover1:00:29

       Yeah.

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:00:29

       ... why it's cheating.

   21. ACAdam Conover1:00:29

       Okay.

   22. JRJoe Rogan1:00:30

       That's the primary reason.

   23. ACAdam Conover1:00:31

       So here, so let me give you a counter-example. Um, uh, for runners-

   24. NANarrator1:00:34

       Mm-hmm.

   25. ACAdam Conover1:00:35

       ... right, uh, for endurance athletes, like ma- I, I, I like running, I'm a shitty runner but I like it, I think it's a fun sport, um, so I follow it a little bit. Uh, so runners, endurance, you know the big thing is like how much your, how much oxygen your blood can hold, right?

   26. JRJoe Rogan1:00:48

       Yeah.

   27. ACAdam Conover1:00:49

       If you train at a high altitude, then you can increase that, right? So there are these runners, the American runners, right? They live at a high altitude, they live super high up, you know, in Colorado or whatever, right? And then when they're not there, they train there all year round, they buy a place there. And then when they're not there, when they're competing somewhere else, they sleep in a chamber that simulates low altitude, right?

   28. JRJoe Rogan1:01:10

       Mm-hmm.

   29. ACAdam Conover1:01:10

       How is that not the same thing as taking a performance enhancing drug? Like they, it, th- they, you know, and it's not a, i- i- it's not illegal to do that, right?

   30. JRJoe Rogan1:01:17

       Right. Right.

Episode duration: 2:47:12