EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,028 words- 0:01 – 3:16
Reasonable political commentary vs. dunking culture
- JRJoe Rogan
Hello, David. Here we go. We're live.
- DPDavid Pakman
We're, uh, we're doing it.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes, we're doing it. What's going on, man?
- DPDavid Pakman
I'm nervous. I'm nervous.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, don't be. Uh, I enjoy your show. I really do.
- DPDavid Pakman
Thank you.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's a pleasure to watch. Um, you, you're a very smart guy, man. You... And like I said, we were just talking about it, you're very reasonable. In this world, I think there's so much of this, uh, the YouTube political world, the YouTube commentary world, where people are so fucking toxic. You know, there's, there's so much negativity, there's so much what they call dunking on people.
- DPDavid Pakman
Mm.
- JRJoe Rogan
There's so much dunking. You do a little dunking, but-
- DPDavid Pakman
Some of it's warranted.
- JRJoe Rogan
It is warranted, yes.
- DPDavid Pakman
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
But I don't know if it's beneficial.
- DPDavid Pakman
Uh, to the, to the people doing the dunking?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes. Or even to the cause. I think it is temporarily... Well, sometimes it's good because it, it, it show-... It mocks people's positions and it makes people realize, "Yeah, that is a ridiculous position." So if you're on the fence or if you're not really quite sure how you feel about things and you see someone get mocked for a ridiculous position that maybe you've even shared for a little bit-
- DPDavid Pakman
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... maybe, maybe you haven't explored it deeply, and you see someone who has explored it deeply sort of expose all the flaws in this line of thinking, it's good. But my thing... When I'm... I... And I, I interview a lot of people on the right and a lot of people on the left, and I just hate all this conflict that I, I'd say the unnecessary conflict I think is when you, when you watch television today and you see Antifa fighting with, uh, you know, B- Trump supporters and all this, all this weird conflict, I don't, I don't necessarily think that most of it is, is necessary.
- DPDavid Pakman
Necessary? Well, I think the devil's in the details.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DPDavid Pakman
So, like, as an example, if you want to bring together, I don't know, people who are on oppor- oppos- opposite sides of the climate debate, for example.
- JRJoe Rogan
Good luck.
- DPDavid Pakman
Um, sure. Right. Well, why is... Par- part of that, you could argue, is if one side just does not accept science-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DPDavid Pakman
... how can you really bring those people together? It doesn't mean you need physical conflict to resolve it. In fact, I completely agree with you, the physical conflict is totally counterproductive. But at a certain point on some issues, I understand why there's, like, an intractability to the debate where it seems completely impossible to move forward because whichever side you're on, I would argue that I'm on the right side of these issues and others would disagree.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- DPDavid Pakman
When you're far apart in a way that you can't even agree as to, like, what the starting point facts are about the conversation-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DPDavid Pakman
... how do you even s-... How do you start? I have some ideas as to how I try to do it, but it's very tough.
- JRJoe Rogan
It is very tough. I just don't think dunking on people always, like constantly shitting on people-
- DPDavid Pakman
Mm.
- 3:16 – 3:49
How algorithms and ad incentives reward outrage
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes. Yes. I agree. And I think that it's just so common today. It's, it's, it's, it's also extremely attractive. The, the YouTube algorithm, uh, you know, as far as, um, comments go, I mean, it, it, it actually kind of encourages it and so does Facebook's. F- So does, you know... Anytime there's a social media platform that is ad dependent, one of the best ways to get people to engage is to have something they disagree with so they can get angry.
- DPDavid Pakman
Yes, until it becomes no longer brand safe according to whoever's running the platform.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right. Right.
- 3:49 – 7:07
Adpocalypse and why creators must diversify revenue
- DPDavid Pakman
Right? I mean, if you go back to April 2017 where I woke up and saw that my YouTube channel made 19 cents the previous day, and I text Kyle Kulinski and I say, "I think there's, like, a glitch." So, like, it says I made 19 cents and he says, "It says I made 35 cents," or something like that. Uh, "Something's going on." And it was the beginning of, like, Adpocalypse 1.0.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm. Yeah.
- DPDavid Pakman
And that was a rough three-week period. And, uh, so, so it's, you know, encourage the debate and the battle of ideas, so to speak, and all of this stuff until advertisers get worried and they say, "Oh, you know, our ads are showing up on stuff that's a little bit touch and go for us."
- JRJoe Rogan
That's a weird one to me because, um, I, uh... YouTube has always been a secondary thought for me.
- DPDavid Pakman
Mm.
- JRJoe Rogan
The, the first thought was the audio version of the podcast. And in fact, when we were uploading it to YouTube at first, I was like, "Why are we even doing this? I guess, why not? Some people probably wanna watch it." And then somewhere along the line, it became at least close to as big as the audio version of it.
- DPDavid Pakman
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
And then, uh, maybe even more significant because one of the things that the YouTube version has is the comment section, which is often a fucking dumpster fire, but it, it, it at least... There is some sort of a, like a community engagement aspect of it that doesn't really exist in iTunes. Like in, in iTunes it's sort of... It's in a vacuum, right?
- DPDavid Pakman
Sure.
- JRJoe Rogan
Um, but when the Adpocalypse thing happened, I was like, "Hmm, what is going on here?" Like, it wasn't, it wasn't my primary focus, so it wasn't terrifying. But people that only did YouTube and people that relied on that for their living, I mean, it was, it's a huge blow.
- DPDavid Pakman
It was huge. And at the time, I'm trying to think back. I think maybe, like, around 30% of my entire show's revenue was coming from YouTube at the time.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- DPDavid Pakman
So it was not everything, but it was still significant, right? I mean, I have staff and overhead and all of that stuff, so just overnight 30% going away is huge. And that's why I've tried to move to the model of telling my audience, "You can skip all of this stuff." You know, even, uh, uh, some of these other... you know, super chats and all of this other stuff, like, we run a membership program on my website. I control 100% of it. There's-
- JRJoe Rogan
So it's not a Patreon deal or anything?
- DPDavid Pakman
It... We're on Patreon, but it's not big for us. The, the way I think about it is as long as... I mean, listen. Yeah, there's, you, you know.... marijuana companies that are having trouble even processing payments. But assuming, like, Stripe and PayPal don't say, "You can't even accept payments anymore, David Pakman-"
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DPDavid Pakman
"... I control the entire process on my website." So when people pay their six bucks, all but 2.9% gets to me. And when Adpocalypse happened, I saw it as a maybe blessing in disguise, in that I could now explain to the audience, "Here's the problem with these algorithms. Here's the problem when it goes from, 'I am fighting white supremacist content,' to, 'An algorithm can't distinguish between that and white supremacist content.'"
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, right, right, yeah.
- DPDavid Pakman
That's bad for me, right? When I interview Richard Spencer-
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- DPDavid Pakman
... I obviously don't agree with Richard Spencer. Uh, but can an algorithm figure out that there's a difference between an interview I do with Richard Spencer and white nationalist propaganda? I don't know, but we can kinda get around all of (laughs) that if you just go directly to me. And that's why my focus has been growing that, those direct memberships.
- 7:07 – 7:12
Interviewing extremists: Richard Spencer, platforming, and pushback
- JRJoe Rogan
Did you interview Richard Spencer?
- DPDavid Pakman
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
D- did you get shit for that?
- DPDavid Pakman
Yes.
- 7:12 – 17:27
Is Rogan ‘right-wing’? Guilt-by-association and recommendation loops
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. That's a weird one, right? You know, um, I'm sure you're aware that, uh, that... (sighs) What is it called? The, the dating society that, uh, can... Where they, there was a woman who made a bunch of connections. Like, Joe Rogan knows David Pakman-
- DPDavid Pakman
Oh.
- JRJoe Rogan
... and, and Joe Rogan also knows Alex Jones, so Alex Jones must be friends with David Pakman.
- DPDavid Pakman
Like the map sort of thing.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, sort of. Yeah. It's, like, one of those mines, you know?
- DPDavid Pakman
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
Like, it's... And it was really weird. It, it just... It's like guilt by association.
- DPDavid Pakman
I saw a couple of them. There was, like, an initial one-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DPDavid Pakman
... which maybe you're thinking of. Then there was a map of, like, the YouTube sphere specifically-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- DPDavid Pakman
... left, middle, and right-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DPDavid Pakman
... or something like that.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And this idea that everyone's, like, at part of a grand conspiracy to help each other out and push right ideology. Even though, you know, a lot of people that were labeled as right are- aren't right.
- DPDavid Pakman
Like who?
- JRJoe Rogan
Like me.
- DPDavid Pakman
Oh.
- JRJoe Rogan
I'm not right, at all. I mean-
- DPDavid Pakman
My sense is your politics are pretty left on most stuff. Um, although I don't... I mean, I don't know you personally beyond just seeing your shows. Um, but maybe the critique is based on... 'Cause I think that those maps were based on what is the YouTube algorithm suggesting-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- DPDavid Pakman
... and so that may not be in line with your personal politics.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right. It's just, maybe what we're talking about, like, if you're interested in conflict and if you're trying to get engagement, that- that's the way to do it. Like, and if YouTube al- YouTube algorithm is constantly suggesting people like Ben Shapiro-
- DPDavid Pakman
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... or Gavin McInnes or whatever, and those videos come up over and over again.
- DPDavid Pakman
Sure, and I mean... So, a lot of those people's channels-
- JRJoe Rogan
(coughs) .
- DPDavid Pakman
... do really well-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- DPDavid Pakman
... on YouTube. So if you interview someone who has a channel themselves, there's a very good chance that the algorithm, if they're watching your interview with that person, will say, "Well, here's a lot of their stuff."
- 17:27 – 23:48
Purity tests on the left and the Medicare for All litmus test
- JRJoe Rogan
There's more s- that's- that's a pretty big issue though, don't you agree?
- DPDavid Pakman
Well, I don't- I don't actually agree that it exists on a significant portion of the left. Like, I think a bigger issue, for example, like if you said, "What is, like, a serious issue that the left needs to contend with right now?"
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- DPDavid Pakman
I would say a more serious issue is, if you look at the progressive accomplishments of the early 20th century, for example, like 1905 to 1925-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- DPDavid Pakman
... and the New Deal accomplishments that the left had in the time of FDR, what was different, I think, then than the left now, is that you didn't have to be completely in line with a specific set of policies or ideas.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- DPDavid Pakman
And I worry that now, there's a little bit-... um, of the Left-
- JRJoe Rogan
(coughs)
- DPDavid Pakman
... maybe having this idea that if you're not in line on all of these issues, whatever the checklist is so to speak, you're not really worthy of being a participant in what is clearly a leftward move in, in sort of the average American's political orientation. I don't wanna see that prevent progress.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right. Yeah, that's the, that's the hard tribalism, right? That's, that's where the, the line gets drawn, you're with us or against us, and there's, there's one way to think.
- DPDavid Pakman
There is, there is a lot of that. I mean, I saw it with healthcare recently.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- DPDavid Pakman
With healthcare, I don't think that you can make any serious case from the Left that healthcare is fine and the for-profit, employer-connected system that we have is working. Like I don't, I don't think there's any progressive case to be made for that. Where people will differ is, what about Medicare for All versus some other system, system that looks more like Canada's-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- DPDavid Pakman
... or the UK or Germany or whatever? And I've already started to see, like when I say on my show, I'm kind of agnostic on this. Like, the system we have is a disaster. We need a system that will get coverage to everybody. The, the numbers can be made to work any number of different ways. We've looked at it. But 80% of people on Medicare, I believe it is, have some additional coverage. They either are still working part-time or full-time and get coverage that way, or they're poor enough to be on Medicaid. The point is, Medicare for All doesn't solve every issue.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DPDavid Pakman
It's way better than what we have. But here's, like, a dozen other possibilities looking at other countries. There is a portion of the Left that doesn't like that because I'm saying I'm against Medicare for All. I'm not saying that.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- DPDavid Pakman
What I'm saying is, there are a number of different ways to improve upon the system we have, all of which sever this relationship between, usually your employer and these for-profit insurance companies.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, I-
- DPDavid Pakman
Why can't we be open to that?
- JRJoe Rogan
I really don't understand private citizens that don't want easy access to quality healthcare for everybody. That confuses the shit out of me. Like, have you ever been hurt? Have you ever been sick?
- DPDavid Pakman
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Do you... Have you ever been broke?
- DPDavid Pakman
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
Do you want to be broke and have no access to healthcare? No one does. No one wants anybody they care about to not have access to healthcare. Of all the things that we concentrate on in this country, there's two things that, that drive me fucking crazy that people just dismiss: education and healthcare. The idea that you have to like... My buddy, Greg, Greg Fitzsimmons, he's sending his kid off to school. How much did he say that it was?
- NANarrator
65, I think.
- JRJoe Rogan
$65,000 a year for both of his kids, for each of his kid. So, you know, he's got two kids. That, that's, that hurts my head-
- DPDavid Pakman
Yeah.
- 23:48 – 28:27
Healthcare systems: quality, incentives, overhead, and malpractice costs
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. I- i- the UK system sucks. When you talk to people that get healthcare over in the UK, it sucks. But at least-
- DPDavid Pakman
In what way?
- JRJoe Rogan
... they have a system. It's just not the same quality healthcare that you get in America. Same with my friends in Canada. I have friends in Canada that have come down here to get surgery 'cause they find better doctors over here because they've been incentivized-
- DPDavid Pakman
Rand Paul was going to Canada to get his, um, uh, operation, hernia.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, that was... Why was that? Why did he do that?
- DPDavid Pakman
The best place is in Canada.
- JRJoe Rogan
The best place for hernias?
- DPDavid Pakman
For that type of hernia, I believe. Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- DPDavid Pakman
I mean, here's the thing. Even in saying the UK system and the Canadian system, neither one is that good-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DPDavid Pakman
... the, those two systems are totally different.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DPDavid Pakman
So it, I feel like-
- JRJoe Rogan
But they're both socialized medicine.
- DPDavid Pakman
They are both, uh, well, yes, in some sense. I mean, the Canadian system is administered at the province level. So the province is sort of like the market.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- DPDavid Pakman
Instead of having all these sub-markets attached to individual for-profit insurers, at the provincial level, uh, that's how it's organized. The UK has, uh, the National Health Service, where they're actually, they don't actually run the healthcare facilities, but they're the ones who are, uh, contracting them. So it's sort of like the, the healthcare facility still, uh, is its own entity. It's not that you're going and the government is the employer of the doctor, so to speak.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- DPDavid Pakman
But they're contracting with the healthcare facilities. But the point I wanna make is that there are criticisms of all of these systems, but they're different ones.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- DPDavid Pakman
So when we say, "Eh, the British and Canadian systems aren't that good."
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DPDavid Pakman
Let's figure out in what ways each is not that good, because they're different ways, whether you're talking about health outcomes, early detection, cost per treatment, whatever.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- DPDavid Pakman
You really have to drill down and figure out, in what way are we saying it's not as good?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. What I'm saying is that there's no perfect system.
- DPDavid Pakman
There is no perfect system.
- JRJoe Rogan
Those systems aren't-
- DPDavid Pakman
Right.
- 28:27 – 31:17
College cost crisis, alternative training paths, and tech-driven obsolescence
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. Um, uh, the, the education and healthcare, those are the two things that I think we can both agree we need to invest money on and we need to figure out some way to make that more accessible to people.
- DPDavid Pakman
Yes, yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
And I don't understand people that don't think that. And if that's what that is, the strict father mentality, that just... The only thing that it makes sense to me is that you don't want people who are kinda half-assing college-
- DPDavid Pakman
Sure.
- JRJoe Rogan
... just th- that, that can just get in.
- DPDavid Pakman
I think that that comes up a lot-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DPDavid Pakman
... when you hear about so-called free college-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DPDavid Pakman
... which isn't free. It's, we're, we're saying we're paying for it through taxation-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm, yeah.
- DPDavid Pakman
Really important to point that out. It's n- it's just not for everybody.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DPDavid Pakman
And that's okay. I mean, I think that that, that sometimes gets lost.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- DPDavid Pakman
And yes, there are more and more jobs that require college degrees-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- DPDavid Pakman
... even though you could make the case maybe the college degree is not actually necessary, but it's a way to sort of thin the herd of applicants in order to just make hiring, uh, y- you know, more, more practical. Um, but I do think that it's okay to say that college isn't for everybody, but the same ideas that apply to so-called free college, meaning college paid for through education, could apply to trade school, they could apply to retraining programs.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- DPDavid Pakman
There's a whole bunch of other ways-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DPDavid Pakman
... that it could be done.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, no, I agree. Yeah, I, uh, just the college is not for everyone thing is more true now than ever before, particularly with certain technology studies. You're, you're learning things during your four years at, at university that are just gonna be completely outdated by the time you graduate.
- DPDavid Pakman
In, in what kind of program, for example?
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, Jamie, what he did with o- audio engineering.
- DPDavid Pakman
Oh, I see. Okay.
- JRJoe Rogan
He, he went to school for audio engineering. By the time he got out, it was all useless.
- DPDavid Pakman
No, but, but that was not a four-year bachelor's program, right?
- NANarrator
It is now.
- DPDavid Pakman
Oh, it is now. Okay.
- 31:17 – 34:04
Call-out culture case study: the Amy Siskind tweet and attempted firing
- JRJoe Rogan
I knew about you before this happened, but then I really kind of got on board with you when someone was trying to get you fired from-
- DPDavid Pakman
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... Boston University. And I remember, I-
- DPDavid Pakman
Boston College.
- JRJoe Rogan
Boston College, sorry. And I Tweeted it and I was like-
- DPDavid Pakman
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... like, "What? What is this? This is craziness."
- DPDavid Pakman
Yeah. So it's a woman named Amy Ciskind, who I don't know other than that incident, where-
- JRJoe Rogan
And you had a disagreement about something. It wasn't-
- DPDavid Pakman
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... it wasn't toxic, it wasn't hostile-
- DPDavid Pakman
I didn't think so.
- JRJoe Rogan
... like what you said.
- DPDavid Pakman
I didn't think so.
- JRJoe Rogan
L- let- explain what you said and what she s- what she'd said that you disagree with.
- DPDavid Pakman
So we may be able to even find the Tweet, but she Tweeted something, the gist being, um, that she would not be supporting any candidate in 2020 who's White or male. I think that that-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes, yes.
- DPDavid Pakman
... was the gist of it. And I responded, I'm going from memory here, the gist was something like, "Isn't that the definition of racism? You're sort of preemptively excluding someone from consideration on the basis of race, and in that case, gender, if- if it was White and male."
- JRJoe Rogan
There it is, right there.
- DPDavid Pakman
Uh, yeah, there it is.
- JRJoe Rogan
"I will not support" ... "White male candidates."
- DPDavid Pakman
"I will not support White male candidates in the Dem primary. Unless you slept through midterms, women were our most successful candidate. Biggest Dem vote getters in history, Obama '08, Hillary '16. White male is not where our party is at, uh, and it is our least safe option in 2020."
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DPDavid Pakman
Right, so I said, "Isn't there something not progressive about preemptively dismissing a candidate based on their race and gender? I feel like there's a- a word to describe that. As a progressive, I won't be jumping on board." Yeah, so i- it explodes.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, well, you- you basically didn't even say it's racist.
- DPDavid Pakman
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
You- you said there's a word to describe that.
- DPDavid Pakman
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And that's a very polite way of disagreeing with someone.
- DPDavid Pakman
I thought it was polite.
- 34:04 – 42:29
Digital minimalism: managing toxicity, screen time, and attention
- DPDavid Pakman
That incident started me down the path of drastically limiting my social media use.
- JRJoe Rogan
Good for you.
- DPDavid Pakman
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DPDavid Pakman
Uh, I mean, that- that was the beginning, and then it became, I mean, uh, you know this way more than I do, because I think on all platforms, you have roughly 10 times the following that I do. No matter what you do post or whatever, if you look at what the feedback is, it's extraordinarily toxic and horrible, negative stuff, that is only a distraction to what I'm trying to do.
- JRJoe Rogan
And most of it probably isn't. But I- I had Naval on yesterday-
- DPDavid Pakman
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... Naval Ravikant.
- DPDavid Pakman
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And, uh, one of the things that he brought up that's so- so huge, it's so true, is that you can have 10 positive things-
- DPDavid Pakman
Yep.
- JRJoe Rogan
... but that one negative will outweigh the 10 positives.
- DPDavid Pakman
In your mind, you mean?
- JRJoe Rogan
In your mind.
- DPDavid Pakman
Oh, absolutely.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DPDavid Pakman
Absolutely.
- JRJoe Rogan
Especially if you're a person who's self-critical or self-, uh, objective, you're analyzing your behavior, "Was that good? Was that bad?"
- DPDavid Pakman
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
And then you read that one bad comment, "Fuck, are they right?"
- DPDavid Pakman
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
You don't read all the people that say you're great. "Oh, brilliant, loved it."
- DPDavid Pakman
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
"Fuck you, loser." Oh, a loser?
- DPDavid Pakman
Yep. Abso-... I mean, listen-
- JRJoe Rogan
You know?
- DPDavid Pakman
... when I announced I was gonna be doing your show, if you look at what the comments were, m- almost all, "This is awesome. Great left-wing voice talking to Joe Rogan. Go get 'em, David. This is such a great opportunity. Can't wait to watch you faceplant."
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, Jesus Christ.
- DPDavid Pakman
And that's the one where I'm like, "Man, are they right?" Like...
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs) "Am I gonna faceplant?"
- 42:29 – 55:53
Crowder vs. Vox/Carlos Maza: harassment policy, demonetization, and enforcement consistency
- JRJoe Rogan
I think that is a giant percentage of people. When someone deviates from that, like you did, someone who is also clearly a progressive and clearly a left-wing person, and you're criticizing something, and very f- very politely, and the, the-... she just goes haywire over that. That's the thing, right? It's like, are you responsible for the people who also comment on your post? And th- this is, this is where we're getting to this, like, Vox thing that's happening with Steven Crowder right now.
- DPDavid Pakman
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
Are you responsible for the reaction to what you post? 'Cause if you look at what Steven Crowder said, to that... Well, if we don't... For people who don't know the story, Steven Crowder got into it with this guy who is a writer for Vox, who, uh, is... He's gay. His Twitter handle is Gay Wonk, right? So-
- DPDavid Pakman
Carlos Maza.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, so it's not that he's hiding that he's gay, talks about it all the time. He's kind of effeminate. And Steven Crowder mocked that. And he mocked that in these videos where he was criticizing Carlos's position on antifa, sp- specifically, what I saw. And in, in doing that, he called him, uh, this queer Mexican. This, like... And he's doing it in a ribbing way, he's doing it in a joking way. And then Carlos Maza posts all these horrible tweets that came his way, and apparently, he got doxed, so people got his phone, and they were saying, "Debate Steven Crowder," he was getting all these text messages in. And all this, uh, hateful stuff that was coming his way. So the question is, who is responsible for that hateful stuff? If Steven Crowder calls him queer, is... What is queer, okay? Is LBGTQ, what do we do there? What do we do if, if the Q is in... Is he... Is, is it okay to call someone gay who identifies as gay if he calls him the gay little Mexican? Is that, is- is that bad? Like, what is... How bad is that? Like, what is that?
- DPDavid Pakman
(laughs) Okay.
- JRJoe Rogan
You know what I'm saying? But-
- DPDavid Pakman
So-
- JRJoe Rogan
Do you feel what I'm saying here? It's like-
- DPDavid Pakman
I do. I know where you're getting at, let's zoom out a little bit.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DPDavid Pakman
And then we'll, we'll get into this.
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay.
- DPDavid Pakman
Man, where do you even start with this? 'Cause there's a lot-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right, that's where I'm at.
- DPDavid Pakman
... there's a lot to unpack here.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DPDavid Pakman
If we l- we'll analyze the specifics in a second, maybe.
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay.
- DPDavid Pakman
But first, if you look at the policy, the terms of service of YouTube, there's a Verge article from yesterday, before, a few days ago, earlier this week. Before YouTube had made the decision to demonetize Steven Crowder.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, they made the decision to not act-
- DPDavid Pakman
Initial say.
- JRJoe Rogan
... and just say that it didn't violate the terms of services.
- DPDavid Pakman
Right. Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
And then today, as I got in here, Jamie informed me that they made a decision to demonetize him.
- DPDavid Pakman
That's right.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DPDavid Pakman
So, in the article where they made the decision not to act, they actually put what YouTube's terms of service are with regard to bullying and harassment. My reading of it, and we could go through them, if we could pull them up, we could go through it line by line if we wanted. My reading was that the, that definitely did break the terms and conditions. That was my view as I looked at what it was that was done by Steven Crowder and what the terms of service are. Just matching it up, not looking at the comments from either person.
- JRJoe Rogan
What, what was it specifically?
- DPDavid Pakman
It was, um, specifically targeting an individual on the basis of sexual orientation.
- 55:53 – 1:08:42
Free speech, ‘digital town square’ regulation, and private platform rights
- JRJoe Rogan
(sighs) It's policing speech. You know, it really is.
- DPDavid Pakman
Here's, uh, so who gets to decide, if not the private businesses, what their rules are?
- JRJoe Rogan
That's where the real question comes up, right?
- DPDavid Pakman
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Um, Tulsi Gabbard believes that it's a First Amendment issue, and she believes that everyone should have their freedom of expression, and that as long as you're not doing anything illegal, you're not putting anyone in danger by giving up their address or doxing them or something along those lines, or o- making overt physical threats-
- DPDavid Pakman
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... that you should be allowed to do that-
- DPDavid Pakman
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... because that's what the freedom of s- the speech is all about. And freedom of speech, when you eliminate social media in this country, is y- your, your, your freedom is basically just yelling, yelling out in public.
- DPDavid Pakman
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
I mean, you're, you're in, we're in this weird place-
- DPDavid Pakman
It's a weird place.
- JRJoe Rogan
... as a culture. As a culture, it's unprecedented, really, in, in terms of the waters we're navigating right now.
- DPDavid Pakman
There's a couple different things to f- so I like the principle. Like, my principle is we do almost no moderation on any of our platforms that my program is on. My only thing that I tell my team is, "If you see something that really seems to be illegal, it's calling for violence, it, it, whatever, the, these are..." We have a very, very high bar before we will remove anything. And quite frankly, we're just too busy and-
- JRJoe Rogan
What, what do you mean by that? I'm s- I'm confused. Like, whose... Not your videos. Whose videos?
- DPDavid Pakman
Yeah, on, so if we find out that on our videos, someone is posting endless comments, for example.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, in the comments.
- DPDavid Pakman
Yeah, in the comments area.
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay, the comments.
- DPDavid Pakman
My personal view is if it's not illegal, I, I just, just let it all be there-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- DPDavid Pakman
... and sit. That's my personal view, and that's a great principle to have.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, we don't touch them. We leave them alone, even though we get accused of it. But the, the question is, YouTube at one point in time o- had thrown out there that they were gonna make people responsible for the things that were in their comments, and I guess-
- DPDavid Pakman
I vaguely remember that, but it didn't ultimately happen.
- JRJoe Rogan
I think they backed out-
- DPDavid Pakman
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... of it very quickly when they realized that places like yours-
- DPDavid Pakman
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... which, like, uh, your average video gets how many thousands of comments?
- DPDavid Pakman
A lot, and many of them antisemitic.
- 1:08:42 – 1:22:09
Identity politics: useful context vs. ‘oppression Olympics’ and silencing
- DPDavid Pakman
I mean, the other side of this is, I mean, I don't know if we even wanna go into identity politics, so to speak. But there has... I've s- I've read some comments on some of the few articles that have been written about this, that are saying that this is effectively YouTube enforcing a defense of identity politics, so to speak. And I think that that's just, again, opening up the door to the, the incredibly broad application of that term, identity politics.
- JRJoe Rogan
Absolutely.
- DPDavid Pakman
I don't even really fully understand that. But I don't... And I don't even know if that's a path we wanna go down, to talk about like the identity politics component of what's going on with a lot of this regulation.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, define, define what you mean by the identity politics component of it too.
- DPDavid Pakman
I mean, listen. So I guess in order to defined it, define it, I... It would be good to point out that, uh, I have been critical of "identity politics" on the left in a very limited way that I think it is actually damaging, while at the same time recognizing that identity is a really important thing to consider when we think about sort of how the world should be organized.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- DPDavid Pakman
So, like for your audience who may not know, when identity politics is used, you know, like a, like a knife to enforce that because of someone's identity, their opinion supersedes and is the opinion that is the valid one over everybody else, because of membership in some kind of group, I'm against that.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DPDavid Pakman
I think that's extremely destructive. It would be very, uh, incorrect to believe though that identity doesn't play a role and that we shouldn't understand how one's identity might make us think differently about certain issues. I mean, any example would-
- JRJoe Rogan
Sure.
- DPDavid Pakman
... would, would make that pretty clear. You know, I as an immigrant to the United States, do I get some privileged position to decide what policy should be over all native born Americans because I immigrated here? No, that would me, be me using identity politics as like a mallet or a cudgel or whatever.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right, I got it.
- DPDavid Pakman
But as someone who did immigrate here, we should recognize that I may have things to say about it, which would be valuable and worthy and important to sort of think about. That's my view on, on identity politics.
- JRJoe Rogan
Sure, sure. But what you're, you're just not interested in the hierarchy of oppressed people.
- DPDavid Pakman
I'm not interested in the oppression Olympics-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DPDavid Pakman
... and I'm not interested in using identity to silence ideas that could be perfectly good-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DPDavid Pakman
... coming from someone who is not a member or checking a certain box.
- JRJoe Rogan
Exactly, nor am I. I, I strongly believe in the individual and I think it's one of the most important parts of a, a collective group of human beings like our country, that we, we recognize that we're all different and there's a lot of weirdness amongst us, but we're individuals. And I like, I like to treat people based on who they are, not what classification they fall under.
- DPDavid Pakman
Now, do you think that that bad version of identity politics that I mentioned is a big problem on the left or not a big problem? I'm curious.
- JRJoe Rogan
I think it's certainly a problem, but I think it's a vocal minority problem. That's what I think. I think if you just... Regular people that are on the left that are working jobs and r- having families and doing their hobbies and they just have left wing ideas, I don't think the vast majority of them hold those positions. I think those positions are things that people use as revenue. I mean, not as revenue, but it's like they, they, they get points from it, you know. They, they get points from certain types of behavior that they support, certain types of thinking that they support, and it, it lets you... You know, you got woke social justice points and-
- DPDavid Pakman
Well, then we agree.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DPDavid Pakman
I mean, I, I gen- I asked because I genuinely didn't know. I mean, I've heard people talk about identity politics-
- JRJoe Rogan
I think it's a small number. It's a dangerous number though, in terms of college campuses, when you look at like what happened in Evergreen State-
- DPDavid Pakman
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... with Brett Weinstein. It, it, it, it's very disruptive.
- DPDavid Pakman
Yes and no. I mean, I do think that it's disproportionately a pro- I think it's a small problem, like you're saying. I think a lot of the problem exists in the college campus setting. But, um, I mean, even at Boston College, you know, I had sort of maybe been incorrectly, um, indoctrinated into the idea that this was really a problem everywhere on college campuses.
Episode duration: 2:05:22
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Transcript of episode VIlI-Se-pk8
