Joe Rogan Experience #1311- David Pakman

Joe Rogan 0:01 Hello, David. Here we go. We're live.

David Pakman 0:03 We're, uh, we're doing it.

Joe Rogan 0:04 Yes, we're doing it. What's going on, man?

David Pakman 0:06 I'm nervous. I'm nervous.

Joe Rogan 0:06 Oh, don't be. Uh, I enjoy your show. I really do.

David Pakman 0:09 Thank you.

Joe Rogan 0:09 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.

David Pakman 0:30 Mm.

Joe Rogan 0:30 There's so much dunking. You do a little dunking, but-

David Pakman 0:32 Some of it's warranted.

Joe Rogan 0:33 It is warranted, yes.

David Pakman 0:34 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 0:34 But I don't know if it's beneficial.

David Pakman 0:37 Uh, to the, to the people doing the dunking?

Joe Rogan 0:39 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-

David Pakman 0:58 Right.

Joe Rogan 0:58 ... 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.

David Pakman 1:40 Necessary? Well, I think the devil's in the details.

Joe Rogan 1:43 Yeah.

David Pakman 1:43 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.

Joe Rogan 1:51 Good luck.

David Pakman 1:52 Um, sure. Right. Well, why is... Par- part of that, you could argue, is if one side just does not accept science-

Joe Rogan 1:59 Right.

David Pakman 1:59 ... 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.

Joe Rogan 2:24 Mm-hmm.

David Pakman 2:24 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-

Joe Rogan 2:31 Right.

David Pakman 2:31 ... 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.

Joe Rogan 2:37 It is very tough. I just don't think dunking on people always, like constantly shitting on people-

David Pakman 2:43 Mm.

Joe Rogan 2:43 ... is necessarily the way to do it.

David Pakman 2:44 Yeah. And I think it's important to distinguish between just straight up ad hominems-

Joe Rogan 2:49 Mm-hmm.

David Pakman 2:49 ... where someone is wrong and bad, uh, because I think they're a bad person or they're an idiot or whatever-

Joe Rogan 2:55 Mm-hmm.

David Pakman 2:55 ... to recognizing when somebody is a participant in bad faith in a conversation-

Joe Rogan 3:00 Yeah.

David Pakman 3:01 ... to when someone has maybe fallen prey to audience capture or whatever else might be kind of influencing what, what and how they're doing. I, I think that those criticisms are legitimate, but-

Joe Rogan 3:13 Yeah.

David Pakman 3:13 ... you gotta stay away from just ad hominem.

Joe Rogan 3:16 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.

David Pakman 3:44 Yes, until it becomes no longer brand safe according to whoever's running the platform.

Joe Rogan 3:49 Right. Right.

David Pakman 3:49 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.

Joe Rogan 4:12 Mm. Yeah.

David Pakman 4:12 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."

Joe Rogan 4:28 That's a weird one to me because, um, I, uh... YouTube has always been a secondary thought for me.

David Pakman 4:35 Mm.

Joe Rogan 4:35 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.

David Pakman 4:53 Right.

Joe Rogan 4:53 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?

David Pakman 5:12 Sure.

Joe Rogan 5:13 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.

David Pakman 5:29 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.

Joe Rogan 5:38 Mm-hmm.

David Pakman 5:38 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-

Joe Rogan 6:01 So it's not a Patreon deal or anything?

David Pakman 6:03 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-"

Joe Rogan 6:19 Right.

David Pakman 6:20 "... 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.'"

Joe Rogan 6:45 Oh, right, right, yeah.

David Pakman 6:45 That's bad for me, right? When I interview Richard Spencer-

Joe Rogan 6:49 Hmm.

David Pakman 6:49 ... 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.

Joe Rogan 7:07 Did you interview Richard Spencer?

David Pakman 7:09 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 7:10 D- did you get shit for that?

David Pakman 7:11 Yes.

Joe Rogan 7:12 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-

David Pakman 7:26 Oh.

Joe Rogan 7:27 ... and, and Joe Rogan also knows Alex Jones, so Alex Jones must be friends with David Pakman.

David Pakman 7:30 Like the map sort of thing.

Joe Rogan 7:31 Yeah, sort of. Yeah. It's, like, one of those mines, you know?

David Pakman 7:33 Right.

Joe Rogan 7:33 Like, it's... And it was really weird. It, it just... It's like guilt by association.

David Pakman 7:38 I saw a couple of them. There was, like, an initial one-

Joe Rogan 7:40 Yeah.

David Pakman 7:40 ... which maybe you're thinking of. Then there was a map of, like, the YouTube sphere specifically-

Joe Rogan 7:44 Mm-hmm.

David Pakman 7:44 ... left, middle, and right-

Joe Rogan 7:45 Yeah.

David Pakman 7:45 ... or something like that.

Joe Rogan 7:46 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.

David Pakman 7:57 Like who?

Joe Rogan 7:58 Like me.

David Pakman 7:59 Oh.

Joe Rogan 8:00 I'm not right, at all. I mean-

David Pakman 8:01 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-

Joe Rogan 8:18 Mm-hmm.

David Pakman 8:19 ... and so that may not be in line with your personal politics.

Joe Rogan 8:22 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-

David Pakman 8:34 Right.

Joe Rogan 8:34 ... or Gavin McInnes or whatever, and those videos come up over and over again.

David Pakman 8:37 Sure, and I mean... So, a lot of those people's channels-

Joe Rogan 8:40 (coughs) .

David Pakman 8:40 ... do really well-

Joe Rogan 8:41 Mm-hmm.

David Pakman 8:41 ... 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."

Joe Rogan 8:52 Mm-hmm.

David Pakman 8:53 And then once you click there, the- the algorithm very quickly starts to build a picture of- of every individual user.

Joe Rogan 8:59 Mm-hmm.

David Pakman 8:59 If you watch your interview with Ben Shapiro and then it takes you to a Daily Wire video-

Joe Rogan 9:03 Right, right.

David Pakman 9:03 ... then it takes you to, like, the Daily Wire second-stringer guy.

Joe Rogan 9:06 Right.

David Pakman 9:07 And then you're off who knows where, right?

Joe Rogan 9:09 But that's... It's all machine learning, right? I mean, that's all the-

David Pakman 9:11 For the most part, yeah.

Joe Rogan 9:12 Yeah. That's a... (sighs) It- it is... It's a troubling aspect of that thing that they do where they suggest the next videos, which didn't use to be a thing. It used to be you would go to YouTube, you would watch a video-

David Pakman 9:25 Right.

Joe Rogan 9:26 ... and then you would go find another video.

David Pakman 9:28 Right.

Joe Rogan 9:28 They didn't suggest anything. And then somewhere along the line, I don't remember what year it was, but this started happening.

David Pakman 9:34 I think-

Joe Rogan 9:34 And then they started autoplaying the next video.

David Pakman 9:37 Autoplay, yeah. I think there was a r- some kind of recommendation thing very early on.

Joe Rogan 9:43 Yeah.

David Pakman 9:43 But i- initially, it might have been restricted to just other videos from the same channel you're watching.

Joe Rogan 9:47 Probably.

David Pakman 9:48 And at a certain point, it started to recommend other things. And I don't know if you look at your analytics and see what percentage of your views are coming from that recommendations feed from other stuff.

Joe Rogan 10:00 Hmm.

David Pakman 10:01 Um, but it's significant for a lot of YouTube channels. The- the tagging your videos and getting the right metadata on them in order to bring an audience is an important thing, so it's a double-edged sword in some sense, it sounds- sounds like.

Joe Rogan 10:14 Yeah.

David Pakman 10:15 But to get back to what you were saying about... So-

Joe Rogan 10:17 Richard Spencer.

David Pakman 10:17 It labeled you... Oh, it was Richard... Okay, yeah.

Joe Rogan 10:19 Yeah.

David Pakman 10:19 I was gonna say, they labeled you as right, but you're not right. Do... What other ones-

Joe Rogan 10:22 Well, it's just, it's disingenuous. I mean, I've said it over and over and over again. I've never voted for a Republican in my life.

David Pakman 10:28 Hmm.

Joe Rogan 10:28 I voted independent for Gary Johnson just because he did my podcast.

David Pakman 10:31 Okay.

Joe Rogan 10:31 And I wasn't happy with Clinton and I wasn't happy with Trump.

David Pakman 10:34 Sure.

Joe Rogan 10:34 I was just like, "This is just gross. I'm just gonna vote for Gary Johnson." I mean, I didn't think he was gonna win, you know? I... He had almost no chance when he didn't know where- where- what Aleppo was.

David Pakman 10:44 (laughs) right.

Joe Rogan 10:44 I was like... That was his, uh, he was... His scream, you know? Like, what's-his-face from New Hampshire? What's his name?

David Pakman 10:49 Uh, Howard Dean.

Joe Rogan 10:50 Howard Dean, yeah. Ahh! That was his-

David Pakman 10:51 Well, voting in California also... I- I s- I seen (crosstalk) you vote in California.

Joe Rogan 10:54 Mm-hmm, sure, yeah.

David Pakman 10:54 It wasn't going to-

Joe Rogan 10:55 It's a joke.

David Pakman 10:56 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 10:57 Um, but people conveniently will just as- or they'll say that, like, you're a Trojan horse. That you're, like, a... You're a pretend left-wing person who's really just pushing right-wing ideologies. I'm like, "Well, which one? Which- which right-wing ideology? Is it gay marriage? Is it... What- what is it?" I- I've pushed... I'm on the left on everything except maybe the Second Amendment.

David Pakman 11:18 Right. I think the criticism that, um, could be levied, if one wanted to make it into a criticism, would be if you engage with right-wing ideas that you don't agree with, right?

Joe Rogan 11:31 Mm-hmm.

David Pakman 11:31 Like, I take you at your face, you know, face value that you don't agree with a lot of the stuff that your right-wing guests say. One could make the argument that by not challenging those ideas, it's implicitly lending them more credibility than maybe you think they should have.

Joe Rogan 11:46 That's interesting, because what I try to do with people, um, unless something's saying- someone's saying something egregious, I- I try to let them talk. I wanna know how they feel. I wanna know what their thought process is. And so instead of just challenging 'em on- on everything, I want them to elaborate.

David Pakman 12:03 Right.

Joe Rogan 12:03 And I feel like by doing that, I get a sense of how they've come to that conclusion and whether it's logical-

David Pakman 12:10 Right.

Joe Rogan 12:10 ... whether it's, uh...... eh, when they're- w- with- they've- they've actually used their thoughts and they've really calculated and thought, "This is the position I take and this is why." And I... a lot of people don't. You know, there's a l- a lot of- a lot- a lot of the times when you challenge people in their positions, you find out, like, they don't really know what the fuck they're talking about. And that the best way to find that out is to let them talk.

David Pakman 12:31 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 12:31 Like Candace Owens on climate change.

David Pakman 12:33 Right. That was... I mean-

Joe Rogan 12:35 (laughs)

David Pakman 12:35 ... there's the Socratic method of questioning, right?

Joe Rogan 12:37 Yeah.

David Pakman 12:37 Which is, "Why do you think that?"

Joe Rogan 12:39 Mm-hmm.

David Pakman 12:39 "And how do you know that that's true?" Et cetera, et cetera.

Joe Rogan 12:41 Mm-hmm.

David Pakman 12:41 And sort of some other questions that- that come from it, uh, which I do as well. Um, I mean, I think- I don't know. To- to tie it to the Richard Spencer interview that I did, some of the criticism I received after was from people on the left. I mean, the people on the right-

Joe Rogan 12:54 I would assume it was most of the- was people on the left.

David Pakman 12:57 For doing the interview?

Joe Rogan 12:58 Yes.

David Pakman 12:58 Or for what I said in the interview? For what I s-

Joe Rogan 13:00 For doing it.

David Pakman 13:00 Okay, yeah. For doing the interview at all, the criticism was more from the left.

Joe Rogan 13:03 Right.

David Pakman 13:04 For what I said in the interview, the criticism was more from the right, from people who just agreed with Richard Spencer.

Joe Rogan 13:09 Like, what things did they agree with?

David Pakman 13:11 Uh, that it is, uh, inevitable that people with different ethnic or religious backgrounds simply will not be able to coexist together peacefully, and we're better off trying to figure out how can we separate, uh, people based on, uh, their membership in ethnic or religious groups, for instance.

Joe Rogan 13:30 God, that's sad.

David Pakman 13:30 Separatism. I mean, literally separatism.

Joe Rogan 13:33 That's sad. That's- that is a sad thought that you just can't get along with people that do other things, that- that are interes- interested in other things, that come from other places, that have different religions, that have different points of view. Like, why?

David Pakman 13:46 Uh, yeah, well, they- they have a series of, uh, you know, decades of what they call scholarship supporting their view.

Joe Rogan 13:53 Mm-hmm.

David Pakman 13:54 But for the context of my interview, I made it abundantly clear that I didn't agree with that stuff, right?

Joe Rogan 13:59 Yeah.

David Pakman 13:59 And my view is, and everybody can have a different view about how they do interviews, my view is, if I just allow the- the- what I consider to be disgusting views to be spread out, right? You know?

Joe Rogan 14:10 Mm-hmm.

David Pakman 14:11 Like a spray bottle, just spray them everywhere and not do anything else, uh, I can't say that I'm doing something that I think is valuable. I don't feel like is valuable.

Joe Rogan 14:19 Right. Mm-hmm.

David Pakman 14:20 So, my- my approach is, are the ideas known enough to be worth refuting? That's number one. If it's some weird conspiracy theory that has not even any following whatsoever, I'm probably not going to choose to even entertain it because it's irrelevant in- in sort of all ways. So, my first question is, is- was Richard Spencer relevant at the time? Alt-right was rising. This guy was considered by many the sort of creator of the alt-right. He was growing a following in the context of the Trump, uh, uh, candidacy at the time, or maybe administration. I don't remember when exactly it was.

Joe Rogan 14:53 Was it really?

David Pakman 14:54 It was, I think, 2016 or... I'm trying to remember when it was.

Joe Rogan 14:58 I don't remember when I first heard his name.

David Pakman 15:00 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 15:01 Like, how did he become... How did he come to prominence?

David Pakman 15:04 I don't know the sequence, but I think he had a we- an alt-right website that had articles of some kind, and then, um, he... that website became more known and-

Joe Rogan 15:16 That fucking term is so talk... The- the... Alt-right, you know, alt-left, the centrist. Like, all these-

David Pakman 15:23 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 15:23 ... all these different labels are so-

David Pakman 15:25 I'd rather talk about issues. I agree with you there.

Joe Rogan 15:26 Yeah. It's so clunky.

David Pakman 15:28 But so, you know, first thing was, I did wanna interview him, but if I had felt that I wouldn't be prepared to make it abundantly clear that I don't agree with the guy-

Joe Rogan 15:36 Right.

David Pakman 15:36 ... and I think his ideas are terrible, I wouldn't have done the interview.

Joe Rogan 15:38 Right, right, right.

David Pakman 15:38 So, the problem I had with the critiques from the left of me doing that, some who said, "The last thing we need to be doing is giving this guy a voice," that's often how they say it, or "a platform," my response was, "This guy's getting interviewed in lots of other places that aren't even challenging him."

Joe Rogan 15:55 Right.

David Pakman 15:55 "I'm at least making an attempt here to get something in the record that there are arguments against these ideas, these are bad ideas, and I don't want to be part of the diffusion of just the ideas themselves. I'm gonna be pushing back."

Joe Rogan 16:07 I'm gonna have to watch that. I'm gonna have to watch that now. Now, when you did do that, like, what was his response? Was-

David Pakman 16:11 During the interview?

Joe Rogan 16:12 What was his response to your pushback?

David Pakman 16:14 Uh, I mean, he had answers.

Joe Rogan 16:15 Yeah.

David Pakman 16:15 You know, he's- he's- he was well-prepared.

Joe Rogan 16:17 Mm-hmm.

David Pakman 16:17 I- I don't know if they're- they were unique or new arguments that I was making, um, but there was no argument to be made that I was letting him just parrot white nationalist-

Joe Rogan 16:28 Mm-hmm.

David Pakman 16:28 ... talking points unopposed, which I wouldn't- I just wouldn't feel good about that.

Joe Rogan 16:30 Right.

David Pakman 16:31 It's not how I do interviews.

Joe Rogan 16:32 Yeah. And then the- the left was upset that you were giving him, air quotes, "a platform."

David Pakman 16:36 A very small portion of the left.

Joe Rogan 16:38 A small portion.

David Pakman 16:38 I wanna be super clear.

Joe Rogan 16:39 That's good.

David Pakman 16:39 The left... I mean, my audience is-

Joe Rogan 16:40 Yeah.

David Pakman 16:40 ... very left.

Joe Rogan 16:41 Mm-hmm.

David Pakman 16:41 Almost everybody understood what I was doing.

Joe Rogan 16:44 Mm-hmm.

David Pakman 16:44 10 years ago, I was interviewing the Westboro Baptist Church.

Joe Rogan 16:47 Mm-hmm.

David Pakman 16:47 Most people understood what I was doing. They were more prominent at the time. But there was this sliver of the left that just didn't want the conversation to take place, and I always struggle with this because as you can see, I have no problem criticizing that sliver of the left.

Joe Rogan 17:01 Mm-hmm.

David Pakman 17:02 My concern is getting, like, overly wrapped up to criticisms of the left that are only held by these, like, niche slices.

Joe Rogan 17:10 Yes.

David Pakman 17:11 And that's why, um, I try to avoid going further than necessary-

Joe Rogan 17:16 Mm-hmm.

David Pakman 17:16 ... into those criticisms. Like, I think there are m- more serious critiques of the left to be made-

Joe Rogan 17:21 Mm-hmm.

David Pakman 17:22 ... um, beyond anti-speech or want to limit speech or whatever. I mean, sure, that exists.

Joe Rogan 17:27 There's more s- that's- that's a pretty big issue though, don't you agree?

David Pakman 17:29 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?"

Joe Rogan 17:38 Mm-hmm.

David Pakman 17:39 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-

Joe Rogan 17:50 Mm-hmm.

David Pakman 17:50 ... 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.

Joe Rogan 18:06 Mm-hmm.

David Pakman 18:07 And I worry that now, there's a little bit-... um, of the Left-

Joe Rogan 18:12 (coughs)

David Pakman 18:12 ... 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.

Joe Rogan 18:31 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.

David Pakman 18:39 There is, there is a lot of that. I mean, I saw it with healthcare recently.

Joe Rogan 18:42 Mm-hmm.

David Pakman 18:43 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-

Joe Rogan 19:05 Mm-hmm.

David Pakman 19:05 ... 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.

Joe Rogan 19:33 Right.

David Pakman 19:33 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.

Joe Rogan 19:45 Hmm.

David Pakman 19:45 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.

Joe Rogan 19:57 Yeah, I-

David Pakman 19:58 Why can't we be open to that?

Joe Rogan 19:58 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?

David Pakman 20:10 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 20:11 Do you... Have you ever been broke?

David Pakman 20:12 Right.

Joe Rogan 20:13 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?

Narrator 20:36 65, I think.

Joe Rogan 20:37 $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-

David Pakman 20:46 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 20:46 ... to even think about spending $130,000 a year just on... If you're, you're a regular person with a regular job, how the fuck do you do that?

David Pakman 20:56 Impossible.

Joe Rogan 20:57 It's impossible.

David Pakman 20:58 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 20:58 It's so much fucking money and then that's not even paying for housing and food and transportation and books-

David Pakman 21:05 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 21:05 ... and everything else that you're gonna need too. And to make it more difficult for young people to succeed is one of the worst ways to make a stronger country. If you want a co- a strong country, you want educated people that get to pursue their dreams. And the idea that we are so willing to spend so much money on these costly regime-change wars and g- f- flying troops overseas to these places that they don't wanna go, no one, no one wants it to happen, and i- it's trillions of dollars, and people are fine with that. But you talk to them about some sort of socialized education system and people freak out and think you wanna turn us into Communists.

David Pakman 21:43 Well, I think what is really important to understand is that the facts you just laid out don't matter to people-

Joe Rogan 21:48 Right.

David Pakman 21:49 ... who see this as an issue of, what do people deserve?

Joe Rogan 21:52 What do they deserve?

David Pakman 21:53 So, if you say to a fiscal conservative, "You know, if you consider the amount that the employee pays for premiums plus the employer, plus your co-pays, uh, plus coinsurance," right? You, you-

Joe Rogan 22:06 Mm-hmm.

David Pakman 22:06 ... put it all together into some amount and you explain to them there's lots of great analyses that have been done which tell us that with roughly the same amount of money, maybe a small payroll tax in addition, but roughly that same amount, it all could be done with a single-payer system that covers everybody. It's the same... You're taking all of these individual risk pools where you have different for-profit insurers and then you have systems for people that don't have enough money, Medicaid, you have systems for people that are over 65, Medicare, you put it all together, you spread the risk far wider, the employer no longer has to pay their part of the premium, the employee no longer pays part of their premium to the for-profit insurance company, the numbers work. They're still not going to say, "You know what? That, that sounds great. It's actually pretty fiscally conservative. Let's do it."

Joe Rogan 22:50 Hmm.

David Pakman 22:51 Because at some point, there is a, a portion of the Right that just doesn't think people have earned healthcare. They just haven't earned it. They have it-

Joe Rogan 22:58 Or education.

David Pakman 22:59 Or education.

Joe Rogan 22:59 Yeah.

David Pakman 22:59 That's right. And it's very hard to, uh, change people's minds when that's their view. Uh, I think it's... Might be George Lakoff who I believe calls it strict father morality.

Joe Rogan 23:11 Hmm.

David Pakman 23:11 Which is like, how would a really strict father treat a child who comes to them and says, "Hey, you know what? Uh, I figured out a way that we can all have healthcare." The strict father, even if the numbers make sense, would say, "I'm, I'm gonna teach you a lesson. You haven't earned that healthcare," either because you don't work or you don't make enough money-

Joe Rogan 23:30 Mm-hmm.

David Pakman 23:30 ... or you're on disabi- whatever the case may be. How do you convince someone to change their mind when that's their worldview?

Joe Rogan 23:36 Yeah, how do you when it's, uh, an ideologically based decision and you're on Team R or Team L, you know, what, which, uh, which group of ideas do you adopt?

David Pakman 23:47 Right.

Joe Rogan 23:48 Yeah. I- i- the UK system sucks. When you talk to people that get healthcare over in the UK, it sucks. But at least-

David Pakman 23:55 In what way?

Joe Rogan 23:55 ... 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-

David Pakman 24:04 Rand Paul was going to Canada to get his, um, uh, operation, hernia.

Joe Rogan 24:07 Yeah, that was... Why was that? Why did he do that?

David Pakman 24:09 The best place is in Canada.

Joe Rogan 24:10 The best place for hernias?

David Pakman 24:11 For that type of hernia, I believe. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 24:13 Hmm.

David Pakman 24:14 I mean, here's the thing. Even in saying the UK system and the Canadian system, neither one is that good-

Joe Rogan 24:20 Right.

David Pakman 24:20 ... the, those two systems are totally different.

Joe Rogan 24:22 Right.

David Pakman 24:22 So it, I feel like-

Joe Rogan 24:24 But they're both socialized medicine.

David Pakman 24:25 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.

Joe Rogan 24:33 Mm-hmm.

David Pakman 24:33 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.

Joe Rogan 24:59 Mm-hmm.

David Pakman 25:00 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.

Joe Rogan 25:08 Mm-hmm.

David Pakman 25:08 So when we say, "Eh, the British and Canadian systems aren't that good."

Joe Rogan 25:12 Right.

David Pakman 25:13 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.

Joe Rogan 25:23 Mm-hmm.

David Pakman 25:23 You really have to drill down and figure out, in what way are we saying it's not as good?

Joe Rogan 25:28 Yeah. What I'm saying is that there's no perfect system.

David Pakman 25:32 There is no perfect system.

Joe Rogan 25:33 Those systems aren't-

David Pakman 25:33 Right.

Joe Rogan 25:34 But I believe that most of the best doctors, in terms of, like, North America at least, are in the United States. I'm sure there's probably some very good doctors in Canada that do specialized medicine, but I think really good doctors are incentivized by profit. I really do. I think there is some motivation for... If you spend so much money for medical school and you, you bust your ass, you wanna make a lot of money. And the, some of the best doctors earn a really good living.

David Pakman 26:00 That maybe.

Joe Rogan 26:01 And I think, I think limiting their, uh, their ability to earn that money won't incentivize people to be excellent.

David Pakman 26:08 So couple different things. I mean, number one, to be clear, we're now starting to get into a little bit of broader economic philosophy. Like-

Joe Rogan 26:14 Mm-hmm.

David Pakman 26:15 ... I'm a capitalist. I'm, I'm for social democracy, which is a mixed system that's a capitalist system that says, "We're going to invest, uh, tax revenue in a particular way to make sure that no one falls below a certain level." So I, my, uh, my... Just to con- contextualize that my point of view is not from one of becoming a socialist country, so.

Joe Rogan 26:34 Uh, I think we share those views.

David Pakman 26:35 I think so. Um, a lot of doctors will say that even though on, sort of on paper, in a socialized medicine system, they might make less for a particular procedure, for example, or something like that, a lot of them are still in favor of those systems because it would drastically reduce their overhead.

Joe Rogan 26:57 Hmm.

David Pakman 26:57 So there's all of this apparatus that includes medical billing and coding, both on the insurer end and at the healthcare provider end. The hospital and the insurance company both are battling over, what is it that was done?

Joe Rogan 27:10 Right.

David Pakman 27:11 What are the codes that, that apply here and how, what are our reimbursement rates?

Joe Rogan 27:15 Mm-hmm.

David Pakman 27:15 There's fraud when it comes to that, um, and that requires an apparatus for investigating and adjudicating that. That adds more and more cost. So I don't think it's as easy, I don't think it's as obvious that under those systems, at the end of the day, a doctor that owns a PCP, uh, group, for example, or an orthopedic clinic, or whatever the case may be, I don't know that it's that clear that they end up taking home less money.

Joe Rogan 27:43 Hmm. Uh, that's interesting. I wonder if in practice that would play out that way.

David Pakman 27:48 I mea-

Narrator 27:48 We talk-

Joe Rogan 27:48 And maybe I'm talking about just, like, high-end orthopedic surgeons that do knee surgeries for athletes and things along those lines.

David Pakman 27:56 They often would be outside of whatever insurance apparatus we're talking about anyway.

Joe Rogan 28:00 Oh, of course, yeah.

David Pakman 28:00 A lot of those folks are often being paid out of pocket anyway.

Joe Rogan 28:03 Yes.

David Pakman 28:04 So it's less im-

Joe Rogan 28:05 At least some.

David Pakman 28:05 At least some.

Joe Rogan 28:06 Yeah.

David Pakman 28:06 So for the average person's experience, I think it's less relevant.

Joe Rogan 28:09 Yeah. Um, then there's also liability insurance, which is extremely expensive. That's a giant issue with, with doctors. It's a huge expense.

David Pakman 28:17 It is. Yeah. I mean, I think it is necessary.

Joe Rogan 28:20 Mm-hmm.

David Pakman 28:20 Uh, there's a question as to whether it's organized in the best way. I know less about that component than some of the other ones.

Joe Rogan 28:27 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.

David Pakman 28:38 Yes, yes.

Joe Rogan 28:39 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-

David Pakman 28:51 Sure.

Joe Rogan 28:51 ... just th- that, that can just get in.

David Pakman 28:53 I think that that comes up a lot-

Joe Rogan 28:55 Yeah.

David Pakman 28:55 ... when you hear about so-called free college-

Joe Rogan 28:57 Yeah.

David Pakman 28:57 ... which isn't free. It's, we're, we're saying we're paying for it through taxation-

Joe Rogan 29:00 Mm-hmm, yeah.

David Pakman 29:00 Really important to point that out. It's n- it's just not for everybody.

Joe Rogan 29:04 Right.

David Pakman 29:04 And that's okay. I mean, I think that that, that sometimes gets lost.

Joe Rogan 29:08 Yes.

David Pakman 29:08 And yes, there are more and more jobs that require college degrees-

Joe Rogan 29:12 Mm-hmm.

David Pakman 29:12 ... 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.

Joe Rogan 29:36 Yes.

David Pakman 29:36 There's a whole bunch of other ways-

Joe Rogan 29:38 Yeah.

David Pakman 29:38 ... that it could be done.

Joe Rogan 29:39 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.

David Pakman 29:56 In, in what kind of program, for example?

Joe Rogan 29:58 Well, Jamie, what he did with o- audio engineering.

David Pakman 30:00 Oh, I see. Okay.

Joe Rogan 30:01 He, he went to school for audio engineering. By the time he got out, it was all useless.

David Pakman 30:05 No, but, but that was not a four-year bachelor's program, right?

Narrator 30:08 It is now.

David Pakman 30:08 Oh, it is now. Okay.

Narrator 30:09 Yeah. I, when I went there, it wasn't available for that. But since then, they have made that available and that's also in the time that YouTube has made basically education free for a lot of people.

David Pakman 30:19 Sure.

Narrator 30:19 So.

David Pakman 30:20 I mean, I think with that, the, uh, the issue is, in my mind, um, that when you...... consider the cost relative to the earnings potential. As you pointed out, when you talk about-

Joe Rogan 30:32 Yeah.

David Pakman 30:32 ... $68,000 a year or, you know, I-

Joe Rogan 30:34 Whatever it is, yeah.

David Pakman 30:35 ... I guest taught at Boston College, and I think it was, like, 64,000 all in- something like that. Um, depending on what field you're going into, it's- it's almost impossible to pay that off, ever.

Joe Rogan 30:46 Yeah.

David Pakman 30:46 So some- at some point, something needs to change.

Joe Rogan 30:49 Yeah.

David Pakman 30:49 And this kind of gets us into the technological automa- uh, automation-

Joe Rogan 30:53 Mm-hmm.

David Pakman 30:53 ... and unemployment stuff of what happens as computers and technology start to replace jobs. And that's where I think there's a pretty clear line between a free market capitalist, a social democrat, like myself, and actual socialism, like what should happen with the gains that come from those technological advancements.

Joe Rogan 31:10 Mm-hmm.

David Pakman 31:11 But as far as the education piece is concerned, s- s- it- it's completely unsustainable, the way it is now.

Joe Rogan 31:17 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-

David Pakman 31:25 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 31:25 ... Boston University. And I remember, I-

David Pakman 31:27 Boston College.

Joe Rogan 31:27 Boston College, sorry. And I Tweeted it and I was like-

David Pakman 31:29 Right.

Joe Rogan 31:30 ... like, "What? What is this? This is craziness."

David Pakman 31:32 Yeah. So it's a woman named Amy Ciskind, who I don't know other than that incident, where-

Joe Rogan 31:38 And you had a disagreement about something. It wasn't-

David Pakman 31:40 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 31:41 ... it wasn't toxic, it wasn't hostile-

David Pakman 31:43 I didn't think so.

Joe Rogan 31:44 ... like what you said.

David Pakman 31:45 I didn't think so.

Joe Rogan 31:45 L- let- explain what you said and what she s- what she'd said that you disagree with.

David Pakman 31:48 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-

Joe Rogan 32:02 Yes, yes.

David Pakman 32:04 ... 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."

Joe Rogan 32:18 There it is, right there.

David Pakman 32:19 Uh, yeah, there it is.

Joe Rogan 32:20 "I will not support" ... "White male candidates."

David Pakman 32:21 "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."

Joe Rogan 32:37 (laughs)

David Pakman 32:37 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.

Joe Rogan 32:49 Yeah, well, you- you basically didn't even say it's racist.

David Pakman 32:52 Right.

Joe Rogan 32:52 You- you said there's a word to describe that.

David Pakman 32:54 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 32:54 And that's a very polite way of disagreeing with someone.

David Pakman 32:56 I thought it was polite.

Joe Rogan 32:57 And she tried to get you fired.

David Pakman 32:59 Yeah, she contacted, as far as I know... So, okay, I don't- I'm going by what she said. She said she contacted Boston College and told them not to allow me to teach there.

Joe Rogan 33:10 That's insane.

David Pakman 33:11 And Boston College, since I'm just an adjunct, I'm not on staff when I'm not teaching, like, during the three months of the semester, I'm employed there, and the other nine months, I'm not. So I think Boston College said, "He's not currently employed here." And I- I- I think that that's basically as far as it went. But I did talk to some other faculty there who were aware of the thing that was going on.

Joe Rogan 33:35 Th- th- that's a crazy thing to do.

David Pakman 33:37 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 33:38 Just to-

David Pakman 33:38 I think so.

Joe Rogan 33:39 ... uh, it's a nasty, mean thing to do, too. Like, w- what- someone can't disagree with you? And it's a very good point. I think she probably got upset because you made a very good point, and Tweets started coming her way. And a lot of people, they read those fucking comments, and people get toxic in those comments.

David Pakman 33:55 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 33:55 Random, strange people that you don't know, and then you're forced to, you know, look at their opinions and their criticisms and their ins- insults.

David Pakman 34:04 That incident started me down the path of drastically limiting my social media use.

Joe Rogan 34:09 Good for you.

David Pakman 34:10 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 34:10 Yeah.

David Pakman 34:11 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.

Joe Rogan 34:32 And most of it probably isn't. But I- I had Naval on yesterday-

David Pakman 34:36 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 34:36 ... Naval Ravikant.

David Pakman 34:36 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 34:37 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-

David Pakman 34:43 Yep.

Joe Rogan 34:43 ... but that one negative will outweigh the 10 positives.

David Pakman 34:47 In your mind, you mean?

Joe Rogan 34:47 In your mind.

David Pakman 34:48 Oh, absolutely.

Joe Rogan 34:48 Yeah.

David Pakman 34:48 Absolutely.

Joe Rogan 34:49 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?"

David Pakman 34:57 Right.

Joe Rogan 34:57 And then you read that one bad comment, "Fuck, are they right?"

David Pakman 34:59 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 34:59 You don't read all the people that say you're great. "Oh, brilliant, loved it."

David Pakman 35:02 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 35:02 "Fuck you, loser." Oh, a loser?

David Pakman 35:05 Yep. Abso-... I mean, listen-

Joe Rogan 35:06 You know?

David Pakman 35:06 ... 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."

Joe Rogan 35:21 Oh, Jesus Christ.

David Pakman 35:21 And that's the one where I'm like, "Man, are they right?" Like...

Joe Rogan 35:24 (laughs) "Am I gonna faceplant?"

David Pakman 35:26 "Am I gonna faceplant?" (laughs)

Joe Rogan 35:26 "Fuck."

David Pakman 35:27 So I don't know, I'm just trying to limit the amount that I'm on social media.

Joe Rogan 35:29 Don't do it.

David Pakman 35:30 One thing I am doing, though, because, I mean, my show is, in part, as successful as it is because of social media. So i- I- I can't ignore that, right?

Joe Rogan 35:37 Right, but you don't have to engage.

David Pakman 35:38 I don't have to engage, and I also can just say, "I will check our networks in the morning, then I'll spend the whole day, I'll do my show, I'll do what I need to do, and then before I sign off for the evening, I'll check it, and that's it," right?

Joe Rogan 35:50 Oh, that's a terrible idea. Because what if you read the worst shit right before you eat dinner or go to bed?

David Pakman 35:54 Well, no, it'll be like 5 PM.

Joe Rogan 35:56 (laughs)

David Pakman 35:56 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 35:56 So you'll have five hours to recover?

David Pakman 35:57 I'll have five hours to cool off, yeah.

Joe Rogan 35:59 (laughs)

David Pakman 35:59 And it- and it's way better. And weekends, I'm almost, I mean, uh, people are like, "David, you're still Tweeting on the weekends." A lot of those are, like, pre-scheduled Tweets where I'll just sit-

Joe Rogan 36:06 Yeah.

David Pakman 36:07 ... and schedule some stuff. And I am trying to stay off it, and it's been really great. I mean, it's been a fantastic experience.

Joe Rogan 36:11 We looked at- we looked at our phones yesterday, uh, we did a Sober October podcast with, uh, my four friends.

David Pakman 36:16 Yep.

Joe Rogan 36:16 We looked at our phones to look at phone usage, and I- I use my phone four hours a day.

David Pakman 36:21 Oh, really?

Joe Rogan 36:21 I'm on my phone four hours a day, I'm like-

David Pakman 36:23 Average.

Joe Rogan 36:23 ... "Fuck, that's a lot."

David Pakman 36:24 What app did you use to measure it?

Joe Rogan 36:26 It's something on your iPhone.

David Pakman 36:27 Oh, okay.

Joe Rogan 36:28 Yeah, you have a- a Android-

David Pakman 36:29 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 36:29 ... I'm sure they have a similar thing.

David Pakman 36:30 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 36:31 Yeah. Four hours of screen time, like, "Ooh."That's not good.

Narrator 36:35 They're adding that to the, uh, computer too, so it's gonna combine. You'll know how much you're looking at all screens-

Joe Rogan 36:39 Hmm.

Narrator 36:39 ... soon.

Joe Rogan 36:40 Yeah, but what if you're writing?

Narrator 36:41 Well-

Joe Rogan 36:42 Is it gonna count? That counts?

Narrator 36:43 Yeah, sure.

Joe Rogan 36:44 But I gotta work.

Narrator 36:44 I mean, you're just staring at the screen.

Joe Rogan 36:45 That's how I work, bitch.

Narrator 36:46 Hey, that's what argument-

Joe Rogan 36:47 (laughs)

Narrator 36:47 ... you guys were making for the phone gesture. That's Burt's argument.

Joe Rogan 36:49 But, yeah, well, Burt's argument's not good-

David Pakman 36:51 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 36:51 ... 'cause he doesn't even write. That's ridiculous.

David Pakman 36:54 One thing I did that actually is useful is I used to have my social apps on the home screen.

Joe Rogan 36:59 Hmm.

David Pakman 36:59 And Cal Newport and some others have said, "You got, you gotta get rid of those." He actually advocates getting rid of the, the apps altogether so that you have to go on a computer-

Joe Rogan 37:08 Hmm.

David Pakman 37:08 ... and choose to go to facebook.com or Twitter.

Joe Rogan 37:11 Mm-hmm.

David Pakman 37:11 I, I haven't gotten there yet, but even just removing them from the home screen makes me significantly less likely to even pull them up. It's, it's two clicks-

Joe Rogan 37:20 Yeah.

David Pakman 37:20 ... to swipe up and scroll over to the app.

Joe Rogan 37:22 Right.

David Pakman 37:23 But even just getting them off the home screen keeps me off of them significantly.

Joe Rogan 37:26 That's smart. That makes sense. Yeah, I need a certain amount of access to those things with my business.

David Pakman 37:33 Right.

Joe Rogan 37:34 So s- scheduling shows and things along those lines. But, yeah, it's not good for you.

David Pakman 37:39 I mean, I think one of the biggest realizations is that people don't really miss you that much-

Joe Rogan 37:46 (laughs)

David Pakman 37:46 ... if they don't hear from you for a couple of days.

Joe Rogan 37:47 Yeah.

David Pakman 37:48 Like, uh, that's one of the things where the idea of req- needing constant engagement comes from sort of, like, a slightly narcissistic point of view where, like, people are going to notice if I don't tweet for, from Thursday night until Monday morning or do anything like that.

Joe Rogan 38:01 Right, right, right, right.

David Pakman 38:01 And they, they really don't.

Joe Rogan 38:02 They don't notice.

David Pakman 38:03 They don't. They don't notice.

Joe Rogan 38:03 There's a lot of other people to pay attention to.

David Pakman 38:05 Yes, there are.

Joe Rogan 38:06 There are a few people that tweet on you that, that are kinda crazy and that wanna hear from you all day long.

David Pakman 38:11 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 38:12 Yeah, but they'll get used to it. They'll get used to you-

David Pakman 38:15 They will.

Joe Rogan 38:16 ... vanishing.

David Pakman 38:17 And, I don't know, I mean, Cal Newport, has, have you had him on?

Joe Rogan 38:19 No, I haven't.

David Pakman 38:19 Okay. He wrote Deep Work-

Joe Rogan 38:21 Mm-hmm.

David Pakman 38:21 ... and then more recently he wrote Digital Minimalism. And he goes into detail about just the-

Joe Rogan 38:27 I'm gonna write it down.

David Pakman 38:27 ... effect of, uh, of-

Joe Rogan 38:28 I was gonna write it down on my phone, but it feels sacrilegious-

David Pakman 38:31 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 38:31 ... to put that as a note.

David Pakman 38:32 To take it out right now, yeah.

Joe Rogan 38:33 (laughs)

David Pakman 38:33 Yeah, I mean, he goes into detail about this stuff, and just about, you know, the, we need more uninterrupted periods of concentration for whatever.

Joe Rogan 38:40 What is, uh, the book called again?

David Pakman 38:41 Deep Work.

Joe Rogan 38:43 Deep Work.

David Pakman 38:43 And then Digital Minimalism.

Joe Rogan 38:46 All right.

David Pakman 38:46 And they're both... I interviewed him recently. Really just-

Joe Rogan 38:50 Yeah.

David Pakman 38:50 ... solid, very solid stuff.

Joe Rogan 38:51 Awesome.

David Pakman 38:52 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 38:52 Um, what were we just about to get into? Oh, so we're into this-

David Pakman 38:56 Amy Siskind.

Joe Rogan 38:56 ... this woman, Amy Siskind.

David Pakman 38:58 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 38:58 Did you reach out to her when she did that? And, and-

David Pakman 39:00 Privately?

Joe Rogan 39:01 Yeah.

David Pakman 39:01 No.

Joe Rogan 39:01 No? Did you reach out publicly?

David Pakman 39:03 Uh, well-

Joe Rogan 39:04 You did publicly declare that she tried to get you fired, right?

David Pakman 39:07 Yes, I did.

Joe Rogan 39:07 Did she respond?

David Pakman 39:09 I don't know 'cause she blocked me.

Joe Rogan 39:10 Oh, goddammit.

David Pakman 39:12 (laughs) Yeah.

Joe Rogan 39:12 She blocked you over that?

David Pakman 39:13 And... Yeah.

Joe Rogan 39:15 Jesus. That is so sensitive. What, what is Twitter for?

David Pakman 39:22 Right.

Joe Rogan 39:23 I- is it just to fall in line? Is it just to agree with everything someone says with no questioning whatsoever?

David Pakman 39:29 What's extra interesting about it is she blocked me on Twitter, but then m- I treat my Facebook profile basically as public, so I post stuff on there. It's the same whether you're friends with me or not. And I had posted something totally innocuous about I was at a restaurant, or drinking an espresso on it. I don't even know what it was.

Joe Rogan 39:49 Mm-hmm.

David Pakman 39:49 She showed up there and commented that she had called Boston College and told them not to, you know, not to hire me or to fire me or whatever. So th-

Joe Rogan 39:58 On a post about you having an espresso?

David Pakman 40:00 Well, it was just a personal-

Joe Rogan 40:01 ... whatever it was?

David Pakman 40:02 ... post. Right. But the point is-

Joe Rogan 40:03 God.

David Pakman 40:03 ... she determined that the exchange was worthy of blocking me on Twitter, but then she came to my personal Facebook page and said, "I'm calling Boston College and telling them to fire you."

Joe Rogan 40:17 There's a word for that.

David Pakman 40:18 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 40:19 (laughs) God, it's so-

David Pakman 40:22 There might be a few.

Joe Rogan 40:23 There's a j- a gang, but there's a big one.

David Pakman 40:25 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 40:25 There's a four-letter one.

David Pakman 40:26 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 40:26 The, uh... I just don't understand why someone would wanna do that to someone. Why, why can't you disagree? Why can't you... And she's just upset that you pointed out a glaring problem with what she was saying.

David Pakman 40:37 Yeah, I, apparently. And, you know, the thing is, I don't, I, I, the, the way I operate, I don't think even necessarily that she's a bad person. I, I just assume-

Joe Rogan 40:46 Mm-hmm.

David Pakman 40:46 ... that she has s- you know, some emotional thing going on. She could've had a terrible day. As far as I know, someone near and dear to her died that day. I am-

Joe Rogan 40:54 If someone near and dear to me died, I wouldn't go to Facebook.

David Pakman 40:56 ... you wouldn't necessarily be on Twitter or find-

Joe Rogan 40:57 I wouldn't stalk your Facebook or post about you drinking an espresso-

David Pakman 41:01 Fair. Fair.

Joe Rogan 41:02 ... and tell people I tried to get you fired.

David Pakman 41:03 But my approach is, I just, I really do assume most people are pretty good people, and even when we have disagreements-

Joe Rogan 41:11 Mm-hmm.

David Pakman 41:11 ... I tend to give the benefit of the doubt that if we could only talk the way we're doing-

Joe Rogan 41:16 Yes.

David Pakman 41:16 ... we could figure out 95% of the disagreement.

Joe Rogan 41:19 I agree with you.

David Pakman 41:19 Maybe not all of it.

Joe Rogan 41:20 Right. I, I agree.

David Pakman 41:21 But, but most of it. So I don't begrudge her. I mean, yeah, I don't th- I, I, she behaved in a way I wouldn't behave, but who knows what she had going on, you know? I, I mean, it's-

Joe Rogan 41:28 Yeah. Well, it didn't get you fired, so it's not that bad. But if it did, that would've been horrible.

David Pakman 41:33 It would've been a different situation.

Joe Rogan 41:35 Yeah.

David Pakman 41:35 Would've been probably good publicity.

Joe Rogan 41:37 Yeah, that probably would've helped you a little bit.

David Pakman 41:38 I think so.

Joe Rogan 41:39 You got excited about that. Look at you.

David Pakman 41:40 I, uh, yeah. Well, it's funny-

Joe Rogan 41:41 (laughs) A little twinkle in your eye.

David Pakman 41:42 The, the reason... I'm, I'm thinking back, actually, to a conversation I had at the time where someone said to me, uh, "If you do get fired, it's the best possible thing that'll happen."

Joe Rogan 41:51 Right.

David Pakman 41:52 It, it's, it would just be fantastic. And it didn't 'cause I wasn't actually employed there at the time. That's the s- the irony of it.

Joe Rogan 41:57 Well, this is the thing, the, the falling in line, the, the no room for deviation from the ideology.

David Pakman 42:04 Sure.

Joe Rogan 42:04 This is a, this is a giant issue that I have with both, both parties. It's... And I think it's one of the reasons why people are in these parties to begin with. I, I don't necessarily think that people have clearly thought out every single aspect of whatever party they align with.

David Pakman 42:20 Sure.

Joe Rogan 42:20 I think they fall in line and they adopt a predetermined pattern of behavior that seems to be attractive at the time, and then they fall in line with whatever that party is saying.

David Pakman 42:29 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:29 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.

David Pakman 42:59 Right.

Joe Rogan 42:59 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-

David Pakman 43:18 Carlos Maza.

Joe Rogan 43:19 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?

David Pakman 44:32 (laughs) Okay.

Joe Rogan 44:32 You know what I'm saying? But-

David Pakman 44:33 So-

Joe Rogan 44:33 Do you feel what I'm saying here? It's like-

David Pakman 44:34 I do. I know where you're getting at, let's zoom out a little bit.

Joe Rogan 44:36 Right.

David Pakman 44:36 And then we'll, we'll get into this.

Joe Rogan 44:37 Okay.

David Pakman 44:38 Man, where do you even start with this? 'Cause there's a lot-

Joe Rogan 44:40 Right, that's where I'm at.

David Pakman 44:40 ... there's a lot to unpack here.

Joe Rogan 44:42 Right.

David Pakman 44:43 If we l- we'll analyze the specifics in a second, maybe.

Joe Rogan 44:45 Okay.

David Pakman 44:45 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.

Joe Rogan 44:57 Well, they made the decision to not act-

David Pakman 44:59 Initial say.

Joe Rogan 45:00 ... and just say that it didn't violate the terms of services.

David Pakman 45:02 Right. Right.

Joe Rogan 45:02 And then today, as I got in here, Jamie informed me that they made a decision to demonetize him.

David Pakman 45:06 That's right.

Joe Rogan 45:07 (laughs)

David Pakman 45:07 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.

Joe Rogan 45:35 What, what was it specifically?

David Pakman 45:36 It was, um, specifically targeting an individual on the basis of sexual orientation.

Joe Rogan 45:43 But he wasn't targeting him on the basis of it. He was mentioning that... with his bad ideas. He was targeting his bad ideas in regards to antifa.

David Pakman 45:51 A lot of the-

Joe Rogan 45:52 That he was dismissing Antifa, but if you look at Crowder's video, and I, I can't believe I spent so much time doing this.

David Pakman 45:57 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 45:57 But I spent like a whole hour on this two days ago.

David Pakman 46:00 Yep.

Joe Rogan 46:00 Um, he was talking about how Carlos just dismisses Antifa as being not that big a deal, and that there's bias in the media whenever there's anything negative that happens.

David Pakman 46:10 Sure.

Joe Rogan 46:10 But if you look at the overall picture, and then Crowder goes on to talk about all the assaults, all the murders, that there were sexual assaults, there was rapes, there was all these things that happened with Antifa. He was talking about all these different people that got maced in the face.

David Pakman 46:23 Okay.

Joe Rogan 46:24 All these people that got hurt. And, and he's highlighting all... Like, this is not something to easily dismiss.

David Pakman 46:30 Sure.

Joe Rogan 46:30 And that the FBI had labeled Antifa a terrorist organization.

David Pakman 46:33 So, so far it's just politics. It's just what does, what does he think, what do I think? So far-

Joe Rogan 46:37 It's just that part of it.

David Pakman 46:39 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 46:39 And along the way, he's like, "Yeah, but the queer little Latino says this."

David Pakman 46:43 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 46:43 And when he does that, that's where it's like, okay, what is he doing? Is he mock... He's kind of mocking him, right? And he's mocking him by saying he's queer, but he says he's queer, or he says he's gay.

David Pakman 46:53 Yeah, but that's like saying... I mean, listen, just because the N-word is in rap songs doesn't mean that, uh, any, that- that it's defined to go and-

Joe Rogan 47:00 Right, but the N-word is not in like, it's not like the LBGTN. You know what I'm saying? It's not like a part of their, their organi- it's-

David Pakman 47:09 I think the principle though is you're suggesting that because a certain word is sometimes used self-referentially by members of a group, that any use of it from the outside is by definition not problematic. And I'm just saying it's more complicated and you've got to look at the specifics.

Joe Rogan 47:26 Well, it's certainly more complicated.

David Pakman 47:27 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 47:27 You do have to look at specifics.

David Pakman 47:28 And I think... I'm going, again, I'm going from memory, but wasn't Steven Crowder also wearing a shirt that said fags with the A with an asterisk?

Joe Rogan 47:35 It said figs. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.

David Pakman 47:37 Okay.

Joe Rogan 47:37 It said, "Socialism is for figs."

David Pakman 47:40 Okay.

Joe Rogan 47:40 And it has a-

David Pakman 47:41 While he's calling a gay guy-

Joe Rogan 47:42 The A is a fig instead of, uh, an I.

David Pakman 47:46 As he's calling a gay guy a queer Mexican.

Joe Rogan 47:48 Or, uh, yeah. Yes. Yeah.

David Pakman 47:49 I mean, in total, uh, uh, it's not crazy.

Joe Rogan 47:51 No, it's-

David Pakman 47:52 So, but he's-

Joe Rogan 47:52 No, there's a, there's, there's certainly an argument that... But I don't necessarily think the T-shirt is for Carlos Meza, I think that's a T-shirt that he just has 'cause he thinks it's funny. And because Che Guevara, who is on the shirt, is... That is one of the weirdest things that people worship that guy. He was a horrific human being, a mass murderer, a t- a terrible sociopath, a psychopath. And because he looks good, he looks-

David Pakman 48:16 Involved in the Cuban revolution and all the historical stuff.

Joe Rogan 48:17 Looks good with a beret on.

David Pakman 48:19 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 48:19 You know, he's, he became, for a long time, I mean, it's kind of died off, but he became like the, the woke poster boy.

David Pakman 48:27 I'm from Argentina. I, I know, uh-

Joe Rogan 48:29 Are you really?

David Pakman 48:29 Yeah, I, I-

Joe Rogan 48:30 Were you born there?

David Pakman 48:31 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 48:31 No kidding.

David Pakman 48:32 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 48:32 Interesting.

David Pakman 48:33 So, I mean, listen, here's the thing-

Joe Rogan 48:34 Welcome to my country, bro. (laughs)

David Pakman 48:35 I'm, I, I made it. Um, so listen, I think that...

Joe Rogan 48:39 I, I've, I do appreciate what you're saying, and I agree with you to a certain extent.

David Pakman 48:42 I believe that when YouTube yesterday said-We looked at the content in total, and we don't think it violates our terms and conditions. I disagreed with them. I thought it very clearly violated their terms and conditions. Where I am thinking about it now is the application of those terms and conditions violations, because a similar thing happened with Alex Jones as well, which was, there's lots of way smaller players that are violating these same terms and conditions, but nobody knows about them. YouTube doesn't know about them. They don't get any attention because they have no audience. So, I think there's the question of the application of these terms and condition- conditions in a way that's sort of fair and is not ultimately going by the public blowback or reaction to situations, because that- that's how Adpocalypse 1.0 happened.

Joe Rogan 49:33 Mm-hmm.

David Pakman 49:33 Aga- I think it was a Coke ad appeared on an obviously racist video on a channel with like 800 or 1,000 subscribers.

Joe Rogan 49:42 Mm-hmm.

David Pakman 49:42 The Wall Street Journal, I think it was, did an article saying, "Look at these screenshots of these advertisers on these crazy racist videos."

Joe Rogan 49:49 Mm-hmm.

David Pakman 49:50 That led to blowback because YouTube didn't wanna lose money, and ultimately, that's what this is about. I know that there are people who say YouTube has an inherently left-wing bias. Others say YouTube has a- a- a right wing bi- whatever. YouTube's bias is towards corporatism and profit.

Joe Rogan 50:07 Yes.

David Pakman 50:07 That's fundamentally what it is. And in-

Joe Rogan 50:09 But as a company, they have a left-wing bias.

David Pakman 50:11 I don't know that. In what sense?

Joe Rogan 50:15 Well, in the sense that the woman who's the CEO of YouTube has t- talked about it pretty openly, like the fact that she doesn't... What was it that she had gotten into? What- she- oh, well, first of all, it was the- the James Damore thing, you know, she was talking about the Google memo and she was talking about how it was, uh, incredibly damaging, the damaging, uh, damaging stereotypes against women, which it just wasn't.

David Pakman 50:40 Is- is home-

Joe Rogan 50:40 Just- it's not accurate.

David Pakman 50:41 Okay. Is Home Depot a right-wing company because the CEO supports Trump?

Joe Rogan 50:47 That's a good question. I'm- I'm basing it on that they're a part of Facebook, and Facebook is pretty clearly left wing. And I think-

David Pakman 50:53 Who's a part of Facebook?

Joe Rogan 50:54 Google. Google. Oh, sorry. Google. They're part of Google. I meant Google.

David Pakman 50:56 Okay.

Joe Rogan 50:57 Google is a- a very, very left-wing group. And it's all Silicon Valley, which is almost entirely left-wing biased.

David Pakman 51:04 So, I think we have to distinguish between the personal political biases of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and the broader place that Google has in the sort of corporate sphere.

Joe Rogan 51:16 Mm-hmm.

David Pakman 51:17 Google is part of the group of huge multinational corporations that, um, lobbies for particular tax policy to avoid paying taxes legally.

Joe Rogan 51:29 Mm-hmm.

David Pakman 51:29 That is not a particularly left-wing thing to do. Uh, Google is, um, part of the large tech companies that, in order to avoid serious regulation of their businesses, have come up with this idea of regulating themselves, okay, which w- I know is a topic, uh, self-regulation, that's come up before on your program in- in a variety of ways. So, those are not left-wing things. And if you want to make the case that, as a company, it has a left-wing politic in the outward-facing world, you have to have something more than just a lot of their engineers live in Palo Alto and are hipsters who go to coffee shops and-

Joe Rogan 52:07 Well, what do you think?

David Pakman 52:09 I think that in the- in terms of the place that it occupies within the economic system we have, they are not very different from all of the large corporations that are pushing against regulation, pushing for ways to avoid taxes, period.

Joe Rogan 52:27 So, in terms of economic decisions?

David Pakman 52:29 Yeah, I mean, listen, uh, y- if- if we wanna talk about how the personal politics of the employees translate to policy, we can do that. But we need to be able to make some specific claims about how- how it does. What I'm saying is, we know the way in which the structure that Google is a part of leads to it advocating for things that are center-right corporatist capitalist, the status quo of tax shelters, havens and not paying taxes, regulating ourselves, et cetera, et cetera.

Joe Rogan 53:02 Well, that's what's interesting about this Crowder thing is they're ultimately, the decision was to allow him to have his freedom to post videos on there, but the punitive aspect of it is they're gonna reduce his ability or eliminate his ability to make money from it.

David Pakman 53:16 Right.

Joe Rogan 53:16 Well, I should say reduce, right? Because he could- couldn't he put videos-

David Pakman 53:20 O- oops.

Joe Rogan 53:20 ... put ads up in his video?

David Pakman 53:22 Yeah. I mean, you can-

Joe Rogan 53:23 His own ads.

David Pakman 53:23 Um, sure. So like we- one- one thing that I do is we, uh, we kind of split off the ad sales from my show into an ad agency, and we're doing ad sales not just for my show bu- but for other shows as well, and those include ad placements that are not like the pre-roll ads on YouTube. It's the host is actually talking about a product or whatever.

Joe Rogan 53:43 Right.

David Pakman 53:44 It's- it's a read, you know, a live read sort of thing.

Joe Rogan 53:45 Unbox Therapy does a lot of that.

David Pakman 53:47 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 53:48 Yeah, that's where I first saw those. He does some pretty extensive ones.

David Pakman 53:51 Okay. So, of course you can do that.

Joe Rogan 53:53 Yeah.

David Pakman 53:53 I mean, yeah, th- there's nothing-

Joe Rogan 53:54 So he can do that, but he can't just collect revenue like, um, I assume he's been doing before. He has a significant number of followers. I think his, uh, his YouTube subscribers are more than three and a half million. It's like- it's- it's very high.

David Pakman 54:10 Yeah, more than me.

Joe Rogan 54:11 And they've just eliminated his income-

David Pakman 54:14 Right.

Joe Rogan 54:14 ... that comes outta YouTube. And this was their decision based on his- his way of talking about Carlos Meza.

David Pakman 54:25 That's- that's what happened. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 54:26 Yeah.

David Pakman 54:27 I mean, so what- what are the concerns to me? It's not that he didn't violate terms and conditions. Like I said, I think he pretty clearly did. The concerns to me are, um, i- is- is YouTube only going to even look into these s- circumstances or instances when there is a public outcry-The answer is probably yes, because why would they look into stuff nobody's paying attention to? It's not a good use of their time.

Joe Rogan 54:51 Well, it seems like they changed their decision based on public outcry, based on Carlos Mesa's reaction-

David Pakman 54:56 It does.

Joe Rogan 54:56 ... to their initial decision.

David Pakman 54:57 I happen to think their initial decision was the wrong one, but I have a sort of broader concern here, which is about the fairness of the application, and also the distinguishing between, uh, content that is promoting whatever falls under any of our definitions of hateful or whatever content, and those who are fighting against it.

Joe Rogan 55:17 So, is it because he mentioned his sexual orientation and that he called him a lispy little queer, or whatever he called him, or a queer Mexican, and if he just called him a fucking idiot and he received the exact same amount of hate, would you still think that that was a good move?

David Pakman 55:36 No. I mean, I think that it would not fall under what they are now claiming is the justification for the demonetization.

Joe Rogan 55:44 But-

David Pakman 55:44 It would be different because the-

Joe Rogan 55:45 ... but it would have the same result. The only difference would be they wouldn't be attacking his sexual orientation specifically because of Crowder.

David Pakman 55:52 That's the only difference.

Joe Rogan 55:53 (sighs) It's policing speech. You know, it really is.

David Pakman 55:59 Here's, uh, so who gets to decide, if not the private businesses, what their rules are?

Joe Rogan 56:05 That's where the real question comes up, right?

David Pakman 56:07 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 56:07 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-

David Pakman 56:21 Right.

Joe Rogan 56:22 ... that you should be allowed to do that-

David Pakman 56:23 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 56:23 ... 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.

David Pakman 56:36 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 56:36 I mean, you're, you're in, we're in this weird place-

David Pakman 56:38 It's a weird place.

Joe Rogan 56:38 ... as a culture. As a culture, it's unprecedented, really, in, in terms of the waters we're navigating right now.

David Pakman 56:45 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-

Joe Rogan 57:09 What, what do you mean by that? I'm s- I'm confused. Like, whose... Not your videos. Whose videos?

David Pakman 57:14 Yeah, on, so if we find out that on our videos, someone is posting endless comments, for example.

Joe Rogan 57:21 Oh, in the comments.

David Pakman 57:21 Yeah, in the comments area.

Joe Rogan 57:21 Okay, the comments.

David Pakman 57:22 My personal view is if it's not illegal, I, I just, just let it all be there-

Joe Rogan 57:26 Yes.

David Pakman 57:26 ... and sit. That's my personal view, and that's a great principle to have.

Joe Rogan 57:28 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-

David Pakman 57:40 I vaguely remember that, but it didn't ultimately happen.

Joe Rogan 57:42 I think they backed out-

David Pakman 57:43 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 57:43 ... of it very quickly when they realized that places like yours-

David Pakman 57:46 Right.

Joe Rogan 57:46 ... which, like, uh, your average video gets how many thousands of comments?

David Pakman 57:49 A lot, and many of them antisemitic.

Joe Rogan 57:51 And how would you-

David Pakman 57:52 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 57:52 Yeah, and how would you even be able to look at all those? I mean, you would have to be 24/7 monitoring them-

David Pakman 57:56 Right.

Joe Rogan 57:56 ... 'cause you've also got people that are watching your videos from overseas at all times of the night.

David Pakman 58:00 Yep. So, I think that the principle of only, only illegal content will be removed is great. That's a pr- that's my personal-

Joe Rogan 58:08 Yes.

David Pakman 58:08 ... principle. However, I think that there is no serious case to be made that a private company, uh, can't say, "These are our terms of service, and if you want to..." I mean, it's sort of almost a conservative principle, right?

Joe Rogan 58:23 Mm-hmm.

David Pakman 58:23 The idea that unless illegal things are going on, uh, we are not going to tell a business how it is that, that it should be run. And that's where I think a lot of right-wingers start to stumble on this issue, because they're calling for a very invasive form of government regulation.

Joe Rogan 58:40 They're calling for the government to step in and even break up these organizations-

David Pakman 58:45 Sure.

Joe Rogan 58:45 ... 'cause they've gotten too large. And you, but you're hearing that from the left as well.

David Pakman 58:47 Yeah, well, I think there's a diff- there's a difference though between Elizabeth Warren saying we should separate the social platform Facebook from the ad sales revenue-generating piece of it.

Joe Rogan 59:00 Mm-hmm.

David Pakman 59:00 That's one thing that falls under antitrust. That's different than saying the government should come in and it should tell anybody who runs a social network that you can't, uh, even, you can't do anything unless the content is illegal. Because there are financial considerations, right?

Joe Rogan 59:16 Mm-hmm.

David Pakman 59:16 I mean, there's lots of content that would not be illegal, but it would make a platform, a video platform like YouTube not financially viable-

Joe Rogan 59:23 Right.

David Pakman 59:23 ... because advertisers would see it and they'd say, "Oh, we're not going near that."

Joe Rogan 59:26 Right.

David Pakman 59:27 So, I have a very hard time taking what is a very authoritarian perspective that the government should come in and say, "This is how y- social networks should be run." Now, if you wanna change the law, here's the way it could be done.

Joe Rogan 59:40 Mm-hmm.

David Pakman 59:40 If you wanna change the law and argue that these platforms have gotten so big that they represent more of a town square-

Joe Rogan 59:48 Yes.

David Pakman 59:48 ... so to speak, then okay, maybe you could pass a law that changes how they would be regulated. But that's typically the type of stuff the right is against, because it is more regulation.

Joe Rogan 59:59 It is more regulation, but it's regulation to keep a private company from regulating against free speech. Do you see what I'm saying? It's, it's a sneaky kind of regulation. It's a regulation that's enforcing the First Amendment and the people's ability to freely express themselves. If we're admitting, or if we're agreeing that we are entering into this new world-

David Pakman 1:00:19 Yes.

Joe Rogan 1:00:19 ... where this i- I, that's my position is that it is a town square, and I, I feel like everybody should be ab- uh, able to communicate. The really unfortunate, unsavory aspect of it is when someone gets harassed, like Carlos Mesa was because of this, where people are sending him all these homophobic tweets and all th- and, I mean, he's getting text messages and all this shit. That's, that's the unsavory and unfortunate aspect of it. How do you-

David Pakman 1:00:44 I mean, I think it's-

Joe Rogan 1:00:44 ... stop that?

David Pakman 1:00:45 I don't know how you stop it. I don't know exactly how you stop it, but I think it would be useful f- I mean, one thing is, when does a platform get big enough, in your mind, that it would qualify for this, like, town square designation?

Joe Rogan 1:00:56 Well, for sure YouTube.... let's talk about that one, 'cause that's the one we're on. I mean-

David Pakman 1:01:00 Okay.

Joe Rogan 1:01:00 ... fucking goddamn it, it's huge.

David Pakman 1:01:02 Okay.

Joe Rogan 1:01:02 It's gigantic.

David Pakman 1:01:03 So, are there other types of businesses through which communication happens that you think should be regulated in the same way? I'll... that's not really clear, so I'll give an example.

Joe Rogan 1:01:13 Okay.

David Pakman 1:01:14 If you start regularly sending people via UPS, uh, similar things to some of the content that exists on YouTube, and UPS says, "We're getting reports that you're sending people harassing stuff. We don't want you as a customer anymore."

Joe Rogan 1:01:32 Here's the ques-

David Pakman 1:01:33 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:01:33 ... here's a question though. Isn't there a difference between someone sending something to a physical address and someone sending something, s- let's say, to you, when your social media apps are on the third page of your phone, and you have to swipe all the way over to get 'em and open it up and you have to read 'em if you wanna find them?

David Pakman 1:01:47 Well-

Joe Rogan 1:01:47 You don't necessarily have to read them.

David Pakman 1:01:49 There's a difference in a practical sense, but I guess the question is would we want the government... would you similarly want the government to enforce for telephone companies? If you are harassing, getting harassing texts and you report it and report it-

Joe Rogan 1:02:02 Tell... that's a different thing, I think. I think when it's-

David Pakman 1:02:05 It's, it's different-

Joe Rogan 1:02:05 ... coming to your phone and the phone is ringing, I, I think that's a- another step. That's another step towards invasive.

David Pakman 1:02:12 It's a big gray area.

Joe Rogan 1:02:13 Yes, it is.

David Pakman 1:02:14 Is the phone ringing? Is it a phone call?

Joe Rogan 1:02:15 Right.

David Pakman 1:02:16 Is it a text? Is it-

Joe Rogan 1:02:16 Right.

David Pakman 1:02:16 ... is it a WhatsApp message?

Joe Rogan 1:02:17 You don't have to read that text, right. Yeah. No, I feel you.

David Pakman 1:02:20 I guess it... the que- where I hesitate, and again, uh, speaking as someone from the left who believes regulation of businesses is an important thing, I would wanna be really sure about how e- exactly it is that the government would step in and mandate essentially that their view has to be listened to over the terms of service that a private company would wish to have.

Joe Rogan 1:02:44 Yes. I feel like when you give people a gun, they start looking for targets, and that, that is a very common thing. And if you give people the ability to censor, and if you give people the ability to censor based on their political ideology or based on what they feel is offensive where other people don't, it's a slippery slope. And I think that that can, that can lead to all sor- look, that woman... what is her name again? The one who tried-

David Pakman 1:03:08 The one who t-

Joe Rogan 1:03:08 ... to get you fired?

David Pakman 1:03:09 ... uh, Amy Siskind.

Joe Rogan 1:03:10 Imagine her-

David Pakman 1:03:11 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:03:11 ... being in charge of a social media platform. She tried to get you fired from Boston College for something that was incredibly polite.

David Pakman 1:03:16 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:03:17 That is what I'm talking about, is that-

David Pakman 1:03:19 Sure.

Joe Rogan 1:03:19 ... very action, that very same type of thinking that she tried to im- impose on you. That's what I'm worried about.

David Pakman 1:03:26 Well, there were no-

Joe Rogan 1:03:26 And I'm worried about people that are really strictly trying to promote their ideologies and what they think is okay and not okay. And it's very slippery, 'cause there's a lot of weird people out there that believe a lot of weird things and want other people to conform to those weird things. And we sort of have to decide, like, that's why I'm bringing up this Crowder thing. Like, do I think that what he said was good? No, it's not nice to call someone a c- a little lispy queer. It's not nice. It's, it's kinda mean, you know, and especially when that guy wasn't even engaging with him, but he's making fun of him. He's a comedy show. He's mocking them. So, the question becomes like when, when is that mocking considered homophobic and when is it just ribbing, right? And that's his position.

David Pakman 1:04:06 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:04:06 His position is that it's just ribbing.

David Pakman 1:04:08 This is the problem with a discussion that is only about the principles. So, like, a lot of our conversation for the last 15 minutes has been, what is our principle about what types of business regulation is okay for the government to do and is not okay?

Joe Rogan 1:04:23 Right.

David Pakman 1:04:24 Or, when we talk about free speech, what should, uh, do we have a, a principle of anything short of illegal content versus something that is more strict?

Joe Rogan 1:04:32 Hmm.

David Pakman 1:04:33 The reality is that it's a, it, there's a more gray area than that.

Joe Rogan 1:04:36 Yeah, we're trying to sort of regulate the way people communicate with each other. So, it's, it's not... it's like if someone said that to someone in a bar, a cop would not arrest them. Like, "Ah, you lispy little queer." You know, that would be like, "Oh, that guy's an asshole."

David Pakman 1:04:51 But the bar would be perfectly within their legal right to say, "We don't, we don't want you in here. You're making our customers uncomfortable." And nobody would say that it would be against the law for the bar to say, "You gotta go."

Joe Rogan 1:05:00 And that's a good point, if they were doing it t- to their face. But what if he was in a corner talking about this guy that wasn't there? And he was saying, "Yeah, so he's talking about Antifa, this lispy little Mexican queer." If you came along and decided to kick the guy out of the bar then.

David Pakman 1:05:16 It would... I mean, listen, at some bars, if you go into the corner-

Joe Rogan 1:05:19 You would get kicked out.

David Pakman 1:05:19 ... and you yell about a lispy-

Joe Rogan 1:05:20 Right.

David Pakman 1:05:20 ... Mexican queer, they're going to ask you to leave, and it still would not be illegal, and the bar would still not be doing anything wrong.

Joe Rogan 1:05:25 Right. But that's a bar, right? That's a private business where people are physically there.

David Pakman 1:05:30 Yes.

Joe Rogan 1:05:30 Isn't there a difference between that and something like YouTube, which again, falls more in line with, like, a town square?

David Pakman 1:05:35 Maybe that's what we need to revisit-

Joe Rogan 1:05:37 Oh.

David Pakman 1:05:37 ... because so much human communication is now happening across these platforms-

Joe Rogan 1:05:41 I would imagine most of it.

David Pakman 1:05:42 ... or most of it-

Joe Rogan 1:05:43 Yeah.

David Pakman 1:05:44 ... we, we need to maybe stop drawing this arbitrary distinction that in person is a completely different thing-

Joe Rogan 1:05:51 Yes.

David Pakman 1:05:51 ... than over the internet. I mean, maybe it's not increasingly. Maybe it's more the same.

Joe Rogan 1:05:55 Yeah. Um, uh, uh, I... so I'm torn here, right? On one side, I say, well, it seems like they still allow him to have his freedom of expression because he's still on YouTube. He still is able to upload his show on YouTube. He will have to find other ways to make money.

David Pakman 1:06:14 Sure.

Joe Rogan 1:06:15 So, one part of me looks at it that way.

David Pakman 1:06:17 And no one has a right to monetize on YouTube.

Joe Rogan 1:06:19 Right, right. So, in a sense, they haven't violated his First Amendment rights because he's still able to express himself, but then you go, as a company, they've made a punitive decision to eliminate his ability or s- uh, radically reduce his ability to make an income off of their platform. That seems like, and I'm not supporting that they did it, but that seems more reasonable as a decision, right? To say, "We're gonna demonetize you." That seems more reasonable. But the problem is there's no alternatives. There's nothing remotely like YouTube.

David Pakman 1:06:58 To y- uh, there's no alternative to YouTube for him to regain that same level of monetization?

Joe Rogan 1:07:03 Yes, or for people that share his viewpoint and share his ideology and share his positions.And there's no right wing YouTubes, my point. And there's, there's, like there's-

David Pakman 1:07:13 I, I would take, challenge the idea that YouTube is, is left wing.

Joe Rogan 1:07:16 I mean, in terms of its, uh, enforcing its policies.

David Pakman 1:07:20 How so? I mean, they have a-

Joe Rogan 1:07:21 Well, just this, just this particular issue.

David Pakman 1:07:23 But this isn't, this isn't a, a left wing... How is this a left wing enforcement? I mean, they have a-

Joe Rogan 1:07:28 Well, I think it is because Carlos Maza is progressive and because the, the argument that he was making is a very left wing, progressive argument, and this is what Crowder was going after. He was going after the argument. In the process of going after the argument, he mocked his sexuality and his appearance.

David Pakman 1:07:42 I can assure you, if it was focused merely on how much of a problem ANTIFA is, this would not have happened. I mean, I think we both agree with that, right?

Joe Rogan 1:07:49 Oh, yeah. For sure. Yeah, yeah.

David Pakman 1:07:50 Here it-

Joe Rogan 1:07:51 No, it's all about the mocking the guy's sexual orientation and looks. That's where-

David Pakman 1:07:55 If, if Carlos Maza were a gay Republican and the exact same thing happened, do you think the outcome would have been different?

Joe Rogan 1:08:01 Yes.

David Pakman 1:08:02 Why?

Joe Rogan 1:08:02 I just don't think people would be interested.

David Pakman 1:08:04 Oh, well, that's a different... But, so that gets to the real crux of it-

Joe Rogan 1:08:07 Yeah.

David Pakman 1:08:07 ... which is, my real concern with this is YouTube only getting involved in even publicly saying what they're doing about a channel.

Joe Rogan 1:08:16 Right.

David Pakman 1:08:16 When it becomes very public and it starts to have the possibility of impacting their bottom line and brands saying-

Joe Rogan 1:08:23 Yes.

David Pakman 1:08:23 ... "This is, this is too hot and we're getting out."

Joe Rogan 1:08:25 Well, in that sense, what Carlos did once it was revealed that YouTube was not gonna take action, was very effective.

David Pakman 1:08:32 Absolutely.

Joe Rogan 1:08:33 I mean, he started tweeting like crazy and people jumped on board. He connected it to the LBGT movement and, and then it became this thing.

David Pakman 1:08:42 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.

Joe Rogan 1:09:11 Absolutely.

David Pakman 1:09:11 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.

Joe Rogan 1:09:19 Well, define, define what you mean by the identity politics component of it too.

David Pakman 1:09:23 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.

Joe Rogan 1:09:47 Mm-hmm.

David Pakman 1:09:48 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.

Joe Rogan 1:10:08 Right.

David Pakman 1:10:08 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-

Joe Rogan 1:10:26 Sure.

David Pakman 1:10:26 ... 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.

Joe Rogan 1:10:43 Right, I got it.

David Pakman 1:10:43 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.

Joe Rogan 1:10:53 Sure, sure. But what you're, you're just not interested in the hierarchy of oppressed people.

David Pakman 1:10:58 I'm not interested in the oppression Olympics-

Joe Rogan 1:11:00 Right.

David Pakman 1:11:00 ... and I'm not interested in using identity to silence ideas that could be perfectly good-

Joe Rogan 1:11:05 Right.

David Pakman 1:11:05 ... coming from someone who is not a member or checking a certain box.

Joe Rogan 1:11:08 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.

David Pakman 1:11:27 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.

Joe Rogan 1:11:37 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-

David Pakman 1:12:13 Well, then we agree.

Joe Rogan 1:12:14 Yeah.

David Pakman 1:12:14 I mean, I, I gen- I asked because I genuinely didn't know. I mean, I've heard people talk about identity politics-

Joe Rogan 1:12:20 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-

David Pakman 1:12:25 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:12:25 ... with Brett Weinstein. It, it, it, it's very disruptive.

David Pakman 1:12:28 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,