EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,091 words- 0:00 – 1:32
War Decline, Pinker, and Why People Crave Bad News
- JRJoe Rogan
Here we go. (singing) Oh, and we're live. Hello, Penn.
- PJPenn Jillette
Okay. Tha- was that that quick and that easy?
- JRJoe Rogan
That's it. It's that easy. Yeah.
- PJPenn Jillette
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wonderful.
- PJPenn Jillette
We didn't say very much interesting before it started.
- JRJoe Rogan
No. We were-
- PJPenn Jillette
You just starting, and then you just said, "S- shut the fuck up."
- JRJoe Rogan
I said, "Hold that thought, please."
- PJPenn Jillette
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
This, uh, this concept of things getting better. You know, we were talking about war. War being too... 'Cause there's a World War II helmet that, um... Shane Against the Machine is the gentleman's name. He's made me another, uh, sculpture, and he started making sculptures out of, uh, these World War II helmets with, uh, a lamp underneath it and an actual real World War II bayonet as well. And you were saying war is a terrible idea.
- PJPenn Jillette
(laughs) Yeah. And it's going away.
- JRJoe Rogan
You think? Really?
- PJPenn Jillette
Real- yeah. Real- really fast. And you, you mentioned Pinker.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- PJPenn Jillette
And that's... You know, everything I will say is redundant to Pinker. I mean, that, um, uh, The Better Angels of Our Nature is one of, I think, the most subversive books of our time. You know? People are... Th- there's such a, um... It's a fetish to suffer. It's a fetish to say how bad things are. People are getting really off on it. And when you start saying, you know... After you say, "One death by violence is too many." And, "We gotta clean up the environment." And da-da-da-da-da. Y- you say all that stuff and it's all true, but you can also take a breath and say things are getting better.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. I think we need to recognize that. And the, the problem is, there is, there is violence. There is horrible things. There are horrible things in the world. They, they still exist.
- PJPenn Jillette
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
And now they're magnified because of the fact that we have this ability to look at it on your phone anytime you want to.
- PJPenn Jillette
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Look at it on your computer anytime you want to.
- 1:32 – 3:35
Information Overload as a "Mental Diet" (and No Gatekeepers)
- PJPenn Jillette
You know, it's the same thing, it's the same thing... I think calories and information are identical. You know? For millions, billion-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- PJPenn Jillette
... years, um, the biggest problem every living thing had was too few calories. And then for, uh, what? Maybe 75 years, a very small percentage of the animals in the world had this problem of too many calories. And there's nothing that prepares anybody for that.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- PJPenn Jillette
But we now have more information in one issue of the New York Times than, um, a 17th century peasant would have had in their entire life. So we have this glut of information that we're dealing with about as well as we dealt with calories. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
I talk about this quite often, but the way I describe it is diet, in that most people have a poor diet and that most people's diet is not nutritious.
- PJPenn Jillette
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
And if you have a poor diet that's not nutritious, your body becomes unhealthy. Well, if you have a poor mental diet-
- PJPenn Jillette
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... and I've discussed... How many people did we talk about this with? Like three or four people we've been talking about this. Like taking in information, you should almost think of it as a mental diet.
- PJPenn Jillette
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Because if you take in bad information all the time-
- PJPenn Jillette
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
... negative information.
- PJPenn Jillette
And I will speak for myself, but I don't think I am in any way alone. I often forget where I read stuff.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, yeah. I do all the time.
- PJPenn Jillette
So I have to be really careful to not read too much garbage.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- PJPenn Jillette
Or it just pops up in my head as, "Oh, that's real."
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- PJPenn Jillette
You know? So I try to go with, uh, news sources that are, I think are pretty reliable. Even if I disagree with them.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- PJPenn Jillette
Like I try to read The Times, 'cause I know there's a level to how much they're gonna lie.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs) Yeah.
- PJPenn Jillette
You know? We know, we know where the parameters of their lying are. You know?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- PJPenn Jillette
We know where they do the spin. And if you just, just pop around the web at random, you can't tell what, what kind of information you're getting. But I also want to add to this, you know, it's, it's, it's exactly the way I feel about drugs, you know? As much as I want to say, "This is not right for me," information has to be out there, and all information, absolutely no gatekeepers. You know?
- 3:35 – 4:17
Mind-Reading Tech vs Truth: Belief, Memory, and Lie Detectors
- JRJoe Rogan
No, I, I completely agree, and I think that we're coming very close to a time where technology allows us to understand what's true and what's not true. We're not there yet.
- PJPenn Jillette
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
But I think we're, we're really close to being able to have some sort of an ability to read minds, to, to deci- decipher information, like f- really clearly.
- PJPenn Jillette
But, but the problem with reading minds, um, if we could do it-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- PJPenn Jillette
... and the... to ascertain truth, is, uh, truth is very different from what someone believes.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- PJPenn Jillette
You know? If you had a perfect lie detector, it would not help you with criminality at all. 'Cause, you know, people that think they're innocent may very well think they're innocent even if they are not.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, for sure. Yeah.
- PJPenn Jillette
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's a really good point. And, you know, another really good point is memory is very fallible.
- 4:17 – 7:40
Penn on The Apprentice: The Boardroom as Set, and Trump as Entertainment
- PJPenn Jillette
Oh, yeah. See, I, uh, you know, I get a lot of, I get a lot of shit for this, and I talked about it a little bit on, on my podcast. But, um, you know, I was in the room with Trump a lot. You know? I wa- I did two tours o-
- JRJoe Rogan
The Apprentice, yeah.
- PJPenn Jillette
I did two tours of duty (laughs) on The Apprentice.
- JRJoe Rogan
Tell, tell, tell me about that. What is that like?
- PJPenn Jillette
Yeah. It-
- JRJoe Rogan
'Cause I was supposed to do that show and I passed on it.
- PJPenn Jillette
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
I was like, "I don't want to live in New York for three months." Or whatever it was. Like-
- PJPenn Jillette
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... it just seemed like a-
- PJPenn Jillette
Uh, uh, it's wise either way. It was a, it was a, uh, primetime television show, so it sold tickets. And that is our job.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- PJPenn Jillette
Uh, and that's what we do. And I went on with one idea in my head. You know, Annie Duke? You know, the poker player?
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- PJPenn Jillette
She had been on the year before, and I said, um, "Why am I going on? I mean, I know, I'm knowing I'm gonna sell tickets. And that's, that's just a done deal. But why am I going on? What's my real goal?" And she said, "Go on and show that atheists can be kind. That'll be your only goal for the whole show."
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh.
- PJPenn Jillette
"Because they're gonna jump on you for being atheist, and they'll jump all over you for that. And just show that you're the one that gets mad the least. Show the one that you're, you're nicest guy on there, and you're the hardcore atheist." And I went, "Okay, that's a good goal." But then you sit in the room, and I don't know how well you know the president of the United States or anything.
- JRJoe Rogan
I don't want to know him at all.
- PJPenn Jillette
Yeah. Um, but you spend, um, uh, about two or three hours every other day sitting in a room across a table like this. With, with a table you can't put your hands on.
- JRJoe Rogan
Why can't you put your hands on it?
- PJPenn Jillette
Because it might mar it. It might-
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, that's hilarious.
- PJPenn Jillette
... put, put a hand print on it.
- JRJoe Rogan
They literally tell you, "Don't put your hands on the table"?
- PJPenn Jillette
"Don't put your hands on the table." And you have to sit up straight.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- PJPenn Jillette
And the camera... If you're, like, the team captain, which by the way they hate it if you call them team captain. (laughs) They like to have a, you know, some sort of business jargon.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- PJPenn Jillette
And you're in a, you're in a set.And that's the thing that everybody else on the show would say, "We're going into the boardroom now." And I'd say, "No, we're going onto the boardroom set." (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
So it wasn't a real boardroom?
- 7:40 – 12:15
Trump’s Personality: Filters, Humorlessness, and the "Margins" Penn Listens To
- PJPenn Jillette
Obsessed with what anybody says about him anytime.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's so odd.
- PJPenn Jillette
And, uh, I thought... And I, I wanna say this very clearly, um, I thought he was wonderful at his job. You know, if you had someone who was actually a business person, um, on that show, it would be the worst show in the world, because Bill Gates would make proper decisions. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- PJPenn Jillette
And there'd be no surprises. You want someone capricious and crazy with no filter. That's what you want.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- PJPenn Jillette
And that's what we got. So he makes arbitrary decisions that you try... you know, the human brain tries desperately to make those make sense, and that ends up being some kind of entertainment. And, um, so I actually... Uh, actually, uh, Donald Trump Jr. said to me, "You know, of all the people we've had on the show, you seem like the only person who's ever liked my father."
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- PJPenn Jillette
(laughs) he said, "You actually seem to like him." And I said, "You know, I have a fascination and a respect and a, um, affection for people who are able to get out of their filters." And I said, "Some people do that with pure genius, like Bob Dylan. Some people do it with bravery, like Lenny Bruce. Some people do it with drugs, you know, Neil Young perhaps, uh, Jimi Hendrix perhaps. And most people do it with a mixture of stuff." But I said, um, "Thelonious Monk said, 'The genius is the one who is most like himself.'" And I said, "With some sort of, um, mental problems coupled with, um, greed and a lack of compassion, your father has somehow found a way to throw off the filters." And I will listen to Tiny Tim talk on tape for hours, because I like that little bit of Asperger's and all that other stu-... Well, I'm, I'm, I'm not qual-
- JRJoe Rogan
Assuming.
- PJPenn Jillette
I'm not qualified to-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right. Yeah.
- PJPenn Jillette
... to, to, to... But I'm saying that it's possible.
- JRJoe Rogan
He's an oddity, yes, for sure.
- PJPenn Jillette
He's oddity. I can hear him talk forever. I can listen to Lenny Bruce. You know how Willner has those hundreds hours of him just ranting onto his tape? I think I don't like people on drugs that much, but boy, I do. And I listen to, uh, uh, Lenny Bruce talk forever. And, uh, Donald Trump had the dark side of that. You know, it's almost like when I was hitchhiking around the country and, you know, h- homeless and shit, and you'd end up at a biker place and, you know, some clubhouse and some guy's just holding court and ranting. I've always been interested in the people who are out on the margins, you know? And what, what Donald Jr., um, took as affection, I g- I guess was a bit of affection, but it's also that if you have thrown off some filters, I'll listen to you talk. And, um, so that was that. It was very, very strange. And then, um, I really did spend a lot of time kind of sticking up for Donald Trump saying, "Yeah, there's interesting stuff there. And yeah, he's, he's crazy and he's venal and, um, he's empty." Uh, you know, really weird stuff that you've never seen before.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- PJPenn Jillette
You have never seen someone who has never laughed sincerely and never made a joke.
- JRJoe Rogan
Never laughed sincerely?
- PJPenn Jillette
No. He, he will, he will laugh in a bully way. "Ha ha, you look kinda fat, Joe."
- JRJoe Rogan
Really?
- PJPenn Jillette
Yeah, he'll do that.
- JRJoe Rogan
But he won't laugh at himself?
- PJPenn Jillette
Oh, oh, no. And also, but never a, even a joke. Even a turn of phrase.
- JRJoe Rogan
But he says funny things on Twitter. Did you see the thing he did on Twitter the other day where he put a picture of Trump Tower in Greenland and he said, "I promise not to do this"?
- PJPenn Jillette
Yeah, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
I mean, I laughed.
- PJPenn Jillette
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
That was funny.
- PJPenn Jillette
Mm-hmm. Yeah. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Just giant Trump Tower in the middle of Greenland.
- 12:15 – 17:37
Taste, Habit, and the Microbiome: How Penn’s Vegan Shift Changed His Emotions
- PJPenn Jillette
(laughs) When I lost, uh, all that weight, you know, I lost over 100 pounds.
- JRJoe Rogan
Congratulations, by the way.
- PJPenn Jillette
And I read a lot. And also, more importantly, four years and kept it off. But, um, uh, when I was reading about taste, I read this book and I, I... No, it's, it's awful that I can't bring up the name. But, um...A woman wrote this wonderful book about, uh, preferences in food. And she was trying to set up a dichotomy. Let's talk to those people who think there's a natural taste and desire in food, and those that think it's all environment and what you... and memory, and so on. And you just can't find scientists on the other side. All of our food preferences are habit, and there's nothing else.
- JRJoe Rogan
Habit?
- PJPenn Jillette
It's just habit.
- JRJoe Rogan
Is that proven? How can they prove that?
- PJPenn Jillette
It seems to be, uh, lots of studies, uh, with young children. Um, lots of studies with people who they control their diet.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, how do you... But how do you make... How does it make sense when you have two kids that have radically different tastes and they grow up in the same household? And they have essentially-
- PJPenn Jillette
Uh, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... very, very similar food experiences.
- PJPenn Jillette
Yeah. Well, I, uh, I don't know how they tease out that, but they've done some laboratory-
- JRJoe Rogan
I have one daughter-
- PJPenn Jillette
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
One daughter who loves spicy food.
- PJPenn Jillette
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
And she's young.
- PJPenn Jillette
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
She's nine.
- PJPenn Jillette
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And I love spicy food.
- PJPenn Jillette
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And, I mean, this fucking kid can eat jalapenos.
- PJPenn Jillette
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
She eats habanero sauce. She'll... Like, I'll say, "This one might be a little too hot for you." And she's like, "Let me try it."
- PJPenn Jillette
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
And she'll, like, dip her finger in it and she's like, "Put it on."
- PJPenn Jillette
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
She'll eat chicken with habanero sauce.
- PJPenn Jillette
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
I mean, she's a little savage. My other one doesn't want to have nothing to do with it.
- 17:37 – 23:13
Anti-Team Thinking: Identity Traps in Politics, Culture, and Music
- PJPenn Jillette
You know? The, the, the dislike of teams becomes your team. And I'm trying so hard now to think, "I have two choices. One or seven billion, and there's no teams between that."
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- PJPenn Jillette
I can either be myself or I can be one of all humanity. Or I won't even say seven billion. Let's say 108 billion, the number of people who have lived in history.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- PJPenn Jillette
You know, those are the people I can be. It's why I'm trying to not... And this is impossible to do, by the way. I'm talking about how I'm dr- I'm explaining to you how I'm driving myself crazy.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right. (laughs)
- PJPenn Jillette
I'm not giving you real information. Um, I'm trying to not think, ever, of us and them.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- PJPenn Jillette
But I'm trying to say, "Those of us who voted for Trump. Those of us who believe this."
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- PJPenn Jillette
So it's always "us" because, man, I am so fucking sick of teams.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- PJPenn Jillette
And I even look back and go, "You know, I loved The Velvet Underground. I hated the fucking Eagles."
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- PJPenn Jillette
"And that was a fucking team."And that was manipulated and forced-
- JRJoe Rogan
(clapping)
- PJPenn Jillette
... upon me. You know what I mean?
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- PJPenn Jillette
I wanted to be the kind of guy that went from, you know, Zappa to The Velvet Underground-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. Yeah.
- PJPenn Jillette
... to, uh, to Bob Dylan.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- PJPenn Jillette
That was all okay. And the Eagles and The Doobie Brothers-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- PJPenn Jillette
They were not what I listened to. I'm just trying to let that go.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. You wanted to be one of the cool kids.
- PJPenn Jillette
Yeah, exactly.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. Yeah.
- PJPenn Jillette
And whenever you want that, you gotta say, "Well, you know, one of the cool kids, that's the 108 billion who've lived on this planet."
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. That's a great way to look at things. And I think... I wish people taught that in school, the dangers of being involved in teams.
- 23:13 – 28:41
Satire, Parody, and Lenny Bruce: When Reality Outruns Comedy
- JRJoe Rogan
I know when you think about someone selling Sex Pistols merchandise-
- PJPenn Jillette
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... you're just like, "Ugh."
- PJPenn Jillette
Well, there's Sex Pistol slo- (clears throat) Sorry.
- JRJoe Rogan
Slot machines.
- PJPenn Jillette
There's Sex Pistol slot machines.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- PJPenn Jillette
(laughs) When, when I was first in the Hard Rock, you know, and there's a big sign, "The only notes that really count are the ones that come in wads." And that's over the door of a casino that you're walking in. And then there's a Sid Vicious slot machine and you go-
- JRJoe Rogan
Whoa.
- PJPenn Jillette
... "Okay, okay. So this is... You know, satire's dead. We can no longer do satire. That's over."
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, it's hard to do satire today.
- PJPenn Jillette
It's done. Oh, I never liked it.
- JRJoe Rogan
Today-
- PJPenn Jillette
I never liked that.
- JRJoe Rogan
But today it's really hard-
- PJPenn Jillette
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... because there's so many people that are serious that are more ridiculous than satire.
- PJPenn Jillette
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
There's a guy who, I don't know his real name, but his, his Twitter name is Tatiana McGrath and he plays like the most woke person in all of Twitter. And I retweet his stuff or her stuff, the f- the pseudonym all the time. And people get furious. They're like, "Oh my God, is this fucking person serious?" Like, "This is bullshit." And I'm like, "It's a parody." And they're like, "Oh, okay."
- PJPenn Jillette
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
And they go, "Okay, I get it." I'm like, "It's that close. It's that close to being-"
- PJPenn Jillette
Oh.
- JRJoe Rogan
"... a real person."
- PJPenn Jillette
But not close. We've already crossed over.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, yeah.
- PJPenn Jillette
You d- absolutely, there's no way to tell.
- JRJoe Rogan
No, there's no way to tell-
- PJPenn Jillette
There's no way to tell.
- JRJoe Rogan
... with woke people. With the, with the woke young today.
- PJPenn Jillette
There's no way to tell with a- with any-
- 28:41 – 47:07
Penn, Drugs, and Psychedelics: Zero Moderation vs Joe’s DMT Pitch
- PJPenn Jillette
You know, a way to learn when you get, when you get pushed out of there. But it's i- it's just, uh, uh, that, that whole idea that you've got to, um, des- I mean, my life is so heavily affected by drugs even though I had this whole, you know, "I, uh, am not gonna do any drugs"-
- JRJoe Rogan
Why, why did you have that decision?
- PJPenn Jillette
You know, I don't know. I don't know. That's always, uh, and I've talked about this on m- on my podcast for ever, you know. I try to cl-
- JRJoe Rogan
How old are you now?
- PJPenn Jillette
What's that?
- JRJoe Rogan
How old are you now?
- PJPenn Jillette
I'm 64 years old.
- JRJoe Rogan
And you have no experience with drugs other than-
- PJPenn Jillette
None. Uh, med-
- JRJoe Rogan
... medication-
- PJPenn Jillette
Me- medication.
- JRJoe Rogan
... when you need surgery, right?
- PJPenn Jillette
Sure, I mean, b- yes, and I ha- I've had, uh, deep enough, uh, injuries that I have experienced morphine.
- JRJoe Rogan
You just keep getting surgery 'cause you love drugs.
- PJPenn Jillette
(laughs) Exactly.
- JRJoe Rogan
Exactly.
- PJPenn Jillette
Mor- (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
More of an excuse.
- PJPenn Jillette
(laughs) Well, you know, uh, Trey Parker, um, said that my big flaw was never having been high. So-
- JRJoe Rogan
We can fix that.
- PJPenn Jillette
So... I know. So I...
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- PJPenn Jillette
He did fix that.
- JRJoe Rogan
Did he?
- PJPenn Jillette
I went in for dental surgery, uh, serious dental surgery, and they fucked up and the, uh, the dentist told the nurse what he had given me in terms of painkillers and she took that as what she was supposed to give me.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh.
- PJPenn Jillette
So instantly doubled the dose. And I was so fucking high and out of my mind.
- JRJoe Rogan
People can die that way.
- PJPenn Jillette
Yeah. And I told my wife, through my haze of not knowing who I was, "Call Trey Parker." (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- 47:07 – 53:02
Sensory Deprivation Tanks and Breath Meditation: Technique, Time, and Expectations
- PJPenn Jillette
Let's talk about the sensory-
- JRJoe Rogan
Please. I have one right here.
- PJPenn Jillette
Uh, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
I have one your size.
- PJPenn Jillette
I went-
- JRJoe Rogan
You can get in it.
- PJPenn Jillette
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I went to one of these places where you pay 'em X amount of money and you go in.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- PJPenn Jillette
Because my buddy, Tim Jenison, we did a movie called Tim's Vermeer, where he painted a Vermeer in his garage. And, uh, Tim was really into that. I'll do anything Tim does. I just, I just love Tim. And, uh, so I went and, you know, whatever you pay, a few bucks, and you, you go in and float in the tank. And I was so ready. I, I have a s- ... This happens so much in my life. I get so ready for a major change in my life. The first time I wanted to become a vegan I went out with a friend. This was, like, in 1990. And there was a guy I was making fun of brutally, ripping him the fuck apart for his stupid eating, you know? And I said, "Listen, I wanna go out with you to a restaurant, just eat vegetables, and I'm not gonna interrupt you, I'm not gonna make fun of you. You talk to me for three hours about all your Peter Singer stuff, all your ethical vegetarian stuff, and you convert me. That's all I want you to do."
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh.
- PJPenn Jillette
That was the reason I went out. That was the reason I went out with him. And I finished up the whole evening and I went, "You know, I really respected your point of view until I understood it." (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- PJPenn Jillette
That motherfucker talked me out-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- PJPenn Jillette
... of doing what I wanted to do.
- JRJoe Rogan
Ugh.
- PJPenn Jillette
And so I got ready, man, with the, with, with the, uh, isolation tank. I said, "This'll be good. She's told me about this. I'm just gonna go there, sensory deprivation, I'll just let my mind wander."
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- PJPenn Jillette
And I went in there and it was just salty and I was bumping against walls.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. Yeah, you, it's ... You need to get used to it. It's like-
- PJPenn Jillette
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... the meditation. Try meditating once, you're like, "I couldn't concentrate."
- PJPenn Jillette
Yeah, meditating once is useless.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes. Yeah. It's, um ...You-
- PJPenn Jillette
How often do you do the tank?
- JRJoe Rogan
All the time. I used to have one at my house.
- PJPenn Jillette
Well, you're not in it now.
- JRJoe Rogan
No.
- PJPenn Jillette
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Not... All times. But often, I should say.
- 53:02 – 1:02:18
Optimism with Conditions: Progress, Empathy, and the Cultural Appropriation Debate
- PJPenn Jillette
... to this team thing and the, uh, and the separation of America and getting more polarized, that's going to be solved by Joe in the tank at some point. We can count on that?
- JRJoe Rogan
No.
- PJPenn Jillette
Now that you got the recorder?
- JRJoe Rogan
I think we're gonna solve it ourselves. I think we're gonna solve it ourselves through just time. I, uh, uh, I think, as we're getting back to Pinker, we were talking about Pinker earlier, that he gets so much shit for saying that things are better now than ever. It doesn't dismiss horrific acts that take place.
- PJPenn Jillette
No.
- JRJoe Rogan
Or terrible things that are going on.
- PJPenn Jillette
And it doesn't say that the battle is over.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right. No, no, no. Yeah.
- PJPenn Jillette
I mean, this is one of the things that, um, I would push f- in, in my little microcosm, push for so hard in Penn & Teller, you know? Uh, Teller and I would have real trouble just crossing a finish line. I would just say to him, "You know, Teller, we, we've, we've done five seasons of bullshit, and it went well. Let's go out, the two of us, have coffee and donuts, and let's just say, 'Wow, we did that.' And then push ahead for the next thing." And I would just, uh, I just think that Pinker is like that with me. Pinker's like saying, "You know, human beings, we're doing okay. We're doing okay. We done some really good things. Now let's get back to work."
- JRJoe Rogan
We're most certainly doing better than ever before, and I think that's an accumulative thing. It's like as time goes on-
- PJPenn Jillette
If we don't blow everything to pin- kingdom come.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes. Which we did.
- PJPenn Jillette
And if we don't destroy the environment.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- PJPenn Jillette
If those two things, the two enormous ifs-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- PJPenn Jillette
... we're in very good shape.
- JRJoe Rogan
They are. They are.
- PJPenn Jillette
The thing that blew my mind about Pinker in that, in that book Better Angels, blew my mind, is, uh, that there's this line that's, that, that, that's been obsessing me, uh, with, uh, Kracker in Teen Angst, "I don't know what the world may need, but I sure as hell know it starts with me, and that's a wisdom I've laughed at."
- JRJoe Rogan
Mmm.
- PJPenn Jillette
All this shit that I've laughed at, that turns out to be true for me now, it just makes me smile and fills me with joy. You know, uh, early part of the 20th century, all these authors and artists and all these guys were saying, Hemingway and stuff, "We're gonna stop war..."... by writing about war and writing about how bad it was, and we're gonna give empathy for other people, and we'll understand this. And we're gonna really, with our art, make an effort to make humanity better. What a jack-off, bullshit thing to do.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- PJPenn Jillette
I mean, there's no... Can you imagine something more that's just twiddling your dick than saying that? "Oh, I'm going to do art, and I'm gonna write, and it's gonna change the world."
- JRJoe Rogan
My poetry.
- PJPenn Jillette
And then Pinker's book says, why is all this stuff getting better so fast? We think it may be art (laughs) , and it may be empathy.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hm.
- PJPenn Jillette
And it turns out that, uh, all this stuff people were saying about, you know, we can change, we can change how people see-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- PJPenn Jillette
... warfare and how people see one another. And that's what scares me so much about, um, how some people speak of... And I think it's because I don't understand it. Usually, when I'm against something, it means I don't understand it. But when they talk about cultural appropriation, cultural appropriation seems to me to be the greatest thing you can possibly do. To see the world through the eyes of someone who grew up differently than you, to even try to do that. For even for us to pretend, right now, to be a, uh, uh, you know, white nationalist, even trying to do that seems like it's a really good thing for us. Trying-
- JRJoe Rogan
To pretend? Just to get into their head?
- 1:02:18 – 1:19:38
Moon Landing Skepticism and Conspiracy as a "Playful" Intellectual Art Form
- PJPenn Jillette
You know, I wanna talk about when you came on my radio show with Phil Plait about the moon landing.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, talked about the moon landing, yeah.
- PJPenn Jillette
Yeah. But what I, what I think is fascinating about this, about clubs and stuff, you know?
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- PJPenn Jillette
Is, uh, I, uh, you know ... And I, I, I know I've, I've read here and there that you, uh, you, you've, uh, you, you've gone back on a lot of that and your conspiracy stuff, and so ...
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- PJPenn Jillette
But that's, that's not, that's not-
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, I can explain that too. I don't know what I'm talking about. You know, this, this is the thing. I've, I've zero astrophysics-
- PJPenn Jillette
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... education. Zero. I don't know anything about p- whether or not the, it's possible to put people on the moon. I do know fuckery, and I, I do know teams, and I do kn- I d- I do understand when people are bullshitting people.
- PJPenn Jillette
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
And I think there's a lot of that with, with a lot of the NASA stuff, a lot of the older stuff in particular. There was a lot of manipulation of images and putting things online that may not have actually really happened because it was press releases and ...
- PJPenn Jillette
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
There's an image of Michael Collins from like, uh, Gemini 15 that's a, uh, a very clear, um, image of him, uh, doing a simulation, like in a studio with straps and harnesses. And then someone from NASA, or someone put that exact same im- image, blacked out the background, and used it as a photo of a m- of a space walk.
- PJPenn Jillette
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
And it's not real, you know? But they sold it as real. There was some overzealous shit like that, that if you're conspiratorially minded, you might say, "Ah."
- PJPenn Jillette
Once, once you start lying ...
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes. Things get slippery.
- PJPenn Jillette
A- a- you know, it's, it's like the Area 51 and stuff.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- PJPenn Jillette
You know? We know they lied.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- PJPenn Jillette
Like motherfuckers.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- PJPenn Jillette
And that's the problem. But what I just wanted to compliment you, and I just also think this is really interesting, you know? So Joe Rogan believes this crazy shit, we didn't go to the moon. I know Joe Rogan. We're on a t- we're on a radio show together, da-da-da-da-da-da. He's a good guy. We did Fear Factor, bu- and he believes this shit. Let's, let's have him talk to someone who's real. So I call Phil Plait, who I don't know that well. Right? But he's the bad astronomer and he knows this shit. And I say, uh, "I really want you to come on my radio show and just talk to Joe Rogan about, uh, about, um ..."
- JRJoe Rogan
The moon landing.
- PJPenn Jillette
"The moon landing." And, uh, Phil says, "Oh, no problem. I'll just go on there. We'll, we'll set him straight." And I go, "I, I just, I just wanna warn you, uh, have your ducks in a row, 'cause Joe's really good." And he goes, "Well, Joe's, Joe's a comic, right?" I, I go ... I go, "Yeah. And that's your problem. Because Joe's better at talking than you." (laughs) "Joe knows when the commercials are coming." (laughs) "Joe knows how to make a joke and Joe knows also how to set you up and take you down." He ... "Oh, no, no, no. It'll be no problem." I said, y- y- you understand that he's smart? He's a comic, right? "Yeah." Not an astrophysicist. But you understand that he's smart and he's also ... You are going into his form. We're gonna be on radio. This guy has done a lot of radio. This guy's talked to a lot of people. So just have all your facts in line. And then we're sitting there, 'cause, you know, you were, you were on the phone. And, uh, Godot, my m- uh, who's on my podcast with me too, sitting across from me, and we're listening. And you come in and you come in humble and charming and sexy.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- PJPenn Jillette
And with perfect timing on everything. And Phil Plait starts going, "I'm, I'm, I'm a ..." (laughs) And I go, "Oh, man. Joe is wrong and Joe is gonna fucking win." (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
Episode duration: 1:48:05
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