Joe Rogan Experience #1453 - Eric Weinstein

1. 0:01 – 1:31

   Lockdown psychology: touch deprivation, paranoia, and social weirdness

   1. JRJoe Rogan0:01

      What's up, brother? How are you?

   2. EWEric Weinstein0:02

      Hey, Joe. How are you?

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:02

      Good. You hanging in there?

   4. EWEric Weinstein0:04

      I have not been off of my property more or less in two weeks, so it's crazy to see another human being.

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:10

      Yeah, I don't think this is healthy for us.

   6. EWEric Weinstein0:11

      I know.

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:12

      This lockdown shit. Everybody's so weirded out. You wanna run into people walking dogs, like, they don't want the dogs to get close to each other, like, "Hi." Everyone's across the street, "Hi."

   8. EWEric Weinstein0:22

      And, and I'm a hugger, right?

   9. JRJoe Rogan0:23

      Me too.

   10. EWEric Weinstein0:23

       And we're in California, so I'm a hugger in California, and all of my instincts are wrong.

   11. JRJoe Rogan0:27

       Everything's all messed up. Everyone's confused. The... Here's the big question: how long does it take before we normalize and go back? Like, let's say the end of July, everyone announces, "We got this thing locked down. We have a viable treatment. It's no different than the flu. We get you this chloroquine with, uh, Z-Pak," or whatever the current treatment is.

   12. EWEric Weinstein0:52

       Yeah.

   13. JRJoe Rogan0:52

       When do people start hugging again?

   14. EWEric Weinstein0:53

       What do you mean? It's not... It's gonna be crazy. Yeah, I mean, I think that the idea is we're all so starved for touch-

   15. JRJoe Rogan0:58

       Yeah.

   16. EWEric Weinstein0:58

       ... that, like, we're gonna have a, uh, a jubilee like you've never seen. People are gonna greet each other with tongues, and we're almost like just acquaintances.

   17. JRJoe Rogan1:05

       Well, I don't think that's a good idea.

   18. EWEric Weinstein1:06

       (laughs)

   19. JRJoe Rogan1:07

       Uh, there's still colds and cooties and all that other stuff.

   20. EWEric Weinstein1:09

       I know, but I think-

   21. JRJoe Rogan1:10

       (laughs)

   22. EWEric Weinstein1:10

       ... I think everybody's losing their shit.

   23. JRJoe Rogan1:12

       They definitely are. I've been talking to a lot of friends that are on the, um, extremely cautious side, let's say that. And, you know, they're not going anywhere, and they're wearing gloves and masks when they step outside their house to go do something in the backyard. And then they put the glove and mask down, and they spray it with Lysol when they come inside and... (breathes deeply)

2. 1:31 – 4:30

   The “Big Nap” ends: preparedness failures and what crises reveal about elites

   1. EWEric Weinstein1:31

      It's not healthy, and-

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:32

      Mm-hmm.

   3. EWEric Weinstein1:33

      ... it is also healthy. I mean, the idea that we have not been tested in so long, it's good to remember also that this stuff is live and real, and it has always been live and real. And, you know, if it was possible to live without this stuff, that would be one thing, but the 75-year nap that we've been in since 1945 is itself the greatest threat to all of us.

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:56

      Right.

   5. EWEric Weinstein1:56

      And, and, and our preparedness is just a wonderful indicator, um, where you actually get to see, this is the quality of your experts, this is the quality of your leadership, this is what they look like when put under stress.

   6. JRJoe Rogan2:08

      That's true, right? That is a good... That's a good thing. And I'm impressed with the medical community. I'm impressed with the people that are recognizing that this is a huge problem. Not so impressed with the administration of a lot of these hospitals that haven't prepared in terms of, like, masks and ventilators and a lot of these other things. Not so impressed with politicians, but also, it just seems like everyone, like you said, was in this nap state and hadn't really been tested. And really, globally, no one had been tested since the pandemic of 1918 like this, right?

   7. EWEric Weinstein2:44

      '68, uh, which I had, I had the Hong Kong flu, and '57 were sort of the best parallels to this.

   8. JRJoe Rogan2:53

      You got the Hong Kong flu in '68?

   9. EWEric Weinstein2:54

      I had the Hong Kong flu-

   10. JRJoe Rogan2:55

       Oh.

   11. EWEric Weinstein2:55

       ... and was sick as a dog-

   12. JRJoe Rogan2:57

       How old were you back then?

   13. EWEric Weinstein2:57

       ... in San Francisco. I was, like, three? Two? I mean-

   14. JRJoe Rogan3:01

       (whistles)

   15. EWEric Weinstein3:01

       ... three, four, some... Me- I mean, I think it went from '68 to '70. Somebody kee-

   16. JRJoe Rogan3:04

       Do you remember it?

   17. EWEric Weinstein3:06

       Oh, yeah. It... I was in San Francisco. My grandma had to come up from LA to care for me. Um, it was, it was bad.

   18. JRJoe Rogan3:14

       Wow.

   19. EWEric Weinstein3:14

       It's, like, one of my earliest memories, yeah. And so '68 and '57, I think, are the best comparables to this go- before we go back to 1918. And almost nobody remembers these things. Like, it's very weird. It... M- many people had never heard of the Hong Kong flu when I started talking about the fact that I had had it.

   20. JRJoe Rogan3:33

       Yeah, I vaguely remembered it until you just said it. And then I'm like, "Ooh."

   21. EWEric Weinstein3:36

       I'm slightly older than you, right?

   22. JRJoe Rogan3:38

       Yeah, I'm 52.

   23. EWEric Weinstein3:38

       I'm 54.

   24. JRJoe Rogan3:39

       Yeah. I don't remember the Hong Kong flu, but I do, you know what I mean? Like, I don't remember it personally.

   25. EWEric Weinstein3:45

       No, but you... But, but y- you as a health geek, um, are, are up on these sorts of things. And so you understand the ways in which, you know, for example, you can have a flu where the, I guess, the cytokine storm, you know, is your... The, the threat from your immunity, uh, uh, your immune system is, like, bigger than the virus itself.

   26. JRJoe Rogan4:02

       Mm-hmm.

   27. EWEric Weinstein4:02

       There are all these various weird things that happen, but I, I think that this... The... Let- let's call it the big nap. The big nap is itself the greatest threat to us, and this is, this is bad, but it is also a shot across our bow. And, uh, you know, this was what was happening in my mind when I was on here talking about the twin nuclei problem of cell and atom. We didn't stop history. It's not like we're past atomic war, like we figured that out. We just, we just hit the pause button for a little while and we hit snooze.

3. 4:30 – 9:59

   China dependence and the supply-chain trap: shareholders vs national interest

   1. JRJoe Rogan4:30

      Yeah, and the fear is also that nefarious players will take this opportunity to erode civil l- civil rights, to erode civil liberties, and then China to gain power in the US market, to gobble up a lot of stocks while everything is down and try to increase their stake in our economy and try to push, you, you know...

   2. EWEric Weinstein4:52

      China's got its hands lovingly around our throat because our elite have been moving into greater and greater states of China dependence.

   3. JRJoe Rogan5:00

      Mm-hmm.

   4. EWEric Weinstein5:01

      Right? And so, I (laughs) think this is what the BDSM community refers to as breath play, and I don't like it. I do-

   5. JRJoe Rogan5:08

      Breath play is, like, you kind of, like, half choke somebody?

   6. EWEric Weinstein5:10

      Yeah.

   7. JRJoe Rogan5:11

      Is that what... How do you know that?

   8. EWEric Weinstein5:12

      What?

   9. JRJoe Rogan5:13

      I don't like the fact that you know that.

   10. EWEric Weinstein5:14

       I went i-

   11. JRJoe Rogan5:14

       (laughs)

   12. EWEric Weinstein5:14

       ... I went to... I went to MIT.

   13. JRJoe Rogan5:16

       (laughs)

   14. EWEric Weinstein5:16

       At MIT is wildly into BDSM. Somebody asked, "Why- whye-

   15. JRJoe Rogan5:19

       Are they really?

   16. EWEric Weinstein5:19

       ... why are geeks, uh, and, and aspies into BDSM?" (laughs) And somebody said, "Lots of rules."

   17. JRJoe Rogan5:25

       What's an aspie? Asperger'sy?

   18. EWEric Weinstein5:27

       Uh, Asperger's people, right.

   19. JRJoe Rogan5:28

       Mm-hmm. Lots of rules?

   20. EWEric Weinstein5:29

       Yeah.

   21. JRJoe Rogan5:29

       They like that?

   22. EWEric Weinstein5:29

       They like... They love rules.

   23. JRJoe Rogan5:31

       (laughs) Wow.

   24. EWEric Weinstein5:31

       It's their whole thing. Because to do all this stuff safely, you would have to have a huge hierarchy-

   25. JRJoe Rogan5:35

       Right.

   26. EWEric Weinstein5:35

       ... uh, of rules. And my claim is, is that China is... They supply so much of our stuff. We've moved all of our-

   27. JRJoe Rogan5:44

       Yeah.

   28. EWEric Weinstein5:45

       ... uh, you know, manufacturing base into these crazy supply chains, and we are completely dependent on a strategic rival. And, you know, China is very careful, if you remember when they... When they hosted the Olympics, to have these amazingly impressive displays that are always friendly. But what they're really saying is, "We have our shit together, and you don't."... and our system was hackable, it was open. As lo- for example, if you have a, a company that has, um, a duty to its shareholders, that the directors of the company must do what is ever- whatever is in the best interest of the shareholders and everything else doesn't matter, then you can have a situation where a director has to move things to China because that is in the best interest of the shareholders, even if it's an, a- absolutely, uh, not in the best interest of the United States. This is what Ralph Gomory, who used to head the Sloan Foundation, once said at an address I was at at the National Academy of Sciences. He just said, "As a director, I am incentivized to do exactly the wrong thing for the United States of America, so I'm gonna put one hat on and tell you, as an American, we must not move all of this over to China, and then I'm gonna put my director's hat on and I'm gonna vote to move everything over to China-

   29. JRJoe Rogan6:59

       Oh.

   30. EWEric Weinstein6:59

       ... because I have no choice." And so, you know, in essence, the smart, good people, all 11 of them, uh, were always fighting this thing about, you cannot become China dependent. And in a ... during the Big Nap, there was no way to make this argument convincingly. You couldn't say, "Look, we, we have a serious strategic problem by your continuing moves to bring China in as the solution to every equation we can't balance." And that, that is really the problem, is, is that there wasn't any ability to say, "We are way too dependent on a strategic rival." You saw this at the beginning of the pandemic. Everyone was afraid of what? I don't wanna be (laughs) appear xenophobic.
4. 9:59 – 12:36

   Consumer culture, planned obsolescence, and the hidden “growth obligation”

   1. EWEric Weinstein9:59

      Yeah. Uh, the problem is, we are all hooked up to this need for cheap products-

   2. JRJoe Rogan10:05

      Yeah.

   3. EWEric Weinstein10:06

      ... profits, when we can't figure out how to innovate enough to actually create the juice in our own system, and therefore, we have to rationa- you were gonna say?

   4. JRJoe Rogan10:13

      No, I was just gonna say, I mean, also, we've gotten into this idea of every year, we have to have a newer, better piece of electronics. Like, if you had to go the rest of your life with an iPhone 11, how much would you suffer?

   5. EWEric Weinstein10:24

      Um, not that much, although I would say that many of us are not that excited about the next phone. Tha- that, that itself is an antiquated thing.

   6. JRJoe Rogan10:33

      Right, but what I'm saying is like, wh- why can't they make it so that you can just fix this?

   7. EWEric Weinstein10:38

      Yeah.

   8. JRJoe Rogan10:39

      You know what I mean? Like, who the fuck fixes their phone? You don't fix your phone. You bring it in, they're like, "Oh, you can get a new one."

   9. EWEric Weinstein10:44

      Oh, you're going back to like, Depression Era thinking.

   10. JRJoe Rogan10:46

       Well, not Depression Era thinking. It's like, wh- why can't things be sustainable?

   11. EWEric Weinstein10:52

       No, no. I, I ... The planned obsolescence and the need to constantly-

   12. JRJoe Rogan10:55

       Yeah.

   13. EWEric Weinstein10:55

       ... update so that you n- y- you're never ... It's a tricky problem. If you need growth to power your system, then in a weird way, it makes sense not to build the optimal phone-

   14. JRJoe Rogan11:08

       Right.

   15. EWEric Weinstein11:09

       ... because if you were to build the optimal phone and then people stopped renewing everything-

   16. JRJoe Rogan11:13

       Your system's fucked.

   17. EWEric Weinstein11:13

       ... then your system weirdly breaks down. So it makes sense at the level of the phone that you wouldn't want to do that, but weirdly, in aggregate, if you can't start innovate, if you can't figure out how to restart innovation in a big way, now you're stuck with either having to li- learn to live in steady state, which none of us ... We, n- Americans have no program for living in steady state. We, we need growth. That was the whole point of the embedded growth obligation idea, that it's suffused throughout every institution. Every pension plan assumes growth, right?

   18. JRJoe Rogan11:41

       Right.

   19. EWEric Weinstein11:43

       All right. So now we have this problem where we don't have the growth and we need the growth, and then in a weird way, the planned obsolescence is like fake growth. It means that we're gonna rebuy our phones e- as if they were n- now highly innovative. So there's like a weird way in which we've become dependent on nonsense.

   20. JRJoe Rogan12:03

       Yeah. Dependent on nonsense is a great way to put it. And this is really highlighting that for a lot of people. When people are home and they're with their families and they're not traveling, especially people like me and my peers, like a lot of my comedian friends who travel constantly, we're like, "It's kinda nice to be home."... you know, everyone's sort of re-looking at this like, "What if-" Is this life that we've sort of, uh, accepted as this is the way things are, is this really the way things should be? Or is this just, we just got caught in a pattern and we're operating on momentum?

5. 12:36 – 14:40

   Comedy as a cultural ‘renaissance’: The Comedy Store, freedom, and scenes that matter

   1. EWEric Weinstein12:36

      If the comedian, if our, if our comedian force becomes non-dysfunctional, we are screwed.

   2. JRJoe Rogan12:42

      Well, that's not gonna happen.

   3. EWEric Weinstein12:43

      Okay, phew. That was a close call.

   4. JRJoe Rogan12:44

      That would, that would require so many psychedelic trips and- (laughs)

   5. EWEric Weinstein12:46

      'Cause there's almost... (laughs) There's almost no group that is as, as far away from normal as comedians.

   6. JRJoe Rogan12:52

      I know. That's why I get along with them so well.

   7. EWEric Weinstein12:55

      (laughs)

   8. JRJoe Rogan12:55

      It's so hard for me to hang out with regular folk, you know, that's, that would be rough. Like, if I had to live in a community of regular people that just work every day.

   9. EWEric Weinstein13:03

      What if you had, like, a community of only comedians, what would that look like?

   10. JRJoe Rogan13:06

       Oh, that'd be fun.

   11. EWEric Weinstein13:07

       Really?

   12. JRJoe Rogan13:08

       Yeah, yeah. It would be fun. We have that. That's The Comedy Store.

   13. EWEric Weinstein13:10

       Oh, The Comedy Store in... Yeah.

   14. JRJoe Rogan13:11

       Yeah. If The Comedy Store was just locked down on like a 500 acre piece of property and there's a bunch of houses on there-

   15. EWEric Weinstein13:16

       We could only do jokes for each other.

   16. JRJoe Rogan13:18

       ... we would just entertain each other. We would just entertain each other. Well, half the fun of comedians is just us hanging out. We would just get together and laugh.

   17. EWEric Weinstein13:25

       Well, by the way, I should just say, one of the great, uh, things about moving back to LA, uh, has been your invitations to come hang with the comedians at The Store. What a great scene. I mean, you made this point to me, uh, about a renaissance. And then I think I sent you David Byrne's, um, book about music, the chapter on-

   18. JRJoe Rogan13:45

       Yeah.

   19. EWEric Weinstein13:46

       ... CBGB.

   20. JRJoe Rogan13:46

       Mm-hmm.

   21. EWEric Weinstein13:47

       And it's almost an exact map of what CBGB did as the Harvard of punk, uh, to The Comedy Store's Oxford of comedy.

   22. JRJoe Rogan13:56

       Yeah. Yeah, you- you- you've been to the back bar.

   23. EWEric Weinstein13:59

       The... Oh.

   24. JRJoe Rogan14:00

       (laughs) That's the Holy Grail.

   25. EWEric Weinstein14:02

       It's the best. (laughs) It's-

   26. JRJoe Rogan14:03

       That's the spot.

   27. EWEric Weinstein14:03

       You- you got me hammered-

   28. JRJoe Rogan14:05

       (laughs)

   29. EWEric Weinstein14:05

       ... uh, two times ago, and I was just, I stumbled out of that thinking that was the best time and I couldn't remember anything.

   30. JRJoe Rogan14:11

       Well, you know what it's great too, even when non-comedians like yourself and, you know, Melissa and Matt and, you know, some of their friends and all these other people come there and they're around these people, they act freer. They're laughing louder, they're making, you know, more off-color jokes and everyone's just laughing-
6. 14:40 – 15:37

   Masks, heroic logistics, and leadership accountability: from rage to “revolt”

   1. EWEric Weinstein14:40

      By the way, what great stuff she's doing on masks.

   2. JRJoe Rogan14:43

      Yeah. Explain that.

   3. EWEric Weinstein14:45

      Um, well, uh, sh- she's just, she just takes it on herself to ask the question, "Why don't, why don't our doctors and nurses have masks?" And so she's running around trying to figure out, uh, how to connect donors, flights, product. She... Wh- whatever she's doing, she's- she's heroically like taking a ton of this on her shoulders and not, um... I- I- I'm hesitating because I don't even know what I'm allowed to say.

   4. JRJoe Rogan15:15

      Right. Yeah, we don't have to talk anymore then.

   5. EWEric Weinstein15:17

      Yeah, you should, you should-

   6. JRJoe Rogan15:17

      She's a, uh, she's a very interesting person. I'm really glad you introduced me to her. She's fascinating. This, like, this is, uh, a great time to see what people are actually made out of, you know?

   7. EWEric Weinstein15:28

      Yeah, who's, who's heroic? The heroic impulse.

   8. JRJoe Rogan15:30

      Sure. And- and who can keep their shit together when things go sideways, when things get Western, as it were.

7. 15:37 – 20:51

   Tulsi as ‘break-glass’ leadership, social signaling failures, and the adult-in-the-room problem

   1. EWEric Weinstein15:37

      Well, let me ask you a question.

   2. JRJoe Rogan15:38

      Okay.

   3. EWEric Weinstein15:38

      Of all of the presidential candidates that were in the race, like, everybody who's dropped out in... As well, which of them would you want in a COVID situation?

   4. JRJoe Rogan15:47

      Tulsi.

   5. EWEric Weinstein15:48

      Tulsi. That's... By the way, that was my answer as well.

   6. JRJoe Rogan15:51

      Instantly.

   7. EWEric Weinstein15:52

      I don't... I didn't want her f- foreign policy, that's one of the reasons I wasn't like gung-ho on Tulsi. Uh, didn't like some of the stuff about, um, in India there's some issues about Modi and- and I don't wanna get into that. But if you ask like, who would you want to, like, who has that kind of locked down military, "We have to make sense, the bullshit needs to leave the room," the odd thing is it's a millennial female of color that I would immediately want to subordinate to.

   8. JRJoe Rogan16:22

      Well, she's, um-

   9. EWEric Weinstein16:24

      'Cause she would also be no bullshit.

   10. JRJoe Rogan16:25

       Yeah.

   11. EWEric Weinstein16:25

       She- she had the strength to call out all of the nonsense. She would... I- I'm positive she would just say, "This is unacceptable. What are we doing? This is emergency times, we- we gotta suspend these issues. We have to get these things to our, uh, doctors, nurses, emergency technicians." I mean, look, I- I should say that I'm trying to be like smiley and positive, but I am just burning with rage. I cannot believe-

   12. JRJoe Rogan16:48

       That- that things weren't set up correctly?

   13. EWEric Weinstein16:51

       Th- the scale of the screw-up and trying to even understand a government that I cannot trust as far as I can throw it, to- to- to feel contempt for the Surgeon General of the United States, to say that the World Health Organization is a danger to world health, to say that the CDC is lying. I hate being in a position where I believe these things.

   14. JRJoe Rogan17:15

       Yeah. Um, but about Tulsi, uh, she's- she's a person of real character, you know. I don't see her like I see a lot of these people that are running for president. I see them wearing masks, you know. I mean, I don't even need to name names but they- they're- they're doing their best impression of a politician like a shitty comedian will do their best impression of Dave Attell, you know. That's the- the best example that someone gave me of, uh, like the- the comparison. There's- there's- there's a style of communicating that a lot of them have adopted to try to appear. And you can tell that they're coached, they're trying to appear presidential. She's just, that's who she is, man. I've hung out with her off camera, on camera. I've seen her, just the way she communicates with people. Now, I don't know her down to the bone, but what I see, I'm very impressed with and she's developed her character over two tours of duty overseas. I mean-

   15. EWEric Weinstein18:13

       Again, who- who volunteers, who takes this-

   16. JRJoe Rogan18:15

       Yeah.

   17. EWEric Weinstein18:15

       ... stuff on? This is the weird thing because I, you know, really, before COVID, I was in this Bernie Yang Tulsi mindset which is just, what is the fur ball that I can shove down the throat of the DNC to make the party fall apart under that Hillary Clinton overhang?

   18. JRJoe Rogan18:34

       Mm-hmm.

   19. EWEric Weinstein18:36

       The weird thing is in an actual pandemic...... I am almost positive that she has the stuff.

   20. JRJoe Rogan18:44

       Yeah.

   21. EWEric Weinstein18:45

       It may not be her year.

   22. JRJoe Rogan18:46

       Right. She's only 38.

   23. EWEric Weinstein18:48

       She's only 38.

   24. JRJoe Rogan18:49

       Yeah.

   25. EWEric Weinstein18:49

       But-

   26. JRJoe Rogan18:49

       It might not be her year.

   27. EWEric Weinstein18:50

       But-

   28. JRJoe Rogan18:50

       But she'll get there.

   29. EWEric Weinstein18:51

       But, but how interesting that, like, (laughs) w- when the shit hits the fan, the person with the highest number of intersectional points, maybe, uh, is actually the person th- that you want to lead on merit.

   30. JRJoe Rogan19:05

       Right. But they don't want her, which is even more hilarious.
8. 20:51 – 1:01:11

   Legacy media vs the internet: gated narratives, selective amplification, and institutional insulation

   1. EWEric Weinstein20:51

      Y- for sure. Okay, well, this thing is the flagship of, um, pirate radio. I mean, this is Samizdat for the world. And the concept of Samizdat, that, that you would have truth that would circulate underground in the Soviet Union, that would not be ... Like, you were seldom rebroadcast inside of, like, MSNBC or CNN, except when they're, like, going after you.

   2. JRJoe Rogan21:15

      Well, th- what's weird is Fox News rebroadcasts me all the time.

   3. EWEric Weinstein21:19

      Well, because Fox ... There are two sort of dominant narratives. Fox News is the flagship inside the right-of-center, uh, gated institutional narrative, and then you have all the other organs, like MSNBC, CNN, NPR, um, BuzzFeed, y- you know, whate- whatever these things are, in the left-of-center, gated institutional narrative. Very often, Fox will pick up on things that we do if they stick it in the eye of the left.

   4. JRJoe Rogan21:47

      Yes. Yeah, that's exactly what it is.

   5. EWEric Weinstein21:47

      And, and so the point is, is that they selectively amplify us.

   6. JRJoe Rogan21:51

      Yeah.

   7. EWEric Weinstein21:51

      And that process of selective amplification is, itself, dangerous. Lot ... Like, I get in- invited f- more frequently by Fox and People, and I turn them down, because the narrative inside of, like, The New York Times is, "Well, he's, he's part of that right-wing thing."

   8. JRJoe Rogan22:10

      Frequent Fox News contributor-

   9. EWEric Weinstein22:12

      You ... They're-

   10. JRJoe Rogan22:12

       ... Eric Weinstein-

   11. EWEric Weinstein22:13

       Oh, that's the adjec- adjective, occupation, name.

   12. JRJoe Rogan22:16

       Yes.

   13. EWEric Weinstein22:16

       Frequent, adjective.

   14. JRJoe Rogan22:18

       Mm-hmm.

   15. EWEric Weinstein22:18

       Fox News contributor, my occupation.

   16. JRJoe Rogan22:20

       (laughs) Yeah.

   17. EWEric Weinstein22:22

       Uh, and, and then my name. That game, um ... Like, if NPR would call and put me on, I would go on Fox, but the, the, their very clever game is to make it sound like, "Oh, well, you're choosing to go." No. You guys are choosing to ignore a lot of what's changing the culture.

   18. JRJoe Rogan22:40

       Mmm.

   19. EWEric Weinstein22:41

       And they're, therefore, the only people who are willing to ask us on and rebroadcast us are the people who are angry at the NPRs, CNNs, uh, MSNBCs.

   20. JRJoe Rogan22:50

       Well, I think they realize the limitations of their medium. I really do. I think that CNB- CNBC and, uh, MSNBC and CBS and NBC and ABC, they all realize that they're in this really weird situation where they have to do these seven-minute segments interrupted by commercials. They, they have a restriction. They can only air at 8- you know, whatever time of night the show is supposed to be scheduled. And, you know, they rely on these internet clips to sort of carry the show. I mean, the, the YouTube clips are probably far more popular than anything that they ever release that's on the air.

   21. EWEric Weinstein23:24

       What?

   22. JRJoe Rogan23:24

       That, that ... I mean, that ... Their distribution thing is fucked.

   23. EWEric Weinstein23:28

       It's very, it's very bizarre, and it was very interesting watching Bill Maher, uh, sit down here. He was like, "I guess this is it, the man cave."

   24. JRJoe Rogan23:37

       (laughs)

   25. EWEric Weinstein23:37

       And you're like, "Yeah, good to see you, Bill." He's like, "I'm here to grovel and ask whether you'll come on my show."

   26. JRJoe Rogan23:43

       No, he was trying to force me on his show.

   27. EWEric Weinstein23:44

       I know.

   28. JRJoe Rogan23:45

       So this was very little g- groveling. He's not a groveler.

   29. EWEric Weinstein23:47

       No. But he's a ...

   30. JRJoe Rogan23:48

       He's a, he's a strong armer. (laughs)
9. 1:01:11 – 1:17:09

   Kayfabe: pro-wrestling logic as a model for modern politics and media manipulation

   1. EWEric Weinstein1:01:11

      I gotta get used to it. Uh, are incredibly important and we have to keep them up. And I'm worried about the, um, corpora- the rebel end of corporate, because these corporations are starting to realize that th- their need for kayfabe is just far exceeding, um-

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:01:30

      Kayfabe?

   3. EWEric Weinstein1:01:30

      Kayfabe. Kayfabe is carnival-speak for the word "fake." And when catch wrestling devolved into professional wrestling, uh-

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:01:39

      You know about all that?

   5. NANarrator1:01:41

      (laughs)

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:01:43

      That's very interesting.

   7. EWEric Weinstein1:01:45

      Yeah.

   8. JRJoe Rogan1:01:45

      That's, that's a weird one, that's obscure. The catch wrestling-

   9. EWEric Weinstein1:01:48

      Oh.

   10. JRJoe Rogan1:01:48

       ... carnival wrestling.

   11. EWEric Weinstein1:01:50

       Actually, Jamie, could you bring up the word kayfabe and Weinstein?

   12. JRJoe Rogan1:01:54

       Can you name any people that were involved in catch wrestling, the real catch wrestling? How far do you go with this?

   13. EWEric Weinstein1:01:59

       Well, there, there-

   14. JRJoe Rogan1:01:59

       You know who Farmer Burns was?

   15. EWEric Weinstein1:02:01

       Farmer Burns?

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:02:01

       Farmer Burns.

   17. EWEric Weinstein1:02:02

       No.

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:02:03

       Famous catch wrestling guy, used to do, uh, a hangman's drop. His neck was so strong, he could tie a noose around it and drop six feet and hang there.

   19. EWEric Weinstein1:02:12

       So when, um ...

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:02:15

       (laughs)

   21. EWEric Weinstein1:02:15

       By the way, if you wanna read a great book on, uh, professional wrestling, I would highly recommend the book Ringside.

   22. JRJoe Rogan1:02:20

       Oh.

   23. EWEric Weinstein1:02:21

       Um, which talks about the evolution. And so what I call k- kayfabrication-

   24. JRJoe Rogan1:02:25

       Okay.

   25. EWEric Weinstein1:02:25

       ... is the transition of something that is, usually has twin attributes, is very dangerous and very boring. Um, so old-style wrestling was incredibly dangerous and people would, you know, be crippled from a bout. So as a result, they would often just like circle each other and not really engage. And like, war is like this.

   26. JRJoe Rogan1:02:45

       Mm-hmm.

   27. EWEric Weinstein1:02:46

       Mostly war is extremely boring, and then, you know, obviously it can be quite deadly. So in order to routinize these things, we create kayfabe, which is the system of stratified lies that professional wrestling is undergirded by.

   28. JRJoe Rogan1:03:02

       Okay.

   29. EWEric Weinstein1:03:03

       So you, you know what a w- do you know what a worked shoot is?

   30. JRJoe Rogan1:03:05

       Yes.

Episode duration: 3:02:05