EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,005 words- 0:01 – 0:42
Cults, grooming, and being “too nice” on air
- JRJoe Rogan
Coming to us live via technology from the other side of the continent, David Pakman, ladies and gentlemen.
- DPDavid Pakman
So good to be back with you.
- JRJoe Rogan
Good to be with you too, and I love your facial hair, as I was saying before. I- I-
- DPDavid Pakman
Thank you.
- JRJoe Rogan
... say stick with it all the way, maybe get some kind of a cult leader guru thing happening.
- DPDavid Pakman
I'm actually five days from a man bun and I- I- I-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DPDavid Pakman
... wanted to see what you thought about that.
- JRJoe Rogan
The man bun's the starter kit for a cult leader, right?
- DPDavid Pakman
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
The man bun is like, "I'm trying to get people to listen to me more and take me more seriously, I'm spiritual."
- DPDavid Pakman
I need a, I need, like, a gimmick of some kind.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm. I think your gimmick is just being a nice guy-
- DPDavid Pakman
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
... and smart. How about that? That's rare.
- DPDavid Pakman
To a fault. Nice to a fault is the new thing.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, you're- you're nice to a fault?
- 0:42 – 4:39
Angry comments, purity tests, and why audiences snap
- DPDavid Pakman
I don't know. I- I get emails from people who are, like, "You don't have to kowtow to the dumb part of your audience." Like, you don't have-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- DPDavid Pakman
... to say stuff like, "Listen, I wanna apologize in advance for using a slightly off-color phrase, but," th- um, people are like, "You just don't, you just shouldn't do that. It's better for the show for you just to say the thing."
- JRJoe Rogan
I love that you listen to those people. I think you should be yourself and if you-
- DPDavid Pakman
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
... feel like you need to say that, I feel like you should just say that. It's nothing wrong with it. Doesn't hurt my feelings when you say things like that. You know-
- DPDavid Pakman
That's fine.
- JRJoe Rogan
... even if I understand what you're doing, it's not... it's no big deal. I feel like there's too many opinions in this and it sucks for the people with opinions in this. And I think it's one of the problems with what we do and one of the reasons why people get so angry at us. So, if you and I are having a conversation and we- we, maybe per- perhaps we agree on something, but someone listening is like, "Fuck that! This is what's wrong with that idea." And they wanna say it, but they can't. There's... and so, the comments are almost inherently angry 'cause it's really, uh, so much of it is just people who wanna say something, but there's no forum for them. They- they- they-
- DPDavid Pakman
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... only can say it in the comments. They can't... they feel like they're in on this conversation, but they wanna jump in on and interject.
- DPDavid Pakman
Well, I got an email today from someone who said, "I love everything you've been doing for the last six years, but yesterday, you used the word anti-vaxxer and I- I just... that's it, that was it."
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DPDavid Pakman
"When you used that word, that was it for the David Pakman Show." And it's like, I... you can't win with that. You can't win-
- JRJoe Rogan
No.
- DPDavid Pakman
... you know?
- JRJoe Rogan
But it's the same thing. It's like they're angry, right? And this is the way to get you to listen, like, "What? You're leaving? Wait a minute." You... they're being completely unreasonable. Can you imagine if there was a show that you enjoy and the guy said one thing that you disagreed with, and it's especially something like calling someone an anti-vaxxer and you're like, "Fuck this. It's over. My relationship with you is over." That- though... that purity standard is impossible to achieve, especially when you're doing something like what you and I do, where we're, you know, we're basically just talking with a very... I mean, I'm sure you have, like, some bullet points of things you wanna cover, but you're ad-libbing all the time. You're fr... what, what we call free balling all the time. And that's a... it's a crazy standard to try to hold, to- to ask someone to not say anything that you're gonna disagree with. Or I say things I disagree with, you know, I'll listen to it a half hour later or I'll- I'll- I'll think about it a day later and I'm like, "Why did I even say it like that?" I don't... wh-
- DPDavid Pakman
I- I have videos from seven years ago where, you know, it's not that my... like, my- my foundational values haven't changed, but I do look at it and I say, "You know, if I had known then what was going to happen four months later, I never would have done it that particular way."
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, there's a... well, there's a lot of things that happen in the news that force you to sort of shift your opinions and go, "Oh, that kind of stuff does happen. Oh, I've been naive. I've had this perception of, you know, whether it's the government or the intelligence agencies or what... of- of being, like, beyond reproach, and now I find out, oh, all right, now I gotta go and revisit a lot of things that I was saying were nonsense, a lot of things that I was dismissing openly. Now I gotta go, 'Oh'." Well, we like to think that th- uh, when it comes to, like, governments and intelligence agencies, we like to think that there's some level of, uh, whether it's government or military, there's some place that you could reach where you're, like, a super person, where you're not going to make any of the mistakes that we'd attribute to people based on greed or ego or pettiness or- or- or f- short-sightedness, that when you get to that point, you're a proven commodity and that you are... you're what we're looking for as a leader. And you have to be upheld... you have to uphold these very strict standards at that spot. And we assume that there is an actual thing like that. And I think it's one of the reasons why people get f- so frustrated at Trump is because he doesn't even try to pretend he's one of those things. He- he- he behaves-
- DPDavid Pakman
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... the same way he used to.
- 4:39 – 5:34
Deifying candidates and the cult-of-personality trap
- DPDavid Pakman
Well, one of the things that I was kind of in a battle with- with... in- in with my audience during the primary was, I would get emails from people who would say, "The only person who can beat Trump is Bernie," for example. And then, I would get people who... people who would say, "The only person who could beat Trump is Tulsi Gabbard. Everybody else is straight up a bad person." And I- I... my message was always, "Listen, we shouldn't deify any of these people. These are just people." You've met a lot of them, they've been in your studio. That- the... we're- we're just talking about people. You're not going to agree with them on every policy position. You're not gonna agree with everything they've done personally. And where I think it gets dicey is where they start movements... it's a cult of personality, really, where a movement is built around the person as an idea and they can do no wrong, and that's where you're... there's no way to talk those folks down about issues or about practical decisions that we have to make.
- 5:34 – 9:22
Is the presidency too big for one person? Voting for the “cabinet”
- JRJoe Rogan
No, I think you're 100% right. And I- I also think that the position itself, the- the world has grown too large for the position. I feel like if we were, uh... if we left...... from all parts of the land and all, all parts of the world and found, uh, an empty continent, well, obviously the United States wasn't really empty. But if we found a place where we resettled and we tried to restructure government from scratch, we would, we would take that into consideration now. I think our Founding Fathers, they, they were just dealing with this archetypal structure of one person that sort of runs things, but in this case it would, uh, be a person that we all agreed to, and it, it was a much better step moving forward than kings, right? But I think now that we've kind of done that for a while and we realize, well, yeah, that might be great when it's 100,000 people or a million people. But once it gets to 320 million people and complicated things like international business and, like, uh, trade agreements and the environment and nuclear power versus solar and wind, and like, one person is gonna be responsible for all these insanely important decisions? That seems crazy. And to blame one person when any one thing goes wrong seems crazy as well. It just, I don't think we would do it this way. I think we'd have some sort of a council of wise people or something along those lines.
- DPDavid Pakman
Well, you know what's interesting to me about that? I mean, we're like diving headfirst right into, you know-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DPDavid Pakman
... a, a bunch of stuff here. But, what's interesting about that is when you think about who to vote for for president, and I know that, you know, we, we, we're gonna get, we'll get into this stuff, I'm sure. You're not just voting for the person, you're voting for who are they likely to have working for them-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DPDavid Pakman
... what is likely to happen in courts, what is likely to happen regulation-wise. And so, of course you want to think about who it is that the person is, but you also want to think about who do they bring with them. And for me, that's a lot of how I see voting in November at this point.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, most people have made that concession. And it's an interesting concession, right? Because it's not a concession we had to make. If it was, uh, Tulsi Gabbard or Bernie Sanders or Amy Klobuchar or Pete Buttigieg or, you know, go down the line, there's a, uh, uh, a lot of very credible candidates that would've made, like, enter, like, maybe this person could be the next great president, maybe this person could be a great leader. But now d- we're in this position, we're like, "Oh, God, okay." So listen, we're voting for the cabinet. (laughs) We're, you know, like, Biden is so, uh, uh- he's, whether or not he's having moments that are related to cognitive decline, which you could speculate, or whether or not this is just his reaction to the most extreme amount of pressure he's ever faced in his life, and that does happen with people, we know people lock up... I would imagine that a guy who's been in the spotlight as long as he has for so long probably would, would be able to handle stuff. But I think running for president is a whole different ballgame. I think th- everything gets turned up by ten, and I think it gets turned up in this society that we're experiencing today, it gets turned up even more so because of social media. Like, no president other than Trump has had, really had to deal with this kind of wave of social viral, uh, y- you know, f- feedback online with Twitter and Facebook and YouTube and all, all the stuff that we're experiencing right now. They didn't, uh, o- Obama didn't have to deal with that really in his first term. Maybe a little bit in his second term. But then Trump's the first guy to tackle it head-on, and he's, you know, in, in a lot of ways he's showing you what can come at you. And I think that when Biden is running through these steps to try to become president, he's experiencing a wave of attention and scrutiny that he's never experienced before. And that could also exacerbate, what am I, a doctor here? I'm exam- I'm trying to figure out what's wrong with his head? But that could also exacerbate-
- DPDavid Pakman
Well, I was gonna say, are you, um-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- 9:22 – 13:35
Biden’s cognition vs. Trump’s “glitches”: what can we infer?
- DPDavid Pakman
... are you ta- have you taken a position on the, the Biden cognitive stuff that's been going on-
- JRJoe Rogan
Something's wrong. Something's wrong. If he was my friend and he was fighting, I'd ask him to retire.
- DPDavid Pakman
Hm.
- JRJoe Rogan
I mean, if I'm looking at it that way. I have friends, um, that I've seen their cognitive d- decline from fighting. Um, I'm not saying that Biden's the same, because I don't really know him from, you know, I don't know him over a long period of time, I don't, I don't know him at all personally. But something's wrong. The way-
- DPDavid Pakman
Are any of your friends that, are they close to 80 any of them?
- JRJoe Rogan
No. No.
- DPDavid Pakman
Okay.
- JRJoe Rogan
The guys who-
- DPDavid Pakman
Because I don't-
- JRJoe Rogan
... experience cognitive decline are younger guys who've been hit in the head. Um-
- DPDavid Pakman
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... the, when, when you get to 80, uh, I, I have known people that have had problems, and it's, it's very unfortunate. Um, I don't think he's there, where I, what I'm, you know, 'cause you could still talk to him. Like, if, if that was just a guy that you knew and he was like, uh, and he said something like, "We've all been endowed by, uh, you know, the thing," you know that one famous spe- you see, you wouldn't say, "Oh Jesus, what's going on with Ray?" You would say, "Oh, he had a, he locked up. He had a brain fart. He had a, a mental lapse," which I've had doing podcasts all the time. It, it can happen. But in that moment in front of those people to do it that way, while he's running for president and while he's had a few of those before, he could be dealing with anxiety too. There's, uh, probably a lot of shit going on. But I would be concerned.
- DPDavid Pakman
Yeah, I mean, listen. So I, I don't have any, I don't, my view is just based on actual professionals th- that I've talked to and people that have been in a room with him, because I've, I've, I'm not a professional and I've not been in the room with Biden. So Andrew Yang was on with Sam Harris recently, I don't know if you saw it, and this topic came up. And Andrew Yang basically said, "Listen, he, he's 78 years old. If you compare a video of Biden debating Paul Ryan in 2012 to Biden a month ago, obviously it's different." And to some degree you, that's normal when someone's 78 years old.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DPDavid Pakman
But Andrew Yang's perspective was that he didn't see anything that he would call, uh, dementia or cog- cognitive decline beyond that. So that's like one, it's just one data point, it doesn't tell us anything definitively, you know? The other thing is, I've interviewed a few people and I, I think you and I maybe have even messaged about some of them, uh, uh, neuroscience, neu- uh, neurologists and mental health professionals who were very concerned about Trump, like the oranges of an investigation, the, where he, his, he seems to sort of like lock up when his shoulders g-... s- sort of, you know, this thing that he does where his shoulders kind of, uh, uh, lock up-
- JRJoe Rogan
I haven't seen that.
- DPDavid Pakman
... in a weird way.
- JRJoe Rogan
I haven't seen that.
- DPDavid Pakman
Oh, there's a few of those, yeah. I, I got video of that. You know, he walks off of his plane-
- JRJoe Rogan
So, that could just be an injury. You think it's a neurological thing?
- DPDavid Pakman
I don't know. That's the thing. It... So, it could be neurological, mental health, side effect of medication. There, there's a whole-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- DPDavid Pakman
... bunch of stuff it could be.
- JRJoe Rogan
Could it also be-
- DPDavid Pakman
But, uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
... an injury?
- DPDavid Pakman
Maybe.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DPDavid Pakman
Maybe.
- JRJoe Rogan
I mean, if, if he's doing something-
- 13:35 – 24:15
Abortion as a decisive voting issue and Supreme Court stakes
- DPDavid Pakman
Let's, let's imagine it's absolutely for real. Uh, I'm still voting for him over Trump, right? I mean, like, so I, I think the last time we talked you mentioned you were pro-choice. Do I remember that right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
- DPDavid Pakman
So, if Donald Trump-
- JRJoe Rogan
I, I am, but I feel like it's a, it's a controversial subject for a reason.
- DPDavid Pakman
Fair. Fair.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DPDavid Pakman
If Donald Trump gets to pick the next Supreme Court justice, it will be someone who would love to overturn Roe v. Wade. I mean, there's not even a chance. He, he, he said it, right? If Joe Biden-
- JRJoe Rogan
This is when Tri- Trump has said that he is, uh, that he's pro-life and that he-
- DPDavid Pakman
Well...
- JRJoe Rogan
... would pick someone-
- DPDavid Pakman
So, th-
- JRJoe Rogan
... that would... Or it, it was just by virtue of picking conservative?
- DPDavid Pakman
There's a, there... It's, it's actually, it's, there's two parts to it. One is Donald Trump was pro-choice almost his entire life.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- DPDavid Pakman
He became pro-life when he was, I think, 68 because he met a kid he liked, and he imagined-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DPDavid Pakman
... if that kid wasn't born... No, I'm serious. If he-
- JRJoe Rogan
I, I believe you. It's just hilarious.
- DPDavid Pakman
It's crazy. But so-
- JRJoe Rogan
It's like an ABC after school special.
- DPDavid Pakman
Let's imagine that that's true, that he had an awakening at age 68 after being pro-life his whole life.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DPDavid Pakman
He said he would pick justices that were recommended to him by I forget which conservative group. You're only gonna get, you know, pro, so-called pro-life justices from these groups.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- DPDavid Pakman
On the other hand, Joe Biden will absolutely pick a pro-choice justice. So, if, if I was pro-choice like you are, how do I justify voting for the guy who's gonna replace potentially Ruth Bader Ginsburg with someone who would want Roe v. Wade overturned? Like, I couldn't do it in good conscience.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's, that's a good point, and, well, I'm gonna get into it in a second. But Jamie just pulled up this video of Trump, and I'm gonna get to watch him have this weird twitch for the first time. Okay, hit me with it, Jamie. Okay, so he's talking. I'm watching it. Is that it, that little move that he made? It's one of them, I guess. Oh, this is hil- this is hilariously silly. Now it's the part I can't tell. "Trump neurologically malfunctions with a full spasm." No, he's talking and he just went like this. People do that. That's silly. Maybe it's just-
- DPDavid Pakman
So-
- JRJoe Rogan
... maybe that video is silly.
- DPDavid Pakman
So, I mean, there's a dozen of them. Yeah, I don't know. I couldn't hear it, and I don't remember.
- JRJoe Rogan
I think a better, a better thing is something that you showed me on your show.
- 24:15 – 35:56
Why Joe liked Bernie: healthcare, student debt, and community responsibility
- JRJoe Rogan
Um, well, when you talk about Bernie and why I was interested in Bernie, what Bernie represented to me was someone who wanted change a- at a, like a societal level, wanted to help people in a way that wasn't gonna make anybody any money. It wasn't something where he was clearly doing this because of the special interest groups that put him in a position, thinking this would ultimately be more profitable. When he's talking about things like eliminating student loans, s- student... and making school le- um, free for everyone, when you say that, I go, "W- how... First of all, that's not making anybody any money," right? That's one of those things you're only doing because you think it would be better for humans, better for our culture, better for our, our civilization. I'm all for that. Those are, those are the things, uh, eliminating these catastrophic healthcare bills that people get when they get sick and they go bankrupt. That, to me, is crazy that we have this community, that's what it's supposed to be, right? The United States is supposed to be like, almost like a giant team. And we would let others, just by f- simple misfortune, we would let their life completely fall apart because they got injured and they come up with this bill that literally changes the whole course of their life. If you're a person who makes $50,000 a year, and you know, you're doing fine, and then all of a sudden, uh, a catastrophic injury comes along and you get hit with a, a bill, a medical bill that's in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, you're fucked. Like, your, your life... You don't have enough time to make that up unless you do something significantly different in terms of earning more money. So, you're stuck and you're in a bad-
- DPDavid Pakman
That's it.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's, to me, crazy.
- DPDavid Pakman
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And that doesn't make any sense. Like, as a person who values community, as a person who values... Like, we can help and it makes everybody feel good. If you can help someone who came upon some bad fortune, they feel better, you f- they feel protected and loved. You feel better for being able to use your, you know, your privilege or your l- fortune to, to help these people. That's what we need more of. That is what stood out for me about Bernie Sanders. Now, the argument against that is the pro-business argument, right? The pro-business argument is the stronger the businesses, the, the better business does. There's a trickle-down effect and the whole society will rise up because the economy is stronger. And m- and, you know, yeah, there's gonna be some ruthless capitalism going on, but ultimately it benefits everybody. And that's... I don't think you have to have one or the other there. I mean, I, I, I, I don't think that this is a... these are mutually exclusive, that you can't... You can have capitalism, but you could also have compassion and we could, we could work together as a community and, and, and try to take all these problems that we have that, that are really clear, right? Like, these inner cities that never get any better, they never show any improvement. Unless they get gentrified, everything stays fucked, right? Why... Is that... That's not an insurmountable problem. Like, if we can fly across the planet and, and try to fix countries that we've blown up in war, why can't we try to fix the inner cities that our, our, our kids go to school in? Like, that doesn't make any sense to me. That people are forced to live in. That's why I was interested in Bernie Sanders. That's what he means to me. So that's-
- DPDavid Pakman
The healthcare example is an interesting one, because it really comes down to what is the main point of, of the healthcare apparatus, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DPDavid Pakman
If the main point is to get people as healthy as possible so that they can live the longest, most fulfilling lives that they want or are able to, that gets you one set of policies. If the perspective is healthcare is just an industry like any other where the participants just are there to make money, that's a totally dif- different policy prescription and regulatory infrastructure. It's l- it's night and day.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, it really is. It really is night and day. And, um, it's, it's one of those things that I think people are probably gonna be more interested in hearing about now after this pandemic and they realize, hey, through no fault of your own, you could be broke. Through no fault of your own, you can lose your business. Through no fault of your own... So, all of these ideas that, like, uh, I know people that are pretty right-wing that would g- give me a hard time about... Call me a socialist and a commie because I'm really into Bernie Sanders. A lot of those very same people are now wanting to get that stimulus check. A lot of those very same people are now understanding why I supported Andrew Yang and his concept of universal basic income, 'cause his concept is based on his understanding of technology and his knowledge of AI and the potential possibility to just take millions of people out of the market, out of the workplace (snaps fingers) like that. Almost like this, like a virus of technology that removes diseases... Excuse me, removes jobs instead of removes your health. And I think that more people probably would be better off if we shifted our ideas about what socialism means and what, uh, democratic socialism means. I think the n- the word is so toxic, maybe we should just call it s- community support. You know, that we should, we should think of these really key things, like student loans. I think we both agree about this. It is insane to start your life at 21 years, 22 years old, just getting out of school with hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt. That's insane. And if you go on to get a PhD, ah, it keeps going, it keeps going. And you get to this point where you're, you're just... You have this weight over you everywhere you go. There's this big ass weight and you're carrying it around and that car- you're carrying around this debt that even if you go bankrupt you have to pay. How did that happen? How are businesses able to pollute the environment, make terrible mistakes, go under, go bankrupt, and they're absolved of their debt, but a kid who wanted to learn something goes to a school and w- winds up... You know, you're 22. You're not even a fully formed human yet and you're in debt. You're fucked. You're starting out of the gate crazy, crazy behind the line.
- DPDavid Pakman
Well, you're completely right, of course, uh, about the toxic nature of the word socialism-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DPDavid Pakman
... just to go back to that for a second. I think that that hurt Bernie. In 2015, I was saying, "Bernie may well have been a socialist in the 1970s. He may still be one, but he's really running on, on social democracy, which is what they have in Northern Europe." It's a type of capitalism, and this is what I think Andrew Yang actually did well. I, I, I don't know if it was p- like, people-centered capitalism that he called what he was doing or, or what phrase he used. But I do think in my postmortems about what happened with Bernie, because it wasn't by a little bit that Bernie lost. I mean, b- even before he dropped out, he was down, like, 1.8 or two million votes to Joe Biden. Like, this, this was really not close. I do think that the continued use of the, that word socialism w- was not helpful, and I know people will hear, hear me say this and they'll say, "David, either way, they were gonna call him a socialist. What difference does it make if he embraces the term or says it's not the right term or whatever?" Sure, that, that applies to some people, but I fail to see what the advantage was to using a term that didn't really describe what his campaign was. He w- he's talking about capitalism where you say, like you're pointing out, "We can't let people drop too low. We need to ensure some basic level things happen that aren't people's fault." It's not just about you're gonna do as well as you want to do. There are circumstances people are born into, injuries, pandemics, all this stuff.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- DPDavid Pakman
So, I, I do think that whatever your opinion is about socialism, s- quote, unquote, there was really no advantage to Bernie Sanders from using or, or at least to some degree allowing that term to continue being used.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, he wanted to redefine it, and when he came onto my show, he actually did try to define it and des- describe the difference between the concept of socialism, which a lot of people connect to communism, and what he calls democratic socialism. You know? And what he was showing a more, uh, a more tamed down version of this, this concept that, you know, a lot of, like, real young lefties, like my friend, uh, my friend, uh, Bridget was on the podcast the other day, Bridget Phetasy. She's a hilarious writer, very funny comedian. And she was talking about how she found some stuff that she wrote when she was in her early 20s, and she read it and she's, she's more, uh, center today, I would say. M- maybe e- uh, I mean left on many issues politically, socially rather. Uh, but she was like AOC, she said. She said she's reading this stuff and she was, like, uh, like a radical when she was young, and I think that happens to people. You d- I'm sure Bernie was probably a full-on socialist at one point in his life. But, like, what did that mean back then versus what does it mean now? And even the term socialist. Like, the term, like, when you, when you look at the term conservative or the term socialist, you're talking about a spectrum. You're not talking about a one or a zero. It's not a, it's not a... You can't have a, uh... No one has the same number factor of conservative as... There's a lot of people that are conservative that they, you know, they're very liberal on a lot of social issues, but yet they still ver- vote red. And I think there's a lot of people that consider themselves c- uh, like, a socialist. But what it, what does that... At what level? And if you're pro-fire department, I think you're k- you, you embrace some socialist values, right? If you're pro- a lot of the services that we use that are a part of your tax dollars... Like, we're combining our money so that w- the world is better for all of us. It's not just a dog eat dog fight. We recognize value in community and society and a civilization where we all work together. We just don't wanna work together too much. We don't want people leeching off of it. And, and I'm on that side as well, because I know that although there are m- and we're seeing these more than we've ever seen in our life, that multiple circumstances beyond your comprehension, totally out of your control that fucks up your life. But yet we also see people who are lazy and who keep fucking up their life and you keep enabling them and helping them. It doesn't help anybody either. Both those things are true. It does... Just because you agree with one thing, that we need to help each other, doesn't mean you deny the fact that there's a real problem psychologically to giving people free money and to giving people free room and board and taking away incentive for them to survive. There's something, for whatever reason, that a lot of us need this sort of, like, inner drive, this k- knowledge that you, you're responsible for your own destiny and you have to go out there and you have to put in the work. You have to get out of bed when the alarm goes off. You have to do the things you're supposed to do. And there's people that don't do that, and yet they still want to be rewarded. They still want money. They still want their check. They still, they still want the thing they feel society or government owes them. That's not good either. See, both of those things are not good. It's not good to let people who are sick rot and, and, and, and, and l- live their life in a compromised position because they don't have enough money for the medical care. That's sick too. It's not, uh, it's not a good person, it's not a good society, it's not a good model to have people starve. It's, that's not good. If there's money in food and we could sh- distribute it more evenly, especially the people that are unfortunate, but it's also not good to let people just camp out on the sidewalk where you can't walk through it. Los Angeles is filled with tents now, especially now because of all this craziness and the pandemic. It's gotten way worse. There's areas where you can't go anywhere. You, you literally can't walk under underpasses. There are these campgrounds. Like, that's not good either. You know, and, and, and, and now, now we're-
- DPDavid Pakman
Okay. So, let's Uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
... dealing with mental health problems, I'm sure, and a lot of other issues.
- 35:56 – 40:57
Hidden ‘socialism’ in capitalism: profits privatized, cleanup socialized
- DPDavid Pakman
L- let's talk about, getting into that. I mean, there's a lot, so, okay. You mentioned the areas where even right-wingers tend to be okay with sort of, like, socializing certain services, so fire department's an easy one.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DPDavid Pakman
Who does the road? Those are, those are all really easy.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DPDavid Pakman
But I think that there's some more pernicious ones that the right is less eager to own. Like, for example, it's all about free market capitalism for profits, make a business, build up the business, et cetera, even when that business is built on-... law enforcement that's socialized to protect your offices, uh, law infrastructure that you count on to protect your intellectual property. It's- uh, so put that aside for a second. But then, the- they're okay socializing the clean-up or the fixing in many cases.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- DPDavid Pakman
So with the drilling and fracking companies, for example.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right, great examples.
- DPDavid Pakman
Capitalism for the profits. Look at me, capitalist. I figured out how to do this drilling, how to, how to extract this energy from the earth. I bought the land, I bought the equipment, I'm hiring employees. Look at me, you know, pulling myself up by- by the bootstraps. Something goes wrong, people downwind, you know, get sick, whatever. Now, they're going to say, "Let's socialize that clean-up cost, though." Right? Because, you know, we should do this through taxation. Let's make sure that we're cleaning this up at the state level. We want state-funded, uh, we want state funds to get this all cleaned up. So, that is an area of hypocrisy that's more difficult than just, like, we mostly all agree the fire department should be socialized.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DPDavid Pakman
A few people will say, "No, if you call and there's not really a fire, you should owe money." Or s- that's, like, a tiny percentage. It's an easy one. The- the other- uh, the ones I'm talking about are a little bit tougher, and you're gonna get a lot more pushback, I think, if you were to focus on those.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, I- I think you've got a really good point with the environmental clean-up, like something like the BP oil spill. That's a really good point, and that's a weird one. It's like you don't wanna ... Uh, so it's almost like you- it's such a catastrophic event, you don't wanna leave it in the hands of someone who is so ... Uh, th- they've- I mean, they- they fucked up in the first place to make this happen. I don't trust them. I don't trust the way they do business. I mean, they- they, uh, maybe it's just something that happens when you drill under the ocean and you pull oil out. Occasionally, things go wrong. But I don't wanna trust them to fix that. Uh, I wanna th- uh, have some sort of environmental clean-up crew that's in place, and maybe give them the bill.
- DPDavid Pakman
Yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
I mean, I don't know what did it cost? How much did it cost BP to- to have that ... And isn't it still leaking? Hasn't it been proven that that- it's still polluting the ocean?
- DPDavid Pakman
I don't know of over the last year. I- I honestly don't know what's going on.
- JRJoe Rogan
Did you ever see the videos of when it was-
- DPDavid Pakman
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... coming out of the ground?
- DPDavid Pakman
Oh, yeah. It's crazy.
- JRJoe Rogan
Like, the- the world's ending. Like-
- DPDavid Pakman
It's a high pressure. It's just a high- it's just open for days, right? I mean, months-
- JRJoe Rogan
Crazies.
- DPDavid Pakman
... I don't even remember how long it was just open. Um, but that's the point. If you don't ... So this is where it starts to get tricky, because it sounds like you might trust them to m- monetize it. But then if it gets messed up, hey, we- we shouldn't trust them to clean it up. Someone else should do it. Which maybe I agree with, and you're right, we should give them the bill. But that's the r- the role of regulation to begin with. If they were better supervised, we could've prevented this from the start. I mean, with the BP oil spill, I'm going back, like, 10 years now, but there was some $500,000 valve, I believe, that was not required. Um, I- I'm going from memory, so I hope I'm getting this 90% right. There was some regulation that was removed where they were no longer required to have this $500,000 safety on these rigs, which would have prevented it. And obviously, the 500 grand they didn't wanna spend up front, but it would have been way cheaper than what ultimately happened.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm, Jesus. You know, when I see those rigs outside, like, um ... There's a place that I love to go to in Santa Barbara that they have these offshore little oil rigs. I always look at them like that ... One day in the future, we're gonna look back and go, "Why the fuck did we ever let them put those there?"
- DPDavid Pakman
Yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
These ... That is so crazy. Any other business ... Like, first of all, that's not even our land, right? No one even owns that. It's like, if you're an oil company and you're in Texas, you have to have either a lease on the land or you have to have rights to the land. It has to be yours in order to dig into the ground and get oil. But out there in the ocean, you're just kinda doing it on public, uh, area. You're doing it in th- the- the world. I mean, once you get a certain amount of miles, I forget how many miles it is offshore, it's international waters, right? So you just ... We're making agreements. We're letting these companies go into s- uh, the ground, and we're not profiting from it at all. All the money goes to them, and they're sucking it out of the ocean. And at any moment, they- it could go wrong, could be an explosion, and the- the beaches are ruined for the rest of your generation. Like, woo!
- DPDavid Pakman
Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more. They're- I don't know if it's going to be, like, in 50 years or 200 years, or, you know, however- however many years. At some point, we're going to look back and there will be-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DPDavid Pakman
... you know, the- the books will say, "We used to pull this stuff out of the ground and then refine it and then burn it."
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- 40:57 – 47:23
Electric cars, Tesla practicality, and Joe’s Elon Musk ‘future human’ theory
- JRJoe Rogan
Do you drive an electric car?
- DPDavid Pakman
I- I don't currently, but I plan-
- JRJoe Rogan
You son of a bitch.
- DPDavid Pakman
... to get ... I have a lease which is up in three months.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, you plan. Okay.
- DPDavid Pakman
And the next car will be electric.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. Um, once you get one, other cars feel stupid. I mean, I really-
- DPDavid Pakman
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Not just stupid because of the environmental risk. Like, I have a- a Tesla Model S.
- DPDavid Pakman
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's the craziest thing I've ever driven. It literally doesn't make sense. They're so fast, it's- it's like it's violating physics. It's so strange. It's like, you see this enormous screen where the navigation's on. You're like, "Why did anybody ever have, like, a little screen-"
- DPDavid Pakman
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
"... when you can have one of these things?" You know what? You can see- it's like having a map open in front of you. They're incredible.
- DPDavid Pakman
Now, do you, um ... What if you do a- a long trip?
- JRJoe Rogan
I don't bring it on a long trip.
- DPDavid Pakman
Do you-
- JRJoe Rogan
I don't trust it.
- DPDavid Pakman
Oh, you don't trust it. Okay.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, I'm-
- DPDavid Pakman
I was gonna say, do you ... Are you- are you planning ahead of time where you're stopping to charge it though?
- JRJoe Rogan
I have friends that have driven many, many, you know, like, across the country even with Teslas.
- DPDavid Pakman
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And they- they, you know ... There's a little supercharger map that's built into the software. It's amazing. You can do it. But I don't wanna wait around in some town for 20 minutes while my car charges to 80% and look around for weirdos. Like, what if some shit's going down, man? What if- what if you're in, you know ... If you have, like, 14 miles left on your charge, and, uh, all of a sudden, uh, a- a building explodes half a block away. Like, you gotta get outta there. I like- I like t- to be able to ... If I'm- if I'm taking a road trip and I'm going across the country, I want options. Maybe if they have, like, a little engine they could get you by. Like, just a little tank of gas, a little engine to get you by in case you run outta batteries.... they're gonna-
- DPDavid Pakman
Well, I guess it's-
- JRJoe Rogan
... it's gonna be solar eventually.
- DPDavid Pakman
You could also just always not go below 50%, right? And then you-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DPDavid Pakman
... you would know, if the shit hits the fan, you've got 50% at least.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, yeah, you could do that. Yeah, you could do that, but that would be annoying. You know, you drive, uh, you know, the 50%'s like 150 miles. So, if you're on a long trip, you go to 150 miles and pull over (sighs) , and then you gotta wait there for whatever amount of time. They're getting better at it though, and they're getting faster, but the point is, like, it's such a clear leap in the evolution of technology, that once you, you, you drive one of those, you're like, "Oh, it's game over." Like, he told me that, when Elon was here, he told me that, and I was, I was like, "Oh, you're just saying that 'cause it's your product," and we were joking around about it. But then, when I drove one, I'm like, "Oh, okay." Yeah, I mean, it's like, it doesn't even make sense. They're so much better than regular cars because it's instant acceleration. There's no, no gears. It's one gear. It's instant torque. And it, uh, it also is so quiet. Like, like, "Oh, I don't ha-... I can think. I can just drive around in this thing and think in total peace and quiet." The quiet part is really appealing to me, and I'm looking... I'm, I'm... In a few, in a few weeks, I think, right now, the Model 3s are, like, 10 weeks out, so I'm probably gonna put in an order in, you know, four or five weeks so I get it right, right when I need it. But, uh, as far as the Elon Musk/Tesla stuff, so I was, uh, I, I bought Tesla stock a long time ago, years, years ago. I don't remember exactly when. And obviously, it did really well for a really long time, and I don't remember when it was, if it was a year and a half ago or two years ago, but when Elon smoked pot on your show-
- DPDavid Pakman
(laughs)
- 47:23 – 1:12:34
COVID reopening dilemmas: Musk’s factory, economics vs. health, and federal failure
- DPDavid Pakman
... where are you on... I mean, I guess, at some point, coronavirus is the topic. Where-
- JRJoe Rogan
Sure.
- DPDavid Pakman
... where are you on what's going on with him reopening the factory and saying, "Arrest me," and, I mean, I, uh, like, I- I've been following it to some degree.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's really complicated, right? It's like, who should be able to decide when you can or can't go back to work? It's not, it's not straightforward. It's not cut and dry, because if you say that people should be allowed to make their own decision, you run into the very real possibility that, especially if you have to go to work at that factory, and you can't not work, and you do get sick, and you do go home, and you do spread it to your family, a loved one could die. That's, that's real. On the other hand, the government doesn't really seem to have any sort of straightforward plan as to how people can economically bounce back from this. They, I mean, there was one of the m- weirdest quotes. I think it was Trump that said this. We were just talking about businesses and restaurants, that they'll be open, maybe not with the same owners, but they'll be-
- DPDavid Pakman
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
... open again.Did you- did you see that quote?
- DPDavid Pakman
(laughs) No, I don't- I don't- I didn't see that, but it's like, what does that really mean? Does that just mean, like, a different business will be created? What does that mean?
- JRJoe Rogan
That's exactly what it means. It means that-
- DPDavid Pakman
Okay.
- JRJoe Rogan
... he's just being pragmatic and maybe cold, whoever made that quote. That is probably how it's gonna go down, is it? Trump says restaurants will make comeback, just maybe with new owners. Yeah, that's what he said.
- DPDavid Pakman
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
I mean, that don't- that does not make me feel good, man-
- DPDavid Pakman
No.
- JRJoe Rogan
... if I'm a restaurant owner. You know, and there's, uh, a few restaurants that I'm always shouting out on the podcast, uh, that, like, are owned by friends of mine that are- th- these businesses are hurting so bad. They're- they- they've went like that (snaps fingers) to no customers or a very small percentage of customers who order takeout. When they were, you know, they had dine-in every night and they have these bills, and they had their business set up in a way that, you know, you have to make X amount of money in order to stay open. And they were successful and they were doing well in one of the toughest businesses to be successful in, and then all of a sudden, the rug gets pulled out. So, what's the solution? Should people just be able to go to restaurants and everybody who works there as a waiter or a cook or- they just h- maybe get sick and then more people die? Boy, that doesn't sound good to anybody either. So, what is the solution? I don't know, but I don't think that, in our p- particular case, I don't think our governor has the answers. Um, one of the things he's been criticized for is he's decided to open up production for television and films, but not churches. You know, there's another thing they've done that's really nuts, that my friend Adam Curry turned me onto. They closed Alcoholics Anonymous meetings-
- DPDavid Pakman
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... but liquor stores were an essential business. (sighs) That is just not-
- DPDavid Pakman
Yeah, so-
- JRJoe Rogan
That's not good government. It's not good th- thinking. This- this- there's so many things-
- DPDavid Pakman
No, no, no.
- JRJoe Rogan
... where they've put into place these lists of what's approved and not approved, and I don't- I just don't think that it's an int- I d- first of all, I think the information is constantly changing, and I think that they're- they're going off this old information and they haven't made adjustments. And then on top of it, I don't think they're qualified to. I don't think they're qualified. Just like we were talking about a president, like one person who's involved in, uh, the economy and the environment and all these different things, I don't think one governor can really be smart enough to know, A, what kind of impact it's gonna have economically to close all these businesses down, and B, which ones get to open up and what is essential and why? And it's just- it's very frustrating for all involved and it highlights one of the reasons why, you know, the way we do government is k- it's, you know, it's not perfect. It's- it's not- it's definitely better than a lot of ways and a lot of places in the world, but it stills- there's a lot of holes in it.
- DPDavid Pakman
Yeah. I share your- I share your frustration with the constantly changing messages, uh, y- you know, what is essential in one state versus in another state. The issue of churches is a big one. I mean, on- on the other hand, um, the- the- in Massachusetts, churches were included in the first phase of reopening, and a lot of public health officials say that doesn't make any sense. And the suspicion is that it's there because of a lot of pressure and that it probably should have been, you know, in phase two or- or maybe even phase three. But I think it's hard to really talk about the state by state without acknowledging the disastrous response from the federal government. And I don't know where you stand on it, you may totally disagree with me on that, and I think that there's a lot of straw men that are being i- put in place to argue that Trump handled it beautifully, to use his term. But I think if you start with the idea of the coordinated federal response we could have had, a lot of these other issues that we're having now just wouldn't be issues. And w- I'm glad to get into it more if- if you want. I don't know if you've talked about that a lot.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, I think it'd be really interesting to talk about this because what do you think they could have done differently? Like, what do you think-
- DPDavid Pakman
Okay.
- JRJoe Rogan
... the government should have done differently, the federal government?
- DPDavid Pakman
Got it. So, here- here's wh- uh, the- the narrative has been a lot of two sides that are arguing. People who just vaguely say, "Trump failed. He didn't do enough and he was slow," without, like, really giving specifics, which I will give. And then on the other hand, you've got a lot of people who are just reflexively defending, "Hey, he shut down travel from China really early and he took it seriously and we've done the most tests," which is a whole other fiasco, uh, t- talking point that we can get into. But for the most part, I think that the- the critiques and the praise is just not tied to real dates. So, in January, we had our first case. January 20th, I think it was, and South Korea had their first case January 20th. Um, we then often skip over February. So, a lot of people will defend Trump by saying, "You're not gonna shut down a country when you've got one case." And I- I totally agree. You're not gonna shut down a country over one case. But you're not gonna shut down a country over 15 cases. There was this point where we had 15 and Trump said, "We've got 15 and soon it's gonna be zero." I don't think that it was logical at that point to say, "Shut it all down." But just to, like, pick a date and then we can work around it. March 5, okay? March 5th, China had 80,000 cases, so we already had proof that, like, this was- this was gonna be big. Italy had 4,000 cases, so this is- this is March 5. So, we already had proof that it'll travel really far and it'll get bad far from China. And we had 221 cases on March 5. It would be very reasonable on March 5th for Trump to say, "This is a problem." FDR-like delivery. I- I- you know, hard to imagine Trump doing that, but, "We've gotta work together. This is gonna be difficult. We're gonna do a 30-day- I need all 50 governors to- to help me on this. Let's do 30 days of stay at home." He probably would have then on April 5th have had to ask for another 30, so we would have done, like, 60 days, March 5 to May 5. And where would we be right now? We'd be in really, really good shape. So, it's really easy to just say, "Dude, you're not gonna shut down a country with five cases."I don't, I, I agree. But we had the information on March 5th, March 10th, March... Well, right, at any one of these points, if we did a real shutdown, we'd be in such good shape.
- JRJoe Rogan
First of all, I think that the support for a shutdown that early would've been almost zero. I think you would have a really hard time convincing people that this was gonna be that big of a deal and that there wouldn't be something they could do to stop. I think a lot of this is Monday morning cu- quarterbacking, right? We're looking at what happened f- factually, like, we're looking at it in the past. This is when, we're, there was this amount of cases. When it was happening, live, there was a lot of confusion. First of all, the World Health Organization, as recently as January, was saying that according to China, this is what they wrote on a Twit- on a tweet, you, it's not, it doesn't get transmitted from person to person. So, this is in January, right? In March, they were saying, "You don't need a mask." This is, there's been a lot of confusion. It's not like there was, like, real-
- DPDavid Pakman
Agree.
- JRJoe Rogan
... straightforward, clear advice. It's hard for us, it's so easy for us to sit back, here we are in late May, and say, "Oh, he should've done this, and if he'd done that, everything would've been great." The support for shutting down the whole country for 30 days at the beginning of March was zero. I don't think anybody would've agreed with that.
- DPDavid Pakman
There's no question.
- JRJoe Rogan
So-
Episode duration: 2:59:54
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Transcript of episode Wf93nfm2U2o
