EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,405 words- 0:00 – 15:00
(drum music) Joe Rogan podcast,…
- NANarrator
(drum music) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.
- JRJoe Rogan
The Joe Rogan Experience.
- NANarrator
Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (rock music) Hello, Jenny.
- JKJenny Kleeman
Hello, Joe.
- JRJoe Rogan
Thanks for doing this. I appreciate it.
- JKJenny Kleeman
I'm totally psyched to be here. Thank you so much for having me on.
- JRJoe Rogan
Y- my pleasure. So your book, Sex Robots & Vegan Meat, did you have alternative titles that you-
- JKJenny Kleeman
I'm really, really shit at titles.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- JKJenny Kleeman
I just can't think of-
- JRJoe Rogan
It's a good title. I thought it was an excellent one.
- JKJenny Kleeman
It's a brilliant title.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. It works well.
- JKJenny Kleeman
It's, it's my editor Chris's title. It's not my title.
- JRJoe Rogan
Ah. Did you have ideas?
- JKJenny Kleeman
So I ... I had really bad ones.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- JKJenny Kleeman
I think when I wrote the proposal, it was called Future Humans or something.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- JKJenny Kleeman
And he just said, "No, no, no, no, no." I can't do high ... I can't do titles. I write things that are very, very long. I can't do nice little short things. So anyway, my, my, uh, my editor, my editor at the publishing house, Picador, came up with the title and I loved it.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, he nailed it. Excellent job, Chris.
- JKJenny Kleeman
Yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
Way to go.
- JKJenny Kleeman
He's a smart guy. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, it just ... It, it really covers the subject matter so well and so, uh, succinctly. So I am concerned with all the things you appear to be concerned with, so I'm really excited about this conversation. Um-
- JKJenny Kleeman
Good.
- JRJoe Rogan
F- let's, let's start with sex robots since it's the first part. Um, I, uh, d- I'm sure you've seen Ex Machina.
- JKJenny Kleeman
Yes, I have.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, fantastic movie, right?
- JKJenny Kleeman
Brilliant. Yes, totally.
- 15:00 – 30:00
Yeah, no, that's absolutely…
- JKJenny Kleeman
because these things exist, it doesn't mean that we have to buy them, we have to use them.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, no, that's absolutely true. You're absolutely right. But I think people are gonna do it, and I think more people-
- JKJenny Kleeman
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
... are gonna do it than not, and then-
- JKJenny Kleeman
No, I believe-
- JRJoe Rogan
... the, the people-
- JKJenny Kleeman
I believe in human beings. I think that there's gonna be s- there's gonna be a kind of backlash and a, a revolution against all of this stuff and people will say, "Actually, there are certain areas where I, I want to be flawed and imperfect." But maybe those people will become second-class citizens and be, be, uh, you know, completely inadequate in this new economy of enhanced humanity. You're depressing me now (laughs) .
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, I'd s- I, I ... You can get depressed thinking about this. But, uh, you know, I look back on chimps, and, uh, or our ancient hominid ancestors, and I said, well, if you could talk to them and say, "Hey, l- let me show you your future. Your future is filled with iPads and electric cars, and you, you can fly in a metal tube that gets you across the entire continent in five and a half hours. What do you think?" They'd be like, "Fuck that. I'm sticking with the trees, man."
- JKJenny Kleeman
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
"This is where it's at. It's bananas and eating bugs. This is, this is life. What you guys are doing is nonsense. Everyone's depressed, and, uh, you don't even have to worry about being eaten by a big cat. No, you're, you're, you're doing it wrong." I mean-
- JKJenny Kleeman
And it ... Totally. I mean, uh, yeah, it's ... The idea of whether or not our life is better now that we have the capacity to do all of these things is, is really up for discussion.
- JRJoe Rogan
Sure. What is better, right? What, what's better is h- are you enjoying it more? Do you feel more fulfilled and happy? And arguably, more people are depressed and more p- people feel disconnected because of technology than ever. If you've read ... Um, y- you know Jonathan Haidt? Have you read his book, The Coddling of the American Mind?
- JKJenny Kleeman
I haven't.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's an excellent book, and in particular, when it, it discusses children and h- growing up with technology and social media in particular, how difficult it is. And, uh, and for girls especially, for whatever reason, they, uh, experience more bullying and more, more, um, depression. There's more cutting, more suicides, and there's a giant uptick that coincides directly with the advent of social media and cellphones. It's really weird, because there's this thing that we're adding into our life that causes all these complications and is incredibly addictive. Uh, I have a 12-year-old daughter, and, uh, it's hard to get her to put her phone down. Like, "Hey. Put that down." She has a time. She can only use it for an hour, and then, then I just won't let her use it anymore. But-
- JKJenny Kleeman
Hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
But during that hour, it's like, "Agh!" Like a feast. You know, it's crazy. It's, it's, it's weird to see and it's disturbing. And part of it is, I, I see, I see her enjoying it. I see her doing TikTok and laughing with her friends and taking pictures with weird filters. But part of me thinks th- this is a little demon that works its way into your life, and it makes you unsatisfied and unhappy. A lot... For a lot of people, the, the weird, uh, comparison aspect-
- JKJenny Kleeman
Yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
... particularly when you're an adolescent, it's very dangerous for kids.
- JKJenny Kleeman
That's what it is. I mean, that that is the kind of key to being unhappy, is comparing yourself with other people. I mean, the key to happiness is to not compare yourself to other people-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JKJenny Kleeman
... and just be happy with your lot. But, you know, it's not just teenagers. I'm completely addicted to my phone. I remember one time I p- I put my phone in to be repaired. The screen was cracked, and I was just ... I felt like I'd lost a, a limb. I was constantly thinking, "Oh, it's my phone." And then re- having to remind myself that, you know, it was in for repairs. They are incredibly addictive things, and, you know, can have a very incredibly powerful effect on your brain. You know, all of that stuff that's proven about the dopamine hit you get when you get a notification. We're all prone to that, not just, not just, uh, teenagers. But yeah, the comparison stuff. And also, there's the fact that I think we're now living in a world where we, we ... The problems that we have are not huge, existential problems. We're not constantly living with death around us all the time. Although maybe this year things are slightly different. But, uh, you know, in a world where we're not constantly under threat, we are kind of ... Our kind of sphere of, of what should concern us has got smaller, and we're end- we're kind of cannibalizing ourselves and looking for problems-
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- JKJenny Kleeman
... creating problems. Whereas in the past, we would have been too busy, you know, running away from tigers or wherever and whatever you might think.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, for sure. Um, and there's, there's other issues also where people are comparing themselves with things that aren't real, like filters and all this weird stuff. Um, I posted a, uh, picture on my Instagram that my 10-year-old took of me. We were at dinner and I made a ugly face and she put me through this filter and turned me into a beautiful girl.
- JKJenny Kleeman
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
And it, it's really bizarre. And I posted it up on my Instagram, said, "This is me." Like, uh, "I want you to know how crazy this is." I showed the original picture, and then I showed the picture that my daughter created. I'm like, "This is how insane these filters have gotten." They- it gave me hair, it gave me beautiful lips and smooth skin, and it's... And it, and, and people were s- were stunned 'cause there's a lot of people... I didn't know that it existed until my daughter did it to me, like till she showed me. I mean, I knew that it was pretty similar, that you could do some weird stuff with filters, but I didn't kn- I had no idea you could turn a, uh, uh, an ugly man into a beautiful girl. Like, it's r- it's really weird. So there's a lot of girls-
- JKJenny Kleeman
And people are having, like... People are having, like, surgery so that they can look like filters as well.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- JKJenny Kleeman
They're so used to seeing themselves in this way. And I don't know if you have this so much i- in, in the US, but we certainly have here, this fashion for incredibly big lips and, and young girls having loads and loads of stuff put in their lips. And so they begin to look more and more like, you know, cartoons because that's the kind of perfection that they're used to seeing in these images.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. We, we do have that, unfortunately. It's, it's a weird one. I think people got so used to boobs being ridiculously big that they thought that, "Well, we'll just do that with lips too." But-
- 30:00 – 45:00
Yes. …
- JKJenny Kleeman
and stuff.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- JKJenny Kleeman
And, and y- you know, it's, it's incredibly important a- you know, to grow as an individual to not always get everything you want. Yeah, I'm totally with you on that.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. Uh, it's like that scene in Ex Machina where you realize that the, the genius has this bizarre sexual relationship with these robots that he's created, and particularly the, uh, the Asian robot where he can kinda tell her what to do, and you're like, "Oh, wait a minute. Is that a ... that's not a person, but why do I feel like it's a person? Like, I feel like he's a fucking creep, but it's not a person he's doing this to. Wow."
- JKJenny Kleeman
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
So it, it sort of highlights these w- uh, strange dilemmas. Like, you're gonna create a nation of sociopaths with th- w- oddly perfect female companions.
- JKJenny Kleeman
Yes. And, and almost kind of worse than that is, I interviewed these, these, um, sex robot manufacturers in China who make very, very realistic, uh, sex dolls that they're putting AI and animatronics into, but really, really realistic. The AI isn't so great, but they look really realistic. And, and I, I asked them, you know, "How come you're doing this?" And they said that, um, actually what this is really ultimately about is about having service robots in the home, that ultimately you can have robots that will cook and, and clean for you at the moment, but they look like movable trash cans and, and they're not appealing. "And so actually what we're doing is making them look nice so you want to have them in your house, and if you want to have sex with them, you can."
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- JKJenny Kleeman
And what that description is basically of, is a slave.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes. Yes.
- JKJenny Kleeman
Like, this is what they're making, is slaves. They're making things that look human but will do all the things that human beings don't necessarily want to do. Uh, and so my concern is, you know, there's a whole branch of ethics about, you know, should robots have rights and, you know, are we, you know, should we, should they ha- should they have legal protections? I'm not so much interested in that. I'm interested in what does it do to you, the robot owner, if you have this relationship with a being that looks very, very human but isn't human? Uh, and it, the mindset of being a slave owner where you, you, you can suspend your empathy for something that looks very human, how does it corrode you and affect you to be having that kind of relationship?
- JRJoe Rogan
I mean, I see a Black Mirror episode ready to happen, right?
- JKJenny Kleeman
Totally.
- JRJoe Rogan
Uh, p- and then I see like someone pretending that they have robots but they really have human slaves.
- JKJenny Kleeman
That's a really good idea.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JKJenny Kleeman
You should make one. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Because it seems like that could s- really happen. I, I think there's going to be a branch of ethics that gets developed to deal with artificial life if we get to the point where we have control over artificial life, and that artificial life has been programmed to actually mimic our emotions.
- JKJenny Kleeman
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
Because if, if you have something that cowers when you hit it and, and when you scream at it, it t- hides in the corner and cries and weeps, and you get, you get off on that and you think that's fun, like what, what is that? You're not doing that to a... Like, if you have a basketball, okay, and you like to punch that basketball and scream at it and call it a bitch and throw it in the corner, y- everybody's like, "Okay." Like, "It's just a basketball."
- JKJenny Kleeman
Yeah, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Like, "You're fucking weird. I don't know why you're doing that, but, you know, if that's what makes you feel better, fine. Do you want to scream at your basketball and not at a human being? That's fine." But what if that basketball looks like a human being, talks like a human being, has emotions that are programmed into it? Like, how realistic does it have to get before we rebel against this idea?
- JKJenny Kleeman
No, totally. And, and part of the, part of the question about child sex dolls and child sex robots is, is part of all of this, that some people say that you should give pedophiles-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JKJenny Kleeman
... child sex dolls and child sex robots like, like it's a kind of methadone, that it will wean them off offending. But we all know instinctively that that's wrong, because it's more likely to, to, to feed that desire than to satisfy it. We all know that. But then how is that any different from saying, you know, you can give people who are sex offenders, uh, female dolls and, and robots, or, or even men who are a bit aggressive, or, or even, you know, whatever it is. It's like, if, if it's wrong to have a child sex doll because you'll relate to it like a child, then that same kind of thought process has to carry over when you're talking about adult dolls as well. We will relate to them like they're human. That's the whole point.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, it's a very messy situation. Like, once they're created and once they actually do mimic real human beings, it's gonna be very strange. And I completely agree with you when it comes to pedophiles, uh, pedophiles and a child robot doll. Like, that's, that's not going to fix anything. And-
- JKJenny Kleeman
No. But we know that.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JKJenny Kleeman
And that's the interesting thing, is like we have a kind of instinctive reaction that, "No, that's wrong." But then if you think, "Okay, well then why is it okay to have..." I guess because adults can consenting- and kids can't consent. But it, it, you, we know that with a child doll or a child robot, it's wrong because you, the person owning it, are going to be treating them like a human and relating to them like a human. It's gonna encourage you in the real world to go off and behave in a bad way. So it's this, it's the same sort of argument.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, even an inanimate one. Like, if you went over a guy's house and he had a, a, a real doll, you know, one that doesn't move, but, you know, he's like, "Well, I just prefer that to masturbation." You're like, "Oh, I don't know." Like...
- 45:00 – 1:00:00
But I think if…
- JRJoe Rogan
of it, and I've read a lot of books about it.
- JKJenny Kleeman
But I think if you thought it was harming you enough-
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- JKJenny Kleeman
... if you thought it was destroying your brain cells, you wouldn't.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- JKJenny Kleeman
The point is, it, it's about, it's about how you weigh up harm and you think, "Yeah, you know, I should probably be doing other things. Oh, I shouldn't be constantly checking the Twitter feed of that person I hate that's, you know, bad for my soul."
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- JKJenny Kleeman
But you still do it because it's bad for your soul, but only a little bit.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JKJenny Kleeman
And if it was really, really corrosive and bad, then, then you would stop. I mean, people aren't still-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, maybe, if you're a healthy person or maybe you're one of those people that likes to pick scabs and you just, you, you just keep scratching. That's possible too.
- JKJenny Kleeman
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
I'm, I'm worried for people. I, uh, really genuinely am, but... And this is as a person who enjoys people. I just... Uh, I don't know how much time we have left as... In this form. Like, when I look at the, um, archetypal alien, when you see those, uh, little gray men with the big heads, I'm, I'm worried that what that is is, uh, like, we instinctively know that that's our future, that we're, we're gonna be these genderless weird things-
- JKJenny Kleeman
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
... that reproduce through some sort of, uh, you know, uh, some sort of, some sort of technology instead of these bizarre, imperfect biological creatures with emotions that we, you and I both enjoy so much because of all those... Uh, all the weirdness. I mean, my whole business, everything I do is about the weirdness of people-
- JKJenny Kleeman
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... whether it's stand-up comedy-
- JKJenny Kleeman
Me too.
- JRJoe Rogan
... whether it's podcasts or even fighting, when I do commentary on fighting. That's all of the weirdness and imperfect-
- JKJenny Kleeman
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... nature of the human animal, and I think it's awesome. I mean, I, I love people. Don't get me wrong. I'm not rooting for technology to do this, but I, I see the writing on the wall, and it's, it's not pretty.
- JKJenny Kleeman
Well, the thing is, it's all about the richness of the human experience, what makes it interesting to be human, which isn't just the basic functions of our life or, or, or basic logic, you know? The fact that we have art galleries everywhere and music-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm. Yes.
- JKJenny Kleeman
... you know, music, which is completely, completely illogical.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- JKJenny Kleeman
It's because there's more to being human than those basic functions. I mean, when you talk about, you know, sexless aliens reproducing without sex, like, that kind of stuff is gonna happen quite soon.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- JKJenny Kleeman
And I, you know, I, I look, I looked into quite a lot of this. We can make, like, gametes. We can make cells. They can do this in mice. You can make sperm and eggs out of cheek cells, so you could make an egg out of your cheek cell and sperm. It will... There'll be a future where people can make sperm and egg, h- whichever one they need for whichever relationship they're in and that you can grow a baby outside the human body-
- JRJoe Rogan
Boom.
- JKJenny Kleeman
... and we will become less and less gendered. That is gonna happen.
- 1:00:00 – 1:11:49
Yeah. …
- JKJenny Kleeman
human beings, it doesn't have to be something as fancy as a perfect sex robot. Lights.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JKJenny Kleeman
Like artificial lighting has changed human society, human brain chemistry. If you look at 150 years ago when everybody want, you know, went to bed, and it's just simple things that we don't have to go to sleep as soon as it get d- gets dark anymore.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JKJenny Kleeman
How much we have changed because of that. It's incredible. So that's the other thing, is the things that really hav- have a, have potential for radical change on- on human society and human behavior and human biology, they don't have to be very fancy and high tech. You don't have to have Elon Musk's, you know, Bluetooth brain chip to just be alive.
- JRJoe Rogan
There's al- there's one even more insidious aspect for lights, and that's, it's disconnected us from the universe.
- JKJenny Kleeman
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
The, one of the things that you realize when you do go camping, when there's no lights is, oh my God, we're in space.Like, you see all the stars, and it's extraordinary.
- JKJenny Kleeman
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
When you go, like... I went to, uh, the Keck Observatory once in Hawaii. Well, I've been a few times, but one time I nailed it, where I went where there was no moon and the sky was clear, and it was stunning. And to this day, I still, I'll close my eyes sometimes and try to remember that, remember what it was like. Because you could see the whole Milky Way. You could see every... The Keck Observatory's very high, um, on the Big Island, and, um, it's above the clouds. And in fact, when we were driving there, it was cloudy and I was like, "Damn, this is gonna suck. We're gonna get all the way up there and we can't see anything 'cause of these clouds." But then you pop through the clouds, and then you get to the observatory, and it is amazing. The just... Without looking through a telescope, just the amount of stars that you see, it's so stu- And it changes your relationship to-
- JKJenny Kleeman
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... to life and, and to this experience that we're having here on Earth. We're so delusional. When we don't see any stars, when we have streetlights and we're looking at our phone or we're watching TV, we have this bizarre idea of what life is. But then when you're there and there's nothing but the stars and the sky, you go, "Oh, no, this is an organic spaceship." We're hurling through space on this ball. And I, I thought this was everything, but it's nothing. When you see all those stars, it, it just, it's, it humbles you in a way that our ancestors were humbled, and why they were so obsessed with the constellations, why they were bso- so- obsessed with the zodiac signs and all, all, all the, the, the different ways that they used... would study all the lights in the sky and try to, uh, figure out what kind of relationship we had with those lights.
- JKJenny Kleeman
Yeah, and that's-
- JRJoe Rogan
We've, we've lost all that.
- JKJenny Kleeman
... the thing. We, we've lost the context and the, the perspective on our existence that w- that wa- that we need, really. But then again, also, would we, could we really function if we were constantly aware of how, you know, infinitesimally small and-
- JRJoe Rogan
Sure, we could.
- JKJenny Kleeman
... incomp-
- NANarrator
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Sure we could.
- JKJenny Kleeman
I guess it would liberate us-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- JKJenny Kleeman
... from, from being so obsessed with gazing at our own navels.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs) I think it would probably be humbling in a way, that it would eliminate a lot of unnecessary hubris. I think there's a lot of dumb shit that we do that is connected to this sort of dulled perception of our place in the universe. And I think if we could see it and it could humble us the way it humbled the Mayans and all these other-
- JKJenny Kleeman
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... civilizations that were constantly fixated on the, the celestial gods and all the, all the different lights in the skies, I think, uh, I think it would be better for us. And I... But I think... My fear is that all of this is like, we're m- Uh, and again, this is looking at it outside of, uh, a human being. But all of this is leaning us towards this complete and total immersion in technology. And one of the best ways to get us to not think about our position in this vast, infinite universe is that we don't see it.
- JKJenny Kleeman
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
What's the best way to not see it? Technology. Blind you. Literally blind you to the most spectacular vision the world has ever known. The most spectacular vision is the heavens, is the sky, the stars, the Milky Way, all the galaxies that are visible to the naked eye. That's the, that's what gave people so much wonder and, and created so many myths of what's going on up there. Well, if the best way to eliminate that and have us fixated, uh, uh, totally on ourselves and become self-centered is to blind us to it. And that's what we've done. We've done that with lights.
- JKJenny Kleeman
But I think it's also, all of this is also to do with capitalism, and that capitalism depends on us all feeling incomplete and like we need the next big thing in order to be complete. So, we need... This bit of technology will solve this problem, or I will be fine, I will be happy if I have bought this thing or if I've bought into this solution. And there's no money to be made saying, "Hey, what you really need to do is get a proper night's sleep." (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- JKJenny Kleeman
"Go and do some exercise, but you don't need, you don't need anything fancy to do some exercise." You know, "Eat a little less if you're trying to make, lose weight, but all you need to do is eat a little less." There's no money to be made in that way, so we- we're kind of... We are robbed of our context, because capitalism depends on us thinking that we can control everything and be a kind of self-determined beings if we just buy the next thing and are always focused on our own project and what, what we're gonna do next to achieve the goal we want. There's, there's no money to be made in telling people, "Everything as it is right now is fine and, and good, and you should just appreciate it."
Episode duration: 2:13:22
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