EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,107 words- 0:00 – 1:49
Escaping California: quality of life, taxes, and culture shock
- JRJoe Rogan
(drumming music) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (rock music) Hello, Ben Shapiro.
- BSBen Shapiro
Well, hello, Joe Rogan.
- JRJoe Rogan
Good to see you, buddy.
- BSBen Shapiro
It's good to see you outside LA.
- JRJoe Rogan
I know. I'm a free man now and as are you.
- BSBen Shapiro
Oh, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
We've escaped the criminal communist state of C- California.
- BSBen Shapiro
We both look about 25% happier.
- JRJoe Rogan
Uh, I'm definitely happier. It's way easier to live here. It's, like, l- less traffic and, uh, just forget about all the d- draconian COVID restrictions and dealing with, uh, an inept, bullshit government-
- BSBen Shapiro
Yep.
- JRJoe Rogan
... which is what it is.
- BSBen Shapiro
You save yourself some money too.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's that, but it's, people are nicer.
- BSBen Shapiro
Yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's like-
- BSBen Shapiro
Yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
... you're living in a r- a d- they're r- regular folks. Like, California is so polluted by show business, it's hard to really reconcile it. It's hard to really understand how bad it is until you leave, and then you go, "Oh, okay. That's not normal. This is normal." Like, just regular people.
- BSBen Shapiro
It's crazy. So I grew up in LA, right? I mean, I, I was in LA all the way up until last year basically, and the only three years I wasn't in LA I was in Boston for law school. So I- I've only been in, like, big blue cities my entire life. And when you grow up in LA it's like there's no other place... It's like growing up in New York. There's no-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
... other place that exists in the country. And then you leave and you're like, "Whoa, the rest of this country is kind of fantastic." And people are. They're way nicer, just way nicer. Like, in LA there's a thing you do where you walk down the street, if you're not driving, you walk down the street, you spot somebody who you don't know, you c- you kinda lock eyes with them. The first thing you do is you look away, right? You don't, you don't, like, you don't catch eyes with somebody and have a conversation with them just in the normal course of business in LA or New York. You move outside LA or New York, you're walking down the street, you lock eyes with somebody, you're like, "Hey, how are you?"
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, they say hi. (laughs)
- BSBen Shapiro
It's crazy. It's like a crazy thing. (laughs)
- 1:49 – 4:32
Big-city density and public disorder: from “rat studies” to homelessness policy
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, there's a thing that happens when you just get too many human beings living together where people become a nuisance, you know? It's just, there's the, well, the population density of Los Angeles is replicated in rat population density studies that they've done. Have you ever seen those?
- BSBen Shapiro
No, I haven't seen these.
- JRJoe Rogan
They're really fascinating 'cause they, what they do is they've taken rats, and they take them, and they have a certain number of these rats together, and they behave fairly normally. And then as they increase the population of rats, you start seeing what you see in large cities. You start seeing rats, like, huddled in the corner nodding and shit. You see, like-
- BSBen Shapiro
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
... mental illness. You see violence. You see all kinds of stuff that you see in populations of humans. And it's just, it become, uh, it, they become a factor and a negative factor instead of, you know... Obviously, rats aren't communicating like people do where, uh, y- it becomes a community and you look forward to seeing those people. But, you know, they have some sort of a communal relationship with each other.
- BSBen Shapiro
I mean, uh, it feels like there's sort of a background level of threat that just exists when there are tons of people-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- BSBen Shapiro
... who you don't know who are around you all the time. And in small communities it's not replicated that way 'cause you actually know your neighbors, you know the people you're dealing with-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
... on a regular basis. But if you're walking around a big city, just the kind of lizard part of your brain has to constantly be on alert. Okay?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- BSBen Shapiro
The n- the next person who walks down the street could be the person who stabs me in the eye. And in LA that's y- that's actually not a wild consideration considering (laughs) that they've let every mentally ill drug addict out onto the streets and then said that it's a civil right for them to stay there, like, right outside people's houses. It's crazy.
- JRJoe Rogan
If you are a real conspiracy theorist, if you're a real tinfoil hat, dyed-in-the-wool conspiracy theorist, you would look at the LA district attorney and you would go, "What the fuck is going on here? Like, is this a plot to ruin the city? Is this, uh, I mean, is this, like, uh, has China hired this guy?"
- BSBen Shapiro
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
"Like, what is going on?"
- BSBen Shapiro
Between that and San Francisco.
- JRJoe Rogan
That Gascon guy.
- BSBen Shapiro
Yeah. Between that and San Francisco taking beautiful cities-
- JRJoe Rogan
It's wild.
- BSBen Shapiro
... and just destroying the cities.
- JRJoe Rogan
Destroying them.
- BSBen Shapiro
And, and by the way, not doing anything good for the people who are actually mentally ill and drug addicted.
- JRJoe Rogan
No.
- BSBen Shapiro
Just leaving them out on the street and pretending that sleeping on a street corner is the highest form of freedom and definitely have to leave their shit just lying around-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- BSBen Shapiro
... on the streets while they poop on a corner. It's just, it's unbelievable. And at, at some point you would imagine that people would have to wake up to this. And you see this a little in New York, right? I mean, Eric Adams is a big change from Bill de Blasio.
- JRJoe Rogan
A big change, yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
And, uh, you, you hope that at some point, you know, for their own good, people in LA wake up to this. But in the meantime, I'm not gonna be there. I'm out. I don't care.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, I'm not interested in helping him. Uh, I read this article that called me and Elon cowards for, for not trying to fix it-
- BSBen Shapiro
Oh, come on.
- 4:32 – 7:14
Riots, stand-down policing, and ‘worst mayor’ governance comparisons
- BSBen Shapiro
Well, that was my argument to my wife. So she wanted to stay-
- JRJoe Rogan
So did mine.
- BSBen Shapiro
... for a long time. And I'd been saying for a couple of years, "Look at this tax bill. Look what we're getting in public services. Look how bad things are getting." And she's like, "No, it's fine. You know, you're making a lot of money, you pay a lot of taxes, and that's fine." I said, "Right, but we're not getting anything back. And in five years, do you think this place is gonna be better or you think this place is gonna be worse?" And then you got the COVID lockdowns where LA just went out of its mind, and they shut all the parks, and they put the yellow tape on the turnoffs off Mulholland. Like, people-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
... were gonna, what, gather on the turnoffs off Mulholland and just mack on each other and spread COVID-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- BSBen Shapiro
... like crazy in those three-foot square turnoffs off Mulholland Drive? And, um, and so she was already like, "This is getting crazy." And then during the riots when they locked everybody in their house at 6:00 PM. You remember this? They just curfewed-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- BSBen Shapiro
... the entire city at 6:00 PM. And then they, on Rodeo, they curfewed it at 1:00 so people could just run up and down Rodeo Drive breaking shit.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
And we heard gunshots at night. And we, we're not in a bad area. We heard gunshots at night. Like, they hit a, a Footlocker half a mile this way and a Walgreens half a mile that way. She's like, "Okay, I guess we can check out Florida."
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, once the riots hit, that's when the mass exodus really started. Because when people started realizing that there's, uh, this weird idea that some politicians had, de Blasio was the worst example of it, to let the people, uh, just break the law and get it out of their system. Like, I don't understa- th- apparently, there's some, uh, sociological theory behind this-
- BSBen Shapiro
I hadn't heard that one.
- JRJoe Rogan
I, I've heard there's some theory about, uh... And it, it was a d- widely dismissed theory from the '60s and the idea about, like, letting people riot it out of their system, almost like letting a child throw a temper tantrum. So when you saw people on Saks Fifth Avenue smashing windows and all that, the idea... And the, the cops were literally told to stand down.
- BSBen Shapiro
Oh, yeah. They, they bu... I mean, we saw all the pictures.
- JRJoe Rogan
Uh-
- BSBen Shapiro
They burned the cop cars on Melrose, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
They're just burning every cop car on Melrose.
- JRJoe Rogan
De Blasio is the worst example of a mayor I've ever seen in my life. He's a stunningly incompetent person. When I see him talking, when I, when I see, like, what's important to him and, like, when he was eating cheeseburgers talking about the vaccine, like, "You can get a free ch... Vaccine? Uh, uh, I understand that, uh, fries are with this as well?" Like-
- BSBen Shapiro
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
... y- you're eating terrible food.
- BSBen Shapiro
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
This is what makes people sick. What the fuck, man? Like-
- BSBen Shapiro
There, there was a run-and-gun battle for the last couple of years over who was the worst mayor. They had, like, Jenny Durkan in Seattle, who was allowing Chaz Chop to happen, and then you had Garcetti-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- BSBen Shapiro
... in LA, who was allowing riots to happen. You had Bo- de Blasio in New York, you had Lori Lightfoot in Chicago.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
It's like a run-and-gun battle over who was gonna be the worst public servant.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, I don't know who was better. Uh, you know, w- Lightfoot's in the lead. She's, she's right there with de Blasio.
- 7:14 – 9:30
Chicago ‘mutual combat’ gunfight case and the political realignment it signals
- BSBen Shapiro
And then she repeated it.
- JRJoe Rogan
... doing it with brown and Black people. Yeah, only interviews with brown and Black people, this... Which is absolutely racist. And it's just... It's, uh, it's... Did you hear about the, um, the gunfight that happened in Chicago where they let everyone go because it was mutual combat?
- BSBen Shapiro
No, this is-
- JRJoe Rogan
Ooh, you don't know about this?
- BSBen Shapiro
No, I missed this. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
I'm happy to show Ben Shapiro some news that's gonna make you angry. Pull this up, because it's so fucking crazy. One person was dead. Um, two... I believe two other people were shot. They expa... They, they, uh, expelled 70 rounds. So 70 shots were fired on a fucking street. There's video footage of this happening, where people were just driving by freaking out. There's a dead body on the ground where a guy got shot. No charges. No charges 'cause they said it was mutual combat. Chicago's lost its fucking mind. Prosecutors reject charges against five suspects in deadly gun-related gunfight, gang-related gunfight. Now scroll up so you could see what it says, where it says about mutual combat. See if you can find where... "Suspects have been released without charges." Uh, "Cook County State's Attorney's Office has explained the prosecutors had determined that the evidence was insufficient to meet our burden of proof ap- to approve felony charges." For a fucking gunfight where 70 rounds were shot on a public street! "The state's attorney spokeswoman said, adding that the police officials agreed with the decision." I think the cops just threw their fucking hands up in the air and they're like, "We're done." But they used the term mutual combat in o- one of the, uh, one of the articles that I read.
- BSBen Shapiro
Well-
- JRJoe Rogan
Which is usually related to-
- BSBen Shapiro
There it is.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, okay.
- BSBen Shapiro
"Mutual combatants was cited as the reason..."
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, okay.
- BSBen Shapiro
Wait. I, I thought that that's what a gang war-
- JRJoe Rogan
A fight. No-
- BSBen Shapiro
... is. Like an... Anytime there's a fight, I thought it's, it's, like, two people fighting.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, it's... No. That term is supposed to be used for fistfights. "Mutual combatants was cited as the reason for rejection."
- BSBen Shapiro
Is the-
- JRJoe Rogan
"Mutual combat is a legal term used to define a fight or struggle that two parties willingly engage in." That's a fistfight.
- BSBen Shapiro
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
That's two people hitting each other with their hands.
- BSBen Shapiro
So this is like the plot of The Last Duel right here, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, it's, it's a public safety danger. When you have a fistfight, there is very little danger that your fist is gonna fly through a window and kill a baby. You know what I'm saying?
- BSBen Shapiro
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
But when you're just shooting guns in a street, these fucking people are criminally incompetent. It's ter... Do you know how many people are becoming Republicans? I think you do.
- BSBen Shapiro
I, I do.
- JRJoe Rogan
A lot.
- BSBen Shapiro
I do. I do.
- 9:30 – 12:08
COVID culture war: DeSantis, media narratives, and Joe’s treatment controversy
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
I mean, he... Look, um-
- JRJoe Rogan
I have friends-
- BSBen Shapiro
My new home state, Florida-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
... that was a 50/50 state. That ain't a 50/50 state no more.
- JRJoe Rogan
No, it's probably 75/25 or something crazy.
- BSBen Shapiro
I mean, right now it's... It, it's moved. It's never gonna be a 75/25, but-
- JRJoe Rogan
It should be.
- BSBen Shapiro
It should be. But it's... But right now there's, there's news that the Democratic, the Democratic Governors Association, right, which funds all these gubernatorial races... Remember, DeSantis only beat Andrew Gillum by, like, 40,000 votes in the last election cycle. DeSantis is just gonna wipe the floor with his opponent. The DGA just pulled out. They said, "We're not gonna spend any money in Florida."
- JRJoe Rogan
Really?
- BSBen Shapiro
Yeah. W-
- JRJoe Rogan
They, they're g- they're not gonna win. It's... What he's done is amazing, because he's changed a lot of people's ideas about the way this should be handled. Because so many people, even people that came on my podcast today, were talking about criminally incompetent... Not today, but in the past rather, were saying how criminally incompetent he is and people are dying on the streets. Now you look at the COVID cases. He has less COVID cases than most other states. I think it's only second to California. There's, uh, the, the... If you look at the overall deaths, people were talking about the deaths, but when you make it-
- BSBen Shapiro
Age-adjusted-
- JRJoe Rogan
... when you age, age-adjusted-
- BSBen Shapiro
Age-adjusted-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
... it's an old state. It's the second oldest state in the country after Maine, right? And Maine has, like, seven old people and a moose.
- JRJoe Rogan
This is, by the way, coming from someone who got COVID in Florida. I got COVID in Florida.
- BSBen Shapiro
A- And you're not dead?
- JRJoe Rogan
No, I'm okay.
- BSBen Shapiro
Unbelievable.
- JRJoe Rogan
No, I was okay.
- BSBen Shapiro
I mean, you took the horse dewormer and everything?
- JRJoe Rogan
I did.
- BSBen Shapiro
I thought that would kill you too.
- JRJoe Rogan
You know what's interesting?
- BSBen Shapiro
I mean, you look like a horse now. I don't, I don't know what happened.
- JRJoe Rogan
Um, and then-
- BSBen Shapiro
CNN told me. They-
- 12:08 – 23:23
Risk tolerance, mandates, and the ‘promise’ that authorities can remove all danger
- JRJoe Rogan
... you know. I can kind of, like, speed walk.... it's, um, it's a strange time because I don't know why people are behaving the way they are. Why they are, uh, uh, not just, uh, actively engaging in conflict, but encouraging it, nonsensical conflict. Why people have gotten so tribal that they branched off into these, uh, these groups that, you know, our group can do no wrong and that group can do no right. And we've abandoned this idea that we're supposed to be all in this together. I thought the p- the pandemic was gonna bring people together. I really did. I thought it was gonna be like 9/11, in that people were gonna recognize, like, "Hey, this is a threat to all of us and let's all try to work together and figure this out." And I thought that if people got better, and if people took a certain medication and, and it helped them, or they had certain lifestyle choices that were better, like, things like, uh, vitamin supplementation and exercise, and all these different things that I've always been talking about, that maybe we would look at that and go, "Hey, we should probably look into this." Because it seems like there's some people that get hit really hard by this and there's some people, like Aaron Rodgers, who just brush it off like it's nothing.
- BSBen Shapiro
I mean, total shock that Aaron Rodgers, one of the healthiest human beings on planet Earth-
- JRJoe Rogan
One of the best fucking quarterbacks alive.
- BSBen Shapiro
... that, that I can't believe COVID didn't take him down.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
I mean, he was a 75-year-old man with diabetes.
- JRJoe Rogan
Ah.
- BSBen Shapiro
So that's i- ... So clearly COVID was going to kill him.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, this-
- BSBen Shapiro
The, the am- the amount of hatred for, for Aaron Rodgers so far outweighs the amount of upset over a member of the Las Vegas Raiders allegedly running a person over at 150 miles an hour, right? And then he got, like, booted from the team the next day. But, like, the amount of public outrage is, is kind of insane. And again, like, every adult in America and now every child in America has had the opportunity to get vaccinated. If you wanna get vaccinated, get vaccinated. Right? I did, you didn't. I don't care.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
I don't care. Once, once everybody's had the opportunity to protect themselves, we're done. But th- uh, I think this goes to something deeper, which is we ... I think there are kinda two... I used to think there were two types of people with regard to what they thought of human nature. You know, some people think human nature is good, some people think human nature is kinda sinful. I think that's still true. But I think there's another distinction that the pandemic really exposed. There, there are two kinds of people: people who are okay with living with a certain level of risk, and people who just are not, and think that if they delegate all their power to people to make decisions for them, that all risk can be mitigated. And if that means controlling all the people around them, that's totally fine.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's a good point.
- BSBen Shapiro
Because it, it really is, you know, the ... I, I think all of our society is built on the notion of risk-seeking. Right? People who build societies tend to be ... People who build companies tend to be risk-takers, and, and people who are willing to fail, right? Most people who take a risk in business fail. They don't succeed. Right? There's always the guy ... W- we feature, you know, guys like you, or people like me, or people like Jeff Be- ... you know, people who build big companies and win. Those are the people who make the covers of magazines or get ripped up on CNN for no reason. But the people who fail, I mean, that's most of the people who try to take a risk. Risk is risky. There's a whole group of people in America who no longer wanna take a risk, and they have been sold a lie. Uh, I saw a really good piece by, uh, Scott Alexander, who write- ... He used to write for Slate Star Codex before they outed him, and now he, he runs something called The Astral Star Codex. And he was reviewing a book, and the basic thesis of the book is that since the beginning of the 20th century there's been a big promise made to Americans, and that is their authorities, and they live in Washington DC or in your city, and they have a big button right here that they can hit that solves all your problems. And if they just hit it hard enough, it's gonna solve all your problems. And for a long time, the media kinda went along with that 'cause the media were part of an elite group that agreed with a lot of those, those ideas. And then the rise of the internet basically shattered that. People could get their own information. You could see through the screen that actually that button didn't exist. And so then the elites in the society had to make a choice. They could either admit that that button never existed and they couldn't smash that button and fix all your problems, which would destroy their power, or they could say, "It's actually your neighbor. Your n- ... If it weren't for your neighbor, I could hit this button, but your neighbor is in here making me not hit the button. And so you have to hate your neighbor." Right? This is why it's been so bewildering to me. So I am ... Again, I'm ... I took the vaccine, my wife took the vaccine, my parents took the vaccine. I have young kids. I have no intention of them taking the vaccine. They're seven, five, and one. There's no track record of the vaccine for kids, and the risk to them is, is, m- below minimal. But the, but you and I can disagree on the vaccine and I don't care what you do, so long as you are not posing a threat to me. And yet there's this whole idea out there that if you don't do what I want you to do, you're gonna kill me. I'm vaxed. I'm not worried about it. As soon as I was done with that second dose, I'm free and clear. And by the way, I can get a mask if I'm all that worried about it. But there's a whole group of people who never wanna think like that. They wanna mask up forever. You're starting to see it morph now. Right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, I-
- BSBen Shapiro
It's, it's like we, we can't give each other flu, so we, we have to make sure that we mask forever. I'm not doing that.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, I think that w- what you said is very important. That there's a bunch of people that don't like risks in life, period. And then when this came along, all of a sudden everything was a risk.
- BSBen Shapiro
Right. Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And then when they saw other people's actions and choices as being a, a risk to them ... Uh, some of the people that I know, that I'm friends with, that I would follow on Twitter, who are riddled with anxiety. Like, I have friends that ha- ar- have real psychological problems. They're comics and nice people in general, but are terrified of everything. And I'm watching them l- completely implode because of the fact that this is a real risk. That getting sick from this disease is a real risk. And so they look at everyone's individual choices as being something that can impact their lives in a, in a negative way. And they're looking at it completely disproportionately.
- BSBen Shapiro
Yep.
- JRJoe Rogan
They're not looking at it in a realistic sense, and they're not willing to look at the, the idea that there's other options. There are treatment options. Like, this is the only time ever in our life where you have to do one thing and you have to ignore all evidence that other things are effective. Monoclonal antibodies-
- BSBen Shapiro
Yes, this is correct.
- JRJoe Rogan
... are radically effective. I took 'em. I was better in 24 hours after taking them. I have told a bunch of my fr- ... including Aaron Rodgers. Like, well, you know, w- the news is talking about all this crazy shit with Aaron. What they're not talking about is s- exactly the same thing they're not talking about with me. He got better really quick.
- BSBen Shapiro
Yep.
- JRJoe Rogan
And he got better with a drug that's approved for emergency use authorization, and that's what it is. But if you take that and you're sick-... then you don't need a vaccine. And that is driving people fucking crazy because they took it, they took the risk to take the vaccine and they know that a certain percentage of people do have an adverse reaction. I don't know what the percentage is because I think there's under reports. I think the Harv- there was a Harvard study that said it was between one and 10% under reported. I don't know what that number, I don't know if that's real. But the reality is that there's some sort of a risk and people took the risk and they're angry if other people don't take that risk. And then they wanna point out that there's also a risk for COVID and you're fucking up and you're making a poor choice and they made a good choice because their choice is to take this approved vaccine and your choice is to just take your chances with this virus because you're worried about the risk of the vaccine, so people like Keith Olbermann will call you a coward. Like, have you seen those-
- BSBen Shapiro
Yep.
- JRJoe Rogan
... unhinged rants from that fucking maniac?
- BSBen Shapiro
It's a... One of the things I think that, that really is important to note also is that when it comes to the risk calculation, most of the people who are really paranoid about COVID are people who live more like me than like you. What I mean by that is, you're a guy who's kind of in the fight arena. You, you do physical conflict, right? You put yourself at physical risk all the time. Most people who are deeply afraid of COVID are people like me. They, they're in air conditioned offices, right? They have security. Like, they, they, they've spent their whole life in a bubble and if you spend your whole life in a bubble, then any risk penetrating that bubble-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- BSBen Shapiro
... looks just unbelievably out-sized.
- 23:23 – 40:29
Vaccines, boosters, and public health tradeoffs: relative risk vs absolutism
- BSBen Shapiro
And again, this is coming from somebody who's very pro-vaccine and thinks the vast majority of adults should get a vaccine.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, I am very pro-vaccine. This is not a vaccine. This is essentially a gene therapy. They've changed the term what a, what a vaccine means because of this. You know that, right?
- BSBen Shapiro
Yeah, yeah, no. The m-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
The mRNA's a, uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
We-
- BSBen Shapiro
... relatively new technology compared to the way they used to do vaccines, yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's relatively new and there's no long term safety data.
- BSBen Shapiro
Well-
- JRJoe Rogan
It doesn't exist. And we're, we're in the middle of... O- obviously it's important to do something, right? And so we're essentially in the middle of an experiment. This is a long term experiment with people and we're gonna find out f- whether it's five years from now or 10 years from now, but if you look at the vast majority of FDA approved drugs, they're, uh, uh, you know, a- if you look at all of them, like, out of the... Who knows how many thousands of drugs have been approved? Do you know how many have been pulled out once they found out there's adverse side effects after years and years of use? It's fucking nuts. It's a crazy number. Let's find out what the number is. Um, th- FDA approved drugs...... that were w- how would you Google this?
- BSBen Shapiro
Withdrawn, maybe.
- JRJoe Rogan
Withdrawn, uh, after finding adverse effects. I was reading an article about this because the article was a pro-vaccine article, but they were saying, uh, l- you gotta understand how these things work. There's a reason why they do these trials over five, 10 years. There's a reason for this. So everybody that's saying, you know, safe and effective, safe and effective... For most people, yes. For most people, safe and effective. So was Vioxx. So was Vioxx. I have a friend who had a stroke from Vioxx, and he was in his 30s.
- BSBen Shapiro
Well, again, the, the notion that it's great for everyone or that it is-
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay.
- BSBen Shapiro
Wow!
- JRJoe Rogan
There have been 12,787 drug recalls issued by the FDA. On average, 1,279 drugs are recalled every year. Understand this, we don't know what the fuck is going to happen in 10 years.
- BSBen Shapiro
Well, that, that's-
- JRJoe Rogan
We don't know.
- BSBen Shapiro
But that's why it was always for me about relative risk of COVID versus whatever you think-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- BSBen Shapiro
... the risks might be of the vaccine.
- JRJoe Rogan
And it's-
- BSBen Shapiro
Which is why for people who are old, you really needed to get it.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- BSBen Shapiro
If you're 65 and up-
- JRJoe Rogan
Exactly.
- BSBen Shapiro
... it was you do whatever you have to do to get it.
- JRJoe Rogan
Exactly.
- BSBen Shapiro
And then once it got to lower ages, it was like, use your own best judgment.
- JRJoe Rogan
And that's... I encourage my pam... my parents to get vaccinated. I encourage people that are in high-risk groups to get vaccinated. I think it does... And, and obvi- The other thing that's happening-
- 40:29 – 48:22
Censorship, ‘misinformation,’ and the power struggle between legacy media and new media
- BSBen Shapiro
And so they, they, they have to suppress it. I, I honestly think that's part of what's happening with big tech right now. I think that there's just th-... There's almost two battles with, with regard to big tech. One is just the, the size and scope and the social effect of big tech and all of that. But the other one is, there's a group of people who really don't like alternative viewpoints being out there, and so they're going to stump as hard as they can to get people deplatformed and to-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- BSBen Shapiro
... and to de-... and to use big tech as a way of, of siphoning off perspectives.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, you see that in those Project Veritas videos where the people who work for these organizations are so nonchalant about the way they're discussing. Like, they're at dinner discussing how they suppress conservative voices. And if you're a person who has an understanding of the importance of free speech, which is one of the cornerstones of this country, you know that free speech works both ways. You have to hear an other person's perspective and then you argue your perspective and you see which perspective makes more logical sense. This is what free speech is all about. This is what growth is about. This is how we understand each other's p- points of view and we learn about other, uh, uh, other people's opinions and ideas. And this is how you change your own opinions and ideas. You encounter some that enter into your mind that you go, "Wow, I never considered that. That's actually a good point," and then you shift your judgment. You shift your perspective. This is important for humans. It's always been important for humans. Echo chambers are fucking terrible. They're terrible in every way, shape, and form. And this idea that we're giving up these echo chambers, we're, we're, we're, we're giving control of them to these fucking w- wokesters that work for corporations that can arbitrarily just decide, "Oh, this person talks about that. Let's fucking shadow ban her. This, this person talks about this. Let's ban their YouTube page. This person says data that's inconvenient for our narrative. Let's silence them." That is fucking crazy.
- BSBen Shapiro
Uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
And it's completely un-American.
- BSBen Shapiro
There's something perverse that's happened too, and th- that is... You, you can spot it in the language. So until 2016, you remember social media was everybody's friend. Everybody loved social media until 2016. The media were, like, big on social media. It was great. It had been used to reach out to new voters and it had helped people in the Arab Spring-
- JRJoe Rogan
Arab Spring. Yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
... and all this kind of stuff.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
And then Trump wins, and all of a sudden, on a dime, everybody switches to, "Social media facilitated the spread of Russian disinformation." Now-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- BSBen Shapiro
... my company is an online company. We spend a lot of time on places like Facebook, so we know what the numbers look like when you have high engagement.... the number of people who are actually affected by so-called Russian disinformation over the course of the 2020 election, the number of people who accessed those posts is less than the number of people who accessed posts from my personal Facebook page over the course of maybe three weeks or a month. Okay? It was not, it was not a massive, huge wave of Russian disinformation that shifted the 2016 election. There had to be some excuse for why Trump had won. And so it was, it was Russian disinformation. And then you saw there was this really interesting linguistic shift. They went from disinformation, which is an active thing, right? That's, like, the Russian government spreading things that are not true in order to subvert our politics, to misinformation. Right? It's only one letter different, but it's completely different. Disinformation is a state actor or a terrorist group or some organized group pushing a perspective that is false in order to undermine the comity and cohesiveness of a community. Misinformation is just... It can be true, but if it's missing context or if it's presented in a way I don't like, it's misinformation.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right. Right.
- BSBen Shapiro
And so now we have to target misinformation. And that can be anything. And not only that, we will set up a group of fact-checkers, fact-checkers who all happen to align with one political point of view. And these fact-checkers will determine whether or not you have violated the ban on misinformation, and then we'll dra- downgrade you on that basis. And it doesn't matter if the fact-checkers shift their own opinion on this sort of stuff, right? "W- we'll ban you for six months from social media if you talk about the Chinese leak theory."
- JRJoe Rogan
Right. Right.
- BSBen Shapiro
But then if everybody flips on a dime, then, well, you know, the fact-checkers are okay with it so long as it's the right people who are saying it now. And the same, monoclonal antibodies or hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin, right? It's, it's all the same kind of stuff. It's misinformation when it's deemed inconvenient for a particular narrative. And then as soon as something is convenient for the narrative, it's not misinformation. So that, that shift has been really dangerous and really ugly. And, uh, and again, it's, it's... If they think that it's going to end well for them, that somehow this is going to reestablish social capital, that people are gonna get back together because you force them to only listen to one point of view, good luck with that.
- JRJoe Rogan
I don't think they're thinking that, but I do think that intelligent people are waking up to the reality that being a part of these groups that are doing this, that are silencing opposing views, there's no long-term future in this. Because people recognize what is actually happening now, a growing number of people. There's still a lot of people that watch CNN that think I actually took horse dewormer-
- BSBen Shapiro
Yep.
- JRJoe Rogan
... but there's a lot of people that recognize, like, "Oh, my God. This is just a lie." Like, "Oh, my God. The news is lying about all kinds of things." And they're pushing a very limited perspective, a very limited point of view, and they're demonizing anything that has an opposing perspective. You're seeing more and more courageous journalists step out, and then you're seeing things like Substack, and you're seeing podcasts and shows like yours where people have the ability to express themselves without any worry about editorial control from all these other companies.
- BSBen Shapiro
And this is where the legacy media, they, they try to jump in and they try to put boots on the throat, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- BSBen Shapiro
So you're over at Spotify, and the minute you signed over at Spotify, the legacy media went and tried to find a couple of malcontents over at Spotify to try and get them to say, "Oh, we're gonna walk out. It's gonna be just... It's gonna be blood in the streets over at Spotify." And in reality, it's, like, a couple of people who are bitching, right? But they-
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, they-
- BSBen Shapiro
... they decide-
- JRJoe Rogan
They actually did bitch. I mean, it's not that legacy media didn't o- orchestrate that. That was people that worked there.
- BSBen Shapiro
No, I'm sure it was.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
But the legacy media decide which malcontents at a particular company to magnify, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, it's-
- 48:22 – 52:03
Building alternatives: University of Austin, decentralization, and leaving California politics
- BSBen Shapiro
You know, I, I'm... I don't know if it's me moving out of California that's made me more optimistic, because I don't live kind of in the center of this anymore-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
... but I do feel more optimistic.I know you saw the, that, uh, announcement about the University of Austin.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- BSBen Shapiro
Did you see that today?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- BSBen Shapiro
It's a cool thing.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
Like, it's a bunch of people from a bunch of different-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- BSBen Shapiro
... sides of the political aisle. You know, you got Larry Summers and Yadin Strassen.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- BSBen Shapiro
Then you got Bari Weiss and Andrew Sullivan and Soribomar, who's very right wing. And you got all these people who are, are founding a university. It'll take them years to build, but they're trying to provide an alternative to a sort of propagandistic worldview that's being taught in a lot of, lot of college campuses. Like, the possibilities for building alternatives have never been higher, and that, that is the thing that makes me optimistic. And, and again, I think part of that is just living around people who don't...... think of themselves as reflections of the federal government every day. Like, if you're... I was trying to explain this to people who are from Florida, who think of themselves as Floridian. Same thing in Texas, if you talk to Texans, they think of themselves as Texans.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
In California, you think of yourselves as Californian, kind of culturally. But it's not like the State of California stands against the federal government. The State of California has its own prerogatives-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- BSBen Shapiro
... and the fed- Like, if you live in LA, LA and the federal government are kind of just the same. I mean, they're just mirror reflections of, of one another. It would never occur to you that there's sort of a separate cultural identity that exists as Californian versus the federal government. Like, Californ-
- JRJoe Rogan
It's so transient.
- BSBen Shapiro
Right, i- in-
- JRJoe Rogan
The state's so transient.
- BSBen Shapiro
I- i- And it's also that the p- Like, the involvement of government in your everyday life is so great-
- JRJoe Rogan
Minimal.
- BSBen Shapiro
... in, in, in California, but minimal in other parts of the country that... Like, the, your points of contact in Florida or Texas with the federal government, or at least federal government-like policy, are fairly minimal. And so when the, the federal government starts actually exerting pressure, you start feeling it more than in California.
- JRJoe Rogan
But don't you think that before the pandemic, the way that you interacted with the government in California was minimal?
- BSBen Shapiro
Not with the local government.
- JRJoe Rogan
Was less invasive than it was. And soon, as soon as-
- BSBen Shapiro
Oh, publicly and post-pandemic, it's crazy.
- JRJoe Rogan
... the community... Okay, let me just-
- BSBen Shapiro
Post-pandemic, it went nuts.
- JRJoe Rogan
... tell from my personal perspective. For me, as soon... I didn't give a fuck who the mayor of Los Angeles was, it didn't matter, until they shut down restaurants-
- 52:03 – 56:41
Homelessness, mental illness, and involuntary commitment: policy failure and incentives
- JRJoe Rogan
But the homeless situation, boy, that's like fucking wild.
- BSBen Shapiro
Well, and it... And you weren't allowed to complain about it.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- BSBen Shapiro
That's the thing in California. If you are not a homeless person-
- JRJoe Rogan
Then you're a horrible person. They changed it to the unhoused too, which was amazing.
- BSBen Shapiro
The unhoused?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- BSBen Shapiro
Interesting.
- JRJoe Rogan
An- they, they started to-
- BSBen Shapiro
The d housed or the unhoused?
- JRJoe Rogan
Call them unhoused.
- BSBen Shapiro
Oh, the d- the unhoused.
- JRJoe Rogan
They called them-
- BSBen Shapiro
Okay.
- JRJoe Rogan
They started calling them the unhoused, which is always a red flag. As soon as they tried to use, like, a more innocuous term to deal with, like... Which is like a public health crisis. It's, it's a s- it's a mental health crisis, it's a public health crisis. I mean, i- i- it's also, uh, like, a wheelchair access crisis, because these poor people that are in wheelchairs, like, they can't get to the fucking sidewalks 'cause they're covered in tents. Like, the ADA should deal with something like that, right? I mean-
- BSBen Shapiro
Well, I mean, for, for years in California, the rule has been that you weren't allowed to take people's shit off the street, right? If people's... The... Because there was a ruling from the, from the federal courts-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- BSBen Shapiro
... m- m- The ACLU was the one who did the case. There was an ordinance on the books in LA that the police were not allowed to move the "personal property" of people who are living on the streets. It's like garbage bags just filled with garbage, and you weren't allowed to take them away 'cause this was the personal property of the people who are living on the streets. How in the world this is seen as some sort of empathetic move on behalf of the homeless is beyond me. And you saw it was... I mean, it was kind of incredible, like the power of human innovation. I mean, people have built, like, two-story buildings, like, with tents, and the... I, I, I was amazed sometimes at the creativity. I mean, you'd see, like... I remember we drove past and there was a guy w- there with a, with a turntable. He had somehow hooked it into one of the light posts, like he'd actually broken into the, the light post on the street and he was using it for electricity-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
... and he had a turntable. And I was like, you know, kudos to him for really liking his vinyl. But I just wonder if that's, like, the, the, the best way that you want people to live in California, is on the street with a, like, an old turntable so they can play their authentic music without the perversion of digital.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, my thought is, if he's that innovative, why doesn't he just figure out a way to apply it to an actual life? Like, get the fuck off the street and you might be able to actually do something.
- BSBen Shapiro
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
Like, if you're the type of guy who figures out how to tap into the electrical wires-
- BSBen Shapiro
That's what I thought. I was like, "That's kind of..." Like, he knows more about engineering than I do.
- JRJoe Rogan
I saw a video of a guy welding. Somebody put it online. There was a guy welding inside of his tent.
- BSBen Shapiro
Someone should tell him there's, like, a million open welding jobs (laughs) in the United States right now.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, uh, maybe, you know, if there's-
- BSBen Shapiro
There are a lot of open welding jobs right now.
- JRJoe Rogan
... 'cause, you know, you're dealing with people that have a lot of mental health issues. That's the real issue.
- BSBen Shapiro
No, that's the issue. And no one will talk about that.
- 56:41 – 1:04:48
Why young men listen: responsibility, discipline, and ‘duty’ in a feelings-first culture
- JRJoe Rogan
(sighs) You know, it's interesting, um, your voice and your opinions, um, are, y- y- like, d- during this pandemic in particular, your, your, your profile has become magnified. And what's, uh, fascinating to me is there's people who love you, and then there's these moms who get super upset that their son is into Ben Shapiro. I have encountered many of these women, these very opinionated, uh, always liberal, college-educated women who are furious that their sons, "Well, Ben Shapiro says..." and they do not wanna hear it. What is it about these liberal women and Ben Shapiro? Like, why is this oil and water? What is going on?
- BSBen Shapiro
(sighs) I don't know.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- BSBen Shapiro
Honest to god, I don't know. I mean, like, I'm telling their, I'm telling their sons to, like, get married, lead responsible lives.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
Go get a job.
- JRJoe Rogan
I know.
- BSBen Shapiro
Go, go-
- JRJoe Rogan
But it resonates-
- BSBen Shapiro
But, uh, it's-
- JRJoe Rogan
... with these boys, which is fascinating to me.
- BSBen Shapiro
Well, I'm, I'm telling... Uh, i- in a certain sense, Jordan Peterson and I are coming at it from very different angles. Jor- Jordan, Jordan's coming at it from a kinda spiritual and psychological angle, and I'm coming from it from a, from a very practical angle, like, what's going to bring you success in life?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
And, but we're saying the same thing, which is-
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, I am as well, though.
- BSBen Shapiro
I-
- JRJoe Rogan
I'm saying that in a w- interesting way as well.
- BSBen Shapiro
Get your shit together. Yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
I mean, but, but there are a lot of people out there who feel like... (sighs) Uh, I thought Jordan had a great point on this. So, th- somebody was asking him, they were saying, "Oh, you know, Jordan Peterson, he's speaking just to young, white, disaffected males." And Jordan's like, "Wouldn't you rather that I speak to them than nobody speak to them? Or are you just saying that you don't want anybody to speak to them?"
- JRJoe Rogan
Right. Exactly.
- BSBen Shapiro
And, I mean, that's kind of the thing, that-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
... as a society, we, we sort of have said to young men that you... We actually don't want you to, to be responsible. Like, responsibility is... It's, it's somehow connected with toxic masculinity and maybe you, maybe you're assuming too much.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
It's part of the patriarchy. And I think that's bullshit. I mean, I think that one of the chief obligations in life for a young man is to become a provider, is to become a protector of their family. Like, the way that I judge masculinity, and maybe it's self-serving, is not by how many push-ups you can do. Um, but by how many, uh, how you provide for your wife, how you provide for your children, what are you doing for your community. Right? These should be pretty simple things.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- BSBen Shapiro
But people get, like, super pissed when you talk about that, because you're speaking up against the notion that... I, I guess, the, the chief and core of all human aspiration ought to be your individual identity.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
You know? Like, if, if you just start solipsistically looking at, "How do I feel today and what do I feel about myself and my identity?" That, that's actually a really bad way to live your life. And I think that that's seen sometimes as, if I'm trying to kind of steelman my opponents, that's seen as un-empathetic. Right?
Episode duration: 2:30:07
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