EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,107 words- 0:00 – 15:00
(drumming music) Joe Rogan podcast,…
- 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)
- 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-
- 15:00 – 30:00
Well, I- …
- BSBen Shapiro
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.
- JRJoe Rogan
Exactly.
- BSBen Shapiro
And, and the human brain is not... W- we're not set up to calculate relative risk.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- BSBen Shapiro
Right? We just tend to think of things as risky or not risky. We don't tend to think of things as, like, it's a one in 10,000 chance. How do you even calculate that in your head? Does that mean, like, every 10,000 times I step out the door I might die in a car accident? What, what does that mean exactly?
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- BSBen Shapiro
We just tend to think of activities in one of those two binary categories and so if COVID goes into the risk category and then the media just keep pounding away every day that, "You are probably gonna die if you get this thing," which is not true. That's not even true for old people, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
No.
- BSBen Shapiro
Even for old people the, the chances of death if you're above 75 from getting COVID with nothing else, they're high. It's like one in 20, it's like five in 100. But if you are a 20-year-old guy who's healthy, your chances of dying from COVID are extremely low. And if you're an unvaccinated child, your chances of dying of COVID are lower than that of a vaccinated adult.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- BSBen Shapiro
And, and so this, this notion that all this is the same level of risk, which is peddled by the media to try and p- it's all the platonic lie. It's all-
- JRJoe Rogan
Exactly.
- BSBen Shapiro
... you can't control your own life and so we are gonna tell you what's best for you by scaring the hell out of you. And then when it turns out people get the actual facts, when the fact shield that they've created is, is broken, when it turns out that it was not true, then people lose all faith in the institutions. And then the only way that they can try and reestablish the faith in the institutions is to keep doubling down. They have to keep doubling down and keep trying to control you. They can't let go and say, "We made some mistakes here. We shouldn't have lied in the first place. We overestimated our, our ability to know what was going on." Instead it's, "No, no, no, y- y- why don't you just listen to us? We're the science." Like, you're, you're n- that's not a thing.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- 30:00 – 45:00
Karine Jean-Pierre, maybe. Yeah.…
- JRJoe Rogan
setup? He said, "Are you going to pay people that come over to this country legally?" And she's like, "What..." Uh, this is the substitute press, press secretary.
- BSBen Shapiro
Karine Jean-Pierre, maybe. Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. Because Jen Psaki got the COVID. So she's out and this new lady is in and she's go- she goes, "Why would I pay... Why would we pay people who come over here legally?" She goes... Doocy goes, "Why would you pay people to come over here illegally?"... and, like, the, the thug life glasses come down.
- BSBen Shapiro
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Have you seen that?
- BSBen Shapiro
Oh, no. I missed that one.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, you gotta see it.
- BSBen Shapiro
I'll have to see that. And it's-
- JRJoe Rogan
It's, it's pretty interesting.
- BSBen Shapiro
But, yeah. No, Bi- Biden's not there and, and he's now in the upper 30s, low 40s. Remember, th- the thing about Biden is that he was elected... Everybody's misreading their mandate.
- JRJoe Rogan
You mean about, uh, approval ratings is what you're saying?
- BSBen Shapiro
Yeah. His, his approval rating. Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
May- maybe, maybe his heartbeat. But i- but (laughs) it's-
- JRJoe Rogan
No. That would be good.
- BSBen Shapiro
Yeah, but-
- JRJoe Rogan
Upper 30s would be like a marathon runner.
- BSBen Shapiro
Oh, really? Okay.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
Okay.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right? Yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
Is that... Okay.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
You know more about this than I do. Again, so-
- JRJoe Rogan
That's... Low resting heart rate is awesome. If you get into 30, that's like Michael Bisbee in his prime.
- BSBen Shapiro
Wow. Okay.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
So he's not that.
- JRJoe Rogan
No.
- BSBen Shapiro
Okay. So in any case i- he is, you know... He's falling apart. He's in, uh, the high 30s, low 40s in approval rating.
- 45:00 – 1:00:00
Yep. …
- JRJoe Rogan
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-
- BSBen Shapiro
And it's al- it's always in one direction.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's not even just legacy media. A lot of, uh, online websites did that, but they did that because it's, it's good clickbait. It's good for the news. This is part of the problem with journalism today, is that there's no money in print anymore. So people aren't just buying newspapers. You, you can't look for the New York Times to be this complete unbiased source of information with very clear and concise headlines. Now it's about what, what kind of engagement do you get online? Well, the, the way you get engagement online is things have to be outrageous. Do you know how many people write really good articles and then their fucking editor comes along and writes some bullshit headline for it? And so it gets submitted with something that has... It's completely different than the tone of the actual article itself, because this is the way you can get people to click on it-
- BSBen Shapiro
But I-
- JRJoe Rogan
... and they'll change things.
- BSBen Shapiro
... I do think there's something else though, and, and it's why I mentioned the legacy media. And that, that is I do think that there are actors in the legacy media who want to see their sources of competition cut off at the knees. And so-
- JRJoe Rogan
I think so too, but I think the-
- BSBen Shapiro
They started talking about regulating podcasts not all that long ago. And people like Kara Swisher at the New York Times talking about, you know, there... Why, why can't the same rules that apply to journalism apply to podcasts? Why can't... Why, why doesn't Facebook crack down on the dissemination of, of podcasting information? Why... Like, I, I don't think it's a coincidence that you have the Kevin Ruesses and the Ke-... Like, every single day, Kevin Roose over at the New York Times puts out a list of what he says are the top trafficked links at Facebook. Okay? And he does that specifically because it names, like, me or Dan Bongino or a few other people on the right. The idea being that Facebook is pushing really hard right-wing propaganda content. The only reason he's doing that every day is to try and pressure Facebook into not doing that anymore, right? That's the, that's the whole goal.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- BSBen Shapiro
And I, I think there's a, a real concerted effort to... By, by legacy media to basically say, "The only approved sources should be us, and anybody else who's out there is not-"
- JRJoe Rogan
I-
- BSBen Shapiro
"... an approved source."
- JRJoe Rogan
I agree with you on that. I definitely agree with you on that. But I think that there are a growing number of people that are connected to legacy media that realize that you can get much further being independent. And it's a, it's a much clearer path, and you don't have to deal with editors that change the titles of your stories. You don't have to deal with these bullshit narratives that you're being forced to push. You don't, you don't have to be a, a cog in this machine.
- 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?
- 1:00:00 – 1:02:52
Yeah. …
- BSBen Shapiro
people see that as judgmental, because we're in a society where the thing you're supposed to care most about is what you feel here, and then if everybody else accepts that.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
Right? We're supposed to be a society that's, that's chiefly built on us all accepting our own internal self-definition, and I'm saying there's an objective reality out there, and it's un-pretty. That objective reality is filled with things you're not gonna like, and then the question is, how do you deal with that objective reality while acknowledging that no one has the utopian capacity to magically wave a wand and fix all those problems?
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, there's also the issue... Look, uh, I, I think your feelings are important, but I also think that people have a tendency towards self-indulgence. And if you deny that tendency, if you, uh, you ignore that fact, you're gonna create a, a bunch of people that think that the world does revolve around every single nuanced feeling that they have. Also, there's this rejection of responsibility and discipline, and this equation. They're equating discipline with, uh, d- not just toxic masculinity, but cruelty. That, you know, you're cruel if you impose discipline or if you encourage discipline. And I say, uh, th- you know, I follow Jocko Willink's advice. Discipline equals freedom. And I think that's real, and I think that if you can figure out a way to work hard, uh, you will feel satisfaction from the results of that work. It, it makes you feel better. For a society that's so concerned with feelings, you should be looking at all the different ways that the life that you choose affects the way you feel about things. And if you have really...... accomplished goals and a- a- actually exerted discipline, done things that were difficult to do that you didn't necessarily want to do, but you knew had long-term benefits, that is a part of being, uh, uh, like, an actualized human. That's a part of being a man. It's a part of being a woman. It's a part of being a person who accomplishes things in life. And people don't want to hear that sometimes 'cause they want to hear that you've done enough, you're amazing, you're a winner, you're a perfect person, you don't need to work harder. You just... Uh, people need to accept you and we need the government to step in and fill in all the holes, fill in all the blanks. And this income inequality idea, like, there's an income inequality problem in this country. Well, guess what else there is? There's a fucking effort inequality-
- BSBen Shapiro
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
... problem in this country. Some people don't put forth as much effort. Does that mean that everybody should work 12 hours a day, seven days a week? No, it doesn't. It doesn't mean that, but it does mean that you probably can do more. You can probably work harder or think harder t-... And if you do that, you will b- you will be rewarded with success. Not always, because there's a lot of complications to life and you gotta figure your way through these things. And a lot of times you're gonna try things and fail, and this is what we were talking about earlier-
Episode duration: 2:30:07
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